Page 89 of Captivated By You

Fishing my phone from underneath the sheets, I called Mom.

Chapter26

Asher

When your future walks out the door,

and you’re powerless to stop her, try anyway.

Tearingoff a piece of an almond croissant, I shoved it into my mouth, washing it down with half a glass of milk. An awful night’s sleep had left me with dark circles beneath my eyes and a muzzy head. Just what I needed for today’s board meeting, one where my father had announced over text last night that he planned to attend.

Not that he wasn’t welcome, but his presence coming hot on the heels of the firing of two of our managers wasn’t lost on me. Once again, a prickle of unease slithered down my spine at the idea that he still hadn’t fully released the reins, that he didn’t entirely trust me to run the company the way he would run it.

But I wasn’t him. Sure, we had a lot in common, but my ways were different from his ways. It didn’t make either of us wrong. In my eyes, our varied styles strengthened the brand rather than diminished it.

I reached for my phone to send a quick text to Kiana. I’d missed her last night. I was convinced that part of the reason for my poor night’s sleep was because she hadn’t been beside me. But as I opened the text app, my phone rang.

“Johannes.” My voice was curt, my message clear that I hadn’t forgotten his purposeful embarrassment of Kiana the morning after Uncle Jameson’s party. “Whatever it is, make it quick. I’m running late.”

“I take it you haven’t opened your emails this morning yet?”

I rolled my eyes. I didn’t have time for Johannes’s games, and he was eating into my planned dirty text talk with Kiana.

“No. Like I said, I’m running late. Something urgent?”

“You could say that.”

A profound sigh rose within me. “Spit it out.”

“Open the email sent from someone called Simon Barlow. Who the fuck is he, anyway?”

My blood ran cold, a feeling like thorns digging into my spine. I put Johannes on speaker phone and navigated to my email program. Johannes wouldn’t have a clue who Simon Barlow was, or the significance of him sending an email to me that, by all accounts, he also seemed to have sent to my brother. And if Johannes had received Barlow’s undoubtedly vitriolic outburst, then inevitably, my father would have received a copy, too.

Just what I didn’t fucking need.

“The former manager of the Chicago Kingcaid. I fired him two days ago.”

I spied the email in the middle of a bunch of unread messages that had come in overnight. I opened it. The only thing it contained was a link.

“It’s a link. I don’t open links in emails.” Knowing that jerk, he’d attached a virus that would infect my phone.

“You’ll want to open this one.” Johannes cleared his throat. “Correction. Youneedto open this one. Just prepare yourself.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just fucking open it, Ash.”

Against my better judgment, I clicked on the link. It took me to a grainy video that instantly played. The lighting was too dim for me to make out the details, but from the sound…

“It’s a fucking porno. Why would Barlow send me a porno?”

“Keep watching.”

The woman climbed on top of the guy, repositioned herself, and…

My mouth went as dry as if I’d swallowed a cup of sand. I tried to pull my eyes away from the screen, but something prevented me from shutting it down. The muscles in my legs locked in place, and my chest felt as if a lump of concrete had landed from a great height. I couldn’t breathe.

“Ash.”

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