The Good Chase

by Hanna Martine

  For when he came back.

  The message she’d left him late last night had been short and sweet: “Please call me. I need to know you’re okay.” I think I love you.

  Picking up her phone yet again that morning, she saw that he’d neither texted nor called.

  Sitting there waiting would just about kill her, so she jumped off the couch and hit the shower. She’d go to the Amber early and drown herself in work. The trip to Kentucky for a VIP bourbon tour and a meeting with the distillers needed to get off the ground, there were some inventory issues to address, and she still had to approve the tasting list and check bottle availability for the upcoming Scottish Society ball.

  Showered and fed, she marched to the 1 train, rehashing the whole scene with Byrne for the umpteenth time. Wondering how she could’ve put things differently to make him see that this could be a spectacular new beginning, not a disastrous end. Wondering what he might say to her, once he had time to sleep on it.

  Coming out of the subway at Franklin Street, she was still mooning about it. Then she turned onto West Broadway, and the sight of the Amber sign, a short block away, slapped clarity and focus into her mind. Until she noticed a man standing on the sidewalk outside the Amber. Normally it wouldn’t have made her stop, except that he was alone, holding a big, professional-looking camera. And he was taking pictures of her bar.

  Her first thought? That something had gotten leaked about her impending meeting with Right Hemisphere. But who would do that when nothing had been signed or even formally discussed?

  The photographer finished clicking at the old brick exterior and slung his camera over his shoulder, then pulled out his phone. As he talked, he took out a little notebook and set it up against the Amber’s door, writing and nodding at the same time.

  It became very clear that he was waiting, quite possibly for her. She couldn’t say exactly why that made her uneasy. Maybe because she was usually notified about interviews or photo ops, not surprised or ambushed like this.

  Just then her phone rang, and before the reporter could look up and notice the sound or her, she ducked back around the corner out of sight. Leaning against the fire station, she saw it was Willa calling. Shea exhaled in relief. She’d tried to call Willa last night after Byrne left, but the crazy woman had been out, of course.

  “Hey, girl,” Shea said to Willa. “It’s a bit early for you to be up, isn’t it? It’s only nine thirty.”

  The pause on the other end was completely un-Willa-like. Even for a hungover Willa. She let out a strange sound that might have been a laugh. “Yeah. It is. Are you okay?”

  “Sorry I didn’t leave a message last night, but things were just so weird and I knew you were out having fun. God, I don’t even know where to begin. Byrne came back yesterday and I think we got in this fight but I’m still not sure, and he left all mad. Things were so great before he left for South Carolina and now . . . now I have no idea what’s happened and it’s driving me crazy.”

  Normally Willa would’ve jumped in by now. Normally she would’ve made a joke or ripped on the entire male species or even asked Shea for all the details. But Willa still said nothing, and a chill skated down Shea’s spine.

  “Wait,” Shea said. “What exactly are you asking me?”

  Willa gasped. “Oh, honey. You haven’t heard? You haven’t seen?”

  Shea pushed away from the wall. “Seen what?”

  “Oh, shit.” She let out a long breath. “Maybe it’s better you found out from me.”

  “Found out what?”

  Another deep breath. “Sweetie, it’s that shitty society gossip website. The one with all the anonymous, passive-aggressive jabs at the rich people. The one that follows Marco’s crowd to restaurants and the beach and takes really ugly photos and posts them online.”

  Shea knew exactly which site that was. It had covered her own wedding with disgusting vigor, speculating about the people in attendance and making up all these petty things she may or may not have said about the whole event. It had chosen the most unflattering photo of her in her wedding dress, taken when she’d sneezed or something, and put up a caption of something along the lines of, “Billionaire bride hates the fifty-thousand-dollar flowers!” It was a despicable, gross publication . . . that apparently a lot of people looked at. Whether for purposes of schadenfreude or just for a laugh, Shea never understood.

  She rubbed her temple. “What did Marco do now?”

  Another pregnant pause. “Maybe something really bad this time.”

  Shea suddenly started to feel sick. “Tell me.”

  “Um, remember that trip to Santorini he took you on? With that other couple? The heiress or tycoon or something like that?”

  It had been another real estate developer from Monte Carlo, and it had been six nonstop days of drinking and parties and a continuous loop of obnoxiously wealthy people she didn’t know and would never see again. “Yeah, I remember.”

  “God, I hate telling you this. There are pictures. Of you. Up on that site. Right now.”

  “Pictures.”

  Her mouth dried up as some specific events of that trip came back to her. It was shortly after their wedding, and at the peak of her complicity, of her doing whatever Marco told her to.

  “It looks like you’re on the bow of this massive yacht, and one of the photos is of you kissing a guy who isn’t Marco. The caption is speculating you cheated on your husband, who was somewhere else on the boat. And that it was the beginning of the end to your marriage.”

  Shea knew exactly which picture that was. “But that’s not true! It was all a game. Marco was sitting right there the whole time. He even took the picture. We were all laughing and the kiss wasn’t even any more than a peck!”

