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“All right. All right,” Mary repeated, and Austin could practically hear the wheels turning. “I’ll send you the link for the interview. Watch it and then call me back. We need to get in front of this, fast. What about Kit?”
“What about her?” Other than the fact that she was going to lose her shit when she heard about this. He needed to call her, tell her what was going on before she got the news from someone else.
“How’s she going to take this? It hasn’t even been a week since that damn tabloid article and now this. She going to be okay?”
“I don’t know. I need to call her.”
“You do that. I’ll do what I can for now and then I’ll swing by your place in a bit so we can figure out a game plan.”
Hanging up with Mary, he dialed Kit’s office number, but was routed to the ice queen, as he’d not-so-affectionately dubbed her admin. “Donna, put me through to Katherine. Please.”
“Ms. Callahan is in a meeting. May I take a message?”
“This is Austin. I need to talk to her. Now.”
“Ms. Callahan is in a meeting,” Donna repeated primly, her voice not warming even a fraction of a degree. If anything it seemed to cool even further.
Goddammit. “Fine. Have her call me the second she wraps up.”
He jabbed his thumb at the End button and pulled up his texts with Kit.
Call me. I need to talk to you. I love you.
The text would probably freak her out before he even had a chance to talk to her, but it couldn’t be helped.
Dropping his head back against the seat of the car, he willed his rioting stomach to calm.
What a fucking mess.
* * *
Katherine
Leaning back in her chair,Kit let her head fall back and closed her eyes. It wasn’t even two yet and she was ready to walk out the door. Everyone was just so damn needy today, and her calendar already hadn’t left much space open as it was.
A brisk knock on the door had her sighing, but she forced herself to sit up straight again and face whatever new problem had cropped up. “Come in.”
The door swung open and Donna walked in. If possible, she seemed more stiff and formal than usual. “Your… gentleman friend is in the news again.”
“Austin?” Alarm bells rang in her head, and she was instantly alert. “What’s wrong? Is he okay?”
“I knew there was something wrong with that man. I never trusted him.”
Never trusted him? What the hell? “Donna, what are you talking about?”
Her admin’s chin jerked toward the laptop on Kit’s desk. “Check your email.”
Stomach in knots, Kit spun and opened her email. Seeing the message from Donna, she opened it and clicked the link.
Austin Barrick’s ex-Lover Tells All
Oh, god. With trembling fingers, she hit play on the embedded video. Sitting on a couch in what appeared to be a brightly lit television studio was a tearful-looking Chloe Carlisle. Almost in a trance, Kit listened to her talk all about the “depraved” things Austin had subjected her to.
And whenever he was in town, we would… he would make me go to this underground sex club with him. He would parade me around like I was some kind of show pony. It was humiliating, but I didn’t know how to make it stop.
One word. All she’d had to do was say one single word and everything would have come screeching to a halt. Kit wanted to scream at the computer screen, but it wouldn’t have done any good. The damage was already done.
Unable to listen to another word of Chloe’s lies, Kit clicked the button to stop the video.
