Mac shakes his head, beads of sweat from the hot room running down his temples. “That doesn’t make any sense, Poppy. She was pissed when she found out I went rogue and interviewed with you on my own.”
“No! She wanted you to get close to me. She wanted…” Realization crashes into me. Who am I kidding? Elle is the master of manipulation and subterfuge. She could run circles around Bunny any day. She’s been two steps ahead of Mac and me the entire time. We both played right into her hand as she laid out all the breadcrumbs—right down to distracting me the night of the auction so she could work the JoJo angle.
Pulling in a lungful of hot air, I close the distance between us and grip his damp t-shirt. “Mac, you have to believe me! I never wanted any of this to happen. I’d never betray you like that.”
He steps back and the shirt is ripped from my fingers. His jaw is stone and his eyes are turning blank.
I’m crying ugly tears by this point and I can’t stop. “I love you, don’t you know that?” I don’t even care that I let the l-word out after keeping it so carefully tucked away in my heart all this time.
His voice is low and flat when he responds, “What I know is my life was just fine before you walked into my studio. And now it’s turning to shit again. That’s what I know.”
He steps forward and, for only a split second, I think he’s changed his mind and is coming in for a hug, but he just grips my shoulders with both hands and shifts me aside like I’m nothing but a curtain. Then he opens the door and walks out.
I turn, swiping at my tears. “Mac, no. We can fix this. We’ll sue them if they try to publish any of this.” Screw what Elle said! I’ll find Mac an amazing lawyer and we’ll figure out a loophole or something.
Right, Poppy, like you have any contacts in New York.
He pauses for a brief moment but doesn’t turn back when he says, “I used to think your naiveté was one of your strongest assets.”
His words cut through me and steal my power of speech, so I stand there silently crying as the door slams behind him.
Thirty-One
“Dorothy wasn’t wrong, even if she was from the Midwest.”
– Cookie Rutledge
Jonathan all but shoves me out the door after that, just refraining from kicking me in the ass on my way out. I’m numb and hollow and don’t know where to go, but it’s only ten in the morning and I have yet to show up for work.
The last place I want to go is Warbey, but if that’s the source of the imminent destruction of Mac’s world, that’s where I have to be. I grab a cab and am on the elevator to my office twenty minutes later when I get a text from Athena’s assistant about an emergency meeting in the conference room on the twelfth floor.
I push the appropriate button and drag my ass there with no small doubt as to the meeting’s purpose.
The frenetic vibe almost blows me back as I force myself to walk in the room and take a seat among the half-dozen other people present. I see Kate and Naveed and studiously avoid their eyes.
Athena struts on her four-inch heels toward the head of the table, pausing first by my chair. “Poppy, I’ll need a word with you after the meeting.” Her tone is stern and I want to shrink into myself. This is it.
She takes her place in the seat on the end. “Okay, people, we need to quickly redesign the inaugural issue—new cover, new featured article, new photos. You’re not going to believe what we’ve got! This is exactly the ace in the hole we needed for our first issue. WHL is going to explode!”
She lays out all the facts. How our small urban artisan feature has turned into a double article with a human-interest angle and an exclusive interview. She credits me and Naveed and all I do is stare at the glass surface in front of me, ignoring the looks and comments coming my way. I don’t see how Naveed reacts, but he’s unusually silent, probably because he’s staring at me as well.
“This one comes from the top, so no excuses—let’s get this done!”
“So JoJo is getting pushed?” someone asks.
Athena straightens her stack of papers by tapping the bottom edges on the table. “Not quite. We’re just giving this McKinley guy some prime real estate in the upper right.”
“Did we ever get confirmation that he and JoJo are dating? What ever happened with that?” another person asks and I think it’s the guy from marketing.
Naveed finally pipes up and I want to kiss him—or cry all over his expensive suit. “Dead end. No truth to it.”
“Too bad. That would have been ideal.”
The chatter continues but I block it all out. We’re talking about layouts and page order like we’re not about to rip the rug right out from under the man I love and prove to him that putting his trust in me was the biggest mistake of his life.
But it’s not their fault. It’s all mine. Even if I had nothing to do with this story and the details being leaked by Elle. The fact of the matter is Mac never would have signed that contract if it weren’t for me. He said so himself. He signed it because he wanted to get to know me, and now I’m bringing his world down around him.
I barely make it through the next half hour of hashing out details and assigning tasks so we can hit our deadlines and ensure all our promotional and marketing campaigns reflect the adjustment in the inaugural issue’s focus.
Most of it is a blur until Kate closes the door behind her and I’m the last one left in the room with Athena. She takes a new seat across the table from me and removes her glasses.
“I learned a long time ago to trust my instincts and I’m usually a good judge of character. I want to give you the benefit of the doubt because you don’t strike me as a climber. But I have to ask.” She pauses, maybe to give me a chance to confess something—I’m not sure. But I remain silent so she continues, “I’m curious as to why the higher ups knew about your second interview before we did.” She gives her head a small shake. “I won’t even begin to ask why my creative director was conducting any kind of interview in the first place, but I will tell you it took some quick talking to smooth this out.”
