I knew what I had to do; I just didn't know how to do it.

The public apology was the easy part. I'd witnessed enough celebrities doing it that I'd taken note of what to say, what not to say, and who to share it with.

It was the no more Eden part that wouldn't settle in me. The part that implied that I had to cut her loose and move on without her.

A few years ago, hell, even a few months ago, that'd have been easy for me. I didn't form attachments, didn't get into relationships. No one could handle my schedule, and I didn't want anyone aware of how shady my path to success was. But Eden...

She couldn't be an exception. That had started all this—me believing she was different, believing we could be different together.

The harsh truth? That was impossible. As long as she was my personal assistant, and me her boss, there was no hope for us.

And after all this bullshit, even if we weren't legally bound, it'd be ill-viewed for us to start a relationship. I'd be known to the press, soon enough, and so would she.

If they caught her and I together...another scandal would blow up.

I was in no position for scandals, Pat and Mickey had made that clear.

I didn't see Eden for the rest of the day; not that I avoided her on purpose, but it was better that we didn't cross paths and become tempted and bypass the rules again. Better that we adjust to not seeing each other as much.

Or ever.

I needed time to prepare my speech, anyway. We'd have to talk soon, so I could release her from her contract, somehow, and send her on her way. Much as I wanted to keep her around, to break the rules, to not give a fuck...that wasn't possible.

Not with investors breathing down my neck, demanding that I tread lightly. Being with Eden wouldn't be a tread, it'd be a sprint, and it'd be loud, and it'd cause waves—

I fell asleep thinking of Eden lounging on a topless beach with me.

***

The next day, I woke early, before my alarm set at seven o'clock. I wasn't sure I'd slept at all, groggy as I felt. I grabbed my phone, unlocked it, and—

There, front and center on several of my news apps, and linked in texts from Mickey, Eve, and Yanic, was the article.

The article.

I knew it'd come out soon, but that soon?

My journalist friend hadn't opted to warn me in time for anything. I again wondered how much she'd gotten paid. For her to release this opus so fast...

I rubbed my eyes as I dismissed all the notifications and locked my phone. It was tempting to throw my pillow over my face and go back to sleep, but my eyes wouldn't close.

My mind wouldn't shut off.

My heart wouldn't stop pounding.

I needed to talk to Eden. She'd gotten the notifications, too. Maybe her friends sent her panicked texts asking her if she was okay, if she needed help running away from me or breaking her contract.

"Fuck," I said, forcing myself out of bed with a groan. My body was sore, my brain on fire.

But this was necessary.

I pulled on some sweats and exited the room, hoping to grab some coffee and a bite to eat before confronting her. It was early, and though I knew she often woke at the crack of dawn, I didn't expect her to emerge at the same time as me today.

How wrong I was.

As I arrived at the stairs, her bedroom door opened. She peered out tentatively, noticed me, and stiffened.

"Silver," she said, voice brittle as if she'd been crying. Her eyes were wide and red, and leftover tears stained her cheeks.

"Eden," I said, trying for a smile and a wave, but I knew how taut my arm was, how forced my lips must have looked.

"You...you saw it?" She hugged herself as she stepped halfway out of the room, wearing a pair of tight leggings and a baggy sweatshirt. So cozy, huggable, loveable. I tried not to stare at her, to remember how comfortable she felt to me. How perfectly she fit in my arms.

"Of course," I said, my nose wrinkling.

"It's," she gulped loudly, "awful."

I needed coffee before discussing this with her. I'd make no sense if there wasn't at least a trickle or two of caffeine in my veins. I gestured at the stairs. "Coffee?"

She hesitated, squinting at me, then peeked into her room at something I couldn't see. When she returned to me, her lips were pinched, but she nodded.

In silence—and several steps apart, for safety reasons—we descended to the lower floor. An immediate scent of java flurried around us. The new chef used a more fragrant blend, but I wouldn't complain. With or without cream or sugar or flavors, I'd drink coffee however it was presented to me.

The chef left a message on the fridge stating they were out grocery shopping. Gigi had the morning off.

We were alone. Whether that was preferable or perilous, though...

Eden hopped onto one of the barstools and swept her hands down her face.

"How do you take it?" I picked up a mug and waved it at her.

"Black, today," she said, wincing.

I poured the coffee into one mug for her, then did the same for myself. I rarely took mine black, but she was right; this would filter faster into me and wake me up.

I had to be fully awake for this.

