Page 19 of A Man of Wealth

She presses the doorbell on my front door, and I turn on the speaker. “Come in,” I state as I unlock the door with a click of a button.

She hesitates for a moment and then proceeds to enter my house. I watch as she looks around, unsure of her next move. This little game is fun. It’s taking my mind off things I’d rather not be thinking about.

“Conner?” she calls out as she steps tentatively into my foyer and looks around. She allows herself to re-examine the giant chandelier and the double curving staircases that lead to a balcony upstairs. Several large paintings grace the white walls and the floors are my favorite, a checkered pattern of light and dark wood. She takes a moment to look at each painting.

“You’re warm,” I say into my house speaker after allowing her a moment to snoop. I try to fight the smirk threatening to emerge on my face as her head whips around and her face pinkens with guilt. I love that she knows that I’ve caught her investigating my things. I’m very pleased with myself for not giving her a full house tour last time. Why this little game is making me so happy is beyond me.

She sighs and takes another step toward her right.

“Colder,” I respond, propping my feet back up on my desk so I can enjoy the show.

She steps to the left. “Warmer,” I reply. I watch her open a door and realize it’s a closet. And then she turns to go down the hallway in front of her.

“Getting hot.” She starts opening doors as she walks, and I shout “cold” a few times. Finally, she throws her hands in the air and spins around. I laugh at the look of frustration on her face. Yes, having her come here was well worth it.

“Conner, can we move past this game? I really do need to speak with you.”

She steps forward. She’s standing in front of the double doors of my office.

“You’re on fire,” I say, this time letting myself grin as she puts her hands on the doorknobs and throws open the doors.

She glares at me the second the doors are open. “For the love of God! Couldn’t you have just directed me here? Enough with the games,” she says tersely as she struts toward me, her high heels making a clickity-clack sound on my hardwoods and having a completely different effect on my own wood.

I adjust myself as I lower my feet and slide my chair back a bit. I motion for her to take a seat and she does, bringing one leg over the other.

“What’s up?”

She rolls her eyes. “This,” she says as she pulls some papers out of a bag and drops them on my desk.

I glance down to see news articles, written by her. “What? You finally realized you lack skills as an investigative journalist?”

“Ha. Ha. No, these aren’t my articles,” she states. I frown, confused by what she’s saying. “Well, they aren’t how I wrote them.”

“Don’t you have an editor?”

She nods again and pulls out a second pile of papers and drops those on my desk. “They aren’t how she edited them either. Someone else changed them before they went to print.”

“But…why would someone do that?” I ask, my frown deepening as I pick up matching files from the two piles and examine them more closely. She’s right, words are slightly changed and there’s an entire paragraph missing from one of them.

“Someone doesn’t want me reporting the truth on you or your fraternity brothers. It’s only articles about you all that have changes,” she says, looking at me with a raised eyebrow. “Any idea why that would be?”

Yes, I do, and no I’m not going to tell you, I think to myself.

“No idea,” I state as I drop the articles back to my desk. “Maybe a higher-up changes stuff before it goes to print?” I suggest. It’s bullshit, she knows, and I know it, but I won’t have her calling my bluff.

“Nope. No one should be doing that. I even asked my editor about it. She said the version I have in my email, should be what is printed.”

“Well, that’s quite the mystery, then. But why bother telling me that? And why don’t you read your printed articles?”

She stands and steps toward me, rifling through the two piles until she finds what she wants. Turning the papers around, she sets them down and pushes them toward me. I pause. It’s the article that I’d mentioned to her, the one about my family. The one where she all but called my mother a whore. I study the two and realize what she wrote was completely different than what was printed. Huge sections of her article are missing, giving a very one-sided view of my mom. It can’t be the work of the brotherhood, they’d never smear their own, not intentionally anyhow.

She blushes and looks down, following my gaze. “I never read the print copy. I…I just don’t.” She pauses and looks back up at me, but my gaze is fixed on those articles. “After you told me that…I went home and was confused. I pulled up the article and realized it didn’t look like the one I wrote. It started out the same. If someone had spot-checked it, they may not have even noticed. I only noticed because of the missing quotes. Then, I looked at another one and another one and found that only the ones about you and your brothers are altered. None of the others. And that is why I’m here. What are you not telling me?”

Chapter10

Vivienne

Conner’susual poker face falters for a moment. I see a myriad of emotions play out over his face. Confusion. Realization. And finally, anger.

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