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"I'm glad," Iona added with a look of approval for her son. "She deserves looking after."
"I can look after myself," Rowan felt compelled to point out, but once again she felt something warm inside her at the knowledge Lysander was watching out for her.
"But you needn't. The paparazzi can be so tiresome," Iona added. "I dealt with them for years because there was no secret who my son's father was."
Rowan hadn't considered that aspect of Baptiste Andino acknowledging his illegitimate son.
"The security detail my son has assigned to me make sure I am not bothered by reporters now. Their photos…" Iona waived her hand in dismissal. "You cannot hide from the cameras, but I do not care if they take my picture. Only if they don't get my good side."
Everyone at the table laughed. Including Rowan. "I know what you mean. They're very good at taking pictures that get you at your worst so they can run stories with all sorts of speculation. One tabloid insinuated that Cyrus and I had divorced because I had a drug problem. The pictures they ran with the article made it look like it could be true."
"Disgusting," Mr. Landry said. "I hope you sued them for libel."
"I didn't need to. They ran a retraction before the other outlets had picked up the story. I guess Cyrus didn't want even his ex-wife besmirching his reputation that way."
"That wasn't Mr. Andino," an affable man who had been introduced as Lysander's media liaison, said. "That was all Lysander. He instructed me to get the story quashed and I did."
CHAPTER 14
Rowan was flummoxed. Lysander had forced the retraction? But why?
She turned to him, needing to know. Why was this ruthless billionaire her secret knight in shining armor? "Why would you do that?"
"You were dealing with enough and I don't like the gutter press."
She had no doubt that was true, but it didn't explain why he'd wielded his immense power on her behalf. There were dozens of licentious and libelous stories out there he could have turned his attention to.
But he'd protectedher.
"He gave me permission to set the big dogs on them." The media liaison named a prestigious and exclusive law firm.
The look Lysander gave him, said the media liaison had been a little too open about his activities on her behalf. The younger man stopped talking and took a hasty sip of his water.
Rowan felt badly for him, but she was glad to know Lysander deserved the White Knight credit and not her ex. Even if she still didn't understand why.
"Wow. Well thank you. It helped. A lot." She'd handled everything else to that point with a pretty even keel, but being accused of drug addiction with those awful pictures as proof had hurt. "If that story had gained traction, my boss would have had no choice but to fire me. The organization can't afford to be associated with that kind of story."
Her director had brought her into his office and told her that very thing. Rowan had been devastated, but then the tabloid had printed the retraction, on the front page no less. Her life had been allowed to go on as normal and she'd kept her job.
She didn't know why Lysander had protected her. They hadn't even been friends then. But she was grateful for it.
He had all the makings of a fairytale knight, but she needed to remember that this story didn't have a happily ever after. No matter what her heart kept insisting it wanted.
She needed to be content with happy for right now. Because she was.
Very happy.
"That is my son, a gentleman and a protector," Iona said complacently. "He is too soft hearted for his own good sometimes, but in this case, I can only applaud his instinct to protect."
The people around the table reacted to that statement with varying degrees of amusement and disbelief.
Lysander shook his head, his own expression well…cranky. "You see me through the eyes of a mother's love. I assure you, I am not soft."
Rowan could attest to that. As soon as she had the thought, she nearly choked on her before-dinner champagne.Naughty Rowan, she chastised herself, but the urge to laugh at her own private little joke was still there.
"Are you alright?" Lysander demanded.
"I'm…" She sucked in air for several seconds. "Fine. Just swallowed my champagne wrong."
