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“Okay, he’s good,” Derrick agreed while keeping his eye on the photo shoot in progress. “It’s just that his photographs are a little conventional.”
“Conventional?” Chess scoffed. “Did you see what I just saw?”
“I saw what you saw, but Sasha would’ve given us even more creativity.”
“Sasha is pretty creative and always gives us something out of the box. I’ll give you that,” Chess admitted. “But you know how fickle and unreliable she can get. The last time we worked with her, she kept us working for over eighteen hours because she wanted the perfect picture, then she ended up deleting that picture because Felicity talked some smack.”
“Yeah,” Derrick added, “but Felicity isn’t here so I’m sure Sasha would’ve been fine.”
The reminder that Felicity wasn’t here was enough to sober Chess up. She glanced at Derrick through the corner of her eyes. Had he really framed Felicity for his crime?
Stop it!She gave herself a mental slap.Derrick would never do something so vile.
“Oh, I need to ask something,” Derrick’s whispered words cut into her thoughts.
“What?” She leaned closer.
“Kendall’s got chemo today,” he explained. “Is it okay if I don’t come to work in the afternoon?”
“It’s okay,” she agreed quickly, in part because of the traitorous thoughts she’d been having just seconds ago. “Just make sure the new list of influencers is ready by tomorrow afternoon.”
“Don’t worry.” Derrick grinned. “You’ll get your list.”
It wasn’t until Chess was in her car, on her way back to the office, that she realized that there was something wrong with Derrick’s request. Kendall had chemo? Then why had she offered to pick up their boys from soccer practice in the evening? Usually, after chemo she was too weak to do anything other than sleep.
Had Derrick lied to Chess?
No, he couldn’t have, she insisted. But even as she did so, there was a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. When she got to a red light, she immediately called Kendall.
“Hey, Chess,” Kendall greeted her cheerfully.
“Hi.” Chess paused a beat before saying, “I’m just confirming that you’re still picking the boys up.”
“Yeah. Yeah,” Kendall confirmed. “Nothing’s changed.”
“You sure?” Chess offered, “I thought you might have chemo today.”
“No, that’s on Thursday.”
“Okay, good to know.” Chess ended the call.
But still, she was unwilling to believe that Derrick had lied to her. He’d probably just made an innocent mistake and confused the dates or something. Maybe she should let him know that Kendall didn’t have chemo today.
Chess reached for her phone again. But something in her kept her from dialing.
She was too scared that she’d find out that she’d been played for a fool.
Two days later, she found out that not making that call was a big mistake. If she’d made that call, she might’ve thwarted the next disaster.
“Chelsea!” Nathan burst into her office in a panic. “The photos from the shoot have been uploaded to a forum online.”
“What?” Chess looked up in shock. “Tell me you’re joking.”
“I’m not joking. It’s on…” Nathan rapped out the URL of a popular forum. “Check it for yourself.”
With her heart in her mouth, Chess’s quickly searched the site. The moment she clicked it, several of the pictures Miller had taken stared unblinkingly back at her.
“Oh my God!” she gasped as she shot to her feet. “Have any of the gossip sites found the post yet?”
