Landslide

by NJ Cole

  She caught me completely off guard with her question. I wasn’t aware it was public knowledge that I’d gone to Paris. “Uh, yeah. How did you know I was in Paris?”

  “Darling,” she laughed, “everyone is going to know you were in Paris—you and your friend.”

  “What?” I asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  She handed me a large manila envelope. When I opened it, dozens of 8x10 photographs slid onto the table. They were all of Kenzie and me in Paris. In some of the photos, we were just together, or perhaps holding hands. In several others, we were kissing, and in the last few, we were barely dressed.

  “How the hell?” I asked, though I had a pretty good idea—Elise and Gigi. Those bitches would pay.

  “Now, don’t get all upset. My father is a very powerful man, and he has controlling interest in the paper that this photographer works for. I’m sure he would have these photos destroyed if I asked him to.”

  “You would do that?” I asked, waiting for the catch.

  “Of course,” she responded, sliding closer to me. “I would do anything for my fiancé́.”

  “Your what?”

  “Listen, Maxi. You know that I’d be a great political asset for you. With the support of my father and his friends, you’d have enough money to make a run for the White House.” My head was reeling with what she was saying. “Of course, you couldn’t run around. You’d have to give up your little plaything.”

  Her words made my blood boil. “She’s not a plaything. She’s so much more than that.”

  “Do you seriously think the two of you would have a future together? What about when you get bored with her and want something new? What about when she gets bored with you? You can’t possibly think this would last.”

  “We have feelings for each other,” I argued.

  She snorted in laughter. “Oh, please, Max. Did she tell you she loved you? What is she? Twenty-one? She doesn’t know what love is. What happens when this comes out? Did you think of that? Yes, it will be the end of your career, but imagine what will happen to her. The paper will have a field day with her. She’ll be labeled as a slut…maybe even a whore.”

  I felt like I was going to be sick. It was a lose/lose situation any way you looked at it. If this came out, I was going to lose my career, and Kenzie would be publicly humiliated. If I went along with the plan, she’d be hurt, and I couldn’t bear the thought of being without her.

  “Look, I’m sure she’s a great piece of ass, but I promise you, I’m very talented in the bedroom. Tonight, after you announce our engagement, I will be more than happy to show you.”

  “There is no way—” I started to argue but she cut me off.

  “Listen, Maxi,” she said, changing her tone. “I know it’s a lot to think about, but you will do the right thing. The decision is simple. If you pick her, you lose your career and your reputation along with destroying her completely. And in a few months—if even—the relationship will be over anyway when one of you gets bored. Or you can choose me. I’m a ticket to the White House. You have until midnight tonight to decide whether or not you want to announce our engagement or end your career. Oh, and when you make the decision I know you will, I do expect one hell of a ring.”

  I sat there stunned for a full minute after she left. For the past seven months, and even more so in the past week, I’d felt like I’d been in a landslide. The ground had been moving, but for the better. It was taking me to a brighter place, making me happier. Now I felt the opposite happening. It still felt like a landslide, but the ground was falling out from under me. I felt like I was being drug down, too, rocks crushing me as the dirt piled on thicker and thicker. I seriously wondered if I’d ever see the sun again.

  And then there she was—my sun—walking into the restaurant. I knew I couldn’t have her, though; I couldn’t drag her into this. The press would eat her alive, and for what? Maybe Tiffany was right. She may have said she loved me, but did that mean she wanted to spend the rest of her life with me? She could do much better than me, anyway.

  “Hey,” she said when she’d reached the table. She looked amazing. Why did she have to look so damn good? I knew what I was about to say would upset her, so I wanted to talk to her in private.

  “Take a walk with me?” She smiled, no doubt thinking that I wanted some alone time with her so we could kiss. It was going to be harder than I thought. Not only was I about to break her heart, I was about to break mine, too.

  “We need to talk.” She stiffened up at those words, anticipating that what I was about to say wasn’t going to be good. We sat on a bench in the courtyard and she looked up at me anxiously. “Someone knows about us.”

  She gasped. “What? How?”

  “It doesn’t matter, but there are pictures.”

  “Oh, God! Does my dad know? Does everyone know?”

  I shook my head. “Not yet…not ever, if I can help it.” She was silent. “There is someone who offered to help me.”

  “That’s good.”

  “The thing is, you and I can’t see each other any more.” She looked down at her hands and her hair was covering her face, but there was no doubt she was crying.

  “Don’t you love me?” she asked, her voice breaking and causing my own tears to spill over.

  “Of course I love you. If you had any idea just how much I love you…I love you more than—”

  “Then why?”

  “Sometimes love isn’t enough. And…and…it would ruin my career. And yours, too, before it even begins.”

  “Max?” I heard Carter call from the entrance to the courtyard.

  “So there’s no hope?” she whispered.

  “Look, Kenzie, I mean…it’s not like you would have wanted to spend the rest of your life with me.”

  I turned to leave as she wept into her hands. Wiping my own tears away, I walked toward Carter.

  “Yeah, yeah I would have.” I heard her broken reply when I was nearly to the door.

