I nodded, frowning a little bit, looking at my hands. She had a point, although politicians in Italy were quite different from politicians in America.
Because I could respond, there was a knock at the door, and Jack came in. His face was clouded by uncertainty as he glanced at Millie and nodded, then walked over to my desk, a tablet in his hands.
“Got something for you,” he said, but hesitated before handing the screen over. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Does this have anything to do with my current problem?” I asked.
He nodded and rubbed at his face. “Oh yeah. It really does.” He glanced at Millie. “How’s work so far? Like it around here?”
“It’s fantastic,” she said, crossing her legs. “What’s going on?”
Jack finally handed it over. The tabloid was in Italian, but I knew the basics enough to read the headline. It read, in big, splashy letters, Pop Star Queen Giana Pregnant! Beneath it was a large picture of Giana and me out at some dinner we’d shared one evening. Oddly enough, her husband had been with us that night—but of course they cropped him out.
“How far has this gotten?” I asked, trying not to snap the damn tablet in half. Those rotten bastards were taking this too far. Rumors of an affair were bad enough, but getting her pregnant was something from a god damn soap opera.
“Local, so far,” Jack said. “I have some people checking all the websites and blogs right now. It’ll get out eventually though. We can’t contain it.”
“Then we can get ahead,” I said. “Get in touch with Giana, tell her we need to talk.”
Jack glanced at Millie, a big frown on his face. “Is that a good idea? She’s the source of all this right now.”
“She’s not the source,” Millie said, “she’s a victim too. Can’t blame her, right?”
I gave her a little half smile. “That’s right. And Jack, tell Giana I want to talk to her husband.”
His face paled. “Now I think you’ve gone insane,” he said. “We need to get ahead of this, not make it worse.”
“You think he wants this crap out there?” I asked, and I saw Millie grinning to herself a little bit. I bet she was proud that she’d gotten this idea in my head, but damn her, it was smart, and I was desperate. “He wants to crush this rumor just like I do. Tell them we all need to sit down and figure out how to make this go away.”
Jack took a deep breath and slowly nodded. He was averse to risk, as all lawyers were, except for maybe Millie—and maybe that was why she hadn’t taken the bar. She didn’t have that lawyer mindset, not yet at least. Jack would never think of a solution like this, although it seemed fairly simple and straight forward. The potential downsides were too big, and he’d prefer we did something to hedge any possible failures before moving forward.
He was a good man, and a solid advisor, but I wanted to do something radical to make this disappear.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, but he didn’t move. “There’s one other thing.”
I handed him back the tablet. “Can’t be worse than this.”
“Actually, it might be.” He took an envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it over.
It was made out to me, via the office, with no return address. There was a single paper, cream-colored, heavy stock, folded inside. I took it out and felt my tongue go dry as I saw the letterhead: Desmond Capital.
“What the fuck is this?” I asked, and looked up at jack. The letter was hand written and signed by Desmond himself at the bottom.
“Read it,” Jack said.
Millie got up and walked over. She looked concerned, and I couldn’t blame her. I felt like all the blood left my face, drained away to nothing.
“What’s going on?” she asked, confused, and Jack only held up a hand to silence her.
I skimmed the letter. Desmond had shit handwriting, but the more I read, the sicker I felt—until that sickness turned to anger. I looked up and met Jack’s eyes. “Did you read it?”
He nodded once. “What do you want to do?”
I clenched my jaw and clutched the paper. It crinkled under my fingers, and I was tempted to rip it to pieces—until I realized the solution to my problems was right in my hands.
“Rees?” Millie asked. “What is it?”
I handed her the letter almost reluctantly. The whole thing was almost incoherent: rambling, borderline sane, accusing me of horrible things, including multiple different affairs. I almost didn’t want her to read it, but I knew it would be important. She took it, held it up, and frowned, head tilted to one side.
“Desmond Bergson worked for me when I started my first company,” I said, looking up at the ceiling. I could still see his face: tired and lined already, his hair thinning, his skin sallow. He was wasting away at some accounting firm, spending his time doing taxes when he should’ve been doing something more. “We met at a hacker conference, which I know is the nerdiest thing in the world, but we became good friends. He helped me start the company that would go on to make me what I am today.”