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I whirled, finding a pissed-off-looking Lex standing in the doorway. Her hands were on his hips, and her eyes flashed with anger as she stalked forward, staring right at me.
I cocked my head in confusion as she approached. “Is what true?”
“Don’t play dumb with me,” she scalded, stopping only a few inches away from me.
She was so short that I had to bend my neck fully down to look at her, but somehow, despite the height difference, she was still managing to look down her nose at me.
And the gesture suddenly made me feel very small.
“I’m sorry.” I shook my head. “But I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Nell made it over to us, her eyes darting back and forth between each of us in turn, confusion and hurt filling her face.
“What’s going on?” She asked, her voice hesitant.
“Thisis what’s going on.” Lex reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone, thrusting it over to Nell.
Her eyes raked the screen, and her face, which just moments before had seemed so hopeful, so excited for what was to come, began to fall. Her skin turned ashen the longer she read, and I began to sense the dread rolling off of her.
I tried my best to crane my neck to get a glimpse of what she was reading, but it was no use. Lex had a privacy screen on her phone.
“Is it true?” Nell asked finally, ripping her eyes away from the screen in her hands to me.
“I can’t answer that if I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I bit out, trying to keep the frustration from leeching into my voice.
She extended the phone to me, and I glanced at Lex before taking it. As I brought it over to where I could see it, taking in the headline, my stomach lurched.
“BILLIONAIRE BAD BOY TRIES TO SAVE QUEENS?”,the title read with a headshot of me right under it.
I skimmed the rest of the article, trying to gather all the pertinent details as quickly as possible.
There was a bit of truth in there about how I had bought Lex and Nell’s building and had been sniffing around at some of the other properties in the area. But that was where the truths stopped.
The article went on to outline my supposed intent to tear it all down, converting the space into luxury housing and starting to gentrify the area.
A “source” close to me, it claimed, even outlined how I would be evicting the current tenants, sending them packing before demolition.
I ripped my eyes away from the phone, my heart beating wildly as I turned my gaze back to Nell.
Shit, shit, shit.She was pissed.
“Well,” she said expectantly, tapping her foot against the floor.
“It isn’t... I’m not….” I stammered as my mind tried to keep up with me.
It wasn’t true, none of it.
Other than the parts about me buying her building and looking at a few others.
The only problem was that I couldn’t say any of that.
Until everything was finalized, I was under strict NDAs before me and the city announced the plans for the neighborhood.
Plans that I know for sure Nell would approve of.
“Trying to figure out how to lie to us and cover your ass?” Lex hissed, narrowing her eyes at me.
I started to shake my head, keeping my eyes fixed on Nell, imploring her to believe me. “It’s not true.”
