Exposed (Ethan Frost 3)

“You’re actually withdrawing your support from your brother?”

“Is this new information about illegal activity?”

“What information provoked such a drastic change of heart?”

I let them fire the questions at me for long seconds, before holding a hand up to silence them. Brandon is next to me, all but tripping over his own tongue as he tries to do damage control. Too bad he didn’t think of that before.

“At this point, I have no other comment on the matter. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a plane to catch.”

I turn and walk away with the reporters’ questions ringing in my ears.

Chapter 16

So that didn’t go quite as I planned. Fuck. So nice to know I can keep my cool when it comes to my younger brother’s complete and utter lack of a conscience or any moral compass whatsoever.

The bastard. The unbelievable bastard.

How he could be so smug, so obnoxious, so utterly lacking in both human decency and self-preservation, I will never know. But his personality defects make me want to go back in there and beat the shit out of him all over again. In front of every reporter in the goddamn room.

The fucking, fucking, fucking bastard.

I don’t, though. Instead, I keep walking, telling myself that I’ve done more than enough damage tonight—something my phone only underscores as the thing completely blows up before I even make it back to my car.

My publicist, Stu, is leading the pack with a string of nearly incoherent texts, each one ending with a request that I call him ASAP. Judging by the sheer volume of texts he’s managed to send in the ten minutes since I walked out of Brandon’s fund-raiser, I’d say the reporters in there have been busy.

I probably should have given the poor guy a heads-up about what to expect. Especially considering the fact that it’s close to nine o’clock California time.

I shoot him back a quick text that tells him to hold

at no comment for the rest of the night—we’ll work up a more formal statement when I’m back in the office tomorrow morning.

I glance at my other texts, all from donors who were in that room tonight because, at one time, I had asked them to be there. I owe them all an explanation and I’ll be giving them one—just not now. Just not tonight.

The last text is from my mother. It’s a simple request that I call her but I can all but hear the rage in her voice. It’s nothing compared to the rage in my own head, however, so I figure I should probably wait awhile before actually heeding her request.

My plane is set to take off at one this morning, and since it’s nearly midnight, I need to hustle if I’m going to get the rental car back and still make the flight time. I kept the three VPs who accompanied me on this trip waiting half an hour on the tarmac in San Diego. I don’t want to do the same thing here.

I fire off another quick text to Stuart, telling him the bare bones of the situation that just occurred. Seeing as how he’s been bombarded with requests from every news organization that was in the room when I made the announcement, I’m sure he already knows. Still, he needs to understand my side of what happened as opposed to theirs. I tack on one final text to him—this one an apology for not giving him any warning of what was about to come his way—then shove my phone into my pocket.

I want to text Chloe, just to check on her and to hear her voice in my head when I read her answering texts. But I’m still furious from my run-in with Brandon and I don’t want to have to explain all of this to her when I’m thousands of miles away. She knows me well enough to read between the lines when I’m upset and I don’t want her to push for answers I’m not ready to give.

I’m halfway to the airport when my phone rings. The in-dash console lets me know that it’s my mother calling. I think about ignoring her for a while longer, but the truth is, I’d rather get this done before I get on the plane instead of after.

Tamping down my anger, I accept the call. “Hi, Mom. How are you?”

“Is that even a serious question?” she demands after a too-long pause. “Ethan Matthew Frost, have you actually lost your mind?”

“Funny, Mom, I pretty much just asked Brandon the same question.”

“Why would you do that to your brother? You know how hard he’s worked, how hard we’ve all worked and you’ve just gone and shot this campaign in the foot.”

More like the heart—a much more vital organ. But I don’t bother telling her that, not when she’s already so worked up. “You know why.”

“Over that girl?”

“You mean, my wife?”

“Seeing as how this is the first time you’ve bothered to inform me of your marriage, I don’t know what you expect me to say.”