Page 57 of Big Boss
20
Tate
“What do you meanno?”Erica’s shrill response only makes me want to spank her for taking that tone with me. Yes, I’ll definitely make her pay for this later.
“It’s nothing really. You know how Jackson can be.” I let my voice trail off, keeping everything as vague as possible because I don’t know how she’s going to react to what I have to say next.
“Just someone leaked the hotel camera footage. Of us making out in the hallway.” I clear my throat. “There’s a ton of public backlash because I was just photographed making out with Bella like than ten days ago. And so some of the donors are asking to disaffiliate.”
I watch as the words settle on her, and then she’s up and out of my bed, which is definitely not where I wanted this particular scene to take us.
“What are you doing?” I demand. “You better get back here and comfort me while my dreams fall apart due to my completely undeserved manwhore reputation.”
I’m trying to turn this tragedy into a joke of sorts, but even saying the words out loud is too much, and she’s suddenly hurtling toward me like an angry comet, the bedsheet trailing behind her like the train on a wedding gown.
She grabs my shoulders and gives me a shake. Then a second one that’s much harder. “Donovan Tate, you better get your shit together. You call up Bella LeGrande’s handler and make them fix this.”
I turn away from the conviction on her face. I know better than almost anyone that there are times the truth can’t set you free, and this is one of those times. Everyone has already publicly made up their mind about what happened with me and Bella, just like me and Crystal before that. And now me and grainy surveillance footage of Erica, who apparently is the hot topic of conversation in certain online forums.
“Let’s face it, even if Bella makes a public statement that the photos were rigged, it doesn’t exactly repair my reputation. If anything, it makes me look like the idiot who got tricked into a makeout session with America’s Sweetheart.” I shake my head and cover my face with my hands. “Nobody wants to do business with an idiot.”
I can hear Erica pacing around the floor, her tiny feet making little slapping sounds on the hardwood. Then she stops and comes back to shake me again.
“Donovan Tate, you have got to be kidding me with this right now.”
I finally let her pull my hands down, but she can definitely read the defeat in my eyes. “It’s done, Erica. I can’t save the foundation without outside donors. I have plenty of money to get the programs started, but the charity is going to need public support from corporations to be self-sustaining.”
She makes a little humming noise of consideration. Then she snaps her fingers. “I’ve got it. Give me your phone so I can call Jackson.”
I try to listen to whatever the two of them are cooking up, but it sounds like math, and we’ve already established that’s outside of my skill set.
But when she ends the call, she gives me a tight-looking smile. “This is the best idea I’ve ever had.”
“Better than when you forced your way into my company as my new assistant?”
She nods once.
“Better than sneaking into and then out of last night’s fundraiser?” I watch that telltale flush fill the area between her neck and her cheeks. Delicious.
She nods again.
“Okay. Why don’t you explain it to me in a way that makes sense?”
After a rough twenty minutes, I shake my head. “None of that made any sense to me.”
“Trust me,” she says, and it feels like a promise.
“I do.” The words are a surprise in how easily they spill into the space between us, but it’s the truth, and I can see she knows it.
“I’m going to get dressed and go fix this, Tate. I’ll be back by the end of tomorrow.”
I frown. “It’s like midnight. Surely this isn’t the right time for whatever you have planned. Let’s sleep on it and then you can conquer the world in the morning.”
She pretends like she has to think it over, but when I offer to make her another batch of gross, undercooked eggs, I can tell I’ve won this round.
But in the morning, she’s off before I even wake up to make her those yucky eggs, leaving me to lie around the house feeling sad and useless as I wait for the debris to settle from this latest disaster.
Somewhere, my rotten excuse for a father is probably laughing his face off after hearing about my latest scandal and failure. I wish he would just disappear, but there’s basically zero chance of that happening. We all know that the real villains persist because there’s plenty of evil to keep them going.