My responding laugh holds zero humor. I wouldn’t blame her if she called the state psych ward to come get me at this point.
“It wasn’t an interview,” I choke out.
“I don’t understand.”
I take a breath to steady my voice. “It was a… personal conversation.”
“Oh.”
I look up at her and watch her brow furrow before realization dawns. “Oooh.”
I lay my hands flat on the table. “Athena, we can’t print any of this. Mac never meant that story to go public. Any of it.”
Her expression switches back to confusion. “Then why did you send the transcript?”
“I didn’t! The wicked witch of Manhattan did.”
She lifts her phone from the table and scrolls through the screen. “Your name is all over this.”
I shake my head. “The bad guys always know how to cover their tracks, or so I’m discovering. But I promise you, this wasn’t part of any interview, so we can’t print it.”
Athena returns my head shake. “I’m so sorry, but my hands are tied. The board wants a big splash and this is just the kind of thing that sells magazines. We’ll all be kissing our careers goodbye if we go against corporate and sit on this.”
“Even if he never agreed to it?”
She sets her phone back down and holds my eyes. “He did agree. When he signed the contract. I’m sorry, Poppy. We’re running the story.”
I draw my hands into my lap. “Is there anything I can do?”
“I’m afraid not.” She gives me a sad smile. “Look, it can’t be all that bad. He comes out of this smelling like roses. I’m sure he’s just a bit surprised because he wasn’t expecting it. And you’re feeling protective, which makes sense. We all protect the ones we love. This will give his career just the boost every artist would kill for. You’ll see.”
The irony of her not caring that I forged a relationship with the subject of an
interview refuses to hit its mark. All I can see is Mac’s look of betrayal and devastation. He doesn’t give two shits about his own image, but he’d fight to the death to preserve his dad’s memory.
I muster up a fake smile. “Thanks for at least believing me. It means a lot.” Especially since the man I love thinks I’m a big fat liar and a sleazy turncoat.
“Of course.” She pushes her chair back. “Now, we’ve all got a big task ahead of us and someone has to break it to JoJo Ames that she’s sharing the spotlight.” Athena widens her eyes in fake horror and I force the corners of my lips back up as she gathers her things and leaves the room.
It’s official. I’ve screwed the pooch and there’s no undoing it.
I pull my phone out and text Mac.
Me: Please talk to me. We can figure this out.
My heart lifts when three dots appear. Mac is texting me. He never texts!
Mac: It’s Jonathan. Please, just leave him alone.
A tear falls on the glass surface of my phone.
Leave him alone.
Yes, I reckon it’s the kindest thing to do, and it’s probably the only thing he’s ever asked of me. It would only be right to give him that.
* * *
“Double check the calendar, ladies, ‘cuz it must be my birthday!” Cookie throws her arms around me, wrapping me in a tight hug and bringing the tears right back up to the surface.
It took me twelve hours and about six gallons of water to rehydrate my body after the Big Apple Shitshow, as I now refer to it.
“Hey, y’all!” Cookie shouts, not bothering to move her head and practically making me deaf in the process. “Look who’s home!”
“Poppy?” I don’t have to look to know Iris just walked in the room. “Poppy!”
Then I’m in the middle of a quadruple-decker sandwich, getting crushed by Cookie, Iris, Mama, and Bunny.
“Let me look at you,” Mama says, but won’t stop squeezing me to allow me to step back even a half inch.
“You haven’t been eating enough. You’re so skinny I could snap you in two!” Bunny declares, pinching my arm.
“No, she’s perfect,” Cookie says back.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t.”
“Let the girl breathe!” Iris shouts. “Mama, stop pulling my hair.”
“It’s caught in my watch. Hold on a darn minute.”
“Grab the kitchen shears, Cookie!”
And, just like that, the tears that were threatening disappear and I’m laughing my ass off in the arms I missed so darn much.
* * *
“Hey there, sweetheart.” A quiet voice sounds behind me.
I’m standing in the kitchen with my head stuck in the fridge a few hours after my arrival at the Violette. It took a good ten minutes to extract myself from my arrival hug and about two more hours for everyone to stop asking me questions. But I didn’t share much. I mostly just basked in the familiarity of family and home.
I straighten and turn, a smile curving my lips.
“Hey, Bobby Lee.”
My eyes scan him from top to toe and he looks good. His warm smile and perfect chin cleft make it impossible to do anything but grin back at him.
I don’t even balk when he comes in for a hug and tucks my head under his chin. He smells like soap and a hint of that hair product that normally stings my nose but does nothing but soothe me at the moment.
“I take it Bunny called,” I say rather than ask.
“I believe she waited a whole five minutes, though, so that’s progress I reckon.”
I laugh. “Yeah, I suppose so.”
He pulls back and looks me over much like I just did to him.
“You look tuckered. Pretty as always, but tuckered.”
I pretend to scowl. “Now, Bobby Lee, I know your mama taught you better than to utter a negative word about a woman’s appearance.”
He puts his hands up like he’s surrendering. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
I sigh. “Between you and me, I could use a three-week nap.”
