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“I don’t know.” I frowned down at the screen and scrolled until I found the article for the interview I’d agreed to. A frown pulled at my lips.
Zachary’s hands on my elbows held my back against his chest. His breath whispered over my ear, every inhale encouraging me to keep breathing through the panic.
The page loaded in a slow wave, the headline appearing first. “Advocacy for All.” I liked the headline. Short and snappy but to the point. It should draw attention. So, what was Emily worried about? Ice filled my body as the photo loaded. I knew from the instant it started that it wasn’t the photo I’d posed for during the interview. It showed a chandelier I’d only seen once before… the night of the gala.
I jerked out of Zachary’s arms and collapsed into the only chair in my room. The burst of cold from the upholstery shockedme but I ignored it to focus on the photo. A picture of me and Zachary at the gala loaded up in its entirety. We stood side by side, Abigail’s hand in mine. Whoever had taken the photo had caught us on our way out of the ballroom. The way we looked at each other. Damn that look on my face. My cheeks heated at more than the memory of what we’d done that night. The photo was damning proof of my attraction to Zachary. I looked up at him like he was my knight in shining armor. And the way he looked at me was purely sexual. There was nothing but raw desire in his eyes. Anyone who looked at it would know the truth.
My hands shook. I gripped the phone tight and closed my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“What?” Zachary dropped to his knees in front of me. He was still naked, but it didn’t seem to bother him. He clasped my icy hands. “What’s wrong?”
A shiver of fear and fury scuttled through my spine, snapping it straight. I flipped my phone around to show him. “I’ll fix it. I swear.”
His eyes narrowed as he looked at my phone. Eyebrows drawn, he smoothed his palms over my forearms. “It’s just a picture.”
I scoffed in his face. “No. Whatever this is, it’s not just a picture. That’s not the picture I agreed to. This article is about my advocacy. Why would they use this picture unless they were trying to hurt me?”
“Have you read it?” Justin asked from his position on the bed. He lay sprawled on his back, his ankles crossed and his arms behind his head. His relaxed posture was probably meant to help soothe me, but it made me feel worse. “It was a gala meant to bring the advocacies together. Maybe that’s why they used that picture.” He squinted at me from across the room. “I don’t see anything wrong with it.”
I stood, wrenching free of Zachary’s hold. “You don’t see anything wrong with it?” I stalked across the room and shoved the phone in his face. “We’re practically fucking each other with our eyes.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” He shrugged and leaned to the side to stare up at me. “No one can prove that it went any further than a look. Read the article and see what it says.”
Basically, he was telling me to calm the fuck down and make sure there was a problem before I flew off the handle. “Emily wouldn’t have called unless it was bad.”
“There’s nothing you can do tonight.” Justin took my hand and tugged me closer. “Don’t let it ruin your night.”
I frowned as I scoured the article. “They’re asking if my interest in advocacy work is really to further women’s rights in sports.” I continued reading, my eyes blurring with a rush of angry tears. “It insinuates that I’m more interested in the youth league’s coach than I am the advocacy.” I breathed out a quick sigh of relief. “They don’t call you by name, Zachary.”
“I don’t care if they do. It’s still wrong.” He was as furious as I was, but he held his temper as he stood and crossed to the bed. “We’ll deal with it, Lucy. All of us together.”
Lennox dragged a hand through his hair, but his expression held no remorse. “No one will believe them, Lucy. Anyone who has ever met you knows the real reason you’re doing the work.”
No. That wasn’t entirely true. This could ruin so much. Emily had sounded furious and scared. She was typically unflappable. If this had her spooked, then there was definitely something to worry about. I wanted to tell them that they were right, and we’d deal with it as a group. That was not going to be possible. As much as I loved them for immediately coming to my side and promising to be with me, I couldn’t let them do that.
“Come back to bed.” Justin grazed my hip with his hand.
I took a step back, forcing his hand to fall away. They wanted to comfort me. Damn them. I wanted to let them comfort me. But I couldn’t.
“Lucy?” Lennox tipped his head to the side, surveying me with intense scrutiny. “Please don’t let this bother you. We’re all going to be okay.”
“You don’t know that.” My breath wheezed out through the constriction in my throat. This was what I’d been worried about. I reached the bottom of the article and scrolled back up to the top to read it again.
Zachary draped my robe around my shoulders and pulled it snug at the neck. “You’re shaking. Come back to bed. You can keep reading. We’ll figure this out, just come be with us.”
His words were soft but strained.
I jerked my head up from the phone in time to catch the look he shot Justin and Lennox. He was worried. About me or about the ramifications of the article? I opened my mouth to ask but snapped it shut without saying a word. I was afraid of what would come out if I started talking. Part of me wanted to make them leave. The other part—a bigger part—wanted them to stay. That part begged me to climb back into the bed and snuggle in with them. This might be my last chance.
We’d have to face this head-on. We couldn’t let it go.Icouldn’t let it go. “They don’t know about all of you.” I tapped the phone screen after shoving my arms through the sleeves of the robe and tying the belt around my waist. A sudden burst of hope bloomed in my chest. “They speculate about me and Zachary, but there’s no mention of Lennox or Justin.” I analyzed every word in the article, reading it all the way through two more times while pacing the room.
The three of them watched me but didn’t interfere.
“They wrote it as a mixture of my real interview and speculation. Look here.” I turned the phone around to showthem. “Here he writes my exact response to his question about my work. I told him that I’d been trying to get more interest in women’s sports since my own experience as a kid. Then, in the very next line, he says that my attention seems to be more on the men than on my goals. He asks how a possible relationship with the youth league’s coach would interfere with my goals, saying that if I was truly focused on my career and women’s rights, I wouldn’t be swayed by a relationship.” Fury burned hot and then cold. He was right. I’d told myself the same thing day after day. I’d fought against my attraction and told myself that it could never work for this very reason.
But to have it shoved in my face like this made me furious. No one had the right to misrepresent me like this. It made me physically ill to see all my work flushed down the toilet with that one photo. Everyone who saw that photo would think I’d sold out for a relationship. Damn it. Fucking assholes who thought they ruled the world because they had a platform where they could say any random shit that came to mind. I growled and paced until the room spun around me.
“Lucy. Stop.” Zachary’s commanding voice snapped my head up. Concern etched deep lines on either side of his mouth. “Take a breath.” He moved to cut me off when I flipped him the bird. “You can’t solve anything if you respond out of anger. It will make you look guilty. And you have nothing to feel guilty about.” He curled a finger under my chin and brought my head up to meet his eyes. “Hear me. You havenothingto be ashamed of. There’s no reason you can’t have everything. Fuck this asshole. He doesn’t know you.”
