He smiled despite his mounting despair. “Can I walk you back?”
Once she was safely inside the guest house, Jamie’s bodycrumpled on the porch steps. He rested his still-damp forehead against the towering white column. Tonight, in revealing his secret, he regained a piece of his soul. Tomorrow, when he regretfully signed his new contract, he would give it all away.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“What’s in the box?” Shay squealed on FaceTime the next morning.
Brinton’s phone was propped against a coffee mug on the guest house kitchen’s gray marble counter. Next to it, there was an expensive-looking lavender package, crowned with a huge iridescent bow.
Earlier, Brinton had discovered it on the doorstep. It was almost too gorgeous to open.
“What’s in thebox?” Shay repeated, louder now and dragging out her vowels for effect. In her own office at the clinic, she bounced in a furry fuchsia swing chair. The tiny but joyful space was decorated completely in “pussy-pleasing” shades of pink, from the pinstripe wallpaper behind her to the custom Lucite desk, where she gleefully rested her elbows.
“Did you watchSevenagain last night?” Brinton laughed at the inevitable. Nobody should be simultaneously so well-adjusted and unhinged, but that was Shay to a T.
“You know grisly crime thrillers make me sleep like a baby,” Shay cooed. She looked like a living, breathing Warholpainting in her peony denim jumpsuit and signature strawberry lipstick.
“Now, answer the damn question.”
“It ain’t Gwyneth Paltrow’s head.”
Shay cast a wicked smile. “Of course, that would be horrible.” She paused. “Is it Agatha’s? I’ll pretend to act shocked.”
Agatha was a more senior music writer atLandmark,despite only being there for a year.In fact, Brinton had helped onboard her. Back then, before the knives came out, they were cordial. They even ate lunch together a few times in the break room. That was, until Agatha picked up a nasty habit of saddling Brinton with tedious research and fact-checking that she couldn’t be bothered to do herself. Agatha also claimed it as her own whenever Rich asked.
Brinton rolled her eyes, desperate to shuck off the Agatha-shaped albatross slung around her shoulders. “Look, there’s a card.”
Carefully, Brinton slid open the thick lavender envelope with a butterknife.
“‘Bee, thank you for seeing me for more than the headlines. Hope we can put some miles on this one together. Yours, Jamie.’”
Yours.
The word melted into her subconscious. After the whirlwind of last night, her first in Iris, “yours” had taken on new meaning. His secret was certainly hers now, as unsettling as it was.
Shay shrieked, ripping Brinton from her Escherian mental maze. “Bee? He gave you a nickname? Okay, Lake Bae.”
Brinton had filled Shay in on her eventful evening but purposely left out the endearing—and jeez, sexy—nickname. She was hoping to avoid this exact conversation.
“He was being nice. It’s not that serious,” Brinton said,failing to snuff out her smile. Wasn’t it serious though? The man put in a hell of a lot of effort. Effort that overwhelmed her with gratitude as much as it made her head spin.
Brinton gently peeled the wrapping paper from its matching box. Inside, there was a brand-new, high-end voice recorder with twenty different buttons, cloud-based storage, and Bluetooth features.
She gasped. “I have to give this back. It’s way too much.” Her last recorder was a budget find that met her requirements: it had an on button, off button, and complimentary next-day shipping.
Shay’s eyes widened in disbelief. It was the same look their mother had when someone said they didn’t like Tyler Perry’s movies.
“You will not. You will march your cute little ass to his house and thank him. And while you’re at it, tell him that yes, you’ll avenge his daddy’s misdeeds.”
“I told you, I’m not doing it,” Brinton answered.
“You told me that you’d think about it,” Shay volleyed back.
“Well, I thought about it. I’ll pick a new angle…Influences on his new album or something.”
“Wow, that’s so…uncharacteristically mid-tier. That’snota world-class exclusive, and you know it.”
Brinton tugged her black mock-neck top’s snug collar. She hated the idea too. Unfortunately, in five minutes, she was due to give a status update during her daily editorial meeting with the team in New York. She was as excited for it as an unmedicated root canal.