  “That’s not the worst of it,” Willa added. “There’s another of you draped across the front of the yacht. Topless.”

  Fuck. Shea went dizzy and had to fall back into the wall. Marco had taken that photo, too. They’d been alone for that one, but it had been between them. A private moment.

  “And they’re online?” Shea squeaked out.

  “Yeah. I mean, they pixelated your tits on the official page, but . . .”

  Shea got it. It was the Internet. If there were pixels on one site, there were actual nipples somewhere on another.

  What the hell was going on? How did this happen? Her hands started to shake.

  She and Marco had taken a million pictures on that trip, most of them typical vacation shots. Nothing salacious. But those photos had been picked out of the whole lot and deliberately sent out.

  Goddamn vindictive, jealous bastard.

  “I . . . I have to go,” she told Willa.

  “No wait, Shea. Stay on the line. I’ll come to you or you can come here.”

  “Sorry. I can’t . . .” Couldn’t what? Talk? Think? React? Understand? “I’ll call you later. I need to figure some stuff out.”

  “Don’t go online, Shea. Whatever you do, don’t go—”

  “Bye, babe.”

  Shea ended the phone call. And then found the website.

  There she was. Twenty-four and half-naked, the sparkling Mediterranean stretching behind her. Tiny blue bikini bottoms, suntan-lined chest thrust out, showing off for the camera. For Marco. Her new husband, whom she’d once thought was her fairy-tale prince.

  And there she was again, playing drunk truth or dare with the Monte Carlo couple. Marco had dared her to kiss the other man. She did it—without tongue, no more than a half second long—and then all four of them had collapsed into laughter and poured more Cristal.

  Why would he even have these pictures still? Why would he do this?

  Of course. Running into her twice recently—once with her new boyfriend—only reminded him that he’d lost her. And it wasn’t even her as a person that mattered. It was that he’d lost at all. She’d proven
to the world she didn’t need him, and he didn’t like it. In his crazy mind, he felt like he still had to get even somehow.

  The posting of the photos had been time-stamped at the crack of dawn that morning. Just below them, in obnoxious, half-bolded, half-italicized type, was a declaration that the photos were sent from an anonymous source, followed by speculation that Shea herself had done it to give her and the Amber a boost. As though this were all part of a horrific marketing plan.

  That, above all, made her fighting mad. Made her want to pound brick and then pound Marco’s face. She had not spent the last four years fighting to be acknowledged as being at the top of her industry, only to have everything canceled out by one man’s fucking ego.

  Marco did this. Marco would have to fix it.

  She wheeled away from the Amber and the photo hound who was waiting to ask her nosy questions and take hideous reaction shots. Where would Marco be right now? Did she even still have his contact info in her phone? She scrolled through her address book as she barreled down the sidewalk without looking where she was going. Crap. No number for Marco. She could call his office—

  The phone rang in her hand. The photo that popped up on-screen was of a bushy-bearded bagpiper, Byrne’s name in white type across his forehead.

  Shea gaped at the image, debating whether or not to answer. Of all the times for him to call back. Then she realized she kind of needed to hear his voice to calm her down so she could plan her attack. There was a good chance he didn’t know what had happened that morning. The Byrne she knew wouldn’t go anywhere near those kinds of websites.

  “Hi,” she said, but she was a terrible actress, and her voice sounded as flat and unenthusiastic and hurt as she felt.

  “Shea.” He let out a deep, aggrieved sigh. “I saw . . . I saw the photos. I’m so sorry.”

  She stopped dead in her tracks. “You saw them? How? I just found out five seconds ago.”

  He cleared his throat. “Do you even need to ask? Dan.”

  Shea filled the following pause with deep breathing worthy of a yoga instructor.

  “What can I do for you?” he asked. “How can I help you? Do you want me to come over?”

  That stopped her. What could he do for her? After he hadn’t allowed her to try to help him just last night? It was all so confusing, another layer she didn’t know if she could handle just then.

  “I’m not at home,” she said. “You don’t need to . . . I’m fine. I’m just trying to figure out what to do.”

  “How did this happen? Where’d they come from and why are they online?” He sounded slightly out of breath, like he was pacing, getting riled up.

  “Marco,” she replied. “Marco took them. Years ago.”

  “Motherfucker.” Byrne kicked something. The crash was faintly metallic. A file cabinet, likely. “I want to kill him.”

  “There’s no reason for that. Then I can’t do it myself.”

  Byrne released a growl of frustration, but it was muffled, like he’d covered the phone so she couldn’t hear.

  “I can’t believe this happened to you. Tell me what I can do.”

  She took a deep breath of exhaust-filled New York air and had never wished to be camping in the middle of nowhere more.

  “Nothing. You can’t do anything, Byrne. This is my embarrassment and I’ll deal with it.”

  He paused. “Tell me this resistance isn’t because of last night.”

  She was curious if he’d apologize. When he didn’t, she simply said, “It’s not. Byrne, look, I’m glad to hear your voice, I really am, but I am fighting a full-on rage meltdown here, and I have to figure out what I’m going to say to Whitten after I’ve murdered Marco.”

