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Sure! See you at 7.
Hope seizes me.My headache recedes, and my shoulders relax.
She’s not pissed.
I’m relieved by that. So relieved, I almost forget to be upset with herbecause of the article she posted.
“What the hell are you doing?” Theo asks.
I look up from my phone. He looks as if he would like nothing more than to chuck the phone out of the window. “We need to talk about this.”
I reach for my jacket slung over my swivel chair. “Youcan talk about this,” I say, damn near surprising myself. I would never in a million years have thought that I would leave Theo alone to talk to Gigi about her betrayal.
But I haven’t been myself since I met Gigi.
“I need to handle this Gigi business,” I tell him. “You’ll fill me in about what you all decide later.”
“Well, there isn’t reallya Gigi business,” Alex says, perking up. “You see, we need—”
One look from me is all it takes for him to shut up.
I stride out of the room, feeling Theodore’s furious eyes boring into the back of my head. It takes mere minutes to get down the elevators, past the foyer, and into a cab. It takes about ten minutes to get to her house in the heavy Manhattan traffic. Twenty minutes after I leave my office, the cab pulls up in front of her apartment building, a pre-war building on the Upper West Side. Gigi is standing on the sidewalk, dressed in an old tracksuit and sipping a cup of coffee. Her hair is up in a bun and she looks…innocent. Beautiful.
As I approach her, I can’t help but think that she’s the author of the same article that thousands of people across the state are probably enjoying over dinner.
“Hey,” she greets me casually. “What's up?” I hesitate for a moment, my gaze fixed on her. I feel an inexplicable longing, a primal urge to pull her close and kiss her fiercely, to carry her up the stairs and undress her completely. However, Theo's face flashes through my mind, and I feel a twinge of guilt at the thought of leaving him to deal with everything on his own.
I ampissed at Georgina, but I’m also here for my brother. This whole mess was created to protect my brother from her.
I need to see it through.
“Can we talk in your apartment?” I request, wary that some paparazzi may have followed me from my office. The last thing Theo needs is a video of Gigi and me arguing plastered all over the internet. Gigi nods and leads me into the hallway of her apartment and up the narrow, carpeted staircase of a prewar townhouse. Soon enough, we're standing in her brightly decorated living space. She shuts the door behind me but doesn't offer me a seat.
“I’m surprised I heard from you,” Gigi says, bemusement in her eyes.
I gaze at her, perplexed as to what she truly intends with that biting remark. With Georgina, it's difficult to discern what's going on in her mind. She doesn't seem angry, nor does she seem eager for me to tear her clothes off. Deciding to set aside her comment for now, I launch into the reason I came.
“What the hell was that article?”
“What article?”
A wave of fury courses through my head, throbbing in my temples. In an instant, I see the Georgina who had duped me at the party, the one for whom I had paid a hefty price. She was the same person who could flawlessly feign innocence while working relentlessly to undermine you. “Don't act clueless, Georgina,” I snap, my voice louder than intended, but I can't help it.
“Oh,” she says. “Your brother’s campaign.”
Her matter-of-fact tone spikes my headache even further. “You should have come to me before writing about it.”
She raises a brow. “Why?”
My fingers ball into fists.Because,I think.Because we were starting to reach an understanding.
The words sound pathetic even to my ears. There’s no way I’m going to tell Georgina that I’m hurt by her joining forces to write something against my family.
“If you’re suggesting that what happened between us means I can’t do my job, then I can’t help you,” she says, her chin tilted defiantly. “This ismy job, Brandon. Your brother’s team member did something despicable. I have to report it.”
“Before speaking to me?” I manage to say, but it's a struggle to keep my voice steady. I'm even more agitated by how composed she appears to be.
“Yes,” Georgina says simply. “Also, I didn’t know we were on speakingterms.”
