CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Xavier
I stared out the window below me and watched the tiny people moving around on the sidewalk. From up in my office, they were nothing more than dots.
Riley could be one of them, for all I knew. She could be that blue one, or that red one crossing the street. It was unlikely. She’d stormed into my office yesterday and took me by surprise, but I’d bet my life that kind of thing wouldn’t be happening ever again. Now she knew the truth about me. Or at least she knew the truth about what really mattered. She understood that I was no good for her and that we were better off apart.
The fact that it was fucking killing me didn’t matter. The fact that I was actually thinking—for the very first time in my life—that working on a relationship with a woman might be possible didn’t matter. I was still a lost cause, and Riley was still too good to deal with this insanity.
Which meant my attention needed to be on the current problem — damage control. Seth had literally gone off the rails. Since seeing him yesterday, I’d had countless daydreams of disposing of him. They were all fantastical, and not going to happen, but they did make me feel slightly better. The thought of driving him out to the middle of the desert and leaving him there at least made me chuckle.
A dull knock sounded on the door. I turned eagerly and went to open it. Davis stood there, a strained look on his face. I offered my hand for a shake, and he firmly gripped it.
“Come in,” I gestured. “How are you doing?”
“Not so good, but only because of your phone call.”
“It’s not one I wanted to make, believe me. Have a seat. Can I get you something to drink? My assistant was just about to bring in some coffee.”
“That sounds great.”
We settled down on the couches in the far corner of my massive office, and small talked about Davis’ recent trips and my work while Kenneth served coffee. The second we were alone again, he got right to business.
“I regretted inviting Seth to be a part of this whole thing the day after it started,” he said, setting his coffee cup down on the table. He fixed his gaze on mine. “I’m sorry. This is my fault.”
“What’s done is done,” I sighed. “I’m more interested now in dealing with it all. He says he’s going to blackmail me if I try to put him in his place.”
Davis scratched his jaw and thoughtfully looked at the floor. “I’ll talk to his parents. That will settle the matter. If Seth makes any sort of attempt to sabotage you, Enigma, or the group, his parents will step in. Money talks, and since Seth doesn’t have his own means—”
“Excellent.” I took a sip of my coffee and enjoyed the slight burn against my tongue. “We’re of the same mind then.”
“Completely.”
I swirled the spoon around in my coffee cup. I already felt better. Seth’s behavior being taken care of removed a giant burden from my shoulders.
Another knock on the door made Davis and I both look over.
“Come in,” I instructed.
Rochelle entered, her tablet and a stack of folders in her arms. “Good morning.” She nodded at my friend. “Davis, how are you doing?”
“Very well.” He smiled. “It’s great to see you again, Rochelle.”
I frowned at my publicist. “Did I miss your text? I didn’t know you were coming over.”
She tilted her head in confusion. “Your interview with Fresh is in fifteen minutes. Remember?”
“Shit. I thought that was tomorrow.”
Davis stood and adjusted his suit. “I need to get going anyway. See you at the club tomorrow?”
I shook his hand again. “See you then.”
He said his goodbye to Rochelle and left. With the two of us alone, she came over to the seating area and put her belongings on the table. “Is everything all right?”
“You’ve been asking me that an awful lot lately.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You’ve been forgetting things an awful lot lately.”
“There’s… stress at the club.”
“Ah.” She knowingly raised her eyebrows and looked away. Rochelle didn’t know the list existed, but she was aware that I held some kind of secretive pact with three other men. She wasn’t stupid, and working for me for years had allowed her to amass a good deal of clues regarding the secret side of my life.
She opened one of the folders and pulled out some papers. “Shall we go over the talking points for the interview?”
She briefed me on the questions the reporter from Fresh would ask. We were just finishing as the man himself came in. He was short and young, with a hipster haircut and a button-up shirt with flamingos on it. He gave me his name, but I forgot it immediately. Which just meant Rochelle was right. My mind was shit.
The interview proceeded in the standard way. The kid asked me all the usual questions, ones about advice for people seeking to get their own start-ups off the ground and ones about my opinion on the current direction of the market. They were all agonizingly boring and simple. I glanced at Rochelle, curious to know how much longer we had. She held up her hand and signaled five minutes.
“There’s one more topic I’d like to hit,” the reporter said, punching his pen into the air. He was recording the whole interview, and I hadn’t seen him write anything down yet. “You’re known to be one of New York’s longest-running bachelors. How do you feel that fits into your model of success? Do you think that you have more time and energy to put into your career since you don’t have a woman dragging you down?”
