Fuel the Fire (36 page)

“You just have to be patient and kind,” I say calmly. “Do what you do now, and it’ll be enough, even when it doesn’t seem that way.” I usually supply everyone with the right words, but there are no right ones in this instance. He understands that he can’t fix Daisy, and all he has to give is himself, to be there throughout her life.

He nods and then rolls onto his side again, away from me. “Can you please stop fucking talking to me now?”

I slide back down and shut off my phone.

I value having details, but I never took into account the emotion behind them.

[ 34 ]

CONNOR COBALT

I squat on the other side of the kitchen, four towers of wooden blocks separating the distance from the two children and me.

“Daddy!” Jane calls, her blue eyes pinging inquisitively from each colored tower: red, blue, yellow, and green.

“Knock over the blocks,” I encourage, waving both kids towards me. I can barely piece apart her next words, unintelligible noises that she shares with Maximoff. The little boy points to the red tower, as though constructing a plan with Jane.

On this particular Tuesday afternoon, I’m the designated nanny, and even though I’m swamped with paperwork from Cobalt Inc., I gladly use this day to play with my daughter and nephew. I’m always at the mercy of time, but I try not to let it steal precious, rare moments from me.

I set my knee on the floorboards. “Do you need me to show you?”

Jane looks curiously at me. I’m not sure she understands half of what I ask, but that never stops me from speaking to her like she does, like she will, one day.

I’m about to stand, but Moffy makes the first step. Steadier on two feet than Jane, he rushes out and charges into the red tower. He laughs as the blocks scatter the floor around him.

“Nice work, Moffy,” I congratulate, my lips upturning. “Do you know what color those blocks are?” He picks up one of the wooden ones, the letter “E” carved on one side and an eagle on the other.

He mumbles a word that sounds very close to
eagle.

I smile. “Almost.”

Jane points at the yellow tower. “Daddy!”

“It’s not moving, Jane,” I tell her. “You have to reach it yourself. It’s possible to walk there, honey. You just have to pick up your feet.” I talk a little slower but in my usual tone, hoping she’ll process the gist of what I say.

She smacks her lips, uncertain and confused. My phone buzzes in my pocket.

I check it once to see a text.
Told you I could fucking help
– Ryke

I don’t look at Twitter, but I’ve seen the tweets from after St. Patrick’s Day, the whole New York trip long passed. Most tabloids speculated that I had a fight with Ryke, and so our fans believed it too. In our own circle of friends, everyone but Rose thinks Ryke punched me from a heated argument. It’s not an off-base assumption since we rarely talk cordially.

It was bound to happen
, Lo told me that morning with the shake of his head.
Did you both get it out of your systems?

We nodded, and that was that.

I look up right when Moffy darts to the blue tower in front of him, showering the floorboards with more blocks. He laughs and turns to look at his cousin, her brown hair reaching her ears and half in a high pony, tied with a blue bow. He mumbles what sounds like
Janie,
the name not perfectly clear off his lips.

Jane teeters with each step towards the yellow tower. I put my hand to my mouth, my throat closing. She’s going to fall in a second, and instinct nearly springs me to my feet, to gather her in my arms before she hits the floor.

I force myself to stay motionless.

She can’t be afraid to walk. There will be many, many days where she has to do it without either Rose or me present, and she needs to recognize that
she
holds the power to stand back up. We don’t.

Just before she reaches the blocks, she rocks backwards, her weight shifting, and she lands on her bottom with a
thud.
Her chin quivers, searching for me with glassy blue eyes.

“I’m right here, Jane,” I say.

She meets my comforting gaze and sniffs.

“You’re okay, honey.” I smile and nod to her. “If you can’t stand back up, you can always crawl. Don’t forget that.”

She speaks to me incoherently. I nod as though I understand, but I have no idea what her string of noises truly mean. And then Moffy carries a blue and red block over to Jane. He bangs them together and speaks like her, babbling until Jane tries to pick herself off the floor.

She stands and runs into the yellow tower, her face breaking in a smile as the blocks collapse around her.

