Chapter 40 THE AFTERMATH
VANESSA'S POV
The curtains in the hotel room were large, and I had not opened them.
I did not need to. The clock on the nightstand said eight forty seven and the other side of the bed was empty, which meant he had been gone for a while.
I sat up slowly and looked around the room. His things were gone and so was him too.
He was gone like he had never been there at all. Like we didn't have sex.
I should have felt something about that. Embarrassed maybe, or hurt, or at least mildly insulted that he had not even left a note.
Instead I smiled.
I reached for my phone on the nightstand and pulled up my camera, checking my reflection in the front lens.
My mascara had migrated slightly. My hair was rough. I looked like a woman who had spent the night in a hotel room and not slept much of it.
Well it was worth it because I looked exactly like what I was.
I set the phone down and stretched my arms above my head, working out the stiffness in my shoulders.
Mmhhh.. I moaned out,my mind drifting to the way he fucked me, trh way he kissed me.
He could tell himself whatever lies he wanted to believe. But I was grateful for that wine.
He could go back to his cold controlled version of himself and pretend the whole thing had been a mistake brought on by too much alcohol and a bad night.
I picked up my phone trying to call or text Madison.
My phone screen lit up before I could open anything.
It was a call. A call from a Private number.
I stared at it for a moment.
Then I got up and started looking for my dress without taking calls.
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NOVA'S POV
I was still in bed when Jasmine called.
I had been awake for twenty minutes, lying on my back staring at the ceiling and listening to the estate settle around me.
Last night was a lot. I hated the attention but still I smiled through all of it.
I was still thinking about how I felt about it when my phone buzzed on the nightstand.
It was Jasmine. I totally forgot my phone had been ringing.
I picked up on the second ring.
"Hey," I said.
"Nova."She called slowly, like she was afraid of something. "Are you awake?"
"Yeah, I'm up."
"Okay." A short pause came from her side. "I need you to check something. Open your phone and go to any news app. Any of them."
I sat up. "What happened?"
"Just open it first, then we can talk."
I pulled the phone away from my ear and opened the news app I never really used. The screen loaded and the first thing that came up was a photo.
A photo of me.
On the stage at Grand Meridian Hotel. Matthias's hands on my waist, both of them, and his mouth on mine and the crowd blurred behind us and every camera in the room pointed directly at us.
The headline above it read: Who Is Nova Sinclair? Inside Matthias Hale's Surprise Romance With A Blackthorn Employee.
I scrolled down.
There were six more articles beneath it. Different outlets, same photos, same angle, all of them asking some version of the same question about who I was and where I had come from and what exactly my relationship was with both Matthias Hale and the Blackthorn family.
One of them had found my name in the company directory. Another had pulled a photo of me arriving at Blackthorn Industries on my first day, grainy security camera footage that I did not know existed.
A third one had a quote from an unnamed source close to Matthias describing me as his serious girlfriend.
I put the phone back to my ear.
"Jasmine."
"I know," she said.
"This is." I trailer off and start again."This is a lot."
"It already is," she said, not unkindly. "It's been online since midnight. I just saw it and I said I should call you."
I got out of bed and walked to the window.
Have the brother's seen this yet?
I stared out to the parking lot, their cars were still here. That means they are at home.
"How bad is it?" I asked.
"The photos themselves are fine. You look beautiful in them, for what that's worth." She paused. "It's the comments and the coverage that are. You know how people are when someone they don't know suddenly appears next to someone they've decided belongs to them."
I knew.
"They're calling me a Blackthorn employee," I said.
"Some of them are saying worse than that," Jasmine said. "Nova, I'm not going to lie to you. Some of the things people are writing are not nice."
I stood at the window and looked at the gardens and said nothing for a moment.
"Okay," I said finally.
"Okay?"
"I have to go," I said. "I need to think."
"You can decide not to come to the office today, so you don't get questioned by the media and also call me if you need anything."
"I will, thank you Jas."
I ended the call and stood there with my phone in my hand then opened the new app again.
This time my eyes caught the photo of us taken from outside the hotel as we arrived.
Matthias with his hand at my back guiding me toward the entrance, his bodyguard clearing the path ahead of us, my face turned slightly toward the cameras.
The handle on this one says : Matthias Hale brought his lowlife girlfriend to the award ceremony. Jokes on them.
I scrolled to the comments below the article and read the first three comments.
They were horrible so I had to stop.
My phone buzzed in my hand. It was a message from Elias. I guess he must have seen the news.
I opened it.
Elias : Have you seen the news? You can take the day off if you don't want to be in the company.
I read it and sigh… I ignored the message, without replying.
My eyes caught new highlights from a different news station.
Isn't she Marcus’ girlfriend. She was the one that ran away with his money.
Oh my god! That means she is a golddigger.
I knew she was a bitch right from the start.
“What the hell!” I screamed out reading through all the comments.
I scrolled faster wanting to read it all.
“I'm not a bitch… I'm not a golddigger you fools!” I screamed untop my lungs and threw my phone away.
Arghhhhh!!!