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I never did.
Somehow, the only time I’d ever messed up on screen was purposely.
And this was the one time I’d never watched myself back.
I hadn’t fucked up.
Everything I’d done had been with intent.
Every-damn-thing.
I wasn’t sure how he knew I was there, but Conor spun his seat around and grinned at me a second before he shoved a massive spoonful of frozen custard into his mouth.
He pulled off his earphones, placed them on the table, and with that, the sound boomed around the room.
Wincing, I asked, "Why are you watching this?"
"Because I like to know who we’re getting into bed with."
My lips curved. "You should be so lucky."
"Oh, I fear I’m taken," he declared, one hand flying wide in a grandiose gesture that was worthy of an actor in a Shakespearean play. "But I know someone who isn’t." He squinted at me a second, then turned back to face the monitors in question.
Yep.
Monitors.
He pressed a button and, suddenly, there were six of me in front of him.
Six of me sitting behind the desk, a smile planted on my face that looked innocent as fuck. I’d been practicing for this moment all my life. I knew how to be an airhead. I knew how to sell a look, to let everyone think there was nothing going on between my ears.
How wrong they were.
How fucking wrong they were.
It took thirty-four years to forge a reputation, and thirty-three seconds to destroy it.
"Wasn’t that fascinating?" I declared to the camera, just as it panned wide to Stewart Allsheim, my co-anchor. "Who knew a cat could knock on a door?"
"I can see why the video has gone viral," Stewart agreed, a smarmy smile fixed in place that he thought made him seem engaging. He was wrong. "But we’re going to look at a video that’s hit one hundred million views and its audience is already growing."
The screen cut off, and though it appeared to be a TikTok video fading into view, it wasn’t.
I’d cut through a Chanel purse for this, making a slit in the lining so I could place two phones there and have them record both of us throughout the entire interview.
Having positioned it on the coffee table, between myself and Derick Wintersen, the studio VP who was capable of making or breaking a career at TVGM, at the time I’d had to hope that I’d get us both at the right angle.
God had been on my side.
Wintersen was a fat fuck, who looked like Jaba the Hut on a good day, and hadtheworst breath I’d ever smelled in my life.
He’d also left me alone.
From the first day I’d shown up there to that very moment. I knew why too. Aidan. It wasn’t my daddy or my name, a standing in society that I’d always courted, it was Aidan.
The Five Points.
They’d protected me from this creep.