I plopped onto another stool—leaving one between us, for distance purposes—sipped my java, and sighed. "The article—"

"Was expected, and we knew it was coming, and that's that," said Eden, her voice high-pitched. She'd appeared so distraught upstairs; now she was harsh, blunt.

"Oh," I said, glancing into my coffee cup, my nose reflected there, my eyes wide, my eyebrows arching up. "Did you want to talk about it?"

"No," she shook her head, "I wanted to talk about what I heard in your office yesterday."

"What you—" I chewed on my lower lip.

Fuck. Had she been eavesdropping on my conference call?

"I'm just a no one," she said, her words level considering their cruelty. "A statistic. Another PA, replaceable. Not representative of your brand. I don't matter."

I set my mug down before I dropped it, losing the precious drink I needed to survive this. "I didn't say that, Eden. That was Eve, my press agent."

"You didn't contradict her," said Eden, gaze focused ahead as she brought her mug to her lips, blew on the steam, then sipped. "You said fine, and that was that."

I should have taken the call elsewhere. Should have gone outside, for a walk. I should have known she'd be lurking; she'd probably been pacing in front of my office, debating whether to knock, to come in, to confide in me.

My reputation was at stake but so was hers. Her temp agency might drop her, her friends might not want to speak to her anymore, and her family—

Well, I didn't know her family, but Mickey had made it sound like they weren't pleasant.

But had she heard anything else? Like when I defended her the first time Eve spoke poorly of her? Or Pat or Anonymous and what they had to say?

"Shit," she said, her voice shaky, drawing me to turn my stool towards her. "I have no right to question you, dammit. I only listened to that bit of what I imagine was a long conversation, but...it hurt." She set her mug on the counter and pressed her hands to her heart. "It hurts, Silver. For you to let them talk that way."

I was about to reach out and touch her arm, but I stopped myself. "I'm sorry you had to hear that, Eden. It was...out of line. I will speak to her about that, trust me."

I hated to show how relieved I was, in truth. If she'd only caught that sentence from Eve, and my lack of a response, that meant she had no clue about Pat or Anonymous or any of the other horrible things discussed.

She still didn't know of my ties to seedy investors, of the black-market dealers who'd contributed to my fame. If at all possible, I wanted it to stay that way.

The less Eden knew about all that crap...the better. The easier it'd be to let her go, with no clue what she'd escaped from.

If she got further involved with me, she'd be wrapped up in all that. The dicey dudes I had to pay to thank for their investment; the knowledge I had of the underground shit going on in her city...

She wouldn't like that.

"I do trust you," she sniffled, "but that's not all."

I wasn't sure why she'd trust me after that, but I'd never cease to be amazed by this woman, by the depth of her feelings, her capacity for forgiveness.

She should have quit after she found out about Noah and me. I would have; the fact that she'd stuck around showed me a lot about her character.

A character I'd miss dearly.

"I got a call from my temp agency before I saw you in the hallway." She pulled out her phone, placed it near her mug. She tapped at the screen as she sniffled again, using her free hand to wipe under her eyes.

I wanted so badly to wipe those tears for her. To take her in my arms and rock her gently until her cries subsided. I wanted to show her that nothing that Eve had said was true.

I cared. I cared so much and I was hurting, too.

If I succumbed to these feelings, if I got close to Eden again...we'd both lose.

"What did they do to you?" I figured they'd dropped her, blacklisted her from all other temp agencies in town.

Getting caught with your boss? A huge no-no for them. They'd have no sympathy for her, for the fact that the press said I had started it all.

"They're transferring me," she said, almost so quietly I didn't hear her at first. She cleared her throat, and a few strings of golden hair tumbled over her shoulders as she shivered. "They're breaking my contract with you, sending me somewhere else."

"What?" My jaw dropped. "I...they...can they do that?" I nearly fell off the stool and got up to stop it from happening again. "Transferring you? Without notifying me or my team?"

I didn't recall any messages from my people aside from links to the article.

My upper lip curled. Forwarding me links, really? As if I didn't already know it was out. As if I didn't care.

Had they gotten the news from Eden's temp agency and didn't feel the need to tell me about it? Probably because they didn't want me near her. They didn't want me to get into any more trouble.

"They can do whatever the hell they like, apparently." Eden's tears stopped flowing, and her voice deepened. She tensed, her hands in her lap, clenching and unclenching. "Hell, it was six o'clock when they called me. I didn't realize they were even open before nine."