  It caused my heart to soar and fall at the same time. The cost was just too high. I couldn’t put her in that type of situation. If it had just been me, just my career, would I have done it? Would I have gone back and thrown it all away for her? It didn’t matter. What’s done was done.

  It was over. I didn’t admit it to Kenzie, but there was no hope. The price was just too high.

  The moment Carter saw my red-rimmed eyes, he knew.

  “What the fuck?” he asked, leading me away from the restaurant and toward the elevator.

  I took the time to compose myself during the ride back to his suite. He was my advisor and my best friend; I knew I had to tell him the truth…as much of it as I could. He would know what to do. I’d just make sure to keep Kenzie’s name out of it.

  “Wanna tell me what’s wrong?” he asked the moment we were inside his suite.

  “In Paris,” I said, holding up the envelope, “a photographer took some pictures.”

  “What kind of pictures?” Carter’s eyebrows were raised.

  “Me and another woman. A much younger woman.”

  “Jesus Fuck!” He paced back and forth. “How much younger? Tell me she was at least eighteen.”

  “Nineteen.”

  He shook his head. “How bad are they?”

  “Holding hands, kissing…there are a few where I’m not dressed and she’s in a robe.” I cleared my throat. “One of me coming out of the women’s restroom.”

  He raked his hand through his hair. “How could you risk your career for a piece of pussy?”

  I felt like a huge boulder had just crushed me. To call her that, to call the love of my life a piece of pussy, devastated me.

  “She’s not a piece of pussy. I have real feelings for her.”

  “Seriously?” He burst into laughter. “She must give one hell of a blow job or have some sort of magical cunt to have you this worked up and careless. And how do you know that she’s not the one behind all this? Maybe she’s the one who set you up t
o have the pictures taken in the first place.”

  I had to take deep breaths to keep from punching him in the fucking mouth.

  “She’s not,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because…because…” I sighed in defeat. I had to tell him; there was no other way. “Because it’s Kenzie.”

  He burst into laughter, which wasn’t really the response I’d expected. “Jesus, Max! You had me going there for a minute. I mean, when you said they had pictures of you and a younger woman in Paris, I figured you meant…” His voice trailed off as he recalled what I’d said the pictures were of. Grabbing the envelope from me, he pulled out the photos.

  He flipped through them quickly, not saying a word, but the throbbing vein on the side of his head said it all.

  When he was done, he set the pictures on the table slowly, then turned to me.

  “You fucked her?”

  I felt nauseous.

  “DID. YOU. FUCK. HER?”

  I nodded.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have held back my rage when he’d called her a piece of pussy, because he certainly didn’t hold his back when he punched me in the mouth.

  “You took my baby to Paris and seduced her?”

  I just looked at him. I didn’t want to tell him that it was before Paris, but it seemed to click.

  “This wasn’t the first time, was it?” I shook my head, backing up a step or two. “When? When was the first time?”

  There was no point in lying. “My birthday.”

  “Your birthday?” I could see him trying to recall that night. “What did you do, go fuck her after you finished with the woman you’d tied up and fucked in your ro…” He stopped mid-word and grabbed me by the collar of my shirt. “Was it Kenzie? Was she the one in your room? You tied her up and spanked her?” I didn’t need to answer; it was written all over my face. He let go of me and looked at me in disgust. “You threw away your career and our friendship over this sex scandal.”

  “Sex scandal?” As broken as I was, and as sorry I felt for betraying his trust, the images staring up at me from the table gave me strength. I picked up a photograph of Kenzie and I in each other’s arms at the top of the Eiffel Tower. My heart ached at the now tainted memory. “This is what both of us would consider our first kiss after we realized we loved each other.”

  My sadness turned to anger as I rifled through the pile of photographs. I grabbed one of us on the balcony after dinner. “And this is the moment she told me she loved me, too…LOVED ME, TOO! Do you know that no other woman has ever said that and meant it? And this,” I said, picking up a picture of the two of us sitting on the bench outside of the cathedral, “is the fucking happiest I’ve ever been in my life, and the saddest at the same time, because I knew I could never have her. So don’t fucking call it a sex scandal. It’s my fucking life, and that…is the woman I love! You said that you’d never seen me so happy? It was all her. HER! You think she’s just a piece of pussy? Well…fuck you!” I realized I’d been screaming and crying at the same time. I didn’t even care if I looked like a fucking pussy. Nothing really mattered anymore.

  He looked at the pictures on the table again. There was one where she and I were holding hands and she was looking up at me like I was her everything. I heard him sigh.

  “Have they printed them?”

  I shook my head. “No, I can keep them out of the press.”

  “How?” He still hadn’t looked at me, but the fact that he was speaking to me was a huge step.

  “Tiffany DuPree brought them to me this morning. She said that she’d have them destroyed.”

  “At what cost?”

  “I agree to marry her. She thinks I have a shot at the White House, and she apparently wants to be First Lady.”

  He was quiet for a moment. “DuPree would be a political asset.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed.

  “And what of Kenz?”

  “Nothing. I already told her. I promised to leave her alone.” My voice was barely a whisper. It was all I could do not to start crying again.

  “Well, then it’s settled.”

