Page 18 of Lexi Lets Go

"Jealous? Why on earth would you be jealous?" She said, baffled.

"Because if an attractive man is going to have his arm around you, I would prefer it to be me."

Her mouth fell open and her eyes widened. And he had the urge to sweep everything off this desk and take her right here... well, that escalated quickly.

She took a moment to gather herself. "Unless I was dreaming, you did ask me out back there, right? If I had a boyfriend, then it would be pretty shitty of me to say yes."

"Nope, you’re right. You are never what I expect."

“I could say the same about you,” she said with a small smirk.

"So, is that the NDA?" He asked, pointing to the envelope in her hands.

"Yes, I can still sign it. Like I said, I just needed to clear my mind before I tried to understand legal speak."

"I assure you, that isn’t necessary. And the list you say exists?"

"Right," she said as she opened her top desk drawer and gave him the paper.

He examined it. What in the hell was this? No wonder he had been so isolated recently. The first few were reasonable and important, but as the list went on it made him seem like he was this pompous douchebag. No wonder no one looked him in the eye anymore. Her calling him his highness made total sense after seeing this list.

"What's going on here?" he heard a familiar voice ask. Jacinda.

"I was just having a conversation with Lexi here," he said, trying to mask some of the anger that was rolling through him.

She looked at him, the envelope in his hand, then to the list in the other. Her eyes went wide, and she shot a look over at Lexi.

"You told on me?" She snapped with annoyance like they were fighting siblings, not like they were the professionals he had assumed them both to be.

"This has nothing to do with her. We need to have a talk, Jacinda, about exactly what your role is here. Follow me." He turned to leave without turning back to Lexi. He would have time to talk to her later and smooth all this over. Right now, Jacinda had some big explaining to do.

He walked up the stairs to his room and dug into his pocket for the key to unlock the door. She followed behind him. When they got in, he handed her the list of his supposed demands. "Care to explain?" He opened the envelope pulling out the NDA. It seemed to be a fairly standard issue NDA, but what business did she have issuing NDAs on his behalf?

"You have no idea the behind-the-scenes work that goes into doing this, so you can just sit there and strum your guitar and bat your eyelashes," she spat at him.

Well, that didn't go how he was expecting.

"My guitar strumming and eyelash batting, as you so fucking nicely put it, is what pays your paycheck, and the paycheck of everyone here. Try that again."

"I'm sorry. I just do this so things go smoother. It just makes sense to get these things out of the way."

"Yes, some of these things make sense. The first five are great. Let's keep those, but the rest have to go. And right now, with the disrespect and going behind my back, I think you have to go too."

She gasped. "Are you firing me?"

"I don't know... maybe. I need some time to cool down." He raked his hand through his hair. He needed to calm down. No wonder Lexi had been so upset. The thought that she was upset because of Jacinda made him want to fire her and not look back. That couldn’t be the reason, but all of this could.

He plopped down in the chair by his window and looked out at the falls he had hoped to hike to. But apparently, he was dealing with this shitstorm instead.

"Here's what we are going to do. You are leaving--" he said.

"You can't do that! Please, let's talk about this," she begged.

"No. I just need some space. There’s a lot on my mind. Right now, you are going to make sure everything is set up for the streaming event tonight. I’ll talk to Lexi to make sure we can have the room and film there. After that, you and the whole team are going to leave."

"Leave? What do you mean leave?" She asked gawking at him.

"I’m calling the car service and sending cars for you and everyone else. I’ll remain here until the next concert date. When I need to be there, I will be, but until then I’m here. On my own."

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