Page 16 of Accidental Dad’s Best Friend (Unintentionally Yours #7)
Ethan
“ A secretary,” Liam parrots the word right after I say it.
“Yep. At a dentist’s office.”
“Huh.” He isn’t convinced. And for a blip of a second I am starting to second guess my story too.
I’m in Liam’s office for business. And the first thing on the docket is Izzy.
I spent the better part of last night curating a story covering the who, what, when, where and why of Izzy’s life and I’ve rehearsed it enough times you’d think I was using a teleprompter.
“You know, I gotta say,” Liam shakes his head, reaching into the bottom drawer of his desk for a flask, “I’m surprised she would lower herself to that.
But I guess that’s what happens when you fuck yourself over in our line of work, isn’t it?
No room for error. Once you lose the good opinion of people, you lose everything thereafter. ”
I literally have to keep myself from sniggering at that. The man is dumping dirt on his own coffin. For one, I can’t help him know what’s truly going on. And two, he needs to believe the story I am telling him so he doesn’t dig deeper.
“So she isn’t writing at all?” He asks, taking a dip from the flask before offering it to me. I wave it off. It’s 9am.
“Not from what I can find. She has no contracts, freelance or otherwise with any local papers or even online publications. Not under her name, which from what I have seen is still legally Isabelle Sloane.”
Liam nods, chewing on his lip and starting down at the grain of his oak desk. “So she’s a secretary, somewhere on the Western Slope. Unmarried. No kids. Just hiding in a hole in the wall basically?”
“From the sounds of it,” I breathe out.
Liam thinks about that for a second before taking another swig and tossing the flask back in the drawer. “I guess the Princess finally saw the crack in her crown and got humbled. Good. Now,” he claps his hands together. “Let’s talk business. Are you familiar with Good Eats?”
It takes me a second to catch up. I could wring his neck for the last comment but I remind myself that I need to be indifferent.”
“The…foodie magazine?”
“Emphasis on The. Good Eats has more subscribers than any other food publication in the state. You know why, Savage?”
“Because their recipes and reviews are legit?” I take a wild but obvious guess. I don’t know what a food magazine has to do with us. But I do have a feeling I know where this is going.
“Because they steal their recipes from private yet publicly published food blogs.”
I arch an eyebrow in response. “They do?”
“Who fucking knows. We can’t actually prove that they do. But on the same hand, they can’t prove that they don’t. Brilliant, right?”
“What exactly are you trying to do?” I ask, my tone growing sharper.
“What do you mean?” Liam grins but it’s smug.
“I mean why are you trying to slander everyone around us? None of these other publications are our enemy.”
“They’re competition which might as well be the enemy, Savage. You should know this.”
“How is a magazine that writes articles about the best place to eat brunch competition for us? We are a business magazine.” I shoot out. I know I am walking on thin ice here. Liam hates to be challenged. But honestly, I am done.
“You’re joking right? Jesus fucking Christ you have gotten dumber with age, E.
I swear to god. You want to know why we are at odds with them?
And every other fucking magazine on the racks?
I’ll tell you why.” Liam stands up, bracing his hands on the desk and learning towards me, trying to gain some sort of high ground. So I stand too as he goes on.
“Magazines are dying, Savage. Everything is online now, everything is hearsay. Half of what people consider news is just people going rogue on fucking social media reels. No one cares about journalist written articles anymore. The racks are getting smaller and that means real estate on those racks is sales driven. Nobody cares what genre you’re in, if you want to stay alive, stay in print, stay at the fucking top, you have to BE the fucking top.
Business, fashion, sports, music, it doesn’t matter.
If you don’t sell, you die. And I don’t know about you but I am not about to watch what I’ve built go up in flames. ”
“But spreading lies about other people who are in this for the same reasons you are is not the way to do it!” I shout.
“Maybe you don’t think so but I am not going to lose everything all because people don’t give a shit about good writing anymore!” He shouts back. “I created this. This magazine, this standard, this following.”
My jaw pops open at the audacity of his words. “You? You created it? By yourself?”
“The way you are in and out of the office recently with nothing new to show for all your hard work? ” He uses air quotes around the last part. “Yeah. Yeah I am going to take credit for the success of NBT.”
I nod, clenching and unclenching my jaw. “I see.”
“You see?” He mimics me. “What do you see?”
“I see that for years you were my best friend. And even when you were climbing up on a soapbox, I defended you. Despite not always agreeing with you, I defended you. But you know what? I’m not going to do it anymore.
You are so caught up in the money and fame aspect of this that you forgot why we started a magazine in the first place. ”
“It’s a business magazine, Savage. It’s always been about money.”
I shake my head. “Not for me. For me it was about us being friends. Brothers even. And doing what we love. Writing for people. But I guess I was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?” Liam narrows his eyes at me.
“We are not the same.”
Before he can say anything else, Rose knocks on the door frame and walks in. “Mr. Sloane, I have the articles you asked for.”
“Thanks, Rose. Just set them on the table there,” Liam says dryly, reaching for his flask again. She does as he asks but stays in the doorway.
I make my way over and grab the stack of papers, sifting through them. “Food blogs?” I look at him.
Liam says nothing. He can’t.
“I also happened to come across a couple other blogs that might help you out,” she adds timidly. “Though they’re not about food. But they are about the industry and I found them to be interesting. A little scandalous even…”
“Just put them on the table, Rose.” Liam lets out, waving his hand at her.
He is sitting back at his desk, his feet up, one hand pinching the bridge of his nose and the other holding the flask.
Rose finally takes the hint and walks out.
I grab the second stack of articles, flipping through them.
Most of them are rookie blogs, everything from conspiracy theories to human rights activists.
Most of it is trash. But just before I am about to throw the stack back down and storm out, I stop.
Towards the bottom of the stack is a blog I recognize.
A blog I know.
One I’ve studied and read.
It’s Izzy’s.
I glance over at Liam. He is still sitting with his eyes pinched shut. Like his life is so hard. Like we are all such disappointments. Like some kind of self proclaimed martyr. It’s pathetic. But I take his moment of oblivious self pity to tuck the pages of Izzy’s blog into my jacket.
“Do you see what I am dealing with, Savage?” He asks, finally opening his eyes but suspecting nothing.
“I do.” I say. I can’t let this bridge burn to the ground. Not just yet. It’s not a white flag by any means. But I’m not going to rock the boat anymore. Not today. “And I guess I have work to do.”
With that, I walk out, nearly running into Rose as I turn the corner. I stop hard, grabbing her arms so that I don’t knock her over. But in the process, the papers fall from my jacket onto the floor.
“I’m sorry, Ethan. I mean Mr. Savage. I mean…” she bends down and grabs the papers before I can.
Shit.
For a moment, she pauses, then stands slowly and hands them to me.
I make eye contact with her, unable to read her expression. Her eyes are locked on mine. I pull my gaze away, taking the papers from her and folding them in half.
“I guess we have our work cut out for us, don’t we?” I ask with a smile. “Covering all these articles and blogs for him.”
“Yes. Of course,” she smiles. There is a moment of silence between us and I can’t tell what she’s thinking. But I hold my gaze on her just long enough to telepathically let her know she needs to keep her mouth shut.