  “Yeah. Settled.” And with that, the final boulder crushed my soul.

  Chapter 16

  Did you ever wish you could just pause your life? In Paris, everything was wonderful. It was still great this morning when I’d woken up, though I missed Max terribly. I hurried getting ready just so I could spend breakfast with him and my dad.

  I knew he was upset when I saw him at the table, but it wasn’t until he said we needed to talk that I felt my stomach drop.

  I tried not to cry. I tried to be mad, but in the end, I was just broken. I’d been foolish and naive—a kid playing a grownup game. I mean…I guess I knew in my head that he’d never pick me over his career, but somewhere in my heart, I’d let myself hope.

  That hope was gone now. He had taken it with him, along with all my happiness. And what was worse—I was worried more about him than myself. His career might be ruined because of me.

  I sat on the bench in the courtyard where Max had broken the news and sobbed quietly into my hands.

  “Mackenzie, right?” a voice inquired. I looked up as a woman sat down next to me…a woman I recognized as the bitch, Tiffany, from Maxwell’s birthday party. The same woman who ignored me at the airport in New York.

  “I’m sorry you’re upset,” she said, though her tone said she wasn’t.

  “I’m fine.”

  “I know about Paris.” My heart beat wildly. People knew already? “Relax. Not everyone knows. Max came to me with his little problem.”

  “He did?”

  “Yeah, Maxi and I go way back. I’m going to help him through this. I figured it was just a matter of time, really, until he got caught in one of his little trysts.”

  “It was more than that,” I said, trying hard not to cry.

  “Oh, of course it was,” she condescended. “Did he tell you that he loves you?”

  “He does love me.”

  She laughed. “Did he tell you that when he was trying to get in your pants? You know men will say just about anything if it will get them laid.” I knew that wasn’t true, but a little bit of me began to doubt Max’s words. “I mean, he is a man, after all.”

  She opened the envelope she had on her lap and pulled out a few photographs. The first one she held up was of Max sitting at the bar in the hotel. He looked amazing, but Elise and Gigi were sitting next to him with their arms around him. She flipped to the next picture, which was of the three of them right outside of the women’s bathroom; Elise had her hand on his crotch. In the next one, they both had their hands on him and he was saying something.

  “I wonder if he told them he loved them, too?” Her words stung more than a hot poker would if it had been plunged into my heart. “You didn’t really think you were special, did you?” She looked at my face and started laughing. “Oh, my God…you did!”

  I stood up to leave. I didn’t have to listen to her, and I sure didn’t want to see any more pictures.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” I didn’t answer her; I didn’t have to. She may have been right, but I didn’t have to talk to her.

  “Don’t go making things worse.” That stopped me dead in my tracks.

  “Don’t tell me what to do. I can do whatever I want.”

  She stood up and blocked my way. “Listen, you little slut. I know you think you’re hot stuff with your perky tits and tight pussy, but you are just a plaything to Maxwell. Did you really think you would have a future with him? He’d resent you every single day for the career you cost him. How long until he was off in some hotel room with someone like this?” She held up the photographs again. “Look, don’t get me wrong…I’m sure you were fun, but what he needs is a woman who can be an asset, not a liability. That’s why he’s going to announce our engagement tonight. He knows what’s best for him.”

  The tears were streaming down my face by that point. “Look
, Honey, just do yourself—and Max—a favor, and leave him alone. You’ve done enough damage.”

  She left the courtyard, and I sank back down onto the bench as I waited for the pain to go away or for the hole in my body to close.

  I felt my phone vibrate after about twenty minutes with a text from my dad.

  Kenz, where are you?

  I didn’t bother responding. I didn’t want to talk to him right then. I knew if I did I’d start crying, and then he’d ask me what was wrong.

  Ten minutes later, another text came.

  Max talked to me. I know. Come to our room.

  My heart raced. My dad knew? Why had Max told him? Had he laughed about me and passed it off like I was just one of the girls he’d fucked? I just wanted to stay where I was. Maybe I didn’t want to pause my life. Maybe I just wanted to skip New Year’s and fast forward until it was far enough in the future that I’d gotten over the hurt I felt. I wondered when that would be…If that would be.

  Kenz?

  As much as I didn’t want to face my dad, I’d been a willing participant. It was time to face whatever he had to say. I’d stopped crying and hoped I wouldn’t start again when I spoke with my dad. We were both adults and could have an adult conversation. He had to know that I wasn’t a virgin.

  I took a deep breath and opened the door to our suite. My resolve disappeared and the tears came instantly the moment I saw the hurt on his face. When I ran to him, he threw his arms around me.

  “I’m so sorry,” I sobbed into his chest.

  “Shhhh, Honey.”

  “Please don’t be disappointed in me.”

  He rubbed my back soothingly. “I would never be disappointed in you.”

  Sobs wracked my body at his words. “I really am sorry, Dad. I just…I thought he loved me. I thought I loved him, too. Well, I do love him.”

  He just held me as I continued to cry. “You love him?”

  “Yeah, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to make it stop hurting. What did you do after Mom left?”

  Even though I couldn’t see his face I knew he was crying, too. “Honey, it’s gonna take time, but it will get better.”