Page 25 of Token

The second he released her, she slapped him lightly on the arm and chided, “What are you doing home so early? I thought you said you needed a few more months before you moved back.”

Kennedy blinked at her friend. Nate had planned to return to New York for good? Why hadn’t Aurora said anything to her about it?

“Believe me, this wasn’t part of the plan,” Nate said, his expression clouding over.

Aurora stilled, her gaze volleying between Kennedy and her brother. “What? What’s going on? Did something happen? You’re not sick, are you?”

“Relax, Ror, your brother isn’t sick,” Kennedy assured her, before her friend’s mind took her on a tour of the worst WebMD.com had to offer.

Aurora audibly exhaled, her shoulders slumping in relief.

“Yes, you’ll be happy to know that I’m not dying. The company is just being sued for discrimination.”

“So what are you going to do? Does Jack know about this?” Aurora gave her head a shake. “What am I saying? Of course Jack knows. What did he say?”

The discussion had moved from Kennedy’s office to his sister’s five minutes ago. Nate told her as much as he knew, and as expected, Rory ditched her sister cap and donned her crisis-management one.

His sister, The Fixer.

“He was shocked. Swears he never saw it coming. Called me yesterday as soon as Legal notified him.” As exhausted as he was from over ten hours of travel, a sense of restlessness kept him on his feet, his shoulder propped against the wall by the door. He had to get back to his office and didn’t intend to stay much longer.

With his request to Kennedy having been met with a resounding no, he regretted having asked in the first place. She’d been right to turn him down. Rules were rules. No taking on family as paying clients, and he sure as hell wouldn’t ask her to take him on pro bono.

And no, he wouldn’t have used it as a way to get close to her.

You sure about that?The question niggled at the back of his mind. No conclusive answer yet.

And that was probably because he couldn’t deny his attraction to her hadn’t gone anywhere and didn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon. But he’d deal with it as he had in the past. Ignore it and hope it’d eventually go away.

She wasn’t the only beautiful woman in New York.

But then, Kennedy was a lot more than her looks. A helluva lot more. He’d realized that the first time he’d really spoken to her. Although he’d been mesmerized by her gorgeous blue-gray eyes, her intellect and sweetness had been a huge turn-on. And the more he’d gotten to know her, the more he’d liked her. He’d liked that her sweetness came with an acerbic bite and that she’d been genuinely interested in himandthe one thing he was most passionate about—his company.

Rory sat on the lip of her desk, her hands gripping the edge and shoulders squared. “All right, here’s what I’m going to advise you to do. You need to hold a press conference. None of this statement shit, no matter what your PR team tells you. Statements aren’t worth their weight in a sheet of copy paper,” she said disdainfully. “No, what you need to do is hold a presser, invite the media, say what you have to say, and take a few questions. Reporters and the public will appreciate that more. They’ll be more inclined to believe you when you tell them you’re looking into the allegations, and you intend to get to the bottom of them. When you look them square in the eye and tell them you’re going to fix it.”

His sister was a pistol and a half. Yeah, she might look sweet and delicate—she especially had reporters eating out of her hands—but she was ruthlessly smart, incredibly astute, and unfailingly loyal to the people she cared about. He happened to be pretty high on that list. Some people would say at the top. Those people would be their parents and older brothers.

“I had a feeling that’s what you were going to say.” His sister preferred to face things head-on, no matter how difficult the circumstance, which was one of the things that made her so good at her job.

Hopping off the desk, she walked over to him. “That’s a relief. Glad to know I won’t have to browbeat you into it,” she said with a smirk, but the worry in her eyes lingered.

“I hate talking to the press,” he groused. More than anything, he hated this kind of attention. As it stood, he was currently the villain of the piece, when he was accustomed to being lauded. Success at a young age could do that, a success that had nothing to do with his parents’ careers, even though it had been their seed money he’d used to start the company. Although, the Vaughn name probably opened a few doors that would otherwise have been closed to him.

His sister reached up and patted his hair-roughened cheek, reminding him he was overdue for a shave. “But they love this gorgeous face of yours,” she teased.

Nate rolled his eyes.

“And you know what they say about necessary evils. This, my dear brother, is mandatory and lesson three in Crisis Management 101. On the bright side—”

“I’m glad you see a bright side to this,” he muttered darkly.

“—I usually charge a pretty penny for this kind of advice, but I’m giving you the family discount. Free.” She gave his cheek another affectionate tap before moving to take a seat in the chair behind her desk.

“What the hell are you smiling about?”

“Look again. What you’re seeing is optimism. And I’m optimistic because I know you, and I know that not only are you and the company going to get through this with flying colors, you’re both going to come out stronger on the other side. Trust me.”

Aurora he trusted with his life. It was the lawyers on the other side he didn’t trust. They were strictly in this for the payout. And then there were the tabloids. God all-fucking-mighty, they were going to make his life hell by digging up whatever they could about him and then they’d distort it and report it as fact.

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