Always With You (The Connor Family 6)

Hailey: Not happening.

Reid: We’ll see.

He was baiting me, but I didn’t reply. I had a hunch that he had some more arguments, and I really wasn’t even going to go there, not even allow myself to consider it. Working for the man I dated could go south very fast (even though the rewards were very sweet, as he’d unfortunately pointed out). Dating a client was different. He wouldn’t be my client forever. Once this died down, he wouldn’t need me anymore.

I pushed the phone away, hoping the credo “out of sight, out of mind” would work. It didn’t. I was so tempted that my palm was practically itching to grab the phone. I was determined to avoid temptation.

And besides, I did have my plate full. I’d spent the entire morning brainstorming about a way to respond to Marion’s accusations, but so far, I was coming up blank. Reid was making this unnecessarily difficult by not wanting to disclose the truth.

But it was my job to find a way around that, and I was determined to succeed.

I dealt with two other clients over the course of the afternoon. I was just starting my collaboration with the first, and bidding goodbye to the second one. It was always bittersweet when a client didn’t need me anymore, but it was testament to a job well done.

I had long-term clients, of course. Stars who needed representation all the time. But since the agency specialized in crisis management, we also dealt with people who only needed us until the crisis was done.

I realized something was amiss when I checked my inbox after getting off the phone with a client. I had twenty unread messages. One of them from Cameron. Shit had hit the fan somewhere! The only time my inbox exploded was when an article popped up, yet none of my notification software had pinged. That must mean the article was fresh enough that the software hadn’t picked it up yet.

I opened Cameron’s email first and froze in my seat. He’d sent me an article, all right; only it wasn’t just about one of my clients, it was about me too.

Someone had snapped photos of Reid and me when we were shopping on Saturday. There we were—holding hands, kissing.

I forced myself to read the article. It wasn’t pretty. It painted Reid as a womanizer and me as an idiot. I closed my eyes, drawing a few deep breaths, trying to sort through the jumble of thoughts. I couldn’t. My hand trembled on the mouse as I clicked through the other emails. They all contained the article, and occasionally a commentary. From my clients. Goddammit. I was supposed to solve PR crises, not create them.

Oh, and it had been written by Victor for the online edition of LA Lifestyle. Bastard.

I propped my forehead in my hand, trying the deep breathing technique again. It worked better this time, and I made a list of priorities. I needed to talk to Reid, work out how this would impact him and what the next move was. The fact that I had now been publicly named made my job harder.

How was I supposed to mediate the situation if I was right in the middle of it? Goddammit.

I also had to talk to Cameron. He hadn’t written anything in his email, merely included the article, but that wasn’t reassuring. I jumped when my phone rang, thinking it was Cameron for sure. He wasn’t in the office. It was Reid.

“Hailey. Someone sent me the article—”

“I just got it too.”

“Are you still at the office?”

“Yes... I’m trying to gather my thoughts. Wait. My boss just returned. I’ll call you after, okay? I need to talk to him.”

I caught Cameron’s eye, and he motioned me to join him in his office. Most of my colleagues seemed blissfully unaware of what had happened, but then again, everyone was up to their eyeballs with their own clients.

“Close the door behind you,” Cameron instructed. I did just that and started pacing the room. He wasn’t sitting, and I had too much energy anyway. I needed to move.

“Since when are you and Davenport an item?”

“A while.”

“Can you break it off?”

“N-no,” I stuttered, stunned. “I don’t want to.”

“I had to ask. A clean break would make this easier. We can pawn him off on another agency. We’re not bound—”

“He’s my client. And my boyfriend.”

“So it’s serious.”

“Yes.” I hoped. I’d met his parents. And we spent time together, and... shit, was I risking my career for a fling? I rubbed the back of my neck, breathing in and out. I was just panicking for no reason. Of course this wasn’t a fling.