LOGINShare
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
publish date:
2026-02-23 01:08:54
Latest chapter
HIS SECRET ADDICTION CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO
Damien's POVHe looked at the phone the way you look at something you've been expecting and hoped wouldn't arrive yet."Farrow," he said."Answer it.""Sophie said—""Answer it. Here. Now." I moved around the desk. "Put it on speaker."He hesitated for exactly one second. Then he answered and set the phone on the desk between us."Alex Carter," he said."Mr. Carter. This is Diane Farrow from the Tribune. I'm sorry to call without warning. Do you have a few minutes."Her voice was calm and specific. The kind of professional calm that was its own form of pressure because it gave you nothing to push against."A few," Alex said. He was looking at the phone not at me. His voice was level. Completely level. I watched him find the steadiness in real time, the same way he'd found it in the Rossi meeting, in Sophie's office, in every room that had required it."I've been speaking with your mother," Farrow said. "She was generous with her time and I want you to know I approached her account wit
HIS SECRET ADDICTION CHAPTER EIGHTY-ONE
Alex's POV"Farrow called me yesterday," my mother said. "I called her back this morning."I sat down on Damien's couch."Mom.""Don't use that voice. I'm not a child." She said it with the particular patience of someone who'd been waiting to have this conversation for twenty years and wasn't going to be managed through it. "She found me through public records. My employment history with Cross Industries. She was professional. She identified herself and her piece and she asked if I'd be willing to talk.""And you said yes.""I said I needed to think about it. Then I thought about it." A pause. "Then I called her back."I looked at Damien across the room. He was reading my face the way he did, absorbing the half of the conversation he couldn't hear and filling in the rest accurately."What did you tell her," I said."Everything." My mother's voice was steady. The kind of steady that takes years to build. "My name. My position at Cross Industries. What Richard Sterling did. What the com
HIS SECRET ADDICTION CHAPTER EIGHTY
Damien's POVI read the screenshot over his shoulder.The headline was a working draft, incomplete, the kind of thing that lived in a shared document because someone forgot to restrict access or didn't think it mattered yet. Farrow had been careful everywhere else. One open document was all Sophie needed.“CROSS INDUSTRIES: THE COST OF SILENCE — How a 30-year board member's misconduct shaped a company's culture, and the employee who uncovered it.”Below it, in the notes field.*Key sources: Carter, A. (employee, direct knowledge). Sterling, R. (subject). Cross, D. (CEO, aware?)*Alex stared at his phone.I looked at his name on that screen and felt something very specific move through me that I didn't have immediate language for. Not fear. Something adjacent to it but with edges."Call Sophie," I said.He was already dialing.She picked up immediately. "You've both seen it.""Yes," Alex said. "How did you get access to a Tribune internal document.""I didn't. Farrow emailed our commun
HIS SECRET ADDICTION CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE
Alex's POVI stared at the message through the entire call. Carlo's team talked about the timeline and I said the right things at the right moments and took notes that were coherent enough to be useful later and thought about nothing except what Trevor had said in that call and what Damien's voice had sounded like when he answered it.The Rossi call ended at twelve-forty.I was upstairs at twelve-forty-three.Marcus was already there. Sitting in the chair to the left of Damien's desk with his jacket on, which meant he'd come straight from somewhere else. He looked at me when I came in with the expression he used when a situation had moved faster than planned and he was deciding how much to show."Close the door," Damien said.I closed it."Trevor called to move the meeting. Tonight. Same location, seven o'clock." Damien was at the window. Just actually contained, which was different and I'd learned to tell the difference. "He said he had something that couldn't wait until Thursday and
HIS SECRET ADDICTION CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
Damien's POVAlex came up at eleven-fifteen.I knew from the way he opened the door that the call had gone better than he'd prepared for. There was something settled in him that hadn't been there this morning, the particular quality of someone who'd been carrying a weight and had just found out it was lighter than they thought."How is she," I said."Remarkable." He sat down across from my desk. "She already knew about Farrow. She'd Googled her after I called over the weekend.""Your mother Googled the journalist.""She spent twenty years as an ESL teacher. She knows how to research." He looked at his hands. "She said if Farrow calls her she'll talk. On the record. Her terms."I looked at him. "That's significant.""She said she's been quiet long enough." He paused. "She also said that if Richard Sterling gets named in print she won't lose a single night of sleep over it.""Neither will I."He met my eyes. Something moved through his expression. The particular look he got when I said
HIS SECRET ADDICTION CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
Alex's POVSophie's eight o'clock was the kind of meeting that had coffee but no pleasantries.She had three folders on her desk when we arrived. One for each of us and one she kept. She'd been here since at least six, which I knew because her assistant looked like she'd also been here since six and had opinions about it."Sit," Sophie said.We sat."Diane Farrow," she began. "Forty-four. Tribune for eleven years. Before that, two years at the Post. Her long-form pieces average four thousand words and she's been shortlisted for a press club award twice." She opened her folder. "She's good. That matters because good journalists are harder to misquote and harder to rattle. Don't try either.""Has she contacted anyone here," Damien said."One call. Friday afternoon to our communications director. She identified herself and said she was working on a piece about corporate leadership culture and would welcome comment from Cross Industries." Sophie looked over her glasses. "Standard first co
You May Also Like
Claimed by three Alphas
Ozioma20.2K viewsCastillo Del Angel: Marked By Vengeance.
AlphaKelly20.8K viewsSTEPBROTHERS WITH BENEFITS
asteria28.6K viewsDaddy's Naughty Secret
Rara-avis1820.5K viewsThe Mate I Never Chose
Nawala Sastra259 viewsBetween Men: Love, Lust, and Steamy MM Stories
Marble 118 viewsThe Pakhan's Undoing
Dammy Kay44 viewsClaimed by my next door neighbour
Astreal185 views
