has become my closest friend in New York—to the point that I know she is an avid night owl and hates facing the world, me included, before nine on any day.
So why is she calling at quarter to seven?
I nod my thanks to Mallory and punch the phone’s green button. “Bon sabah, my friend.”
“Hey.” It is breathless and hitchy and slightly impatient, not the usual “and good morning to you, dear arkami.” I am almost tempted to ask her what marathon she is warming up for, but have a strange feeling sarcasm is not on her breakfast menu.
“Errmm…” I extend it through the hurried rustlings coming from her end. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your voice before the strike of nine?”
“To what do you—” The rustlings stop. “Oh, God. Someone’s listening to us, aren’t they? Do you think they’ve gotten your private number already? But Cas bought it for you, right? He’s more careful than that. Much more careful.”
“Kate.” I feel my brows drop. “What on Earth are you about?”
A strange pause. As in, the kind of wordless stillness I expect from Cassian, not Kate.
“You really don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“About the explosion you and Cas are causing.”
“The expl—” I surge to my feet. Swoop my stare in a full circle, admitting to nobody that I actually expect to see a plume of smoke somewhere on the horizon. “And where, exactly, would this apocalypse be?”
Early morning no-man’s land or not, she has earned herself the sarcasm. To my delight and dread, her riposte rides the same bandwagon. “Do you have a web browser open?”
I pull my phone away long enough to tap on the internet function. “In about ten seconds.” The little wheel rotates, taunting me for three seconds longer than that. “Where do I go?”
“Anywhere.”
Nothing proves her more right than the list of trending subjects for the day.
After scrolling through the first screen of them, I succumb to sitting down once more.
As my stomach turns into a tempest, my lungs morph into twin Kraken, and my limbs become ice luges—
And I realize, at last, why my parents are texting as if the end of the world has started.
For a moment, I completely commiserate.
Just when Mallory has given me the key to Cassian’s final door, the entire world has stomped into our way. Tapped on the dominoes—when we have barely had time to line up a decent stack of our own.
“Holy saints.” I tap the first link in the list on my screen. Correction: the first link appearing not to take blatant advantage of the others. Vy had a distinct term for it. Click bait. The definition takes on new meaning when one’s own name is that lure.
When the page bursts into view, my head spins despite my backside on the cushion and my feet on the ground.
There is more than just a story here.
There are pictures—indeed painting a thousand words—each one “angled” with a total fallacy.
I am tempted to swear by the saints again. No. This calls for my inner Vy—with her sidekick, Miss Screw Priority.
“Dammit to hell.”
*
Cassian
“Dammit to hell.”
I stomp on the Ford’s brake after rounding the corner—and spotting the mob of reporters from half a block away. The feat isn’t hard, considering they’ve brought all the big equipment, including telephoto lenses and video cameras. I even spot a few on-camera reporters getting sound levels checked.
Fuck. That’ll be the only easy bite I’ll get out of this newly lobbed pie at my balls—for that’s exactly where the bastards have aimed. I’ve always appeared at enough high-profile events, and been generous with quotes from the lobby of Court Towers, that the press gives me Temptation as a haven. On one hand, I can count how many times they’ve violated the boundary. The first was after Lily’s funeral, when the entire world wanted a piece of my grief. The next two were responses to the media version of booty calls, answering leads from “unknown sources” inside Temptation itself. Both times, I was “seeing” models who had high-profile marketing deals pending. Prim had ridden me hard about the first, and become a full girl bear about the second. You know, asshole, we’d all be better off if you’d think with the big head instead of the small one.
I groan softly. What will she say this time? And how the hell will I debate the point? Technically, she’s right. I wasn’t thinking wholly with the gray matter upstairs when redrafting that contract back on Arcadia. How could I have,