Catnip [romance]

Bombay

Nathan woke up the next day to a URL link sent to him via text message by Freya. Groggily, he clicked on it and found that it led to a page on Gawker. He hadn't been on that website for months, and that was when he wanted to read up on some stock losses, but right now, it was about him.

He rubbed his eyes to double-check his vision, not believing the heading of the article. Even after double-checking, the heading still remained as 'Love Triangle?: Freya Beauregard leaves Hugo Desrosiers at Masa with Nathan Coleman'. He skimmed through the article, finding that whoever wrote this article had painted a bad image on Freya and Nathan himself. He shook his head, looking at the comments below.

kiki576: Well I haven't heard about socialites on this site for years. She's gorgeous. The men are hot. This is obviously news-worthy. Most exciting thing ever since Richard Goodwill and his scandal with that eighteen-year-old mistress of his.

socialitesparadise: Dammit, Freya Beauregard always attract the hot ones.

MirandaLouis: Nathaniel Coleman's back on the market? Why wasn't I the first to know?!

Nathan then noticed something— Freya never said anything, but just sent the link. What was she thinking right now? He sat up on his bed, barely noticing Miu Miu sleeping on the other side of the bed, to text her a quick message;

Are you okay?

Immediately after he sent the text, she replied back with another URL. This time, the article was from Wall Street Journal with the headline being 'Desrosiers Publications buys over Gawker for $400 million'. Another message came with her response to his question;

Coincidence? I doubt not. Hugo's not stupid, and he probably already knows that Gawker was the main source of NYC socialite gossip before gossip died down years ago after a week here. The first article above is about us and it's biased towards him. It's also by Gawker. So do I sound okay? Obviously, no.

Nathan's eyebrows raised at her text. He expected her to just respond and say 'no, not really' or 'I don't know', but she had told him more than he asked for, although he did think that what she said had its relevance.

Should I pick you up on the way to work? Nathan asked.

Would love for you to. Thanks. We have a lot to discuss on. She responded instantly.

He flipped the covers off of him and started to prepare for the day. What she had said got him thinking about what had happened at her date with Hugo last night.

To be honest, Nathan hadn't expected it to go bad so fast, since he thought Hugo would play nice guy until he and she were on 'good terms' and then he'd be abusive again. He wanted to ask what had gone wrong during the date, but seeing how affected Freya was last night and how on-edge she was this morning, it didn't seem like a good time to talk about it. She'd talk about it when she'd feel like it, Nathan told himself as he tightened the tie around his neck.

He grabbed his wallet, cellphone and keys and was given a goodbye nudge on his ankle by Miu Miu whom he barely acknowledged before heading down to the lobby. The usual nod of acknowledgement between the doorman and him and the greetings by the reception staff happened before he got into his Bugatti, revving up the engine to get Freya from her Park Avenue apartment.

[ c a t n i p ]

Freya spotted the Veyron downstairs from her apartment as she slipped on her metallic Jimmy Choo's on her feet. Straightening up, she pressed down the creases of her white floral-lace ensemble and grabbed her ivory Lady Dior bag on the way out. She slipped on her sunglasses just as she left the apartment building and got into the car.