Staged (Exodus End 3)

“You already know he owns the tabloid. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t know that.”

“I know his conglomerate of an entertainment enterprise owns the paper. And I recently found out that he’s not just our manager but also the CEO of Tradespar West. What I don’t know is how you became the tabloid’s head editor.”

She smiled sweetly. “I was the most qualified for the job.”

“Because you have years of experience as a reporter or because you know a lot of dirt on me and on my band?”

She shrugged, clicking her pen again, her eyes trained on her thumb.

Steve didn’t let her collect her fabricated story this time. “But not enough dirt, so you sent your sister to dig for more.”

She snorted. “That didn’t go as planned. Never expected someone as business conscious as Eloise Nichols to hire her own daughter over my highly qualified sister.”

“You got Toni into a lot of trouble. Stealing her notes and publishing them.”

Bianca’s gaze lifted. “No one stole her notes. Her boss, her own mother, gave them to us.”

“For money.”

“Yes.” She rolled her eyes, as if he were a few brain cells short of a functioning cerebrum. “That’s generally how a tabloid operates.”

“Sam didn’t put you up to this, any of this? It was all your idea.” He wasn’t buying it. The coincidence was too outrageous to have been produced by chance, and in Steve’s mind, Sam was responsible for every negative thing that happened to the band. So much so that he refused to give the man credit for any of their countless successes.

“He provided a list of struggling entertainers he wanted us to cover in the first few issues.”

Struggling entertainers? Her words were a slap to the face. “And we were at the top of that list.”

“A priority. Yes.”

“And you don’t feel the least bit guilty about making my life hell?”

She grinned. “You know I get off on it, Stevie.”

And apparently Sam had known she would. “So if I tell you to knock it off . . .”

“I won’t.”

“And if Sam tells you to knock it off?”

“He’s the boss, but . . .” She leaned forward, a snake ready to strike. “. . . he won’t. This little stunt gave him the exact results he wanted.”

“To make me hate him even more?”

“To help his struggling entertainers sell some albums.”

Steve’s stomach clenched with a mixture of rage and revulsion. “We don’t need stupid publicity stunts to sell records. We don’t need him. Or you.” He’d lost the lid on his temper. Damn. He’d promised himself—and Zach—that he wouldn’t let her get to him, but she knew exactly how to rile him.

“It’s time for you to leave,” she said.

He agreed with her on that point and shifted out of his chair and to his feet. He paused at the door as he remembered another question he wanted to ask her. “Are you dating Sam’s nephew, Pyre something-or-other, the guitarist of that lame opening band we ditched at the start of the tour?”

Bianca’s eyebrows rose, and for a second he thought he’d caught her, but she smiled. “Do you think I’d settle for that when I’ve had you?”

He couldn’t tell if she’d complimented him or insulted him.

“Besides,” she added, reaching for a stack of files on her desk to relay the point that he’d taken up more than enough of her valuable time. “Tamara’s more the type to do whatever her man wants in order to keep him, don’t you think?”

Tamara and Pyre? Steve cringed—whether it was on Tamara’s behalf or Pyre’s, he wasn’t sure—but decided they made a perfect couple. He hoped they didn’t procreate.

“I’m glad Reagan beat the pants off that dude in our contest,” Steve said. The lame comment was the only ammunition he had against Pyre Vamp.

“You and me both. I don’t think I could stomach watching Tamara throw herself at you while her current boyfriend looked on.” She smiled smugly, as if she knew something he didn’t.

“Wait . . .” So Bianca knew her sister had the hots for him? Steve had kept that bit of information to himself. He’d even left Bianca off the paperwork when he’d had the restraining order drawn against Tamara. But maybe Tamara wasn’t quite that smart.

“Yes, I know she’s always wanted you. You could have turned her down.”

“I did turn her down.”

“Sure.” Bianca’s face was hard and cold, and she wheeled her chair toward the computer to her right. “Close the door behind you when you leave.”

“I did turn her down.” He wasn’t sure why he cared that Bianca believed him.

“Then how does she know about the freckle on your dick, Steve? Huh? Explain that.”

It wasn’t exactly a secret, but . . . “Because she’s managed to get her hands on it more than once.” She especially liked to employ a sneak attack when he was sleeping.

“Exactly. Go away now. I’m finished with you in every way imaginable.”

He opened his mouth to defend himself further, but decided it wasn’t worth the energy. Bianca had left him on a lie—a string of lies—but the hurtful truth was, she had found another man to warm her bed, and he could not forgive or bring himself to care about someone who wrongfully distrusted him with every molecule in her tight little body.

“This will all come back to bite you in the ass eventually, Bianca,” he said before he let himself out of her office and quietly closed the door behind him, serving his pathological need to have the last word.

He found Zach leaning over the reception desk flirting with an overwhelmed-looking Asian American woman. Zach was an incurable flirt with either gender, but he especially liked to fluster women. Steve didn’t get it, but hey, at least he’d kept himself out of trouble for the most part.

“If he’s sexually harassing you, you should press charges,” Steve said as he came up behind Zach and gave him a hearty slap on the back.

“Oh,” the young woman said. “He wasn’t. He was just saying—”

“That she has the most beautiful skin I’ve ever seen. It’s like the petals of a perfect lotus blossom.”

The woman flushed and lowered her eyes. “Thank you.”

“What kind of moisturizer do you use?” Zach asked. “I need to get some for my boyfriend’s ass so it’s all nice and smooth—”

Steve clamped a hand over Zach’s mouth. “We talked about this. No oversharing about the gay stuff.”

The woman groaned and glared up at Zach, who yanked Steve’s hand from his mouth.

“I meant what I said. You do have gorgeous skin. And you can trust a compliment from a queer because you know I’m not saying that to get you into bed.”

The woman laughed. “I guess that’s true. Unfortunate, but true.”

Zach offered his flirtee a friendly wave as he followed Steve out of American Inquirer’s deceptively bright office. Steve had honestly expected to enter some dark, blood-stained torture dungeon when he’d barged through the front door an hour ago. And now he couldn’t get out of the place fast enough.

“So were all your questions answered?” Zach asked. “You were in there forever.”

“Not really, but I did get a phone call while Bianca was busting my balls. Couldn’t take it right there in front of my ex, but she finally called.”

Zach brightened. “Roux?”

“I think so. Unless it was a wrong number. But it had a New York area code.” And Steve refused to believe that it wasn’t her finally breaking her agonizing silence.

“Are you going to call her back?”

“Eventually.” Steve shrugged. “Let’s see how she likes to be kept wanting.”

“We’re still going to New York to surprise her, aren’t we?”

“Yep. The jet is waiting on the airstrip.”

Zach punched Steve in the shoulder. “I like having friends in high places.”

~*~*~