Page 4 of Accidental Dad’s Best Friend (Unintentionally Yours #7)

Ethan

F ive years later

I hear Liam Sloane enter the meeting room before I see him.

Between the clacking of his shoes on the marble flooring and the sucking of his teeth—a habit he picked up when he became CEO of Next Big Thing, Denver’s hottest business magazine.

It’s how I know he’s got that cocky smile on his smug face, something that also became a staple of his persona in the last ten years, and it’s also how I know he’s about to start talking.

“Gentlemen, we are on fire.”

That line is one of his signatures. Along with this is going to be a hell of an issue and Do you assholes have any idea how lucky you are to be here?

All of these meeting openers make me cringe equally and I have to hide my expression behind a coffee thermos.

Several of the journalists and editors are seated at the giant, round table watching him intently, waiting for his instruction.

The younger guys, interns especially, sit like obedient puppies.

I swear to god they don’t piss without his permission.

A few of us have known him since the beginning and have been here enough to witness the hot air filling his head.

Sometimes we wonder if it’s going to pop.

Nobody in this room though has known him longer than me, and it’s not just because I am his chief editor and right-hand man.

No, Liam has been my best friend since middle school.

Over the years, I have grown to love him, to know how to fight with him, to understand who he really is and with that, and to see him as a brother of sorts.

But in the past five years, I’ve also come to the realization that Liam Sloane isn’t the man I thought he was. He used to be a literary shark. Now, I’d go as far as to call him a snake.

“Thanks to us,” Liam carries on as he drops a stack of papers on the table and takes the head seat. “Charts Magazine is tanking. A couple of their writers got pinned for plagiarism so won’t have to worry about them trying to knock us out of first place for best mag in the biz world any time soon.”

“Did they do it?” I ask dryly. Eyes around the table from me to Liam to the floor.

Liam sucks the air between his teeth. “Did they do what, Savage?”

“Plagiarize anything.”

“One of their articles came a little too close to something we printed so I’m going to call it what it is.”

“But if it’s not word for word, that’s not the definition of?—”

“Jesus Christ, Savage,” Liam lets out a haughty laugh, clearly annoyed with what I am implying. “Whose side are you on anyway?”

“The side of the truth.”

Liam’s smile fades and he chews the inside of his cheek before going on. Meanwhile, no one else at the table is stupid enough to say anything. Not when Liam and I square off, which is happening more and more these days.

“The truth is, we are the number one business magazine in Colorado. In the Midwest when you get down to the brass tacks. And we hold that position because we don’t fuck around.”

“No, we just fuck with other journalists. But being number one is about wins, isn’t it?

” I am shoving his own words down the man’s throat right now.

But to be honest, I’m getting tired of our magazine being at the top of the charts only because we shot people in the back to get there. Playing dirty doesn’t credit us much.

“If there’s something you want to say, Savage, why don’t you get it out now.”

I have a lot I want to say. Believe me. In the past five years, Liam has gone from bad to worse.

When we first charted, we came in around third.

And that for most of us was a huge win. Between online journals, blogs and the plethora of other business magazines still fighting to stay alive, it’s a cutthroat world for us right now.

But while the rest of us were celebrating with cocktails and loosened ties, Liam was trying to figure out how to get to first place.

And he did figure it out…and it wasn’t pretty.

One after another, Liam started finding ways to discredit other magazines, spilling info that may or may not be true about their journalists and editors and without any credible resources.

It was like the Water Gate of the magazine world but the journalists were the ones going down. And he was Deep Throat.

Since then, I’ve lost a decent amount of respect for the man. And my fuse is really short right now.

Still. I decide to keep my mouth shut.

“Let’s talk sports, shall we?” He goes on.

Someone in the back echoes.

“Yes,” Liam reaches into one of the folders he brought it and pulls out the latest issue of The League, a magazine that follows the politics and news of professional sports teams all over the country, everyone from the NFL to tennis, and tosses it to the middle of the table.

“Pop quiz, what genre is this magazine categorized in?”

“Sports?” someone asks.

Liam points at him. “You would think, wouldn’t you? But as of recently, it is being considered sports business. As if they can just make up genres now. And that makes them…”

God, here we go…

“Competition.”

“This is ridiculous,” I cut in. “They are niche. Yes they cover business but only the business of sports. How is that competition for us?”

Liam’s eyes meet mine. Because he isn’t talking about journalistic competition, even though he may have been able to argue that point if he dances in enough circles to convince everyone.

No, The League is competition to us— to him —because they offered me a job recently.

A job as their chief editor slash top journalist. A job where I’d be writing about the teams I love.

They even inquired what I was getting paid here at Next Big Thing and offered to double it.

I was ready to accept it. In fact, I’d gone as far as putting in my notice with Liam. With a tight smile and a far too firm handshake, he nodded one time and simply said, “Good luck.”

