Page 56

The thing was, a part of me did believe that he would never but the evidence was right in front of me and I would have to be stupid to ignore the evidence. Regardless of that, I couldn’t stop the hopeful and na?ve part from believing that he was truly innocent.

Instead of speaking, I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to my phone so I could scroll through and see what people had said about the clip.

I already knew what to expect and for once, I couldn’t even hold it against anybody.

I couldn’t find it in my heart to be upset with them because there was proof- albeit fake; that I had said those things.

The comments ranged from disgusted to insulting to agreement.

I felt him walk up to me and I felt one of his hands wrap around my wrist while the other gently plucked my phone out of my hand. I raised a brow at him in amusement but he said nothing as he placed my phone on the table.

“I hit a guy today, I have no objections doing it twice,” I warned before adding under my breath. “I should issue an apology before I get sued for that.”

“Don’t, I’ll handle it.”

“In case you missed it Nathan, there’s nothing to handle. You say you didn’t put out that audio and I don’t know what to say to that. Whether you did it or not, the truth is that it is out there and nothing will change it.”

“I’ll release a statement saying it was edited and release the real clips. ”

I was not expecting those words so it took a few minutes for it to actually register.

I looked up at him expecting him to say he was joking or he misspoke but he had already taken out his phone from his pocket and I could see him typing furiously.

In a second, I was on my feet and I snatched it right out of his hands and sure enough, he was already typing out a response.

“Are you crazy?” I spat. “You can’t just put out a response like that. What are you even thinking? Let it go, the situation will fizzle out by itself.”

“You can’t be serious,” he began but when he saw my expression, he scoffed. “Half the internet hates you because they think you’re a racist and the other half agrees with you because they’re racist.”

“This won’t be the first time the internet has hated me because of something that’s untrue,” I shrugged as I cleared the message he had already typed out.

“Yes but this time I can prove that it’s untrue. Why don’t you want me to do it?”

The truth was, I didn’t know. Hearing how he was quick to want to clear my name let me know everything I needed to- he really didn’t know what had happened.

I didn’t want him to get dragged into the mess by defending me.

People definitely saw us at the show and him defending me would simply look like a bias because of feelings attached.

When I told him as much, he scoffed.

“Do I look like I give a shit?” he asked.

“I don’t care if people think I’m defending you because I like you.

What I care about is you getting hated and stalked because of this.

You’re clearly not thinking straight if you can’t see that the right thing to do would be to put an end to this at once. ”

“I’m not letting you get involved in my battles,” I said simply. “Give it at least two days before you say anything. I just want to be alone right now.”

“I’m already involved. Whoever did this took personal information from my office and tampered with it. Even if it wasn’t about you, it isn’t something that should be condoned.”

“Well then sort it out within the confines of your office. I don’t care how you do it but I don’t need you going out of your way to defend me.”

He stared at me like I had gone crazy and told him the earth was square. “Are you out of your mind? I’m not going out of my way, I-”

He stopped mid sentence and he looked like he wanted to say more but at the end of the day, he just let out a string of words in French and ran his hand through his hair in frustration.

I knew I was being unreasonable but I wanted to protect him as stupid as that sounded.

I knew my business could take the hit and I knew my reputation could too.

“What do we do now?” he asked after he had calmed down.

“We do nothing,” he opened his mouth to speak but I cut him off.

“I am going to deal with the fallout from this as well as whatever comes out from me hitting that reporter. In two days, I’ll release a statement and when the documentary comes out, people can see for themselves what actually happened. ”

He laughed humorlessly. “That sounds like a great plan and I hope it goes well for you but I’m going to do what I want to do.”

“You wouldn’t dare.”

“I think you seem to have forgotten that I don’t do well with instructions,” he gave me a dry smile. “I’ll see you soon, sunshine. ”

Before I could say anything or protest further, he had walked right out of the room.

Olivia was standing at the door as he left and she looked between me and him in confusion and with wide eyes.

Her eyes took in my stunned expression and she wasted no time in rushing into the room and closing the door behind her.

“What happened?”

I wasted no time in relaying everything that had just happened to her and when I was done she was sporting an impressed look on her face. Her lips were tilted up in a half smile and her eyes held pride and amusement.

“I knew there was a reason I liked him,” she began and when she saw my expression she rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why you’re being stubborn about this. If he can fix it then let him.”

“He can’t, no one can. The best thing to do would be to just let it die down. Give it two weeks and someone else will do something crazy enough to grasp the public’s attention and they’ll forget about me until the one year anniversary of this show.”

“I’m with Nathan on this one. You don’t deserve this.” She placed her hands on my shoulders. “Just wait to see what he does.”

I ran my hand down my face in frustration and my eyes somehow caught the flowers on the table.

I didn’t know what the hell Nathan was up to but I knew I was going to find out sooner or later.

If there was one thing I knew about Nathan, it was that he was not going to rest until he found a way to make things right.