Chapter 30: The rumor

“I am so sorry that I had to call you like that, I know you were with your dad, I hated having to pull you out of your time with him.”

Luna turned her head to look at Rita, they were both walking towards the conference room.

“You had to,” Luna said. “We both know letting this circulate any longer than it already has, and the results would be even more disastrous than it already is.”

Rita nodded, the two women both walked briskly through the hallway that led to the conference room, Jaden trailing behind them.

“I know, I know,” Rita said again, letting out a breath, “That doesn’t make it easier to accept.”

Luna placed a hand on Rita’s arm, she gave her a small smile.

“It’s all good,” she said, reassuring Rita. “I got to have my time with him before your call came in, I’m fine.”

“That’s a relief then,” Rita said.

They got to the conference room, through the square opening in the door of the room, Luna could see that the press was already in full force in there. About a dozen of them, Luna estimated with a quick scan with her eyes, and all of them had cameras in their hands. Cameras that were going to be flashing blindly the moment she stepped into the room.

Jaden stepped forward to pin the portable microphone she was going to be speaking into, to the lapels of her suit. He stepped back when he was done, Luna smoothed down her suit and squared her shoulders.

“There’s one thing else we also both know,” Rita said, looking at Luna. “Who leaked this news,” she added, making air quotes with her fingers around the word ‘news’. She curled her lips dryly.

Luna looked at her. “We sure do,” she replied.

Moira Lake, she thought silently to herself, as she knew Rita was thinking too.

“But, that’s not the point right now,” Luna continued, she arranged her hair, “What matters right now is the press in there.”

Rita nodded. “Right. You ready?”

Luna smiled slyly. “Like I was born to it,” she replied.

Jaden moved to open the door for her, Luna beat him to it. She gave him a look as her hand closed over the door handle.

“I can open my own doors too, Jaden,” she said.

“That’s my girl,” Rita said behind her.

Luna opened the door to the conference room and went in. As she had predicted, the camera flashes go off, and all the reporters scrambled to their feet, throwing questions at her with rapid fire.

Luna walked to the platform in the front-center of the room, Rita and Jaden walked in after her to stand at her back, and then she just stood there and waited. She knew when she didn’t reply to any of the questions being thrown at her, they would die down.

It was a dance they all knew too well, both parties knew how it was going to go down. The press knew Luna wouldn’t answer their questions until they quieted down, but they still always tried to get their own questions in, in hopes that they were lucky enough that Luna would answer them. Or, better, that one of the questions they shot out would trigger her into responding. And they also knew it would probably never happen.

Luna, on her part, knew they only fired questions at her despite her silence because they were shooting in the dark, and she knew they only did it because of the eternal hope they had that she was going to answer them. And she respected that hope by letting them get their questions out and not interrupt them, but she never honored it. And she never allowed their questions to trigger her, no matter how, well, triggering, they were.

And as she correctly predicted, the questions died down after a few minutes and the reporters all waited for her to speak. Luna waited a beat. A random reporter shouted a question from the back.

“Miss Luna, are you sleeping with your Executive, Mr. Cash Brooks?”

Just as Luna had known. When the press all quieted, occasionally, there was one reporter who dared to be intentionally and aggressively rude by still shouting his question despite the fact that the rest had quieted down. And he or she always asked the crudest question.

Luna always waited their type out, which was the reason for her pause. All she had to do was glance at Ryan Black, the hefty bodyguard she always had in the conference room with her whenever she was giving a press release. He already knew what to do.

Luna and the rest of the room all stared and waited as Ryan hefted the scrawny reporter who had put his foot into his mouth with his crass words, and carried him out of the conference room. His shouts and demands that Ryan put him down as he kicks and jostles were the added confidence Luna needed.

Finally, the room quieted down again, Luna looked back at the remaining press in the room. She saw some impressed faces as they smiled at her, and she saw some scared ones as they shuffled uncomfortably on her feet.

Good, Luna thought silently to herself, now that I have the room….

She smiled her public polite smile. “Shall we begin?”