Challenge (MxM) (COMPLETED)

Chapter Fifty Five- Apology

Chapter Fifty Five-

Dax

I clench my teeth and feel my muscles tense as I try to explain it to him. "I'm so tired of feeling like I don't deserve to be happy because of you. I hate how you treated me, and this will help people who are in similar scenarios."

"Do you not understand? If it comes out that this happened, I could lose everything. Then again, that's what you want, isn't it? Is that why you already started a rumor that I'm having an affair? You've finally decided to try and take me down?" He snaps back, rolling his eyes as he leans back in the chair on the other side of my desk.

Noel is sitting on the couch, reading up on Anne Chamberlain, who surprised me when she asked me for his phone number at the party. She said she likes his spark and she wants to see about getting him a photoshoot. I might be biased, but he's model material in my opinion.

I see him glance over at us a few times, so I know he's listening, but he seems to be trying to mind his own business. I didn't know my father had scheduled a meeting. My assistant said it was important, so I let him in. It seems like a waste of time because now he's just bitching at me about trying to start a charity for children in abusive homes to seek help or refuge.

I know too many people who were forced to grow up in houses that they shouldn't have been, but he thinks that people will assume I'm doing this because I have personal experience with it. I do, but obviously, he doesn't want me to tell anyone. Everyone knows that business is 80% keeping secrets.

"I'm not going to get up on stage and broadcast what you did to me. Do you think I would ever let someone believe that I'm a victim? Please, the last thing I want is pity. Why would I start a rumor about you anyway? Until I find another name to put on the front of this building, your reputation and mine are linked."

"Wait, what?" Noel asks, sitting up to turn to us.

"Nothing, Noel. Stay out of it."

He looks at me for a moment before speaking again. "If someone says something about him it affects your business too?"

I sigh in annoyance. I'm not sure what part of 'stay out of it' he didn't understand, but I respond anyway, keeping my answer short. "Yes. If someone has a scandal of any kind it negatively impacts the family members of that person as well."

"I-I didn't know that."

I look over at him again, seeing the guilty look on his face. I pinch the bridge of my nose and take a deep breath. It's already bad enough that my father is here, and now Noel is being an idiot too.

You'd think it would be easier to manage my emotions after hiding them for so long but now it's like I yell or cry at some point every day. I have no idea how to keep it under control. Maybe that therapy thing isn't such a bad idea.

I glare at Noel. "It was you? Who did you tell?"

He looks at the two of us before lowering his eyes to his lap. "I don't know. There were three girls at the party. They were gossiping about Skylar's little sister and I wanted them to talk about something else."

"Three girls? Did they look my age?"

"Yeah."

"He's talking about the Ana's." My father informs me.

"The Ana's?"

"Eliana, Juliana, and Ariana. They've been friends since before we went to school together. They're on the lower end of the upper class, so they sneak into parties to get gossip and sell stories to the press. Everyone knows not to talk to them." I tell Noel. "Except you apparently."