He smiles again and takes a step back to lean a hip against Cookie’s kitchen counter. “Does that have to do with the job or the guy?” He’s trying to pretend his question is casual, but he’s too concerned to swing it.
I push my hair back from my face and let the refrigerator door close behind me. “Both.”
His jaw ticks and it almost reminds me of Mac. “Will I be needing to book another flight to New York to break that Angus guy’s nose?”
“No.” I don’t tell him I’ll break his first if he lays a hand on Mac. I know he’s trying to be sweet. “Nothing needs any more breaking than I’ve already done myself.”
His head cocks. “What does that mean?”
And then, surprising the hell out of even myself, I tell Bobby Lee Collinsworth absolutely everything.
Including how I’ve been pretending to be someone I’m not; how I fell head-over-heels in love with a man who’d never for a second consider being anyone but who he is; and how, when the game and its players showed their dirty underside and I couldn’t stop the impending disaster, I threw in the towel and came back home.
* * *
The next morning I wake not to the sounds of horns and garbage trucks, but to the sweet song of Carolina wrens singing outside the yellow bedroom’s window. A slow smile spreads its way across my lips as I stretch my arms over my head. Until I remember.
It’s only Wednesday, so I know the WHL staff is hard at work up in Manhattan picking apart Mac’s life while he either escapes back to New Jersey or spends his time hammering out his misery in his forge. I briefly wonder if he’s picturing my face every time the hammer comes down.
I’ve been racking my brain since Monday to figure out a way to stop this story from breaking, but the truth of the matter is I have zero influence over anybody in that town. Hell, I couldn’t even get the barista at the coffee shop to get my drink right half the time.
Naveed and Kate have been blowing up my phone with texts and calls. Neither one of them seems to know what happened or where I went. From their texts, it doesn’t sound like Athena’s told them about me handing in my resignation, but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before word gets around and Jenna begins her official campaign to take over my position.
At least now that I’m gone, Mac’s mother won’t be knocking on my door anytime soon. Not that it’s much consolation. I’d still relish the opportunity to kick that woman’s ass.
My phone vibrates on the bedside table and I groan. I thought I’d shut off my notifications, but clearly I haven’t. When I pick it up, there’s a notification of a new text on my lockscreen.
One press of my thumb and I read a message from Bobby Lee followed by a link to an online article.
Bobby Lee: Thought you’d want to see this.
I click through to the article and sit straight up in bed at the headline.
“CEO of Sterling Hotels Indicted on Six Counts of Money Laundering and Forgery”
My phone vibrates again and Bobby Lee has sent me another link. I quickly tap it.
“Daughter of Shipping Magnate Dan Tenneson Arrested on Manslaughter Charges”
I gasp, but in comes another link. I can’t click fast enough or stop to wonder how Bobby Lee happened to find all this stuff.
The last link isn’t to a newspaper article but to the celebrity section of the very familiar WHL website instead.
“JoJo Ames Puts a Rest to Rumors”
My hand flies to my mouth when I see the byline is none other than Naveed Shah.
“After weeks of social media tittering, JoJo Ames broke the news yesterday that she is not, in fact, dating the handsome New York blacksmith and furniture designer, Angus McKinley.
“Representatives for Ms. Ames commented that she is busy working on next summer’s collection for her line of designer athleticwear and is putting romance on the back burner for now.
“When asked to comment on the infamous photo—you al
l know the one I mean (Hello, smolder!)—Mr. McKinley denied any relationship as well. It turns out neither had even met until that night.
“’I’m sure she’s nice but I haven’t so much as shaken her hand.’”
I bite my lip at that, wondering how much self-control it must have taken Mac to make the “nice” comment.
“Since Ms. Ames isn’t on his radar, we asked the dashing Mr. McKinley what he looks for in a woman (You’re welcome).
“’I’m partial to redheads. Southern redheads.’”
My eyes go wide and I keep reading.
“But don’t get too excited, all you Dixieland gingers. When asked about his relationship status, here’s what he had to say:
“’Not that it’s your business but, no, I’m not single.’”
I squeal and throw the covers aside, the phone shaking in my hand when I read the last bit.
“Be sure to subscribe to WHL to read full interviews from JoJo Ames and Angus McKinley’s in January’s issue of the new WHL magazine.”
“Omigod, omigod, omigod!” I race down the stairs in my pajama shorts and tank top as fast as my bare feet will take me.
What has that man done?!
I almost fling open the front door before I realize I need to make a plan and can’t just go rushing back to New York in little more than my drawers and a smile.
But I need to get to Mac.
“Where’s the fire?”
I skid to a stop on the hardwood and look over to see Bunny sipping her coffee on Cookie’s good sofa, her dyed blond hair in a genuine bouffant.
“Sorry, Bunny, I can’t talk. I’ve gotta…” I trail off because it’s too much to explain and ain’t nobody got time for that.
“Come and sit over here, dear.” She pats the seat next to her. “There’s nothing so important it can’t wait for a cup of coffee and a chat with a close friend.”
I want to tell her how very wrong she is. That if I don’t see Mac as soon as humanly possible, I might just die of frustration and an exploding heart.
Game Changer Page 28