My phone wouldn’t stop buzzing the next morning, I kept ignoring it and eventually hit the button to turn it off. No sooner had I done that Patrick’s phone started going off, followed by Jon’s. I groaned and rolled over, face down on Jon’s chest and the blanket pulled over my head to muffle the noise.
“Oh fuck,” he whispered. “Lydia, baby, you need to move.”
I rolled off him and watched curiously as he threw himself off the bed pulled on his pyjama bottoms. Jon looked frantic; his eyes were wide and hair mused, his phone clutched so tightly in his hand that his knuckles were white.
“Get the fuck up,” he snarled, giving Patrick a smack on the arm before tossing his boxers at him. “Now, Patrick.”
“Jon, what’s wrong?” I asked as I started to fully wake up, his sudden change in demeanour scaring me. “What happened?”
“I’m not sure, I need to call Charles—” he broke off and yanked Patrick’s pillow out from under him when the other man didn’t get up. “Get up!”
I cringed back against the headboard and clutched the blanket up around myself. I’d never heard him yell like that before, and I didn’t want to hear that ever again.
“I’m up,” Patrick snapped back. “I’m getting up for fuck’s sake.”
No sooner had his feet hit the floor than Jon seized the other man’s arm and dragged him out into the hall. I watched them go with my mouth hanging open but not sure what to say. It was weird that all of us had our phones going off that close together. I grabbed the device and turned it back on, it was only seven-thirty I realized with a jolt. Why are so many people trying to call me this early?
I had missed two calls from Allie, along with several texts, and one text from Maritza.
7:23 AM Maritza
Please wake my father up, it’s an emergency.
7:27 AM Allie
Have you seen TMZ?
I never read TMZ, it was never really my thing, and it was weird that Allie had seen anything on it. After a minute of mulling it over, my Macbook in my lap and fingers hovering over the keys – I finally pulled up the site. I didn’t have to scroll very far to see the end of the world.
Pretty Woman Meets Legally Blonde: Bower & Rosing’s LLC Secretary Paid for Private Dates.
TMZ’s headline was punctuated with a photo of Jon, Patrick, and myself standing in front of the Pullman. It was from the Plaisir auction, Patrick’s arm was around my waist, Jon had a tight and obvious grip on my other hand. From the angle and slight graininess, I had to assume it was from a security camera. I stared at the screen in complete abject horror.
Corporate defence attorneys, Jonathan Harris-Bower and Patrick Rosing, CEO and CFO respectively of Bower & Rosing’s LLC, are in hot water this morning after pictures surfaced of the pair getting intimate with who has been identified as Bower’s assistant, Lydia Morrison…
The article went on for many, many more paragraphs; detailing the recent sexual harassment allegations the men were in the midst of defending Goldberg and Wesson from, with several very unsubtle insinuations that I was blackmailed or assaulted in some way, similar to the complaints against the other company. There were more pictures too, one of Patrick and I out to dinner, another of Jon kissing me on the cheek as I got out of a car. Even worse was the amount of information they had listed about me; my education, my employment history, and my background as a foster child.
It was gut-wrenching, I felt cold and empty and detached as I scrolled through comments; the number of people claiming I fucked my way into college was horrendous, then there were the vile people insisting I was being paid to keep quiet – that the men felt the need to defend their client only because of their relationships to me, not based on being hired to do a job. Ohmigod, I’m ruined.
It wasn‘t like I fucked the manager of a local bank and it got around because people wouldn’t give a shit, this is like I had fucked Warren Buffet on an operating room table while coked out of my mind. There was a very direct correlation between Jon and Patrick’s recent case, and how my relationship with them would appear to the outside world.
Bower & Rosing’s provided corporate legal aid and representation to several massive companies in the States and around the world, and right now it looked like they’re paying me to fuck them, and it was being called into question how many other girls had been in my position. How many other times things like this might have been covered up. Someone in the comments took it upon themselves to mention that Jon is still married, which gave everyone a free pass to start calling me a homewrecker.
I began to scour the web in desperation, there had to be somewhere that had other things to talk about. Quickly I found out that I wasn’t front and centre on gossip mags, I wasn’t exactly Jennifer Anniston, but we were a side story on the front page - which was just as bad. Every outlet had some story, some focused on them and previous company scandals, but others focused on me, my age, and my history. Comments ranged from calling the guys predators to calling me a gold-digger and insinuating that I had started working with them just to start a sexual relationship and extort them. Others claimed I leaked the story myself, likely for money but some said to sabotage the company.
Then I saw the thing that made me start to howl with laughter, I was cackling, tears streaked my face as I read the comment over and over: “Who’s getting cucked; is it the old guy or the pretty boy?” Cucked. I refused to believe the comment was anything other than a joke, but I found it delightful. Maybe I was finally cracking under the stress of it all because I laid there laughing for what felt like an eternity.
