"You reached out to clear your conscience, not for any other reason, but you have a long way to go before you gain my forgiveness. I hope you think about what you've done and the way you've acted, and I hope for once in your life, you realize this is all on you. You need to take responsibility, and do the right thing." I paused, waiting for her to say something.
Anything.
But there was only silence.
"I have to go," I said. "Good-bye, Daisy."
I set down my phone and looked out into the dark water, trying to find my breath again, my head filled with thoughts I could barely process.
My sister.
My fucking sister.
She hadn't pulled the trigger, but she'd fed him the bullets.
In my mind, that made her just as guilty.
My phone lit up, and my attention was drawn to the screen, where a series of texts came in from Daisy. I wasn't sure why, but I opened them.
They were screenshots, showing the conversation between her and the guy-exactly the way she had described. The texts were timestamped. I was sure if I looked up when the alert had gone out, the timeline would jive, showing that he had in fact warned her after the news was already released.
That didn't make me feel any better.
I turned around and headed back into the bedroom, seeing the light was on from the hallway. Dominick was sitting up in bed once I walked in, staring at me like he was hunting an animal.
"The balcony is open, baby."
My eyes flitted to the French doors, realizing he was right.
"Then, I'm sure you already heard." I tossed my phone onto the mattress. "Look at her texts."
He held my cell in his hands, reading the messages from Daisy. "I'm going to fucking bury that guy."
"And her?"
He ground his teeth together. "Kendall …"
THIRTY-FOUR
DOMINICK
"Y
ou don't have to sit in on today's meeting if you don't want to," I said to Kendall while we ate lunch outside on the deck.
Forty-eight hours had passed since I'd stormed into Ted's office, and our video chat was scheduled to begin in fifteen minutes. Kendall needed to reenter the world at her own pace. I didn't want her to feel any pressure to face those motherfuckers.
"It's okay," she said. "I want to be there."
"You're sure?"
She nodded and took a bite of her fruit salad before setting down her fork. "I already know who's responsible. Nothing they can say will come as a shock."
Daisy, that fucking cunt.
She'd been on my short list when I was coming up with people who could be at fault. I wanted to be wrong about her. I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. But every goddamn time, she'd proven that she was a self-centered piece of shit, and this episode had taken the fucking crown.
As far as the studio was concerned, this was on the asshole who worked in the editing room. They didn't even know about Daisy's involvement.
But in my eyes, she was far from innocent.
I would leave it up to Kendall on how she wanted to handle her sister. If she wanted me to destroy what was remaining of Daisy's career, I would. With a fucking smile on my face.
If Kendall wanted me to do nothing, letting Daisy rot in her narcissism, I'd oblige but not before I gave that cunt a piece of my mind.
"You do know that the studio is going to put their own spin on what happened," I said. "They don't want a lawsuit or for anyone to poke around in their business, so they're going to make you an offer and hope this goes away."
She rolled her eyes. "I figured."
I took a drink of my iced tea. "The moment you're ready to strike a deal, I'll have my team draw up the paperwork."
She traced her fork around the plate, her eyes on the food she hadn't touched. "I still don't know what I want to do."
"You don't have to decide on the settlement right now, but as far as shooting goes, you will have to come up with a plan fairly soon. They're going to want you to report to set within a day, two at the most."
"I know." She sighed. "And I'm sure my new followers are waiting for a response instead of the silence I've been giving them."
I reached across the table, setting my hand on hers. "In the media world, silence causes fire to spread. We want to put out those fires and speculation before anything else burns."
Her eyes finally connected to mine. "I just don't know what to say."
"Don't worry, baby; we'll figure it out." I checked my watch. "But we should head inside; the meeting is going to start in a few minutes."
She followed me into the home office, where multiple monitors were set up on the large desk. I pulled another chair around, so we could sit beside each other, and I logged in to the network.
I held the mouse over the Connect button. "Are you ready?"
"I think so." She slowly inhaled. "Yes."
When the video turned on, I saw a boardroom, the same men as our prior meeting sitting around it, Shane there as well.
"Dominick, Miss Roy, thank you for joining us," Ted said.
He then made the introductions, so Kendall knew the names of his team.
Details that made no goddamn difference because the result was still the same.
They had fucked up.
And now, they were going to pay.
"We would first like to offer our sincerest apologies," Ted continued. "We understand that you must feel extremely violated. Privacy and trust are things we hold in the highest regard, and we never want our talent to be put in a situation like yours."
"No, Ted, the situation is one you put her in," I clarified.
I understood there were certain things he needed to say, but I wasn't going to tolerate a single word of bullshit. Someone was going to take ownership of this, and since Ted was the CEO, it was going to be him.
"Normally, we like to conduct thorough investigations, spending several weeks interviewing staff and going over feeds and footage to pinpoint the exact nature of the circumstances," Ted said. "Unfortunately, in this case, we weren't given the amount of time we would have liked, so we don't have all the information yet."
"But you have enough," I told him.
There was silence as Ted looked at his attorney and a few of the employees sitting around his section of the table. "We were able to draw a conclusion as to what had occurred and how the still shots had been leaked."
I took a quick peek at Kendall, her back so stiff, her face trying to conceal her emotion.