Chapter 25 Chapter Twenty-four
ARA
My emotions clashed with one another, my brain refusing to agree with my heart, the voice in my head screaming that I was entering a dangerous territory.
Those scars weren't just on his chest. I realized this when my eyes adjusted to the dim lights of Thayne's bedroom.
Had the scars been inflicted by his father? From everything I'd witnessed in the past few days, I'd figured out how devilish Slade Senior was.
But doing something like that to his own son? I wanted to know how and why.
The words he said out aloud implied his father had hurt him. Numerous times.
I wanted Thayne to talk to me about it. To trust me with the truth of his past.
But I knew he wouldn't. He wasn't a man who displayed emotions. I'd seen enough in the redroom last night to know that there was a monster inside him that refused to be tamed.
What if I could tame it?
Gosh, I was starting to think nonsense.
Now alone in the room, I rose from the bed and was just setting my second foot down when Thayne's door buzzed.
I went to the door, confused about the persistent buzzing sound and why it was coming from the door.
The door had a transparent glass panel where the knob should be, and as I peered into the panel, I noticed I was staring into Sasha's unsmiling face.
‘How does one open this thing?’ I wondered.
“You open it like this,” a deep baritone said from behind me, startling the shit out of me.
Thayne's warm body enveloped me from behind, and when I tried to shift to the side to give him space, he grabbed my waist.
But I'd moved too fast, and he ended up with a fistful of the T-shirt I was wearing.
His T-shirt. Why hadn't I noticed I was wearing his T-shirt?
He let go and stretched out one arm to engage the buttons on the panel.
“Open up, then slide the pad of your forefinger across the screen,” he said.
I was too distracted by the veins in his arm to memorize the instruction.
"You're not listening.” He remarked over my shoulder, his lips ghosting over my skin.
At least he was wearing a T-shirt now. Sasha didn't need to see those scars.
“Why is there a door panel?" I asked him.
It wasn't there before. Did it have anything to do with Darius Reedson’s claim on me as his collateral? For security?
“I engaged the door panel after she walked in on us post-sex." He explained.
Oh. I looked down at my feet to hide the crimson red staining my cheeks.
"Am I going to stand here all day watching you two eye-fuck each other?!” Sasha's irritated voice carried into the room the moment the door slid open.
"You're lucky you're my PR agent. No one speaks to me or my fiancée like that and walks away a freeman." Thayne's tone reeked of authority, and Sasha immediately bowed her head and apologized.
"I'm sorry, Tha-”
"Mr. Slade. It's Mr. Slade to you.” I corrected her, earning a soft rub on the back from Thayne.
I'd done that more out of wanting to call Sasha to order than to please him.
Sasha cleared her throat. “Mr. Slade, I've received disturbing news. But first, let's start with this…”
Her eyes darted between us and Thayne ran a hand over his face.
"Are you waiting for us to grow old before you tell us what's happening?” Thayne asked impatiently.
Sasha swallowed audibly, then lifted her tablet to hold it in front of us.
My cheeks went aflame with heat. A high definition quality picture of Thayne and I kissing was plastered on the screen.
That damn dinner party he'd forced me to and kissed me like we were the only one in attendance.
From the angle the picture had been taken, Thayne looked like an otherworldly prince in suit marking his angelic bride with a sinful kiss.
"What's your point?” Thayne's impatience was rising, and without thinking, I lowered the tablet for Sasha before he decided to fling it across the room like he'd done to the last one.
“I've been waiting for you to ask me to make a press release about Madison and Ursula. We can't just sit and let them tarnish your image. So we're going to start with this picture.”
"Go straight to the point before he loses all of his patience and decides it's you he wants to fling across the room this time.” I urged her.
"Recreate this picture multiple times.” Sasha deadpanned.
I choked on my saliva.
“What?" Thayne asked, his brows nearly disappearing into his hairline.
“We need multiple photos of you and Miss Ara looking like you're madly in love with each other." Sasha explained.
“No." I said, and Thayne followed instantly with, “Are you crazy?"
"I'm not crazy, I'm just doing my job. Before we can successfully convince the public that your father no longer has any control over Slade Corps, we need to sell the idea that you're madly in love with each other.” When she finished talking, she swiped at something on her tablet and she frowned, muttering a string of curses under her breath.
"Madison just posted a picture of her hand with a ring on the middle finger!" She exclaimed.
“She got engaged. Why should we be worried?" Thayne mused.
“I wish I could say congratulations." I murmured.
“Oh, you should be worried.” Sasha tapped on the screen of her work tablet. "Her caption says, ‘Engaged to Thade Senior, not Junior’."
Thayne stilled.
"Can you check New York NewsGuard's recent posts?” I asked Sasha.
“On it." She replied, swiping left and right on her tablet.
Thayne's father proposed to Madison? Did that mean -
“He divorced Maggie and proposed to Madison right after. NewsGuard confirmed it.” Sasha said in a grave voice.
“I knew he wouldn't let it go. All these years, I -”
Thayne didn't finish his words because he lifted his arm, fist raised high, aiming for the glass panel.
I couldn't reach him in time. It wasn't supposed to be possible, but his fist went right through it.
“Mr. Slade!" Sasha exclaimed, nearly dropping her tablet.
His knuckles had broken shards of glass in them, and blood was already dripping down his arm.
“We need to do something immediately. About Madison and Ursula. About your father. About Darius Reedson. Mr. Slade, all you have to do is look in love. After that, we can worry about the rest.”
Thayne shot Sasha a withering look.
“Brainstorm another alternative." He said through clenched teeth.
“Mr. Slade, I am -"
She was interrupted by the loud vibration of Thayne's phone on the nightstand.
Thayne's long legs carried him to the nightstand in mere seconds, and just before the vibration stopped, he picked the call and plastered the screen to his ear.
Barely forty seconds into the call, he took the phone away from his ear, gripped it so tight until we heard a loud crack.
I locked eyes with him in that moment, and he calmed at once.
He let the phone drop to the floor instead of flinging it across the room as usual.
Still holding my gaze, he said to Sasha.
“Fine. We'll go with your plan. We'll pretend to be in love, and that will be it.”
“For how many days?" I asked Sasha, dreading the answer already.
She hesitated.
“How. Many. Days?" Thayne asked in a voice of stone and steel.
“Not days. Weeks."
Why did Thayne suddenly change his mind?
My life wasn't just a nightmare anymore. It was a web of family politics, drama, press scandal and hidden truths.
Thayne's bastard status, my own birth status, his scars, Madison's engagement to his father, the call he'd just received one minute ago….
I was determined to get to the bottom of it all. And I couldn't do that without convincing Thayne he could trust me.