Not sure how much I could divulge, I replied, “Maybe.”
“Sit,” she commanded and pointed her finger toward the overstuffed cream-colored sofa. I shook my head but followed her directions and headed to the couch. Once I sat down, Katy did the same. “Spill.”
“Can we wait for the food?” Internally I begged that she would say yes, but instead, she narrowed her eyes in my direction. Just as I was about to cave, the doorbell rang.
“Saved by the bell.”
Katy stood and made her way to the door while I slouched against the couch cushions, letting the fluffy material envelop my body in its folds. Without a word, she shuffled over to the kitchen, grabbed some utensils and then two bottles of water from the fridge before joining me again on the couch. She returned with a large plastic bag and began divvying the boxes of rice, egg rolls, and plastic containers on the coffee table.
As she peeled the lid off her General Tso chicken, Katy murmured. “Time to multitask, my friend.”
“Fine, but can I turn on the Bachelorette? I need to catch up.”
“Duh,” she said with a sigh as she shoved a piece of gently breaded chicken into her mouth.
With the remote in hand, I queued up the episodes I’d missed, pretty much the entire season, and pressed play. I tried to put off the conversation as long as I could, piling rice into the plastic container and mixing it with my steak and veggies, but Katy continued to huff under her breath, knowing that it would annoy me.
“I took a leave of absence from my job.”
Katy being the class act that she was, spit out the eggroll that she had just taken a bite out off and spewed it across the rug.
“What the fuck? You love your job.” She leaned down and began picking up the bigger pieces of the mess she made while I made a mental note to run the vacuum after we finished.
“I do. I did. My boss Jacob is just. . .ugh. . .I don’t know how to explain it all without making it worse than it is.”
“Just spit it out, Addison. Maybe I can help.”
“Like you did with your eggroll?” I joked.
“Shut it. Now,” she said as she shoved a forkful of rice into her mouth, “continue.”
Just thinking about what happened when I arrived at Heathrow airport was enough to have my cheeks redden and my stomach to roll. The man who had been trailing me the last three weeks playing the part of a tourist proudly showed off his media badge at the security checkpoint before loading the plane, then winked in my direction. I’d been furious as I watched him board with the first-class passengers on the same flight I was boarding. That feeling permeated as we traveled back to D.C., only for me to have a message for my boss showing images of the story he wanted me to capture, not the in-depth images of the royal family with their humanitarian efforts as they traveled abroad. The assignment the magazine I worked for was commissioned to cover.
“Do you remember that the magazine was sought out to help cover the charity work of the royal family?”
“I do.”
“Well, my boss was more concerned with catching the royals doing something less charitable.”
“Why?”
“Well, there have been rumors about the princess having an affair with two of her security guards.”
“Is she?” Katy had placed her fork on the side of her container and was very much hanging on every single word I said. She had always been one that lived for gossip.
“I don’t know, which is where Jacob had a problem. He was hoping that if the opportunity arose, I could put them in an awkward situation or something, or atleast capture the alleged love triangle.”
“He should know that you would never do that.”
“Right? Apparently not. And he sent another photographer to trail me. And the worst part is he was listed as a freelancer.”
“So, not tied to the magazine. . .”
“Nope.”
“And I’m guessing he caught them in the act.”
“Exactly. And the magazine is going to publish them.”