I really am ruined, I thought dazedly, I have no job, no savings, and there’s no way anyone would hire me as an attorney now. I had nothing except Patrick, Jon, Maritza, and maybe Allie. And I had never been so happy about it. Quickly I seized my phone and stretched out on my stomach, my smile was so broad it was beginning to make my cheeks hurt. I think I really had gone insane.
“Holy shit, dude,” Allie said in lieu of a proper greeting. “Have you seen this yet? I’m so sorry—”
“Don’t be,” I interrupted with a giggle. “It’s fucking wild. I’m all over the internet.”
“Can I call you Monica Lewinsky now?” she teased, instantly changing gears. “Mari’s dad can be Bill Clinton.”
“I don’t have a stained dress,” I countered. “And if I did I wouldn’t keep it that way.” I paused and closed my laptop; Twitter didn’t have much, a few hundred tweets but none of them amused me the way the cuck comment did. “What the fuck do I do now? Do you think that like, paparazzi are gonna try and find us?”
“Try?” she asked incredulously. “Dia, they have pictures dated for last night of you and Jon on his balcony…”
What! “Where? Like, what site?”
“Here, I’ll send you the link.”
A few seconds later, my computer dinged and I opened the message. Sure enough, it led to another gossip site with photos that were from the night before. The angle was bad, but with the light from the dining room you could easily make out Jon smoking and me leaning against the railing. It was an hour or so after I had told him about my visit to the clinic.
“Where did all of these come from?” I asked out loud, but not really directed at Allie. “Like, there’s a bunch from restaurants and whatnot. How did I not notice that?”
“You’re saying ‘like’ a lot again,” she said with a snicker. “You can take the girl out of the valley, but not the valley out of the girl.”
“Oh, shut up, I’m being serious here.”
She sighed dramatically before offering her best idea, “Honestly? You were probably set up at some point, not by your boy toys since they’re visible in all these pictures, but yeah…” she trailed off and I could hear her clicking around. “This looks like a security camera shot. Where was it taken, do you remember?”
I knew exactly which one she was talking about, and I still hadn’t told her about Plaisir. “Um, like a swanky rich guy club. Why?”
“It’s security footage,” she said exasperatedly. “Dia, for real, how many people have access to something like that?”
Almost no one, not for a club hellbent on maintaining the privacy of its clientele. But in the back of my mind, I knew exactly who might be able to swindle his way into getting that footage. Maybe that was why Morgan had gotten right the fuck out of New York after I ran into him at Patrick’s apartment. “I think I have an idea… Can I call you back?”
“Sure, try not to lose your mind and make sure to keep me in the loop,” she replied easily.
I ended the call and got up. My hair was a tangled mess and I couldn’t find my pants anywhere so I was stuck in Jon’s shirt and boxers. Tiptoeing down the hall I listened quietly at each door until I finally found their muffled voices, they were in his private office and had locked the door.
My face went hot and I scowled at the door for a moment before stomping loudly down the hall again. He kept spare keys somewhere, I wasn’t playing this fucking game anymore.
I tore apart his bedroom, I didn’t leave much of a mess behind me, but I scoured every drawer, every pocket on his jacket and his wallet. I came to a halt in front of the massive and stunning walnut jewellery chest, it was almost as tall as me with drawers and cabinet doors. No way he would leave this unlocked. Curiosity made me test it anyway; the door was locked, but the bottom drawers weren’t, the keys sat right there – out in the open.
I grabbed the keys and went to turn but paused; out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something – a photo of myself. It was also from Plaisir during the auction but taken either with his phone or a camera. I was leaning against Patrick and gazing out into the crowd while the other man chatted away to someone out of the shot. I was wearing the gorgeous green dress, and my bracelets sparkled on my wrists.
I looked so excited, so happy. I sank to my knees and began to examine the drawer in-depth; there were more photos, dozens, some of me in his office, one of me sleeping while swathed in his blankets with my hair fanned out across the dark sheets, and so many more. Any other time I might’ve been creeped out, especially with the sleeping picture, but my heart was in my throat and my hands trembled slightly. Oh, Jon… What am I going to do with you? He was too sentimental for his own good, but it was endearing and easily brought my mood back up. Who even printed photos off anymore? I glanced down at the keys in my hand and placed them back in the drawer. They would talk to me when they were ready, and I knew they probably had a shit storm to deal with right now and didn’t need my bitching.
Part of me was distressed at everything, another part was still in shock, and the twisted part just couldn’t stop laughing at the absurdity of the situation. I had no idea how I was going to pay rent since there was no way anyone in the city would hire me, Maritza now had to know there was more than just her father involved, and I didn’t know if I could go outside without my picture being taken.
I laid back on the carpeted closet floor and gazed at the stucco ceiling blankly. Where the fuck were we supposed to go from here?