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The moment I relay the two security guard names, Henry’s on his phone, barking orders again.
My phone chirped while I was talking to Ronan. I check my texts to see another link from Autumn. Doing my best to steel my nerve, I click on it. “You’re kidding me!” The online edition of the magazine shared a picture from last Thursday night, of Ronan and me at our table in Lux, the moment he seized my foot in his hands when I teasingly kicked him.
It was innocent. Nothing. And yet it could easily look likesomething, especially when it’s coupled with a subhead that reads, “Henry Wolf’s Fiancée Seen Out With Love Interest While Future Husband and Boss in Spain.”
And suddenly it clicks.
“Oh my god.”
“What is it now?” Henry asks, dread heavy in his voice.
“Roshana Mafi is behind this.” Of course, it makes sense.
“That travel magazine journalist?” Henry’s face tightens. “Why would she bother with all this?”
“Because you turned her down and then threatened her if she took out her anger through her article on Wolf Cove. From what I’ve heard, she didn’t take your rejection kindly.” If what Andy relayed was true, Henry told her he was seeing someone, and she claimed to have had the better fuck the night before with Scott. “She was at Lux on Thursday night and then this shows up?” I hold up my phone for him to see.
His teeth grind.
“Roshana came by, pretending not to know how she knows me, but she’s fully aware that you and I are engaged.” Little bits of that conversation click into place. “I told her you were in Spain. She kept calling me your assistant after I corrected her and then told me to enjoy my weekend, as if she knew this article was going to drop. And then this picture releases? This is alltoocoincidental.”
“Fuck, you might be right.” Henry sighs heavily. “This is about her resentment for me, Abbi, not you.”
“And yet I’m the one wearing the scarlet letter on my forehead!” I knew my misdeeds would come back to bite me.
He reaches for his phone again. “Roshana Mafi, a reporter forLuxury Travel Magazine. Find out how she’s connected to Ben Shaw.” He’s oddly calm compared to five minutes ago.
“Who’s he talking to now?” Violet whispers.
“Still Dyson. That’s his fix-it lawyer. They’re going to be doing this all day. I’m so sorry, Violet. Things are not going as I hoped.” What that hope was, I can’t say, beyond Henry getting to know his daughter. “You don’t have to stay. If you want to get your things, I’ll ask Victor to drive you home.”
“It’s fine.” Violet waves me off. “I still have this assignment to do, anyway. I might have questions.”
I falter. “Are you saying youwantto stay for this disaster?”
She shrugs. “Yeah, I mean, if you don’t mind. And if theangry mandoesn’t care.”
“Theangry manwill be on the phone demanding heads for the next few hours.”
“Oh, I can help with that! I’ve been practicing.” Violet takes a deep breath and declares in a shrill, slightly British accent, “Off with their heads!”
Henry pauses midconversation to frown at his daughter.
Despite everything, I laugh.
* * *
“These no-good reporters,hiding in bushes and making up stories. They’re all a bunch of vultures!” Mama declares. “Why won’t they leave you be?”
I stare up at the ceiling from my reclined position on the couch, still in my plaid pajamas. “Because people keep buying magazines and visiting their sites and making them lots of money.” People like Mama. There was no fight, no questioning when I denied every shred of that article about me and my wanton summer. Mama lapped it up. I think she’s happy to peddle that version—that it’s a media-fabricated story to sell copies—to Greenbank, whether she believes me or not, and I’m happy to let her.
But Ben Shaw isn’t any ordinary “hide in the bushes to get the shot” creep. Dyson called back within an hour with a full dossier. He has worked at reputable papers in New York, Chicago, and Boston. At one point, he was considered an up-and-coming star in the news world. The only problem? Ben Shaw himself isn’t reputable. He got caught faking details. Another time, he created an anonymous source. Soon, there wasn’t a single respectable paper that would buy his stories.
Lucky for him, the gossip magazine he sold to doesn’t value integrity as much as money, and scandal sells as fast as bottled water on a hundred-degree day.
The biggest piece to this puzzle that Superstar Dyson uncovered for us is that Ben Shaw and Roshana Mafi went to journalism school together and are well acquainted. There are several pictures on each other’s social media of them out to dinner with friends in recent years.
“Is there anything Henry can do about it?” my dad asks. I can almost see my parents hunkered over the kitchen table, the phone parked in front of them, my voice carrying over the speaker.
