He’d known this was the decision I was going to make from the moment I stepped into his office that morning.
I said nothing, just grabbing a seat in the circle of people and listening in on the conversation.
There were three other people besides Rhett and me in the room. One was a skinny little guy with glasses that were far too big for his face pushed far too high up on his nose. The other two were women. One had long, slightly frizzy blonde hair and was wearing a pair of overalls over a striped purple and white t-shirt, giving her the look of a modern farm girl. The other was a woman with sleek black hair that curled perfectly around her shoulders, wearing a gray pantsuit. She was speaking at that moment and didn’t even toss me a casual glance as I entered the room.
“What I’m saying is that it’s not just about how these things have played out in the past, Marcus,” the woman said, with a commanding tone that I seriously admired. I loved it whenever a woman was able to take control of the board room.
And also, I secretly loved the fact that a woman could take control of Rhett’s board room. That said an awful lot about his character.
“Well, I don’t know if we should be giving Nicki any more airplay, Cassandra,” the guy with the glasses responded. Marcus pushed his frames up even further on his face and attempted to stare down at Cassandra, but the woman would have none of it.
Instead, in a shocking development, she turned to me.
“Hi, I’m Cassandra,” she said, sticking her hand out abruptly.
I shook it, a little thrown off. “Sarah.”
“I know,” Cassandra nodded. “Rhett told us all about you. Now, I need to ask you something, and I want your honest, unfiltered opinion, got it?”
“Sure,” I replied, still a little hesitant.
“Great,” she smiled at me and then tossed a side-eye toward Marcus before she continued. “So, if you heard that a celebrity favorite of yours had gotten his ex-girlfriend pregnant and then said celebrity came out and told the American public that it was a complete lie, what would you think of him?”
“Is it a lie?” I replied diplomatically. I wasn’t totally sure what this question was in reference to, but something told me that it could very easily turn into a sticky situation.
“That’s not important right now,” she replied. “I just want your gut reaction. What’s your initial take?”
All eyes were on me. I was acutely aware of that, and attempting to staunch the growing uneasiness in my stomach by taking a few deep breaths. Still, I knew there was no getting out of answering this question.
“Well, honestly, I’d think the guy’s a dick,” I replied. “You don’t get a woman pregnant and then just abandon her. And my first instinct is not going to be to wonder whether or not she’s really lying about this situation, because women often don’t lie about that sort of thing. But, on the off chance that it is a falsity she’s spewing to us, I assume the boyfriend must have done something terrible to make her feel like that was her only recourse. So I won’t like him anymore, and I probably won’t follow his career and listen to his music or watch his shows.”
“That’s what I thought,” Cassandra replied smugly, sitting back in her chair.
“Jesus,” Rhett breathed, dropping his head in his hands and massaging his forehead.
That was the moment my stomach really started to sink.
“Why did you ask me that, exactly?” I replied.
Cassandra glanced over to Rhett and then back to me. “I knew you weren’t the type to keep up on celebrity gossip.”
“I told you she wasn’t,” Rhett muttered from between his knees. The poor guy looked like he was trying to keep himself from vomiting.
“What are you talking about?” I pressed.
“Rhett’s ex-girlfriend, Nicki, has decided to tell a sob story to the press,” Marcus explained, looking down his nose at me the same way he’d done to Cassandra. “She’s angry about the breakup and has gone around telling all of the major publications that she’s pregnant with Rhett’s baby. So now everyone hates him, thinking that he’d walk out on his pregnant girlfriend and not even bother to give her child support.”
Now that Marcus was telling me about it, I briefly remembered seeing something about that situation the week before. It hadn’t seemed at all important at the time.
“It’s not true, right?” I asked, aiming my question directly at Rhett.
“No. Of course not,” he replied quickly, shaking his head so vigorously I was surprised it didn’t plop right off. “She’s just angry at me. She wanted us to keep up our facade forever and ever. But I couldn’t do it anymore. I needed something real.”
I had a few more questions I wanted to ask him, but I felt they were far too personal to be appropriate in this situation, so I just quieted down and slumped back in my seat, shocked that someone could be as vengeful as his ex seemed to be.
I didn’t hate her or anything, of course. I felt awful for her. The poor woman must have been heartbroken over losing a guy like Rhett, but that didn’t make her actions okay in any way, shape, or form.
“What do we do?” Rhett asked with a sigh, looking up at Cassandra. Clearly, she ran the public relations show around here.
She pursed her bright pink lips, thinking hard, mulling over every possible scenario, before she finally nodded and looked at all of us.
“We give her what she wants,” Cassandra replied. “Money.”
Rhett frowned, shaking his head. I thought he might say no, and tell her that was terribly immoral, but he just looked at me.
“Sarah, I’m going to write you a check. I’ll need you to give it to Nicki as soon as possible, please.”
“What?” I gasped. “Me? That’s not a part of my job description.”
“You don’t have a job description,” Rhett replied cheekily. “And besides, it is now. You’re the only one I trust to do this.”
“What about your assistant, Javier?” I replied indignantly. “Don’t you trust him?”
“Not with this,” Rhett said.
Before I could get another word in edgewise, he strode out of the office. I heard him walk all the way down the hall and then nearly slam his door shut.
“You’ll have to do it in an unassuming way,” Cassandra said as she, too, stood up. Marcus and the blonde followed her lead, although Marcus looked pretty resentful as he did so. “You need to make her feel heard and understood, but also make it clear that you aren’t budging. She gets this or nothing at all. Understand?”
I was so shocked I couldn’t even formulate words. All I did was nod as they left the office, following Rhett’s footsteps.
How the hell did I just get here? Two hours ago, I was planning to leave for Thailand in a week. Now I had managed to agree to pay off a fraudulent baby mama in order to make sure she didn’t cause even more problems with the public.
This was absolutely insane.
5
Rhett
Did I feel bad about the task that I’d given Sarah? A little. Was I going to change my mind?
Absolutely not. There was a part of me that felt like this was a test of her in some way. Like, even though I’d virtually forced her to take the job, I needed to make sure she could handle me as her boss.