“Good job, Jane.” I begin to clap just as my phone rings. I check the caller ID and my world seems to mute, deadened silence that’s as easy to brave as a plastic bag tied around my head.

Henry Prinsloo.

He only ever calls me in dire situations, when an integral part of my life is at risk of decay. Before I answer, I immediately head over to Jane, and I realize she’s crying.

She fell again, and this time tears collect, her cries starting to trigger Moffy. His eyes redden as he watches her, and his lips begin to tremble.

“Shh,” I coo, lifting my daughter in my arms. I whisper in her ear, doing my best to calm her. Then I bend down, able to pick up Moffy in my other arm. I carry both of them hurriedly to the living room, my mind racing along several paths. I attempt to form conclusions from miniscule facts.

In the past, Henry’s calls are most commonly about Loren or Lily. He’s my contact inside major media outlets. He’s the one who tipped me about the
Celebrity Crush
article before it went live—the article that would’ve casted doubt, that claimed Moffy’s
real
paternity test false.

Whatever he has to tell me, I can fix. Just like that article. I have the power to latch whatever has come undone.
I
have that power.

Me.

And I’ll piece together whoever falls this time. One by one. We’ve all been through this before. We can survive it again and again. I just need to act quickly. Whatever this is, there’s usually no margin for error.

My phone rings incessantly. I set Moffy and Jane in their playpen beside the Queen Anne chair, their tears only partially dried. “Keep playing.”
Just keep playing.
I try to distract both babies with stuffed animals and multi-colored balls strewn around the circular pen. “I’ll be right back.” I prop the door open between the kitchen and living room with a chair, able to hear them well.

On the final ring, I answer the phone. “Henry,” I greet.

“I called as soon as I could,” he says, no background noise on his end. “You have to believe me. All the news outlets have been really tight-lipped until a minute ago.”

“Can you fax me the article?” Henry can gain access to the tabloid’s server and send me their scheduled draft. He’s only a line producer at GBA News, but he has connections to every tabloid that I need.

“It’s not just an article…”

I wrack my brain for answers, heading down the most logical, sensible paths. “What photo is it?”

I can buy the photograph.

I’ve done it before.

Over a year ago, Henry tipped me about a photographer from Paris Fashion Week. The man had just sold three pictures to a well-known tabloid. They were all of Daisy undressing backstage.

She was completely naked.

I bought them and destroyed them with Rose, almost immediately, and so they’ve never even been muttered anywhere.

“It’s not a photo,” Henry says, having trouble delivering the news.

I stay calm, but I want more facts quickly. “Then what is it?” I ask. “A video, an article, a photograph, a fucking comic strip—tell me.”

“It’s everywhere,” he says vaguely. I grip the edge of the bar counter, wishing he would tell me what the fuck I’m dealing with. “Some of the articles have turned into
videos
.” His voice lowers. “GBA is headlining the story on their seven o’clock news tonight.”

I check my watch. That’s five hours away, plenty of time. “I’ll call the—”

“It won’t matter.”

“Henry—”

“It’s
everywhere
,” he emphasizes this point. He still won’t say what
it
is. “
Celebrity Crush
is running it in an hour. Other tabloids are talking about releasing it sooner than that. You don’t have time to do anything.”

He’s wrong. “Fax me the story.”

“I can’t. I don’t have time either. GBA is holding a staff meeting in five minutes.”

He won’t say what it is.

If it centered on Lily or Loren, it would’ve been the first thing out of his mouth. Anyone else, he would’ve said the name by now. But if it was me—he’d choke.

So if I listen to the most rational part of my brain, it says that I’m about to be ripped to shreds. “Text me the names of every magazine and news station that plans to run this story.” I hear Frederick in my head,
You’re not superhuman, Connor. The world will not change for you.

I bend to the world if it won’t bend for me, and yet, if this is
about
me, will I finally have to bend until I break?

“I’m texting you right now,” Henry says.