  Byrne’s voice deepened. “You’re not going to see him, are you?”

  “Who? Whitten or Marco?”

  “You know who. God, I can’t even fucking say his name.”

  “Oh, hell yes I’m going to see him. Theoretical guns blazing. Or maybe even real ones. Look, I have to go. I have to do something to put out this fire. I can’t just stand here on this corner thinking it will go away on its own.”

  “Wait.” It sounded like he was scrambling, shuffling things around on his desk. “Let me come with you.”

  “What? Why? No, thank you, Byrne. This is my thing. I don’t want you anywhere near this bloodbath.”

  “Shea, please—”

  “I really don’t want to argue right now. I don’t want to argue with you at all, if you must know.”

  She knew she was acting similar to how he had last night, pushing him away when all he wanted was to help, but this was her problem and he couldn’t do a thing about it.

  And that was probably exactly what he’d thought about her last night.

  “Okay.” His tone softened, resigned. “Okay.”

  “I’ll try to call you later.”

  “Shea.”

  About a thousand layers of emotion filtered through the way he said her name. Regret. Frustration. Longing. And something else, something far, far deeper. None of which she could afford to think about right now. He muddled her brain on her best days, and she needed all her faculties at hand.

  She told him good-bye and leaned against an empty newspaper box.

  Suddenly she thought of her parents. Once upon a time they used to troll the New York City social pages for mentions of Marco and her. Maybe they’d stopped since the divorce. Hopefully they’d stopped. The liquor business, to them, was disappointing enough.

  Her phone buzzed in her palm. It was Pierce Whitten, and she stared at his name with a dry mouth, wondering if she should pick up. Right before the final ring, the one that would kick the call into voice mail, she tapped Answer. She was a businesswoman above all and would conduct herself accordingly.

  “Good morning, Pierce.”

  “Shea. Hello.” He sighed in a completely different way than Byrne had. “I’m so very sorry this has happened to you.”

  Of course he would have seen. The Internet was his world.

  What was she supposed to say to that? Thank you? Instead she remained silent. A bus rumbled past, the jet of its hot fumes kicking up around her.

  “Are you still there?” he asked.

  “I’m here.”

  “Look.” Another sigh. “I’m just calling to let you know that my offer still stands. That Right Hemisphere is behind you.”

  “You’ve got some pretty deep reach,” she said. “Can you erase parts of the Internet and wipe human memories?”

  “I wish I could, Shea. I wish I could.” That fatherly tone again, the one he’d used when he’d described Byrne. “What I can do, what my company and I are really damn good at, is marketing. Targeting. Spinning things our way.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean, exactly?”

  “I know we haven’t signed any papers, but call me an optimist. Just give me the word and I’ll put my PR people on this. We can misdirect people’s attention, we can turn it in your favor, you name it.”

  Shea started to sweat. Even when she ducked out of the direct sunshine into the shadows outside an art gallery, the heat was still oppressive.

  Turn private, naked photos in her favor? Use the scandal to somehow boost her name or her business? And do it under the umbrella of Right Hemisphere, thereby linking herself with the company whose current direction she didn’t care for? Declare herself for Whitten before they’d ever come to mutually beneficial terms?

  “No,” she told him. “Don’t go near it. Please.”

  “All right,” he replied after a pause. “I had a feeling you’d say that, but I wanted to offer anyway.”

  “It was just gossip, but they made accusations that I was doing this to be in the spotlight. If I did anything like that, with your company, I think it would only prove them right. And they’re not.”

 
“I understand. Is this affecting how you’re looking at our meeting?”

  How could he even ask that right now?

  Just yesterday she’d thought she’d had everything under control, thought she’d had the steps to her future all set up and she was ready to climb. Now they were crumbling, and it hadn’t even been her engineering mistake. It was someone from the side, lobbing bombs at her foundation.

  Just yesterday she’d allowed herself to start putting in writing all her ideas for the distillery.

  “As of right now?” she replied. “Yes. It does. This is going to take a while to sort out in my head. And in the public eye.”

  “I’m not canceling the meeting, Shea. Nothing has changed on my end. In two weeks my team and I will be waiting for you in my conference room, and I sincerely hope you’ll show.”

  The thought of doing something to splash her name even more across the media made her shudder. The thought of having to face obnoxious strangers at the Amber with this hanging out there made her want to pack a tent and disappear into the mountains. Forever.

  “Can I just say one more thing?” Pierce asked.

  “Sure.”

  “You can lift your chin and soldier on and turn this into something you own. Or you can let it rule you. It’s your choice.”

  Shea hung up, feeling more confused than ever about her professional direction but very, very clear about her personal one.

  She found the number to Marco’s office and stabbed the numbers on the screen like they were his eyes.

  “Shea,” Marco said when she’d finally worked her way around his assistant and got through to him. “I had a feeling I’d be hearing from you today.”

  “Don’t say anything more. Not a word. Meet me in front of the horse in Union Square.”

  “When?”