Page 23 of Isabelle and the Beast

Slander

Assault

“What are you doing here?” Adam’s low, rumbling voice makes me jump and squeal.

I glance up, and there he is, standing in the doorway. With the low light and the outline of his body, I could truly believe he’s a lion standing on its hind legs and not a man.

I swallow hard. How in the world am I going to explain myself to him?

Chapter

Eleven

ADAM

“Isaid, what are you doing here?” I growl.

Isabelle’s brown eyes are as wide as saucers. She bites her lip, glancing down at the computer, then back up at me. “I thought you were in bed.”

I’m speechless for a moment. How is that an explanation for what she’s doing here? Does she think that justifies invading my personal space? “And that gives you permission to come into my office? The ONE place I told you not to go?” I point at the security camera in the corner of the ceiling. “I get an alert whenever someone is in here. Now I’ll ask one more time, what are you doing here?”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “I couldn’t sleep. So I was going to read in the library, but this door was cracked open, and…” Her voice trails off and she shrugs.

My mind is spinning. The things she could have seen and done in here…it’s my biggest fear.

She’s going to expose all my secrets, selling them to the highest bidder.

“Who are you really?” I ask, my voice rising. “A lawyer? Amember of the paparazzi? Someone from Tristan Jackson’s team?”

She furrows her brow. “No. You know that.”

“You’re going through my computer!” I shout, taking quick steps over to her. “The information you had access to…” I shake my head. “Don’t try to convince me otherwise.”

“My father is your manager,” she says slowly. “You trust him, don’t you? Besides, you’re the one who said I needed to come up here.”

I’m standing just a few feet away from her now. “Maybe Jim set me up. Everyone has their secrets.”

“Not me!” She rushes over to me, closing the gap between us. Her face lights with indignation. “I swear to you, I had no malicious intention. I haven’t slept for the last three nights, and I’m starting to go crazy. I just wanted to go to the library, and I accidentally knocked over the glass rose, and I bumped into the desk and?—”

“You knocked over the rose?!” I can’t help the panic that rises in my voice, and I run around her to the shelf, where my mother’s prized glass rose sits safely on the shelf. What kind of story is Isabelle inventing? I pick up the rose, inspecting it for damages, then turn back to her. “It looks fine to me.”

“I caught it in time!” she insists. The moonlight from the window illuminates her face just enough that I can see angry tears glistening in her eyes. “You don’t believe me?”

“How could I? You come here just in time to get snowed in, you’ve been asking all kinds of personal questions about my family, and now I find you in my private office looking at sensitive documents. What am I supposed to think?” I grunt in frustration. “You need to get out of here. Now.”

Her jaw sets, and her eyes are on fire. She stands in place for another moment, then says, “If you want to know the truth, then watch the recording.”

“What?”

She points up at the camera. “Watch me in here. You’ll be able to see that I’m telling the truth.” She turns on her heel and rushes out of the room. I wouldn’t be surprised if a fireball was hurled at me in the process.

I run a hand through my long hair, furious at myself for leaving the door cracked open. For trusting her. For letting her stay here, keeping her fed and warm, when all she wanted to do was expose my secrets.

And they’re not just my secrets.

She could completely ruin Lily, after everything I’ve done to keep my sister safe.

I glance at the computer screen, a document sent to me from Bethany. It’s exactly what everyone is dying to know. An explanation of how Tristan dropped the assault lawsuit against me in exchange for my silence about our financial ties and what he did to Lily.

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