Page 122 of Illicit Education

Two lawyers from Reed Enterprises had shown up an hour ago, and a lawyer that represented both White Rabbit and the Rabbit Hole was here as well. Mina’s business partner from Los Angeles was considering flying out, but she’d told him to hold off for now.

Not a lot could be done at this point, after the fact.

The pictures were out there.

We weren’t running damage control; we were discussing clean up.

Between Cabot and Mina, they’d narrowed it down to Stella.

But, did it really matter who took the photos? Who leaked them?

Outside of breaking a pretty strict privacy rule at White Rabbit–I still wasn't quite sure what the punishment for that would be–she’d really just broken some moral codes. Legally, Reed and I could go after her for slander or defamation or something–assuming we could prove it was her–but other than that, Stella would get off scot-free.

“Well…” Cabot squeezed my knee, drawing me out of my head. “Then we’ll do a press conference.”

Blinking, I tried to recall anything that had been said in the last, five or ten minutes. Setting my fork down, I swiveled my head to look at him. “What?”

“Monday morning. I want to do a press conference.”

I searched his eyes for an explanation because what was coming out of his mouth didn’t make sense. There was no way this very private man had just suggested a press conference.

His hand flexed on my thigh. “Did you hear me?”

“Yes?” I shrugged, then stared at my noodles again.

“Rylan.” His voice was firm, commanding.

I snapped my head back up to look at him.

“We will do a press conference. From Reed Tower.”

It took a moment for those words to sink in. “We?”

“When we go to work on Monday morning,” he said slowly, “I want to do a press conference.”

“I’m not…” I frowned. Was he serious? I looked around at the other people at the table, but all of them just watched me like they didn’t see that Cabot had lost his mind. “I’m not going back there.”

“What?” Cabot’s voice had an edge to it that normally, under any other circumstances, I would find slightly terrifying and more than slightly sexy.

Today, not so much.

I found it irritating.

“I’m not going back to the internship.” I shrugged. “That ship has sailed.”

“The hell you’re not.” His face hardened into an angry mask and he pushed up out of the chair.

The caged lion was back. Well, he could pace all he wanted to. Pace until he created grooves in Gram-gram’s hundred-year-old linoleum, for all I cared.

“Rylan,” Mina said calmly. “I think you should sleep on that decision.”

I had to bite my tongue so as not to snap at her. Instead, I offered her a tight-lipped smile, then turned to Greer. “Can we go home?”

Her eyes widened, then she nodded quickly. “Let me call a car.” Greer’s fingers moved over her phone screen with impressive speed.

“You’re not leaving.”

I raised my eyebrows and looked at Cabot. “Excuse me?” Shaking my head, I took a deep breath and stood. Patting Greer’s shoulder, I said, “Please call us a ride. I’ll be right back.”

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