What the hell was going on with him? East would have to ask. East was the sensitive one. The one with the heart. People liked him. They told him shit, right?
There was also an unexpected visitor on one of the couches opposite of East. Brenda Fornace. She was our publicity person. "Was there a meeting on the calendar?" I asked.
Ben shook his head and pinned me with a glare. I wondered what the fuck had crawled up his arse.
Brenda stood. "Bridge, it's good to see you."
"Likewise. What's the matter?"
East just shook his head at me. "Mate, did you have to get caught? By paps no less?"
I frowned. "Caught doing what?"
Drew laughed. "Well, we could draw you a diagram, but from the looks of the photo, you already know who we're talking about."
I glanced around at my mates. "What the fuck are you on about?"
Brenda brought the paper over. "This ran this morning."
It was a photo of me looking disheveled, unkempt, and freshly fucked at the Bornan Benefit last week. Oh yes, Anisa Bucker? She and her husband were always on the verge of divorce according to him. "Yes, it was a little cliché, but what’s the problem? I didn’t notice anyone with a camera afterward."
"Well, it’s a problem now," Brenda muttered as she planted her hands on her hips.
Bullshit. After all the shite Ben and East had pulled over the last several years, I’d be damned if she was going to crawl up my arse because I’d shagged a model. "Why? First of all, the photo doesn't show me actually shagging the woman, so what's the problem?"
Ben stood up. "The Zicks Hotel, remember them?"
I really had slept like shit. My normally sharp mind was sluggish. I tried to piece together why the hell everyone was pissed off. We were working on their merger. The Zicks hotel chain was one of the largest privately owned hotel conglomerates in the world. While Emma had been asking what the fuck we were doing about Middleton, this merger was part of that.
Francis Middleton had had a hard-on for the Zicks account for their private management and branding for years. Rumor was that he'd dated the one and only Zicks heiress and the family had deemed him inappropriate and run him off. Which was ridiculous. His father was a lord. But ever since, he'd wanted in with the company.
"You were caught, mate. The grand dame, Fredericka Zicks, has already emailed about it. She wants to discuss our future partnership."
I cursed under my breath. "Are you fucking kidding me? That was nearly a done deal."
Drew winked at me. "Well, until you undid another deal. Was it a socialite this time? A model? Who was it?"
I scowled at him. "Shut it. We'll just do a charity benefit or something. Take the attention off."
Brenda laughed. "No PR campaign is going to make her unsee this. You literally look like you were just shagging someone in the cupboard. Were you?"
Yep, sure was. I winced. "Fine, I’ll meet with the old lady. Smooth her feathers. Not a big deal."
Brenda’s phone buzzed and she excused herself for a moment.
When she was gone, Ben leaned forward. "It's a big deal. This was how we were going to go after Middleton," Ben said. His eyes were direct and clear. No joking. No laid-on charm. He was serious.
I slid my gaze to East for help. There was no way I had fucked us so badly with one transgression. I refused to accept this.
East only shrugged. "Mate, I have tried to find every other avenue around Middleton. He is squeaky clean. The only way we get in is this way. And let me break it down for you; he knows his mates have already gone down. He already suspects it was us, but I have a feeling he's going to be slippery. We can't afford to lose this opportunity."
Brenda strolled back then with a glower pinned on me.
"What do you want me to do about it? Like I said, I’ll talk to the old lady."
Brenda sniffed. "That’s not going to be enough this time, pretty boy. But I could come up with a plan for you."
"Oh, yeah? Fine, whatever it takes. I'll do it."
"I'm so glad to hear you say that, because this plan involves you getting married."
I turned my head to glare at my mates and laughed. "You have got to be kidding me."
She shook her head, her red bob bouncing along her stout shoulders. "No, I'm not. You need a reputation change. You've gone a little off the rails since Mina. This will fix it."
The fuck? Like I needed some kind of public lobotomy. It wasn’t happening. "Then I guess we're not fixing it because getting married is the last thing on earth I'm doing."
Emma
That motherfucker.
He had locked me in a room like an intractable child. I was going to murder him.
I'd woken up to find the door open, so at least last night wasn't a staged kidnapping to make me his sex slave.
He'd have to want you first.
Fine, my ego could take the hit. What did I care?
I'd headed home that morning, and then I'd put out the 999 to the women. I probably should have gone to them first anyway. I just had thought that Bridge was my direct line. Because my brother, like the lads, had been part of that world. And I knew that they loved him nearly as much as I did. They'd gone to all this trouble to make things right. Except, it seemed they wouldn't make the final step.
They will. They're just not letting you take it with them.
God, I hated them.
No. You don’t. They’re your family.
With my mum splitting her time between Toronto and New York with her sisters, and my father just as absent as he’d ever been, the lads were my family. Which was why it hurt so much that they were shutting me out. After a shower and a strong coffee, I'd sent out the SOS to the girls text group. The group consisted of Livy Ashong, Ben’s fiancée; Nyla Kincade, East’s fiancée; Telly Brinx, Livy’s bestie; Amelia, Nyla’s partner at INTERPOL and the women from the Winston Isles. Penny was the queen, and Jessa, Ariel and Bryna, were all princesses. It had been Telly, our resident tech genius, who had replied first. And then all the girls in the group chat had chimed in. Penny and Ariel had been all about the have-to-make-them-pay attitude. Okay, who was I kidding? That was mostly Ariel. She was terrifying when she got going. There was almost no line that was too far to cross short of murder. And I loved every ounce of her.
But Penny, Ariel, Bryna, and Jessa weren't here. So it was going to have to be Telly, Livy, and Nyla. Telly suggested meeting up at her place so that the boys couldn't spy on us. Which was smart. Because as down for the cause as Livy and Nyla were, the boys made it impossible to keep anything a secret. And once one of them knew, they all knew. They gossiped worse than teenagers.
So that night as I skipped up the walk toward Telly's place, I glanced around. I loved this complex of flats. They had that whole work-living feel to them, and if you were lucky, you could get one that overlooked the Thames. Those were more money of course. I had some money saved from my last job, but I had to ask Telly and see if I could even afford a small studio there.
And that was why the next line item was to get a job. Luckily, the job that Bridge secured for me in New York to keep me out of his hair completely overpaid me, and they’d made me an offer to let me keep working while I was back in London. I just had to write marketing plans, which were easy, and I could do it in my sleep. And that would tag me over until I had something more permanent.