“Dragging me down?” I repeated. I didn’t remember Rochelle saying anything about this topic coming up in the interview.
“Yeah.” He nodded, then grinned like we were sharing an inside joke.
I sharply inhaled and rolled my shoulders. Sitting here and answering these asinine questions had pushed me close to my breaking point. “It sounds to me like you’re under the impression that all women are a burden.”
His smile faltered, and he quickly looked in Rochelle’s direction. “Well…”
“Well isn’t much of an answer.” I crossed my legs and calmly stared him down. “My publicist, Rochelle here, doesn’t drag me down. In fact, she’s the one who so kindly set this interview up for you.”
“You’re not sleeping with her… are you?”
Rochelle cleared her throat, preparing to say something. I jumped right in though.
“If you’re going to walk around with this viewpoint that people drag you down, you’ve got a rough road ahead,” I said, frost clinging to the words.
He held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, man. Sorry. I just wanted to talk about your famous single life. Some people really look up to you. If you get on Reddit, you can find all these threads about it. There are a lot of men who like how you’ve prioritized your life. To them, you’ve put women last.”
His last sentence rang out in the quiet room, the worst out of all the ones he’d thrown. You’ve put women last. It reminded me of Riley’s own accusations of my abusive treatment of women.
She was right. Just like this cocky little prick in front of me was right. I knew it, but I couldn’t stand it.
“And you admire this?” I responded with venom. “You think that putting people on the back burner and using them for your own entertainment is right?”
He blinked in confusion. “No, I just—”
“All right!” Rochelle chirped in an overly cheery voice. “We’re out of time. Thank you so much for this. We can’t wait to read the article.”
She put her hand on the reporter’s shoulder and led him to the door. I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Any second now, I’d lose it.
“That went well,” Rochelle sarcastically said.
“Yep.”
She sat down on the couch across from me and rested her hands on her knees. “It was a fairly innocent question. Unless you read into it.”
I threw my hands into the air. “What can I say? I loathe stupidity.”
A few seconds ticked by before Rochelle asked, “Who is she?”
I stiffened. “What?”
“Why would I repeat myself?”
I sighed. “Her name is Riley.”
Saying the name out loud brought me unexpected relief. Rochelle’s mouth twitched like she was trying to stop herself from smiling. “I asked you about a woman a while ago, remember? And you shut me down. What’s changed?”
I licked my dry lips. I was so used to dodging questions about my personal life. It was just a habit for me. I did it without thinking about exactly why. But not today. I was tired of keeping everything to myself. If there was one person I could trust with both my life and my secrets, it was Rochelle.
“A lot has changed. A lot has happened.”
“Okay. Well, I can already bet you’re not going to fill me in on everything. And that’s fine with me. But will you tell me where you’re at right now?”
“Why are you concerned?”
“I worry about you, Xavier,” she said gently. “If I don’t, who’s going to?”
“Good point.”
“Come on, now. Answer my question.”
“We’re nowhere. She doesn’t want to see me anymore. But it’s fine. It’s for the best. I’m no good for her.”
“I can understand that.”
I ruefully laughed. “Aren’t you supposed to tell me I’m wrong?”
“I don’t lie to you, Xavier. You’re not wrong. You go through women like you do hand towels.”
“An interesting analogy,” I murmured.
She didn’t crack a smile. “Some people might think it’s insane to believe Xavier Fields would ever settle down with a woman. And that, too, is understandable. With your track record and your past...”
She studied me, probably uncertain if she should go on. Rochelle knew more about my family than most people. She knew about the abuse and about my regular attempts to persuade my mother to leave my father.
“You’re not them,” she said.
I stared at her. “I never said I was.”
“Aren’t you afraid of turning into them? Of falling for a girl who is like your mother? Of turning into a man who is like your father?”
My chest burned. I could no longer look at Rochelle. Instead, I dropped my eyes to my lap. The answer was such a simple one. Yes. But I couldn’t say it.
“You’re not alone. A lot of people live in fear of becoming their parents, but just because your mother and father lead their lives one way doesn’t mean you’re destined to do the same. Look around yourself, Xavier. Look at what you’ve done, the life you’ve created for yourself. You can do anything you want and be anything you want.”
Her words were so powerful I could no longer stare at my lap. I turned my face upwards and gazed into her eyes. “That’s the kind of thing you hear on a Ted talk.”
“Yeah, and I bet no one’s ever directly said it to you,” she responded seriously. “But you need to hear it. You are your own man, Xavier. You’re self-made. Don’t be afraid to act like it.”