When Michael came into my office the next day and tossed a tabloid onto my desk, I felt overcome by a strong sensation of déjà vu. "What's this?" I asked, reaching for the magazine and wondering if I'd somehow become stuck in a time loop.

"Look at the picture." Red-faced and seething, I got the impression that the older Donahue brother was on the verge of internal combustion. I glanced down at the photo and shrugged.

"So, it's a photo of Sophie and Richard," I said, holding the cover up to my face. "Big deal, they're on the front page of nearly every rag mag these days."

Michael's face and neck had gone the shade of a perfectly ripe tomato and I half-expected him to begin hopping up and down. "Look at the photography credit," he said through gritted teeth.

His jaw was so tightly clenched that I could hear his teeth grinding together from where I sat. I looked down at the page again and felt a jolt of surprise. There, beneath the picture of Sophie and Richard walking in front of their lawyers, was a name I recognized. "What the hell? Marc Corona? Seriously?"

"Exactly." Michael leaned against the ancient photocopier that Melanie and I had pushed to one corner of the room and took a deep breath. "Richard and Walter are feeding info to him, I'm sure of it."

"How do you know?" I asked, hesitant to believe that the photo was the product of anything other than coincidence. "Maybe he just got lucky."

"Not a chance. I told nearly every paparazzi agency in the city that Sophie and Richard would be meeting for a late lunch in Venice. He should've been waiting for them with the rest of the vultures on the west side." Michael ran a hand through his hair and I noticed for the first time that he hadn't used any gel to slick it back. With his dark blonde hair laying flat, he could've easily passed for Scott's twin. "His office is in Silver Lake, for God's sake, so what was he doing in Beverly Hills at the exact time that Richard and Sophie showed up at Armada's office, huh?"

"Getting lunch?" I offered but Michael shook his head with disgust.

"Are you kidding me? No one is that lucky. He knew."

"What are you going to do about it even if they are tipping him off? You can't prove it, can you? All confronting them would do is make them even shadier about it."

Michael's shoulders slumped forward and I watched his anger slowly begin to fade. Even when he'd still been in college, Michael had always been the most put together guy in his class. Seeing him now with day old stubble covering his cheeks and a small coffee stain on the cuff of his sleeve felt strange-wrong, even. With a defeated groan, he said, "I know, okay? I'm just frustrated. Even when I'm working totally straight he still finds a way to outplay me."

"Yeah, well," I said, trailing off. "Maybe it was a one time thing."

"I doubt that," Michael said with a mirthless chuckle. "There's no way Walter-or Richard, for that matter-would work with Corona willingly. He's got to have something on them."

"Like what?"

Michael shrugged. "Maybe he caught a picture of Walter hooking up with some movie exec's wife. It doesn't matter what he has on them, it matters that it's there."

"This feels like the plot of a bad spy movie," I said while I set down the magazine and reached for the new rubber band ball that I'd started. It fit neatly in the center of my palm, no larger than an egg. Making a fist, I squeezed it between my fingers. "I don't know, maybe we should just see what happens."

A thought crossed Michael's mind and he frowned. "You'll let me know if he approaches you again, right? Corona, that is."

"Of course."

"I'm serious, Parker, the guy's poison."

"Hey, I promise," I assured him, still gripping my cluster of rubber bands. "You'll be the first to know."

That seemed to calm Michael slightly and he reached across my table for the tabloid. I watched while he rolled it up with sharp turns of his wrist and then stuffed the magazine into his back pocket. "Anyway," he said, "I do have some cool news."

"Oh, yeah? What's up?"

"Guess who got an invite to Armada's birthday party at the end of the month." Michael pretended to brush a piece of lint off his shoulder and grinned. Considering how angry he'd been moments before, I wondered if Michael realized that he cycled through emotions at about the same rate as Scott on a bad day. Come to think of it, their dad had a similarly terrible temper... Maybe it ran in their family.

I snorted. "Who'd you sell your soul to in order to manage that?"

Michael crossed his arms over his chest and feigned offense. "I'm a pretty cool guy, you know. I told him I'd pencil it in, see if I have the time."

"Meaning you'll be the first one there and the last one to leave."

