Page 34 of His to Cherish
The head PR guy is nodding thoughtfully. “Someone with an unblemished reputation. A sweet looking girl with no skeletons in her closet.” He turns to his associate. “Who do we know that might work?”
Gretchen is watching me with an appraising look I don’t like. “What about someone you already know? Someone you’ve been photographed with before?”
She doesn’t need to say her name for me to know who she’s thinking about. Lilly. I’ve been trying not to let myself think about her. It fucking hurts too bad.
“Don’t even say it,” I warn, but Gretchen is already turning to the PR guys.
“His best friend fits the bill perfectly. She’s a mousey, goody-two-shoes type.”
“God damn it, Gretchen,” I growl, anger rising in my chest.
“And she’s been photographed with him before,” she goes on. “If we can get her to say they’ve been seeing each other for years, we can fight back on this source’s claims.”
“And the press will be more likely to buy it because they’ve seen her on his arm.”
The CFO is nodding. “I like it.”
“It certainly seems like our best option,” someone else agrees.
“We need to run a background check on this girl first,” the PR guy says, already pulling on his phone. “Deep character vetting. We don’t need any more surprises. What’s her name? Laura?”
I slam my hands down on the table, unable to hear another word. “We’re not fucking using Lilly to cover my ass,” I shout. “Think of something else.”
“Be reasonable, Oliver,” Gretchen says. “It’s our best shot of getting out of this.”
“How about we figure out who the fuck sold the story and discredit them?” I shoot back. “They’re the fucking problem here.” Not me. And certainly not Lilly.
“We’re already working on that,” the PR guy says gently. “But this is a big problem, Oliver. We’re going to need to attack if from multiple angles if we want to make it go away.”
“We’re not using Lilly,” I growl. God, it hurts to even say her name right now. It was only a few hours ago that I left her sleepy and sated in my bed. How in the hell did it all go to shit so quickly?
I can handle losing out on the purchase of Zenith. Losing Lilly? That might just destroy me.
“What if she volunteers?” Gretchen asks, her eyes on something behind me. I spin around and see Lilly on the other side of the glass conference room walls. My heart immediately sinks. She’s pale, her eyes wide and red-rimmed. Shit. Has she been crying?
“I’ll be back,” I tell the others. Gretchen starts to complain but I ignore her. Lilly is the only thing I care about right now.
“Follow me,” I tell her as I march out of the conference room. She blinks a few times then scurries after me when I don’t so much as pause. I wait until we’re in my office with the door shut before I finally turn to her.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, not meeting my eyes. “I shouldn’t have come. I was just so?—”
I silence her by taking her into my arms. She remains stiff for a moment, which I fucking hate. But then she relaxes, melting into me in that way that’s become so familiar to me. Not just in the last few days, either. Lilly has always responded to me like this.
I’ve been taking care of you for a lot longer than you’ve been calling me Daddy, babygirl,I think, squeezing her harder. And I’m not going to stop now.
“You’re the only face I want to see right now,” I tell her, then take her shoulders and look down into her blue eyes. “But you shouldn’t have come.”
Her face clouds with sadness. “They think I did it.”
I blink at her. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
She points back in the direction of the conference room. “Your team. The lawyers and PR people.” She closes her eyes. “I could see the way they were all looking at me through the glass.”
“Lilly—”
“I swear I didn’t,” she cuts in, looking frantic. “Iswear, Ollie. I would never sell you out. There’s not enough money in the world to make me betray you like that.” She blinks away tears and my heart clenches. I fucking hate seeing her upset. I’ve never been able to stand it. “I swear on my grandmother’s grave, Ollie. It wasn’t me.”
“Hang on. Are you saying…do you think I believe you’re the source?”
