Chapter Eleven
River
Iknow something is wrong as soon as I get to Alice's office in downtown Los Angeles on Thursday. Everyone is eyeing me sideways. They're also giving me a wide berth, like they expect me to erupt at any minute.
What the fuck?
I pull my phone out of my pocket to dial Samantha, hoping she can give me a heads up before I walk into a shitshow, but the call goes straight to voicemail. I'm not entirely surprised.
I apologized for threatening to fire her, but she's still not completely over it. I don't blame her for that, but I'm not sure how to fix it, either. She crossed a line by trying to dictate my personal life. I won't tolerate that, no matter how much she does for me professionally.
Maybe I shouldn't have jumped straight to threatening to fire her, but she needed to know that she has no place in a damn thing that I decide to do with my personal life, particularly when it comes to Jasmine. She isn't my mother. She isn't my older sister. She's my assistant. I value the hell out of what she does for me, but there's a limit.
"River." Alice pokes her gray head out of her office, her expression somber. "Come in."
I climb to my feet, stalking across the reception area toward her. She holds the door open, not saying anything. I step inside, taking a quick glance around.
Alice is nothing if not predictable. Her office hasn't changed at all in the ten years I've known her. The same books are on the shelves, the same framed photos hang on the wall. Hell, she's still using the same exact chipped pencil cup on her oversized, cramped desk and the same eucalyptus oil in the diffuser in the corner.
I wait until the door closes before spinning to face her.
"What the fuck is going on?" I ask, pinning the petite, middle-aged woman with a firm look. "Your entire staff has been looking at me like they're expecting me to lose it all goddamn morning."
She blinks wide gray eyes at me. "You don't know."
"Know what?"
"River, a big chunk of your latest manuscript was leaked online," she says, her voice soft. "It's all over the place."
"What?"
She motions for me to follow her to her desk, then spins her laptop around to face me. I stare at the screen, my stomach churning.
"Jesus Christ," I whisper, trying to process what I'm seeing. That's pages from my manuscript, pulled up on some fucking website I've never even heard of before now. "What the fuck, Alice?"
"That's what I was going to ask you," she says.
"I didn't leak the motherfucker!" I growl, glaring at her. I pace away from her desk, then right back to stare at the screen again. "What the fuck?"
My stomach churns, bile crawling up my throat. Who the fuck would leak this? Who even had access to leak it?
"I don't…" I shake my head, tugging on strands of my hair.
"You need to file a police report," Alice says, moving swiftly around the side of her desk. "Try to get ahead of this now."
"Get ahead of it? It's already out there!" I remind her, pointing at the screen. "The whole goddamn world has access to pages from a book that isn't even finished yet." I shove a hand through my hair. "How much of it is out there?"
"More than you'd like," she admits. "The first six chapters. And we don't know if there's more coming. Who has access to it other than you?"
"Just Samantha and…" I trail off, refusing to even say her name.
"Who?"
"Doesn't matter," I mutter. "She wouldn't have done this." There isn't a chance in hell that Jasmine would have leaked it…right?
You had her arrested, a little voice whispers.
I fucking hate that little voice. It sounds like betrayal. Hell, itfeelslike betrayal. Jasmine has never done anything to make mesuspect she could do something like this, not even after I had her arrested.