"Interesting." I seized my mug and hurried to down half the liquid within, scorching my throat. The longer I was near her, the more dangerous, especially knowing I was losing her for real.

Yes, I'd planned on cutting her loose myself, but for the agency to beat me to it? How dare they? And how dare my team not notify me?

"They believe the article," she said, sucking her lips in, concentrating on her drink. "We were two seconds into a conversation when Ursula, my contact there, said that you were an abuser, they knew it, they never should have sent me to work for you, bla bla bla."

"Wait." I put my mug down again, for fear of it shattering in my grasp. My cheeks heated. "Are they trying to imply they knew about...about L.A.?"

Eden glanced sideways at me and shrugged. "I guess so."

"How?" I refrained from growling; it wasn't her I was mad at, but her damn agency. There was no way they'd know about Noah, not with the heaps of money Mickey paid to keep us out of the news. No way they'd gotten access to that information so soon after this article. "That's impossible."

"I was too traumatized to ask follow-up questions, sorry," snapped Eden, before covering her mouth. "Sorry, I'm just...I don't have a choice." She perked up, shoulders back, bosom out. "I go where they tell me to, as long as I'm under contract with them..."

Our contract hadn't started yet. The agency still owned her.

Owned her.

"What about the three months we signed on for?" The growl was in my throat again, begging to release. "Is it legal for them to break that? Their own damn contract?"

"I don't have a choice," she repeated, quieter this time, gripping the counter-top for stability.

And again, I wanted to hold her. Again, I wanted to make it all go away, to nestle her against me and cry it out, let it all out. Then I'd guide her to the couch, let her lay in my embrace as we watched the world outside go by. As we waited it out.

This shit would pass, it had to. All scandals did.

"I have to go," she said, sliding off the stool, almost in slow motion.

My brain formed the words, no you don't, but mouth, my damn mouth, instead said: "Yes, you do."

She jerked her head my way, eyes narrowed. "What?"

I set a fist to my mouth as I grimaced. "I don't want you to, but you must."

"But what if...why can't we..." Her arms tightened at her sides as she marched up to me, bypassing the obstacle—the spare stool—I'd left between us.

Her scent rushed up over my face; minty, forest-fresh, delicious.

I did what I shouldn't have done and touched her. I gripped both her shoulders, keeping her at arm's length. "It's not in my nature to give in, but this...like you said, you have no choice."

"You can't..." Her lower lip puckered out and trembled. Fuck, I wanted to cover it with my mouth. "You can't fight it?"

She'd expected me to stick up for her, to dispute her agency.

How I wished I could. "No. Not this."

"But I—" She shrank, her body crumbling; my hands kept her from falling. "I tried to tell them at the agency, I wanted them to stop insulting you, for fucks' sake, but they wouldn't listen—"

I shook her, begging her to look at me, to silence herself. "You can't do that, Eden. Don't insist again. You must let them believe it's true."

She gasped. "But it's not, I can't, I won't incriminate you like that—"

"You will." I let go and backed away, folding my arms, covering myself up. We were too close, she smelled too good, and it was too tempting to say fuck it all and give up. "You'll play the victim. That's what my legal and PR team were talking about, yesterday. That's what they meant."

She blinked at me, more tears gathering in her eyes, though she kept her mouth firmly shut. She wanted to protest, I could tell, but she knew better than to test her stubbornness against mine.

"I'll take the fall, as planned," I said, resisting another urge to approach her, to place a soft kiss on her forehead. To sniff in her scent one last time, capture it forever. "And you...you'll go on to live your life, your new job, and move on. Forget this," I flinched, "ever happened. You don't deserve this, sweetheart."

Sweetheart. I'd gone and used another pet-name, at the worst possible time.

Her face drained of color, and she lowered her chin. "Got it," she whispered, spinning on her heels. "I'll go pack my things, then."

"Gigi can help," I said to her disappearing silhouette as she tiptoed up the stairs, light as a feather. "Once she gets home."

She didn't acknowledge my words and vanished onto the second floor.

I stood there wallowing in guilt and burning up with rage.

This was what I'd prepared for; her and I staying away from one another, erasing our feelings.

But because of those feelings, it pained me even more. It destroyed me inside to watch her walk away, to see her heart breaking—and to feel mine breaking, too.

***

The next part will become free on January 16, 2025, but until then, it can be unlocked for only 5 coins.