Manwhore: Chapter 28

“Wake up, Livingston.”

I tuck my face into my pillow while someone who sounds a lot like Gina keeps knocking on my door. I groan, “I’m going to kick your ass when I get out of this bed.”

“You’re going to be too busy.”

“Busy with what?”

“Rachel, the door’s freaking locked.”

“So?”

“So open up.”

Hmm. Don’t think so. My life’s a mess. My life’s a mess and I need to fix it and I need to think of how to fix it. And the only pleasure I can derive anymore is in thinking and remembering, remembering talking on the phone only a few nights ago; I dreamed he said some things, and that I said some other things, then I remember that, yes, I think it’s true—I said I loved him.

Holy crap.

“Raaaa-chel,” Gina whines. Hard banging at the door. “Open up, Livingston. You need to see this!”

“I don’t want to see anything today. I’m seeing Saint when he gets back from New York and I want some beauty sleep, okay? It’s Saturday,” I grumble, but when she keeps banging, I leap off the bed and whip the door open, then rush back under my warm covers. “What is it?”

Wynn and Gina drop onto my bed.

Wynn is here too?

I’m aware of a strained silence while Wynn goes to open the curtains and comes back. Their stares . . . they look ominous.

A shadow of fear looms before me. “What?”

Their expressions alone set alarm bells ringing throughout my head. Leaping off the bed, I open my laptop and start scouring the Net, and all I can think is no, no no nooooooooo.

Within seconds, dozens of results with the words exposed and undercover and lies and betrayal pop up, tying Sin, my glorious Sin, to me.

“Rachel, you’re all over the gossip sites,” Wynn says.

The results come at me with talons. One after the other.

“Go here.” Gina points at a website.

My hands have never shaken so hard on the track pad. I force the cursor to move and go to the site, and my stomach drops. I see Victoria’s byline and realize they went ahead and released her story in blog form before going to press.

I can’t see through my tears.

“That BITCH!” Gina yells.

As though someone else is speaking for me, numbly, in my own voice and with my own lips, I hear: “She’s doing what she has to. She wants to succeed, like me,” and as I speak, my tears keep gathering in my eyelids.

“She can suck my dick!” Gina yells.

I duck to read.

DECEIVED: Malcolm Saint’s New Girlfriend Really Undercover Press!

If you’ve been waiting for the dish on one of the most unexpected “relationships” to arise with one of our bachelors, prepare to have your mind blown even further when I let it all out of the bag. At least, Malcolm Saint’s girlfriend’s bag. . . .

I can’t continue. Each word is out there for Malcolm to read. Snarky, like the words of a real-life Gossip Girl amusing herself while my world is torn asunder.

My eyes well. “He’s read this by now, ohgod.”

“Rachel, calm down. . . .”

“You don’t understand! Truth and loyalty are important to him! They’re so important to him . . . I can’t.” I cover my head in my hands as I start to hyperventilate. “I’m going to throw up.”

“Rachel.” They try comforting me, both of them slinging their arms around my shoulders, but I’m beyond comfort.

My cell phone is buzzing madly. I suck in deep breaths, and when my phone falls still, the landline starts to ring. Gina lifts the kitchen phone in the air. “It’s Helen, Rachel.”

When nothing happens, she waves the phone at me.

“Helen’s calling.”

“Don’t talk to her,” Wynn whispers.

Gina covers the speaker. “Hello? Wynn? She’s her BOSS.”

I know what she wants, what she will say. I grab the phone while my hand trembles and the rest of me starts to grow numb inside. I have disappointed everyone in my life. “You saw?” she asks.

I can’t answer.

Helen growls, “We’ll ride this if it kills us. Get to work.”

I’ve barely hung up the phone when Gina raises my cell phone before me, eyes wide and apologetic. “It’s your mother.”

With a moan of distress, I shoot Gina a “help me” look. What will I say to her? Well, let’s see. That I lost my heart and my senses with it. That I lost the man I loved before I had the courage to let myself truly have him. That I lost a story to my colleague. That I might, if I can’t find my balls soon, lose my job.

That I’ve lost all sense of direction. Of what’s right and what’s wrong. Of who I am and what I want—

“Heyyyy, adoptive mom!” Gina finally picks up on my behalf. “Yes! GINA! Oh . . . Rachel? She’s super busy writing the article that will leave this other one in the dust. Oh, pfft! It’s just a blog article! Rachel’s will be IN PRINT, and it’s much more important in that format. . . .” She starts to wax poetic to my mom while I go back to the computer and go to Saint’s social media.

I scan a few pictures.

There he is.

I see a picture of him getting out of his Rolls and into M4. A picture of him flipping off a reporter.

A set of slick aviators shield his eyes.

He looks sharp and on top of the world as he gets out of the car and, just like that, flips off the reporter. And a caption beneath the image reads: “When asked by a reporter, outside his offices, what he thought about his girlfriend being undercover press, this is what Malcolm Saint had to say.”

Saint is back in Chicago. He’s back from his business trip. To find this.

He’s being tagged. He’s being BOMBARDED.

@malcolmsaint U deserve much mre and better than a cunt lke her!!

“I’m going to go talk to him.”

I run into my room and change as fast as possible into a pair of black slacks and a professional-looking white button-down blouse; then I quickly gather my hair into a ponytail and, despite Wynn and Gina’s reservations, take a cab to M4.

