Why would I blame him? “I’ll be fine. Now go play with your stupid porn.”

I hung up the phone, fuming. I knew John loved me, but why couldn’t anyone believe me that Maxwell Cole wasn’t going to screw me over.

Lily, do you really even believe it yourself?

Shit. I shoved my hands through my hair. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know.

Danny was in our apartment when I got there just before eight o’clock, and I couldn’t have been happier to see her. If anyone would know what was going on at C.C., she would.

“I don’t have a clue,” she said, standing with me in the kitchen, wearing a cute little white summery dress, mixing up a batch of powdered vitamin water, which meant she was expecting to have some fun tonight with her boyfriend. I’d finally figured it out. Sex hydration. “That doesn’t make sense.”

Great. “But something is definitely happening.” I kicked off my heels and stood barefoot on the kitchen floor. My feet ached as badly as my head. “The customers are freaking out. Everyone’s talking about jumping ship.” At least, that’s what I’d overheard at the water cooler. “And Max is nowhere to be found.”

Danny looked at me. “Maybe the rumors are only half true—they’re getting ready to sell, but not to B&H. Maybe Max knows about the hostile takeover, decided to scrap the IPO, and is going in another direction. But that doesn’t make sense either. Because why would they sell? They’re number one.” She shook her large water bottle, turning the liquid blue. “Unless something big is going to happen and…the company is going to tank and they know it? They’re saving what they can.” She shook her head. “Nope. You know what? I don’t have a fucking clue. And I know you don’t want to hear this, Lily, but you might want to get your résumé tidied up.”

Dammit. This really sucked. And I couldn’t believe Max would just sit idly back and let his company self-destruct.

Unless, he’s the one who’s behind all this. After all, Danny had been right about something coming that might “tank” the company.

No. He wouldn’t sell out. And he would’ve told me something was coming.

Would he really? He hadn’t bothered to tell me anything so far.

Saturday morning, an insistent buzzing at the door woke me up. I staggered to answer it since Danny hadn’t come home from her boyfriend’s yet.

“Miss Snow?” said the man, shoving a giant bouquet of red roses at me.

“Uh. Yeah.” I took them and held up my finger. “One minute.”

“No need for a tip, ma’am. It’s already been taken care of.”

I thanked him and closed the door, going into the sad little beige kitchen to set the flowers down. I took out the card, which read:

I’m sorry. I know this has ruined our plans. But it has to be dealt with. – M

I stared at the card, wondering what the hell it meant. Our plans for the weekend? Our plans not to have everything explode in our faces and ruin our lives? What?

I wouldn’t have to wonder for very long.

After the flower delivery, I went for a stress-relieving run, only to return to seven news vans parked outside my building. The moment I came around the corner, I was mobbed by intrusive cameras shoved in my face and screaming reporters.

“Is it true you’re dating your boss, Maxwell Cole?” “Has he ever called you ugly?” “How does it feel to date a man with such an unusual fetish?”

I was speechless. Utterly speechless.

Panicked and sweaty from my run, I pushed my way inside my apartment, closed all the curtains and got on my laptop. The front-page news was my deepest fears times ten. It was something I couldn’t have fathomed. Not in a million years.

Pictures of Maxwell Cole and me leaving his house together, in his car, eating breakfast on his deck, making out in front of the fire at his beach house in Hawaii. Worst of all, there were multiple shots of him and me having sex on the beach.

No. No. No. Someone had taken great care to photograph us together and knew exactly where we’d be.

The headline read, Soon to Publish Book About Billionaire Maxwell Cole—Fiction or Truth?

I went on to read all about Nancy Little’s upcoming tell-all and the claims it brought against him. But then the article went on to talk about me. My degree from Stanford, my hometown of Santa Barbara, how I’d recently been hired in a senior position without any experience—a lie—and how I was Max’s lover—not a lie. The article included the photo from my C.C. employee badge, and the closing sentence spared nothing… Suffice it to say that if allegations are true, Mr. Cole’s definition of ugly would have to be grossly distorted. His current romantic interest, in this reporter’s opinion, is no beauty.

The words were extremely hurtful, but they were tame compared to the two online tabloids I’d checked. Words like “ugly creature” and “a face that could frighten small children” were used.

There were no words or enough space in my heart to contain the devastation and humiliation I felt.

I closed my laptop, reeling with anger and hurt. The only explanation I could come up with was that Maxwell Cole had done this to me. Him. He’d used me to create irrefutable evidence that the book was a lie.

My heart shattered into a thousand little fucking ugly shards of hate. How could I have been so blind? Yet, the signs had been there all along, and I simply refused to see them. Mr. Cole’s sudden interest in me. His insistence in hiring me for a position higher than the one I applied for, giving me an office, and promises of the perfect future. The way he’d taken me to Milan, bought me a nice dress and put me up in an expensive hotel room. He blinded me with all that glamour and the dazzle. Then, he pushed back against my having surgery—would look bad for him—meanwhile he tried to flaunt our relationship.

I had been his plan all along, and I’d fallen for it hook, line, and sinker. He knew exactly what a woman like me wanted to hear—after all, he was the master at selling things to my gender.

You’re a fucking idiot, Lily. A stupid, fucking idiot. I would bet that those first pictures that came out about me in the tabloids were no coincidence either.

I went over to the wastepaper basket—Danny never emptied shit around here, and I’d been gone most of the time—and there it was. I dialed and put my cell to my ear.

“Nancy? It’s Lily Snow. What do you want to know?”

~~~

It took forty minutes, on the record, to tell Nancy everything. This time, I told the truth, except for one thing: I did not tell her that I loved him. I knew that I did because there was no possible way I could be hurting this badly if I didn’t.

I sent a text to my mother, guessing from the lack of texts and calls that she hadn’t seen or heard anything yet…

Me: When you see the news, please don’t worry. I’m coming home. Be there soon.

I knew she and my father would freak the hell out. And for a mother to have to hear the world call her child an “ugly creature” or accuse me of being some sort of slut because I’d slept with my boss—one man, whom I loved…

Loved. Past tense.

I hung my head and gathered myself as best I could. This was not going to blow over—not for me, anyway. And Mr. Cole would come out looking like a champion for women and sell a ton of makeup with the free press. Just like he’d said. He’d turn this into a million dollars of sales. He was now, and officially, the most desirable man in the world who only dated women whose “souls turned him on,” because unlike the other PR stunts of him merely being seen in public with unattractive women, the press couldn’t poke holes through claims that he was really dating me. The nude photos, though taken at night, of him fucking me senseless on his private beach said it all. Add up all of the other photos, and it told a story of a man who didn’t seem to have any phobia whatsoever.