“Sort of,” Graham answers. “She’s definitely not your ticket to success. You need to show yourself as a strong, confident leader so we don’t risk what we did with Damian. We need to keep the shareholders’ and our new talents’ trust. If they leave—if Horace Lin leaves—you’re back to square one.”
“How am I to do that?”
“You need to distance yourself fromthe intern,” Hana says. “Come out and say it was a temporary personal affair that started outside work and ended once you learned she’s an intern, and it has not affected your performance or Infinio’s standards. This officeincidentwas a lapse of judgement, and it will never happen again.”
The answer knocks the air out of me, and I gape at her.
“No.”
“This is your company, Mark,” Graham says. “You founded it and built it from the ground up. Is it worth throwing it all away for a fling with this frivolous girl?” He raises his voice now. He’s taking this personally. He practically built this business with me.
“Don’t call her that.”
“Have you seen her as anatmosphere model? What everyone sees online?” Graham asks and nods to Nia, who again turns the laptop to me, but I don’t miss the scowl she sends Graham’s way. She doesn’t like this narrative.
There’s a folder with photos of a girl, clearly Rey, in various costumes and levels of undress, leaning on men, laughing, dancing and prancing around. I shut the lid so hard I may have broken the machine. I can’t deny how it looks in this context, and I struggle to see past it.
Fuck, I can’t do this to her.
We just went through this.
She trusts me to accept her for who she is.
“It’s part of the job,” I say. I’ll defend her until I die, but I hate that there’s a small part of me that wishes I didn’t have to. “She’s a woman people love being around.”
My lead PR consultant pipes up. “It doesn’t matter what the truth is or what her intentions are. This is the story that’s being told online, and you need to distance yourself from it.”
“What exactly is the story? Tell me what the problem is so I can understand how to solve it. What’s within my power to do?”
“The primary problem is that she’s an intern,” the PR consultant says. “But with the stories online now, we can spin it so she looks like she intentionally reeled you in and?—”
I stand up abruptly, sending my chair into the wall behind me. “Get the fuck out.”
“Excuse me?”
“Get the fuck out of this office. We’re not going tospinanything and especially not about Rey.” My gaze meets Nia’s, and she nods fiercely. “I pride myself on being honest. So I’ll be honest. How’s that?”
“What are you thinking?” the PR consultant asks.
“I’m thinking: what the hell are you still doing here? I told you to leave. Don’t make me say it again.”
Everyone’s silent while he packs up and leaves, his eyes the size of saucers as he looks at his team.
“Either of you have a better idea? Or do you want to follow your team lead out?”
“Whatisthe truth?” the younger woman on the PR team asks tentatively.
I retrieve my chair and sit back down.
“I met her at The Orion. She made me laugh and I liked her. We stayed in touch, and when I went to meet her, I realised she’s Rey.” It’s easier to keep it short. Pushing the words out.
“And is that when the relationship started?”
I scratch a speck on the table. “No. Not then. I mean, I met her, but as me. She didn’t know I was … Robin.”
You could drop a pin in the room and hear it.
“Robin?” she asks. “Oh right, you met as Alice in Wonderland and Robin Hood according to the blog.”
