Page 51 of Guarded Hearts
I’d let her down. The realization made the weight on my chest almost unbearable. She was like a sister, and family should always come first. “I’m sorry. I should have—I should have done things differently.” Even though I wasn’t sure I could have done anything differently.
Alyssa made me happy, the happiest I’d been since Zoya died, and no matter how much I loved Mia, I wasn’t sure I could have sacrificed these months for anything or anyone.
“I told you in the hospital that you could be with her. Like, I wasn’t saying you couldn’t ever have a relationship with her. All I wanted was for you to wait until the tour was done, until her contract was done.”
I took a deep breath. She made her request sound so simple. We’d already been involved at that point, and the distance I’d tried to enforce with Alyssa had only hurt us both. Besides, Alyssa had another contract with Sarah Telling almost as soon as the wedding was over. After the tour was over wasn’t exactly a possibility for us either.
“If you have to fire me, I understand.”
“I’m not fucking firing you,” Mia burst out. “I just—I hate that I’m in this position two weeks before my wedding. Like, there’s all these other things to think about, to worry about, and then Jazz creates this social media shitstorm. My lawyer; Jodi, who handles my PR; and the HR company, who is supposed to deal with these things, have all said the easiest way to calm people down is to fire you.” She glanced at Tyler again, and he stepped forward, sliding his hand into hers. “I mean, Tyler told me he knew. That you asked him to keep it a secret. That hurts, you know? Before the Jazz stuff, you didn’t tell me. I don’t understand why you didn’t trust me?”
My answer was complicated, not easy to explain neatly. Alyssa hadn’t been sure Mia wouldn’t have a conflict between her personal feelings and her business commitments. Wasn’t that exactly what was happening now?
Also, I didn’t know where my relationship with Alyssa was headed. Nowhere, perhaps. After the wedding, we’d go our separate ways. Mia didn’t have a need for consistent backup dancers without a tour. Alyssa had bills to pay, so she needed Sarah Telling’s job.
I wouldn’t leave Mia’s employ unless she asked me to—she and her family were my American family.
“I love you like a sister,” I said. “But you are also my boss.”
Tears sprung into Mia’s eyes, and she shook her head. “I’m not firing you.”
“I would not blame you if you did.” As painful as her firing me might be, I’d understand. I’d broken her trust, broken part of my contract. The boulder on my chest was made of guilt but not regret. I regretted nothing.
“Jodi says that I might be able to overshadow Jazz’s claims with the wedding. You don’t feed that particular social media beast and the beast dies. My lawyer says Jazz violated part of the NDA by posting a portion of my contract online to have me tried in the court of public opinion. We’re sending her a cease and desist. We’re all hoping the strategy works, but Jazz seems unhinged. Who does this?”
“Can I see what she’s posted?”
From beside Mia, Tyler took out his phone and opened a few things. He passed the device to me. “I took some screenshots of all her posts.”
I sank into the closest chair and scrolled through the increasingly bizarre claims. “She says she wasn’t high on stage?”
“Xanax and cold medicine. I checked with a medical professional, and her justification could be valid, which is why no one has called bullshit. The problem is the toxicology report doesn’t support her claim. She was coked up.” Mia flipped her hair back over her shoulder.
“Why not write back to her?” I didn’t have any social media accounts, thought the whole thing was a time suck, but I’d seen Mia firing off tart responses to a variety of claims in the years I’d been employed with her. She’d often read them out loud before sending them off with a triumphant smirk on her lips. Besting ignorant people was a favorite pastime of hers.
“When Mia fired her, we signed legal paperwork preventing any of us from discussing the results of the toxicology report.” Tyler rubbed Mia’s back, and she leaned into him.
I clicked on one of the posts that looked like a medical report. “But she posted the toxicology report here?”
“It’s not hers. She must have created one on Photoshop or something. I don’t know. But that’s not the right one.” Mia sighed.
“Can’t you just say that?” The blatant lies baffled me. Her claims were so easy to disprove, at least about Mia. When I came to the posts with the photos of Alyssa and me, I stared, awestruck. A shot of adrenaline rushed through me. I hadn’t seen her all day, and the joy on her face in the pictures of us caused my chest to swell and tighten with a new emotion.No regrets.
“Sure. I could fire back all kinds of retorts, but I have a million other things to get done in the next two weeks without dealing with this BS. I’m not adding legal troubles to my load. I could give Jazz to my assistant to deal with, but I don’t want passing it off to cause the claims to spiral more.” She huffed out a breath and wrapped her arms around Tyler. “I’m not firing you. I’m not reprimanding Alyssa. We’re going to ignore all of it for now. Whatever game Jazz is playing, she’s not going to win. I just wish I didn’t have these fires blazing. I’m gettingmarried.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, passing Tyler back his phone. “I’m so sorry.”
Mia stared at me for a moment. “Do you love her? Was she worth it?”
The way I felt about Alyssa was so distinct from how I’d felt about Zoya.Love. Could a person love two people deeply but differently? I did know one thing for sure. “Yes,” I admitted. “She’s worth everything.”
She pursed her lips and nodded. “Well,” Mia said, “you may want to remind Alyssa that muting and blocking people is a perfectly legitway to lead your social media life. ’Cause if some jackasses aren’t already coming for her online with their misogynistic bullshit, they will be. She doesn’t have to hear every asshole’s hot take on things they know nothing about.”
Yet another reason I hadn’t bothered with social media accounts. The few I’d had when I moved to America I’d deleted when I started working for Mia. I’d borne witness to how many times she’d been depressed for hours, sometimes days because someone who didn’t know her had taken their best shot at rattling her sanity. I wasn’t going to let the same thing happen to Alyssa.
“How do I—how can she block and mute people?” I asked.
Tyler let go of Mia and came to my side, dragging his phone out of his pocket again. He clicked through all the major social media platforms and their member options for harassment. “When in doubt, block or mute.” Tyler caught my gaze. “Once you’ve seen people’s cruel words, they’re hard to unsee. Neither of you needs that. The real person in the wrong here is Jazz. Did you and Alyssa violate your contract? Yeah, you did. Are you probably still violating your contract? Yeah, you are. But your relationship didn’t arise out of malice. There’s no power imbalance.” He glanced at Mia. “Technically, Mia and I started when I was still under contract with her. It happens. Jazz might try to make you and Alyssa seem awful to gather public sympathy. Be prepared.”
