Page 28 of The Passion

Flynn: Don’t do this.

Felisha: What?

Christ, I hate these one-word answers. I just want to call her, but I know she won’t pick up, and Rem will want to kill me when he told me to stay away from her and give him time to get on the front foot with this mess.

Flynn: Don’t push me away. Let me be here for you.

Felisha: Why, not like you can do anything now. It’s too late!

Fuck! I want to scream because I can’t argue with her. She’s right, and there is not a damn thing I can do about it now. The time for action was before now, and I should have handled it myself instead of relying on others.

Who am I kidding, I don’t know the first thing about tech security, and I trust my friends with my life. I know that they have been working hard to find the answers we need, to no avail.

Flynn: Doesn’t mean I don’t care. You can’t deny we are in this together.

Felisha: Wrong. I’m on my own in this life.

Flynn: I swear to God, woman, if I were there right now, I would wrap you in my arms and kiss the shit out of you until you listen to me.

Felisha: These lips aren’t yours to be kissing. They belong to someone else.

Flynn: Who the fuck do they belong to!

Flynn: Tell me! Your old man from the boat in St. Tropez?

Felisha: What, you can screw every slut in town, but I can’t?

I can feel my anger brewing, and if I was driving, I would be turning this car around and driving straight to her home. I’ll show her who those fucking lips belong to.

Felisha: Don’t you dare even question me on my dates. You hypocrite.

Felisha: I hate you. Leave me alone!

I pull the earpiece from Rem’s ear before I lose my shit here.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Rem’s startled face whips to the side to look at me.

“Take me to her now!” I’m holding my phone so tight in my hand I’m probably close to cracking the screen, and I know if I keep replying to her, this is just going to get worse. This needs to be face to face.

“Not a fucking chance when you are wound up this much. I have one disaster to sort out, I don’t want two.” He grabs the earpiece from me and pushes it roughly into his ear. “I’ll call you back.” Then he throws it into the center console of the car, and his knuckles are white from gripping the steering wheel so tight.

“Then stop the fucking car and let me out. You don’t run my life.” My hand is on the door handle. I need to get out of here.

“You open that door, and I’ll kick you on to the road myself, you idiot. Now shut up and listen to this because I’m only going to say it once.” Rem doesn’t even look sideways at me. His full focus is on the road, but it doesn’t stop the words of authority pouring out of him.

“Tonight, I do run your life, and tomorrow and every fucking day after that until we can get this to go away. I know you feel guilty and want to help Felisha, but you can’t. None of us can. She has a whole damn team around her whose job it is to protect her, and if she has any sense, she is listening to them and doing exactly as they are telling her to do, which is what I’m telling you too. You are not to leave your home, talk to no one except us, and let us handle it. Do not—and I repeat this loud and clear for the idiots in the back—do notgive the media one more piece of footage or pictures that will drag this out any longer than it will already be. We are getting it pulled down as fast as it is appearing, but you know we can’t stop this. All we can hope is that some other celebrity does something stupid tomorrow that pushes you down the rank in the who-gives-a-fuck scale. So, keep your ass in that damn seat, and when we get to the office, you are going to use that anger, that I can see is about to blow the damn top of your head off, to squash this shit.”

I have never wanted to hit Rem like I do right now, but I know he is right.

I thump the front dash of the car with the heel of my palm so hard I worry for a split second I have cracked it. Luckily, we arein the work Range Rover and not his Porsche, otherwise I’m not sure I’d still be alive right now.

Rem sighs deeply and looks across at me for the first time since he started his rant.

“Look, buddy, I know you want to help her, but this is the best way you can do it. Plus, I hate to say it, but by the way you just reacted to whatever those texts said, I don’t think she wants to see you anyway.” He shrugs a little, and I don’t say a word.

Because it hurts like hell that he’s right. I thought I was doing the best thing for her, giving her someone to hate, but I didn’t think it would hurt so much when it worked.

I sit silent the last few minutes until we pull into the office parking and just get out of the car and storm toward the office.

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