Raine paced back and forth in the meeting room as she chugged another cold coffee. Damn it. She cursed at herself for forgetting that she had made another coffee and forgotten about it, yet again.
Her heart raced as she finally gave into her temptations. She picked up her cell phone and clicked the contact she'd been hoping to hear from. The multiple rings stretched out like a never ending drumroll. It's one o'clock. Maybe she's at work? Finally, one of the rings were interrupted.
"Hey," Chris said quietly.
"Hey," Raine melted at the sound of her voice. Shit. I hadn't thought this far. "I miss you."
She could feel her heartbeat throb in her throat like a frog's. She took another swig of the bitter coffee in her hand.
"I miss you too," Chris sighed in frustration, "But I'm still angry with you."
"What? Why?" Raine pressed the phone to her ear as she paced around the meeting room.
"You were with Stacy," she accused with a tone of voice that made the sentence end with a silent 'obviously'.
This was a new side of Chris that Raine hadn't seen. She didn't fully understand where it was coming from. Maybe she'd always been the jealous type and just hid it well? Something just didn't add up.
"Yes, but we said we're not exclusive though," Raine crossed an arm over her stomach and exhaled.
Raine's statement seemed to feed Chris' fire.
Chris sighed, "Raine, it's a tad different when it's the ex that tore your heart to shreds," the warmth in her voice had disappeared and was replaced with an icy zest, "And I also don't appreciate being told this information from your friend, Scar- oh wait, I'm sorry. I mean your other ex girlfriend, Scarlet."
Shit. Raine hesitated, "I..." she opened her mouth and then closed it.
It was too late to backpedal out of the quicksand Raine found herself in.
"You know what Raine? I don't think I can do this anymore," Chris' voice wavered, charged with anger.
"What do you mean?" Raine's hands went cold.
"I just - I can't stand your inability to communicate and simply be honest with me. It's not that difficult, Raine," Chris practically shot daggers through the phone at her.
Raine swallowed hard. Chris' words burned into her throat and she closed her eyes.
"Chris, please. You're really angry right now and I get it. I'm sorry about how you found out," Raine begged, "But baby, I want us to talk and figure out a way to make this work."
"Don't you baby me!" Chris roared with a ferociousness that Raine was unfamiliar with, " You're treating me like I am one of your little playmates. I'm absolutely not just another one of your fucking toys, Raine!" Chris' scream gripped Raine by the ears and turned them red.
Raine placed her forehead between her thumb and index finger, "Chris, please," she continued to beg and then looked at her watch, "can you meet me at five thirty tonight at the café by your place? I really want to talk to you."
There was a long pause before she heard, "Fine, it better be good. See you then," and then the line dropped.
It's not like I ever lied to her. Well... I guess I could have told her about Stacy, but that would have been so awkward. "Fuck," Raine swore and waved her phone at the gods above as if they were playing a cruel joke on her.
Several hours after phone conferences with the board of directors and reassuring them that all was under control, dizziness struck Raine. She quickly realized that the last thing she had eaten was the piece of toast before she had left her place. She rummaged through her messy drawer and found an energy bar to chew on as she gathered her things to leave. It was already five.
Austin scratched his beard and looked up "What a day... We've been getting inundated with media requests all day, but man it's gotten way worse since three-ish."
"Don't worry about it Austin, just keep everyone focussed and keep forwarding all the requests to Laura. That's why we hired her," Raine said as she gathered her things, "I've got to get going now, but thanks for staying later than normal."
"Anytime boss," Austin saluted her, which made the tension in her face disappear so she could smile.
Before she knew it, Raine was stomping down the stairs in a hurry to make her way through all the rush hour traffic. However, it wasn't long after that Raine found herself slumped in a seat with her arms crossed and with no one in front of her. Her sixth coffee of the day was cold and Chris wasn't responding to any of her texts or answering any of her calls. She stood me up. Raine sighed and glanced at the time again. It was already an hour passed the time they'd agreed upon meeting. She stared at her phone as an email arrived from Laura. She opened the email with little interest.
Subject: Damage Control Success
From: l.cornfeld@therightbuzz.com
Cc: Austin@hush.com
Hi Raine,
Check out the video that has gone viral. We have complete control over the messaging. Stacy did great for the most part!
You'll be able to catch it tonight at 7pm on channel 8. Also, check out #racy the messaging went from bashing Hush to feeling sorry for Stacy.
Sincerely,
Laura
For the most part? Something about the email gave Raine a terrible gut feeling. She clicked on the video's link, which pulled up her web browser. Raine's eyes popped at the time it was posted. 3pm? Why was it posted at 3pm?
"No, no, no..." she muttered. This can't be real.
Raine fumbled with pulling out the earphones from her bag and plugged it into her phone. Her face went pale and her finger shook as it barely touched the play button her screen.
Intense zooming sounds filled her ears as the bright pink logo of 'Well Wellington' showed up on her screen and disappeared.
A high pitched voice spoke as a very old pixelated selfie of Raine and Stacy kissing showed up on the screen, "Well Wellington, CEO and founder of Hush, Raine Lestrange and her lover Stacy Frost were on quite the rendezvous last night."
A new photo taken the night prior of them entering the club together replaced the former picture. The voice continued enthusiastically, "And as you can see, they couldn't seem to keep their hands off each other."
A photo of them grinding on each other in the club appeared right after. It took everything in Raine to not groan and cringe. Her stomach dropped as she slid down her chair slightly.
"Unfortunately, their night takes a turn for the worse when another woman showed up and attacked Stacy."
The picture of Raine between the two women suddenly appeared. Next, a bright red arrow pointed to Stacy's bloody nose. Raine sighed as she laid her forehead into her palm.
A short clip of Stacy in a low-cut blue dress appeared. Seated on a white couch, her lengthy smooth legs were crossed and her eyebrows were exaggeratedly close together as she spoke with concern, "I felt so bad for Raine because she just happened to be there," and then she frowned, "I had no idea that Chris still held such a grudge against me. She just went crazy and punched me in the nose."
The host in the black dress gasped and her tiny hands flew to her mouth, causing her platinum blonde hair to shake.
Raine sunk deeper into her seat as her heart drowned. There was nothing left to do but to pray. Please if there are gods out there, please don't let Chris see this yet.
Stacy pointed at her excessively bandaged nose and then placed both hands over her heart before she said in a voice sweet enough to rot anyone's teeth, "Thank goodness I had Raine there to take care of me after. She's just so amazing."
The clip faded out and was replaced by an older host. Raine recognized the voice as the narrator when they started to speak again, "Out of the kindness of Stacy's heart, no charges were pressed. We weren't able to reach out to Raine, but a credible source did confirm that Raine has no clue who the attacker was." She smiled and then fixed pointed her index finger above, "But! According to Stacy, this will not affect the romance with the sexy CEO. Well Wellington, that's..."
Raine stopped the video. She groaned and rubbed her forehead. God damn it, Stacy! I said not to say her name. And Laura... that incompetent piece of crap.
Houston, we have a problem. Stacy is just brewing up a storm over here. Let me just say that this is just the beginning of the disaster. What the hell does one do when one cannot get a hold of the person there's a conflict with? Decisions decisions.
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