Michael offered me a rude hand gesture in response and then turned at the sound of someone knocking on the door. Wearing a turquoise dress and nude wedges, Melanie fiddled with the headset she wore and smiled shyly. "Sorry to interrupt," she said, glancing quickly at Michael, "but Edwin said you're handling all of his new client meetings this week?"

"Yeah, he doesn't have any calendared until Wednesday morning," Michael replied, suddenly unable to stop touching his hair.

"Um," Melanie cautiously began, "it is Wednesday."

I watched the color drain from Michael's face, leaving him a drastically different shade from when he'd walked in. "You're joking," he said, no longer preening as he buried his face in his hands.

"No, um, Tae-Yeok Han is in the second conference room-you know, when you're ready."

"Man, I can't catch a break," Michael muttered under his breath before following Melanie into the hallway. Melanie flashed me a nervous smile before scurrying away and I listened to their footsteps disappear, though I still managed to hear Michael complain, "I look like I slept under a bridge."

When they were gone, I chuckled to myself. Although I knew he'd never risk his job, I could see Michael eventually asking Melanie to dinner once she'd resigned, though I honestly doubted they'd last very long even if their relationship managed to get off the ground. Melanie was too headstrong and Michael was too... Well, Michael. Then again, I'd somehow ended up with Sophie so clearly stranger things could happen than my two friends dating.

Turning my attention to my computer screen, I double-clicked on my outdated internet browser and waited for the page to bring up a search bar. Glancing at the spot where Michael had thrown down the tabloid, I typed in two words before pressing enter: Marc Corona. I leaned back in my chair while the search engine slowly chugged its way to life but when it did, the first hit listed was a link to his professional homepage. I hesitated before clicking on the link and then closed my eyes while I waited for it to load. When I looked again, what I saw surprised me; for such a sleazy character, Corona's website was unexpectedly classy.

Rather than featuring his usual paparazzo snaps, the site showcased pages of natural looking head shots and artistic fashion shoots, all with extremely attractive models and bright, eye-catching colors. Carefully selected high-resolution photos flickered across the screen in time with the smooth jazz instrumental that came through my speakers and, as I scrolled through the images, I begrudgingly accepted that the guy was talented despite being a creep. I continued to look through the images while I slid my cell phone from my pocket and texted Sophie: What's your deal with Marc Corona?

Knowing that she was likely at her morning spin class by now, I was surprised when Sophie's name and photo popped up on my phone's caller I.D. not even half a minute later. "Hey," I said, answering the call.

"Can you talk?" Sophie asked, and I could hear the sound of upbeat electronic music in the background.

"Yeah." I got to my feet and moved across the room to close my office's door. "Where are you?"

"Leaving the gym. I went to an early class because I couldn't fall back asleep after you left," Sophie said with a hint of dismissiveness in her tone. "That text you sent me... Why do you ask?"

"Oh, uh, Michael's pretty worked up about an article he read about you and Richard."

"The one of us outside of Armada's office yesterday?"

"Yeah." I leaned against my door and rested a hand on its handle.

"I saw that," Sophie admitted and I could picture her eyebrows furrowing with worry as she sighed. "I'm not surprised he scooped the story, to be honest. He's always on my case."

"Why?" I asked, tracing my finger along the wooden doorframe. "I really don't know anything about him except, you know, that you guys had some kind of altercation a while back."

Sophie snorted. "I almost broke his nose, Parker. Altercation probably isn't a strong enough word to describe what happened."

I shook my head, struggling to imagine Sophie punching the seedy man I'd met months before. I crossed back over to my chair and sat down. "I can't believe you did that."

"I had a good reason."

"Which was?"

"It's really not important anymore."

"You barely escaped an assault charge," I said, scoffing, "so, yeah, it kind of is important."

Sophie sighed again and the music playing in the background began to fade. "He was bothering my grandparents."

"How?"

"He, like, camped across the street from their house and kept harassing them whenever they went outside."

"But..."

"My parents went to court again two years ago." The bitterness in Sophie's voice as she interrupted me was unmistakable. "He probably thought that my grandparents would give him some sort of exclusive interview if he bothered them for long enough."

