Page 13 of The Thorne at My Side
How did I not know who he was?
After dropping that bomb Jenna walks out of the room and I am left shell shocked. My eyes are unfocused and the room around me blurs. Austin Thorne threatens everything I hold dear. My job, my profession, my intelligence. The product he inventedchallenges my livelihood and I won’t be able to ignore it. I feel, more than see, Austin stand and start to move past me. I snap out of my trance and grab him on the, unfortunately firm, bicep.
"You're Austin Thorne?" I accuse.
"The one and only," he says as he spins slowly in my direction. I hate to be drawn in by his dangerously dark eyes but I am. They're captivating.
"Why were you at my workshop today?" I ask as the heat returns to my body, and I feel the flush climbing up my neck. It’s unclear if it is umbrage, frustration, or craving. My breathing is shallow. I’m not sure if I’m going to fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. When the next words come out of my mouth I learn that snark is my defense mechanism. ”You needed to size up the competition?"
"You're not my competition, Maggie."
"Yes, I am."
He laughs. He has the fucking nerve to laugh. Shock and indignation roll through my chest. He is standing here mocking everything I have worked for. Everything I have built over the last twelve years. "You're not. There isn't any competition for the product I'm about to bring to market. People are going to love having their news spoon fed to them in a tone and language they understand. I'm not responsible for the American public being too self-absorbed for their own good. I'm going to dish out what they want to hear, revolutionize the news industry, and make a ton of money while I do it."
He looks at me like I might have a response for that.
Unfortunately, I don't.
Speaking impulsively, off the cuff, has never been a strength of mine. I learned that the hard way when I tried to wing a response in my student council president debate in high school that I couldn’t think on myfeet. I do much better when my statements can be prepared, edited, and revised before going out into the world. It's why I'm so good at speech writing, I love crafting a well thought out message. One that ebbs and flows and brings people along for the ride on the waves of the spoken word.
"Ready?" Jenna calls from down the hallway. Austin cocks an eyebrow, taunting me for a response, and when I don’t give him one he holds out a hand indicating ladies first. I step down the hall and shoot a text to Sam.
MAGGIE:Get me everything you can on Thorne Media Corp - who pays them for stories, for advertisements, annual revenue. Anything.
SAM THE MAN:Sure thing boss!
I put my phone on silent but keep it on the table in front of me as I settle into my chair and put on the headphones. Sam is an incredible opposition researcher. She'll be able to find me something. I simply have to hope that Austin Thorne is as ill prepared to meet me as I am to meet him.
???
"Well, let's take a moment to consider the alternative."
It physically hurts to contain my eye roll as I mark another tally on the top of my notes. It's the sixth time Austin has said “consider” since we sat down to record. I started keeping track after the second time he said it.
"Maggie? Any response to Austin's point there?" The host asks with an animated shift of his shoulders in my direction.
I blink, hard. I was so caught up in being annoyed by my brutally handsome but irritating opponent slash co-guest that I totally missed the point he made.
"I'll save my breath on that one," I say with a snarky smile and as much deadpan sarcasm as I can muster. Maybe some political blogger will read between the lines and come up with a point for me.
It's happened before.
This interview is not going as well as I hoped it would before I learned that Hot Austin was Austin Thorne. Sam has sent a few texts but nothing useful. I was hoping she'd find an exposé saying he accepted money from fur traders to cover up a story about clubbing baby seals. Or some connection to oil companies. Or the mafia. Or a fringe political group that believes our next president should be a goat.
A girl can dream.
Instead she sent a few articles about the Thorne gossip outlet which I am familiar with because of a run-in my sister's best friend had with them last summer.
It was an insider tell-all style article about Liz’s friend Nora and her boyfriend, the rising home improvement TV star, Jimmy Lewis. It said terrible things and could have been considered libel if Nora had wanted to press charges. I was able to track down the anonymous source for them and confirmed she was paid.
Considering, as Austin would say, this article was small potatoes on the celebrity scale, I can only imagine how much they shell out for good stuff.
"Ha, alright, fair enough, I wanted to move on anyway." Charlie, the host, says as he flips to his next page of notes. "A lot of our listeners are outside of the D.C. area and they message us asking what it's really like to live and work in politics. We posted yourheadshots just before recording and, well, I'll be honest, they're getting quite the response."
"I’m not surprised Charlie, I tried to use it as my state department photo but no luck," Austin chimes in, oozing charm, and I feel a small tremor under my right eye. I press my fingers into it because I do not want to go full twitchy eye with Austin two feet in front of me. "What’dya think Maggie? Would you consider pulling some strings from the Senator's office and get these headshots on our passports?" And when his smile turns on me I hate that I blush as much as I hate the twitch that triggers again.
"No, sorry Austin, we use our connections at the State Department to address global crises." I sneer as I add another tally to my Consider Tracker.
