“Haven’t looked at them yet.”
She tossed her phone into my lap before getting up and storming out of the room. I heard a door slam somewhere else in the house, the walls reverberating from the force. I waited a moment, listening for screaming or glass breaking. When I heard none, I looked at the pictures on her screen before opening the comment section.
Most of the comments called Leigh some version of a gold-digging whore. Some of them were less derogatory, pointing out that her brother was one of the owners of the company and she would make money off him.
I felt sick as I scrolled through the comments, reading every nasty thing strangers hiding behind the internet had to say about her. By the time I got to the latest comment, my blood was boiling, but it was the guilt that threatened to suffocate me.
The phone started ringing, Tyson’s name flashing across the screen. I sighed and leaned back against the pillows, closing my eyes as I swiped my thumb across the screen.
“Hello, Tyson,” I said, my voice monotone as I prepared for an ass-kicking.
“What the fuck are you doing answering my sister’s phone?” he growled, sounding like he would kill me through the phone if he could figure out a way to do so.
“She left it with me to look at the pictures and the comments.”
“You fucked up this time. Why is Camille telling me that you told her not to bury this? Are you fucking kidding me, Clarke? This is my baby sister! She’s trying to build her career and then you let something like this happen to her? Do you know what the fuck anybody is going to say about her after this?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Look, this keeps the attention off the embezzlement.”
“It puts my sister in the fucking crosshairs! You fix this now or I will expose the embezzlement, understand?”
“I’m not going to do that, and neither are you.”
“Fuck you.”
Tyson hung up, and the guilt clawed at my throat, trying to cut off my air. A better man would call Camille and tell her to put an end to it, but Tyson and I needed this, whether he could see it or not.
At least, I thought we did until I stood outside the door to her room and heard her sobbing. I opened the door to find Leigh curled up on her bed, clutching a pillow and staring at the wall.
“Are you okay?”
Leigh sat up quickly, getting to her feet and stalking across the floor. “Give me my phone.”
I handed her the device and leaned in the doorway, my arms crossed over my chest. She unlocked the screen and saw the recent call from Tyson.
“Why were you talking to my brother on my phone?”
“He called, and I answered,” I said with a shrug.
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me. It felt as if she was looking through me, stripping away the layers of flesh and bone until she reached my soul. Leigh shook her head, her eyes watering as her phone lit up with a dozen new comments.
“You did this,” she said softly, some of the tears starting to spill over. “I heard you on the phone with Camille.”
My heart sunk in my chest. “I wish I could tell you that you’re wrong.”
“You may need this to keep the eyes off of the embezzlement case, I could have understood that, maybe, if you had bothered to say anything to me first instead of assuming I would be fine with it.”
“You wouldn’t have liked it either way.”
“But I love my brother and would have done anything for him.” Leigh shook her head, a wry smile on her face even as the tears slipped down her cheeks. “You fucked up, Clarke, now get the fuck out of my face.”
She took a step back and slammed the door. I listened as she twisted the lock into place before she started talking. I could only assume she was talking to Tyson and I’m not sure I wanted to hear her end of the conversation.
One thing was certain, I had ruined whatever was happening between us before it even really got going. I swore and walked to the kitchen, making a coffee before retreating to the dining room to bury myself in paperwork.
Numbing myself with numbers was better than the guilt trying to swallow me whole. Everything would have been so much easier if we weren’t trapped together.
9