I cross the pristine lobby. If I’d thought it was difficult to walk up to the receptionists behind the oval desk the first time, it’s even more excruciatingly painful now.

I know that they know what’s going on; I can tell by their pointy stares.

My pulse is dangerously high. I can’t imagine what it will feel like when I see him.

“Rachel Livingston for Mr. Saint, please.”

It strikes me, after several heartbeats, that none of them wants to answer me.

“We apologize,” the middle one with the tidy bun finally says. “But Mr. Saint just got into town.”

“Yes, I know.” I can’t believe how calm I sound, considering how twisted up my insides are. “I’ll wait.”

“Miss!” she calls as I walk toward the elevators. “No one is to be allowed to the top without authorization today.”

I stop mid-stride, puzzled. “Oh.” I hesitate, and notice that the elevator bank is, in fact, quite empty today. “I’ll wait here, then.” I try to stay calm as I walk back in their direction. Did Saint cancel all the meetings in his “packed” day? I feel increasingly anxious about it. “Just please tell him Rachel Livingston would love to see him. It’s terribly important.”

“Like I said, he’s terribly busy.”

“I’ll wait,” I say, soft but firm.

I head to one of one of the lounges by the window. Huddled in my seat, I wait, feeling cold, remembering the absolute gossip storm taking place online. I shift uneasily from side to side, watching the elevators and the cars outside.

There are two or three people outside the building trying to keep their cameras hidden but occasionally taking snapshots of the building. So they want a piece of him too? Annoyance flares inside me. Annoyance, impotence, and loathing at myself for having caused this. The receptionist approaches moments later, and there’s an intimidating bodyguard with her.

Slowly, I rise to my feet.

“I’m sorry but we can’t have you here,” the receptionist says. “He’s busy, just arrived from out of town.” I see anger in her eyes. My attention flicks to the large man and . . . I just can’t believe there’s a bodyguard. I can’t believe he’s having them escort me out.

“Tell him I stopped by,” I murmur. Then I do them all a favor and take myself outside, using my hair as a curtain to avoid being recognized—glad that my hair can also hide the absolutely crestfallen look on my face. I head straight home, where Gina and Wynn appear to have been waiting by the door.

“How did it go?” Gina takes me by the shoulders and forces me down on the couch.

I’m still numb with disbelief. It takes me a moment to answer. “He’s walling himself up. I couldn’t see him. They . . . I was escorted out.”

“What?” Wynn cries, outraged.

And Gina: “Didn’t you tell me his staff is loyal to a fault? Of course they’d be overprotective of their Saint.”

“But did he know Rachel was there?” Wynn wants to know.

They start arguing about whether or not Saint instructed them to kick me out, but I can’t join the speculation. I’m feeling more and more hopeless as I look at my phone. My silent phone.

Locking myself in my bedroom, I call his cell phone and pace around as I leave a message:

“Heyyyyy. Hey . . . will you please call me back? I need to talk to you.” I flounder with what to say next, my thoughts stumbling one after the other.

“Malcolm . . .” I trail off, but my voice breaks so fiercely, I hang up. I wipe my tears away and dial again. “Sorry,” I whisper. I have never wanted to hear his voice so much. “I want to say that . . . I don’t know. . . . I just wanted to hear your voice.” I think of what else to say when I reach his voice mail.

I dial again. “You value truth and loyalty, and I . . . I need to talk to you, Malcolm, you need to let me explain. If that’s all you do, please let me explain.”

It’s killing me. I can’t sleep. Can’t eat. I have a constriction in my chest and I literally can’t breathe. This time it’s not in a good way. I keep waiting to hear from him, keep expecting him to message me back.

I storm into Gina’s bedroom. “Do you think it’s over?”

She jolts up in bed. “You scared the shit out of me. I thought we had an intruder!”

“Do you think it’s over? Not talking and this shit happening, it means it’s over. Right? Who am I kidding? I wasn’t even his real girlfriend. Not even for a day. There’s nothing to be over.” I laugh sadly and struggle with my tears, and with my conscience, and my desperate need for him.

“I feel bad for you, but Saint’s a powerful man. When Paul betrayed me, I couldn’t look at him, not even a single possession of his. He broke me. And this is . . . this is public, Rachel. How would you feel? If he came with something like this, throwing you for a loop? Give him time to assimilate what’s being said. Maybe he just wants to rationalize.”

Maybe he just needs to count to four, I think to myself.

“I have a temper. . . .”

One instant I’m trying to feel positive by telling myself that I will have a moment to explain, eventually, and the next I’m heavy with grief. The next, I’m one big, gigantic knot of regrets. Remembering those few, rare moments when he completely opened up to me makes me even more anxious to be with him right now, to explain. To make it okay. To hold him. To BEG him to hold ME. “Rachel, what are you going to do with your article?” Gina asks worriedly.

In my hand, on my phone screen, for the thousandth time, I look at that picture of him arriving at M4 after a business trip. Looking like a true, first-class billionaire . . . but flipping off whoever was snapping that picture. All of that glass and technology in the background, and him, in that killer suit, his dark head bent, his eyes shielded behind his aviators. No comment, the caption says. But the finger said plenty.