What he meant was, good luck getting the job. Because two weeks after I put in my resignation, Next Big Thing accused The League of bribing journalists to quote-unquote “switch sides” and for a minute, the League had a big stain on their reputation. The job offer was also withdrawn.

Go figure.

“You tell me,” Liam goes on. “You seem to know them well. So I am sure you know how cutthroat they can be. All I’m doing is making that known.”

For a moment, we hold each other’s gaze.

I want to tell him to fuck off. That I was offered the job because I inquired with them in the first place.

I may play golf every other Sunday with Liam and the guys at NBT but I get beers with the boys at the League.

I want to point out that if you don’t want to lose your employees, if you don’t want to lose your friends, maybe you shouldn’t shoehorn your journalists into working for you and only for you. Forced loyalty isn’t loyalty at all.

But I don’t say that. I might be hot headed but I’m not stooping to his level right now. Instead, I shove away from the table. “Publish what you want but count me out on this one.”

I leave the meeting room and head home for the day. I’ve had enough. Enough of working for my supposed-to-be best friend. Enough of signing off on shady articles that discredit other people in the industry. People who have worked hard to get where they are, and damn good writers at that.

When I get to my condo on the other side of town, I park my black Lexus in the designated spot and make my way upstairs.

The Ello house is a luxury condo community downtown.

Complete with two-story gym, a rooftop pool and even a private bar, it’s a bit over the top.

But I am finding that in this industry, privacy and seclusion are worth the price, especially when I’m tied to Liam Sloane.

After kicking off my shoes by the door, I pour myself a double of bourbon and sit on the couch, just in time to catch the end of the Avalanche game.

I keep the volume low as my mind wanders back to the meeting.

He’s out of his fucking mind doing what he’s doing.

But the problem is that no one ever tries to stop him.

What he’s doing, writing embellished, passive aggressive articles about other magazines is slander at its worst and gossip at best.

I take a sip of the hot, sweet liquid and hold it in my mouth long enough to make my lips burn and my teeth numb.

Someone needs to give this man a taste of his own medicine.

Not only is he fucking with the livelihood of good people just trying to make a living in the industry they love, but he also destroyed my chance at a dream job.

I could be writing a column on the Avs’ captain returning thanks to a gamble made by their coach, not sitting on my couch listening to it on ESPN.

If people knew what Liam did, what he is still doing, I mean shit. He’d be put in his place for sure.

And that’s when it hits me.

If someone wrote an article about him, the same kind of article he writes about other people, he’d get a whopping taste of his own medicine.

But it would have to be someone good. A damn good writer, someone who knows how to tell the truth in a way that would both grab the world’s attention but also be crafty enough that it doesn’t just sound like we are firing shots out of being trigger happy.

Someone who's worked in the shitty side of this industry before and knows how to expose it at any cost. Someone who cares more about being honest than being liked.

I pound the last of the bourbon and set the empty glass on the end table before grabbing my laptop.

I could just pull the number up on my phone.

It’s a number I would never delete, even if I never plan to contact her.

But I don’t want to talk to her. Not yet.

First, I just need to know where she is.

What she’s doing. And how to find her in a less personal way.

I haven’t said her name. Not since that night. Since the last time I saw her, I haven’t even allowed myself to think of her name. Though she’s come to me in dreams. She’s come for me in dreams…

I shake the thought from my mind. The images of her face looking up at mine.

Of her breasts and her hips and the way her strawberry blonde hair curled around her face and her legs wrapped around my shoulders.

I can’t think about that right now. Because that, as far as Liam is concerned, as far as anyone is concerned, never happened.

I type her name in on the search engine.

Isabelle Sloane.

The search doesn’t pop as hard as I expect it to.

As far as social media is concerned, she’s a ghost. It doesn’t surprise me though.

She was never an attention seeking girl.

I am a bit surprised though that I also can’t find her on any professional platforms. My heart sinks in my chest a little at the thought of Isabelle not writing anymore.

She’s so goddamned good at it. She’s better than her father even. It’s probably why he resents her.

My lips quirk in a momentary smile. “Isabelle.” I whisper.

She hates it when I call her that. Hates it when anyone calls her that.

It’s half of why I do it, to ruffle her feathers.

The other half is because it’s a pretty name.

It suits her. But no. Isabelle wants to be called Izzy and she’ll tell that to anyone who makes the mistake.

Epiphany number two slams me in the chest.

Izzy. I should be looking up Izzy, not Isabelle, Sloane.

I type the name and hit enter and then I grin.

“Jackpot.”

The first thing that pops up on my screen is a blog.

It’s not what I expected to be honest. A girl with her grace and grit should be the lead journalist for People magazine if we are being real.

But as I read through her most recent post, I have to smile.

Because it’s good. It’s more than good. It’s Izzy.

And it has over five hundred thousand subscribers.

As I get lost in article after article, I know for certain that I’ve found my writer. Now I just have to convince her of that. Unfortunately, that might be easier said than done considering the last time we spoke she made it clear she never wanted to see me again.