The life I now knew that I needed. Scandal or not.
And I’d done my best to tell Holland that every night. To tell her that we were going to get through this. That things would blow over.
But then my clients left. We found out the bar had no security cameras outside. The story grew with a life of its own.
Then Engelman canceled the merger.
She’d heard me raising my voice in my office that day. Locked in there for hours trying in vain to do damage control.
And days later, she left me the letter on my kitchen counter where I was sitting now, drifting in and out of my thoughts. And of course, having my conscience repeatedly pierced through by the sound of Drew’s voice.
He was playing two roles right now—that of world’s best dad and my loyal client as he grinned wide, fighting his own toy shark against Kai’s while continuing to give his seamless interview.
“Look, I’m not going to speak to the personal issues Watt is going through right now,” he said—clearly to remind this reporter about the personal issues Watt was going through right now. “But you all know that Iain Thorn turned my life around. He introduced me to my wife. He made me the man and the player I am today, and you guys are going to negate all that with one swing? You guys vilified me because I was a piece of shit for a solid six to eight years. If Iain Thorn keeps dropping haymakers on clients for another six to eight years, drag him all you want, but one punch? Come the fuck on,” he said, covering Kai’s ears. “And you can quote me on that.”
I eyed Drew, at least managing to appreciate how dramatically the tables had turned. Years ago, I was the lone agent who agreed to represent him after his own scandal. Now he was one of few clients left standing by me. Fighting for me just as hard as I’d fought for him.
“Well. At least we can both agree now that the media is one giant howling trash fire,” Drew said as soon as he hung up. Fixing Kai’s socks, he turned to me. “So any new leads?” he asked, referring to what I’d been spending my entire past ten days on.
While he had been working on my reputation, I’d been working to track down Holland.
Because ten days ago, despite the fact that we had had breakfast as usual, I’d sensed something was off. She had smiled for me, looked me in the eyes, kissed me the way she always kissed me—like she’d been waiting her whole life to.
But when she left for work that morning, I felt something strange tugging at my heart.
And when I went to my office, I found a piece of paper from her trusty notebook sitting on my desk, with Holland’s note to me written neatly on it.
In short, she said she was going to give me space to think.
To breathe.
I promise this is temporary. But I can’t let you go through something as big as this and worry about comforting me at the same time. Protecting me the way you always do. As long as I’m near, your first priority is looking out for me. That’s how it’s always been and how you’re always going to be.
But right now you have to look out for you.
You’ve worked so hard for so long and you can’t save yourself when your concern is only with me.
I love you more than anything.
I just want to give you the time alone that you need right now, and the chance to figure things out. Because you deserve to be happy.
It had knocked the air from my lungs that morning.
Made me rush to immediately call her. Adam. A.J. But Holland didn’t answer and Adam and A.J were in the dark.
So I went to the offices of Minx, but she wasn’t there. “Oh, she isn’t going to be here for awhile,” the person at the front told me vaguely.
I went immediately to her apartment after, where I found only Mia, who told me nothing more than what Holland had. That she knew this was only temporary. She even let me look at Holland’s room. Everything was still there. The bed. Her furniture. Her vision board.
But in her closet, half her clothes were gone and gone were all the notebooks on her desk, which told me that wherever she was, she planned on being there for a fair amount of time.
For longer than I could stand.
It had shocked me that day.
Left me completely fucking stunned.
Though I considered that night that perhaps I shouldn’t have been so surprised. She was always preaching “me time.” Doing things to take care of myself. And as blindsided as I was, I could understand in some way. Because regardless of the reason why I started my career in New York, it was still something I prized. Something I took immense pride in. I had poured years upon years of my soul into my work. And I genuinely enjoyed accomplishing the things that I did. Breaking league records. Saving Drew’s career. Even if it started for the purpose of burying the demon, this was the life I’d worked tooth and nail to build, so in some way, I saw Holland’s point. Her desire to give me space to figure out what I really wanted without being swayed by my instinctive need to protect her.