"Oh," I said, dumbfounded by the revelation and a pang of guilt coursed through me as I realized that I'd been expecting her to have a much less valid reason for decking the photographer.

As if reading my mind, Sophie asked with dry amusement, "What, did you think I punched him over a parking space or something?"

"No, I..."

"Please don't think so highly of me, Parker," Sophie said, and I could imagine her rolling her eyes. "You might give me a god complex."

"Sorry," I replied automatically while Sophie chuckled.

"Of course you are."

I bit the nail of my left pinky and a lengthy silence passed between us before I asked, "But why is he so obsessed with you?"

"I mean, who isn't?"

"No, but really, Soph." I began scrolling through Marc's website again, aimlessly clicking between photos. "What'd you do to him?"

"Why do you think it's my fault?"

"I don't. I'm just trying to understand your history with him."

"Well, you're right. It is," Sophie said. "My fault, I mean."

Her confession startled me and I frowned, curiosity piqued. "Go on."

Sophie groaned and I heard the sound of what I guessed was her car door slamming as she climbed inside her BMW. "I got him fired."

"What? How?"

"He used to work for In Vogue as one of their fashion photographers and when I was, like, fourteen or something, I did a shoot with him."

"So?"

"He hit on my mom," Sophie continued with disdain as she started her car and its engine came to life with a purr. I heard her fumble with something and then realized she'd put me on speakerphone while she drove. "Like, right in front of me, you know? It was so gross, especially because she was already cheating on my dad with Brian. The worst part of it was that she flirted back, like she didn't even care that I was there and that I could see everything."

I didn't respond as I tried to imagine what Sophie must have felt while she watched her mom get cozy with the man she now hated. "Anyway," Sophie went on, "I got super pissed and told Marc's boss that I refused to work with him and that I would never shoot with In Vogue again. Obviously that kind of threat wouldn't get me very far now but I was so popular then... Long story short, after his boss found out why I was upset, Marc got fired and, for whatever reason, he hasn't worked for a legitimate magazine since."

I held my phone away from my ear and stared at it, feeling like I'd become privy to the inner workings of an industry soap opera. "Wow," I said eventually. "I don't really know what to say."

"There isn't anything to say, is there? I ruined his career. It's not completely shocking that he wants to mess up mine."

"Yeah, but, you were a kid," I replied, feeling defensive of the fourteen-year-old Sophie that I'd never known. "And I'd probably have done the same thing if someone hit on my mom in front of me."

"I'm sure you would've handled it better than I did, though," Sophie said teasingly. "Besides, who could ever stay mad at you?"

I jumped slightly as someone knocked on my door and I looked up to see Melanie standing in the doorway again. She gave me an apologetic look as she walked over to my desk and dropped a stack of head shots and resumes onto it. I stared up at her and shook my head while she whispered, "Sorry."

"Hey, I've gotta go, Soph," I said, thumbing through the avalanche of papers I now needed to sort through. "Why don't you come over to mine later and we can talk more?"

"Sure," Sophie replied. "Bye, Parker."

I hung up and tossed my phone next to my keyboard before running a hand through my hair. "This is insane."

"I know," Melanie agreed. "Michael has two more stacks in his office for you to go through when you're done."

"Are you the designated bearer of bad news today or what?"

"Don't shoot the messenger," Melanie protested, holding her hands up. She hesitated for a moment and then asked, "Is everything okay? You seem kind of tense."

"Yeah," I lied. "Fine."

Melanie cocked her head to the side and clucked her tongue. "Really?"

"Sort of," I relented, glancing up at her.

"Sophie-related, I'm guessing?"

"Of course," I said, working my nail as I ground it between my teeth, "What else do I have to worry about?"

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A/N: Sorry for the delayed post, guys! Things have been so busy recently. I've officially moved back to America and it honestly feels super weird to no longer be in London. I've also finally committed to a law school and will be attending the University of Virginia School of Law. WAHOOWA!

Now I'm off to Los Angeles for my bridal shower so I'll really only be able to respond to comments and messages via the app. Apologies in advance if it takes me a bit to get back to you but thank you for reading, voting, and commenting! Hope you enjoyed the chapter.<33

Dedicated to