Page 90 of Inked Adonis

My face flushes and I duck my head. “He’ll be here soon, though… right?”

“Oh, um…” Myles checks his phone and then glances towards the doors. “Sure.”

Nothing about that answer reassures me—but then the game starts.

Grams and I scream and cheer, getting louder with every passing minute. We’ve traded our pretzels and popcorn for champagne, champagne, and more champagne, but we still clink our glasses together after every goal. I even let Grams talk me into taking a picture with some soap opera star I don’t recognize, but whom she adores.

It’s a good night.

Good enough I can almost forget Sam still isn’t here.

Almost.

31

NOVA

“Grams drank me under the stands,” I moan, shuffling into Hope’s Helpers with my third coffee of the morning.

I felt so miserable waking up that I didn’t even mind Samuil left the penthouse without saying goodbye. He didn’t need to see—or smell—what I was working with this morning.

I was still tipsy enough when he finally got home last night not to be embarrassed, but all was revealed in the cold light of morning. We may live together now, but my morning-after breath would’ve singed his eyebrows off. It’s a small miracle I still have mine.

“I need you to crack into that sketchy bag of loose pills in your purse, Hope. I probably don’t want anything illegal, but—” I consider it for a second and shrug. “Actually, fuck it. I’ll try anything. Just make it stop.”

I slouch into her office and then slam to a stop.

Because Hope looks even worse than I do.

Her face is red, her eyes puffy. And she takes one peek at me before she slumps back to her desk, shoulders shaking.

I rush around her desk. “Hope, what the hell?”

I screwed up.It’s the only thing I can think. Somehow, this is my fault. I know it. It always is.

She blows her nose into a tissue and tosses it into the trash. “Please pretend you didn’t see me like this. I don’t want to lose my rep. I’m supposed to be the tough one.”

“Not a chance.” Guilt churns in the pit of my stomach. Stress hives are already itching across my chest. “What’s going on?”

“The disaster I hoped to avoid.” She twists her laptop towards me. Sitting on the keyboard is the check that she sent to Katerina. And on the screen, the Hope’s Helpers review page is open. The five-star rating she’d boasted before has taken a nosedive down into the low twos.

“Thatbitch.” I only have to skim through a few reviews to know who is responsible. “These all rolled in within five minutes. She’s paying people to pile on!”

“She’s playing mind games and she’s absolutely crushing me.” Hope buries her face in her hands. “We have to start damage control, but I don’t even know where to begin. I’ve been fielding worried calls all morning. People think I’m kidnapping and selling purebred dogs for a profit. Someone accused me of running a dog fighting ring. Like, what the hell? That’s insane!”

It is, but Katerina’s reviews make it seem plausible.

They read as sincere. Katerina isn’t advertising that she’s a vindictive, psychotic hag. She sounds like a loyal customer who has been wronged.

“[...] As much as I hoped to support a female-led business—one I’ve given a good deal of my money to over the years—I can’t, in good conscience, let someone else experience the betrayal of trust I’ve experienced at the hands of Hope Levy.”

God, I hate her… but she’s good.

I’m supposed to be comforting Hope, but aside from a half-hearted pat on the back and some lies, I’ve got nothing but the cold, hard truth. “Hope, this is all my fault.”

She just shakes her head. “It’s not. We knew this was coming.”

Yes, we did. Which is precisely why it should’ve been the first thing I brought up with Sam when he got home late last night.

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