A pit descends further in my stomach. “Tell me, Henry,” I say, “what’s the headline most are running with?” I almost don’t want to hear the truth, not even when I need it most.

After a moment of silence, he utters, “They’re all calling your marriage a sham.”

I rub my lips. “What evidence…”

“They have sources about ex…boyfriends? Yours. Three of them, I’m almost eighty-percent positive. GBA News filmed an interview with one. He’s claiming you two had sex multiple times and that you’re not straight. They’re all saying the same thing—that you married Rose to hide your sexual orientation from the press.”

We have a child.

We have sex tapes.

I repeat these as my defense, my muscles constricting in taut, immovable bands. My knuckles whiten. “I have to call my lawyers. Text me everyone who’s running this,” I remind him before hanging up. I spend the next fifteen minutes talking to three lawyers, spouting facts. Never once wasting time to ingest an unneeded emotion.

 I tell them to send out cease and desist letters to every single fucking guy who’s planning to break the non-disclosure agreement. I tell them to threaten lawsuits and fines so steep that it will leave each guy destitute. I tell them to work on filing temporary injunctions, to prevent the news stations and tabloids from running the stories.

“We won’t be granted an injunction in enough time,” my primary lawyer says. “The cease and desists are our best shot. We’ll intimidate them as much as we can and keep you posted. Turn on the news. Don’t take your eyes off it until we tell you it’s handled.”

I have forty-five minutes, maybe less. I rush into the living room and switch on the television to GBA News, muting the station, and I open my laptop to
Celebrity Crush.
The
clack clack
of plastic balls, the babies playing, is the only true noise.

Fix this.

Forty-three minutes.

My lawyers will have a better time threatening these guys than me, but while they work on the injunction, I can call the stations and tabloids. I have no idea
how
this happened. Why some of these guys decided to speak all of a sudden. Who cracked and under what kind of pressure. But the
how
isn’t important right now.

Concentrating on the
how
will ruin any chance I have at damage control.

On the couch, I scroll through Henry’s text that consists of twelve names. I call the first one; it’s the second most affluent tabloid, right behind
Celebrity Crush.
“We’re going to publish it with or without an injunction.
Celebrity Crush
will beat us to it, and so will multiple primetime news outlets.”

“You’ll be severely fined,” I say sternly, my voice cut and dry, not defensive.

“It’s a price we’re willing to pay. We’ll make it up in subscribers.”

I call the second name.

The third.

The fourth. “It’s going live in thirty minutes.”

The fifth and sixth. The seventh and eighth.

The ninth. “Your deal was to bury the headline about Moffy,” Andrea DelCorte from
Celebrity Crush
tells me. “You said nothing about protecting yourself, and I can’t strike a deal with you when it’s not an exclusive story. It’s going to break in fifteen minutes by us or by someone else.”

You’re not superhuman, Connor. The world will not change for you.

I can’t stop this.

I can’t prevent a barrage of questioning and speculation. I don’t call the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth media outlet. I scramble to make different ones.

I clutch the phone firmly to my ear, but my heart pumps deeper, louder. As soon as the line clicks, I say, “Rose…” I lose my thoughts in her name. My throat sears, and I think—
I missed a link somewhere.
Was it Theo? Was it Jonathan Hale? Was it Frederick? I fucking block out the
how
. I have to, but I know the
how
is stampeding the real pain—the worse thoughts.

The ones that attempt to barrel into me.

Rose will be dragged into this by her ankles, suffocating beneath someone else’s rising tide, and the best I can do is hold her while we go under. I’ve never imagined myself drowning before. Not like this. And I’ve never imagined I’d have these two choices: drown apart or drown together.

Together.

Always.

I would never let Rose suffer through this alone.

“Is Jane okay?” she asks off my silence, concern bleeding into her words. I hear the shuffle of papers. She’s already standing, I’m sure.

“I need you to come home,” I tell her. “Quickly.” Paparazzi will swarm Hale Co., Rose’s boutique, Superheroes & Scones, tracking down everyone close to me.

“What is it?”