Page 37 of When Worlds Collide
“ENT is suing Pisces.”
I inhaled sharply, though I’d suspected something of the sort. He had already told me that ENT considered this a legal matter, I supposed actually suing the studio was the next, logical step.
“On what grounds?” I moved closer, sliding my hand along the railing, ignoring the bite of the cold metal on my fingertips.
“Trevor Kyle filmed us in the conference room. The meeting had ended; the cameras were turned off. He turned them back on. Your manager sent us the video. It shows me in there, alone for a few minutes, and then you coming in and then…” He didn’t look away, but he didn’t need to elaborate on what was on the video. Becka had already described it to me
I waited to feel embarrassment, but it never came. The revelation that my love for this man outweighed any kind of shame I might have felt at being caught in a compromising position filled me with a kind of power that was wholly unexpected. I embraced it.
“It wasn’t an accident?” I asked. I hadn’t really believed it had been, but perhaps there was reasonable doubt?
“No. Your manager was able to confirm that the producer had logged in and accessed the camera. It was not an accident.”
My manager. Jeremy was a great guy, but I was surprised he’d be so obliging as to investigate, and provide incriminating information against Pisces.
“Pisces just handed over that information?”
“We were surprised, also.”
I let the information settle in, trying to see if from any angle that made sense, but I drew a blank. Jeremy often lamented his job, the business, the whole, damn industry, but he was a company-man, through and through. I just couldn’t see how this fit into that. He was fond of me, but not this much. I needed to find out why.
“So, what happens now?” I looked at him, the man I’d lost my job over, the man I’d moved across the world for, the man I loved and knew with every beat of my heart that I would do it all again.
He reached for my hands, his thumbs gently brushing warmth back into my chilled palms.
“Now we let the company deal with it.”
I swallowed my response, but I couldn’t deny the apprehension I felt. Unwittingly, my brain decided to drag up the conversation Becka and I had had only this morning.
“It’s always worse for the women.”
ENT would protect Jihoon, of that I was certain, but whether they would include me in that? Less certain.
I felt that slight cold breeze that I’d felt earlier, like a window left slightly open. I told myself it was only the wind.
Chapter 13
On Sunday, as we ate breakfast in bed, Jihoon had declared he wanted a ‘lazy day’, which considering neither of us was currently working – I’m unemployed, he’s on Christmas break – didn’t outwardly seem that dissimilar from what we had been doing for the past few days.
Once we’d eaten our weight in pastries and fruit, he disappeared into the big changing room, emerging soon after with a Nintendo Switch, some cables, and a spare controller.
I sat on the sofa and watched, bemused, as he set it up on the TV, which required some careful manoeuvring of the flatscreen away from the wall – in a move it was clearly not designed to do – so he could plug in the HDMI cable.
For the rest of the morning, we battled each other in Mario Kart, before calling it a draw. He never seemed to mind how gleefully I threw bananas at him, which is why I didn’t mind when he inexplicably seemed to beat me despite that.
We then spent the afternoon lazing in the hotel’s tropical swimming pool, floating around under the palm fronds, or bubbling away in the jacuzzi. It had been suspiciously empty, and eventually I’d asked if he’d had something to do with that.
“I might have arranged for the pool to undergo some ‘essential maintenance’,” he said with a wink.
I couldn’t even fathom what kind of influence that must have taken, but right then, as I lay beside my boyfriend in a steaming sauna, I couldn’t bring myself to feel guilty.
We finished off our ‘lazy Sunday’ by lying on the sofa, wearing sheet masks and watching a K-drama about a K-Pop group attending high school. Jihoon took great delight in pointing out things that had been similar to his time attending school as a trainee, and what parts were absolute nonsense.
“I wish our teachers had been so kind to us,” he scoffed. “It felt like they hated us.”
I turned to stare at him curiously, the bite in his tone not at all matching the light-hearted episode playing out in front of us.
“Why?”
