Total pages in book: 20
Estimated words: 18371 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 73(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 18371 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 92(@200wpm)___ 73(@250wpm)___ 61(@300wpm)
“I’ve got something to show you,” he replies, emanating a strong used-car-salesman vibe. “Can you hop in for a second? It’ll just take a second.”
“I am not getting in your car with you, Justin.”
“We’re not going anywhere,” he laughs. “Just for a bit of privacy. Look, I’ll even turn the engine off and give you the keys.”
He does exactly as he says. He shuts off the engine, and before I can even react, he tosses the keys out the window at me. I catch them so they don’t just hit me in the face.
“Hey, nice catch!” He smiles. “Come on, hop in. I’d like to show you something. It’s about your new man. It’s important. You’ll want to see this. Trust me.”
My skin is absolutely crawling. This is the sleazeball who went out of his way to smear Ethan in every way possible in the press and all over social media to make him seem like the worst type of guy imaginable. And now apparently he has information I’m going to want to hear from him? What are the chances?
But even so, as Ethan’s personal assistant and probably the most trusted person within his company at this point, it might be in both of our interests for me to actually take a look at whatever it is that Justin has so I can see what he might be thinking about using against Ethan next.
“Okay,” I reply, going around the passenger side of the car. “You’ve got five minutes, Justin.”
“That’s all I’ll need,” he replies.
I slide inside and instantly get a noseful of too much cologne. Justin’s wearing a pink Gucci polo shirt and Gucci loafers like some kind of ridiculous playboy, and I wish I could snap a photo to show Ethan later.
“You’re being played, Whitney,” he says flatly.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re being played. By Ethan.”
I grab the door handle to leave. “Okay, I see what this is—”
But I feel Justin’s hand on my wrist to stop me. In shock, I whip around to face him and see a look of deadly seriousness on his face. “It’s not, Whitney. It’s not that. It’s something much more important. And I brought something to show you to prove it.”
He reaches down beside him and lifts up a small tablet. He unlocks the screen and starts flipping through photos that look like scarred land in a jungle somewhere. At first, I don’t know what I’m looking at, but the realization quickly kicks in.
“See anything you recognize?” he asks. I nod.
“These are pictures of the mines in The Congo where Newhouse International was supposedly using slave labor to enhance their profits,” I reply. “So what? All this does is prove that you were behind the fake stories all along.”
“You’re right.” He smiles. “These could prove that. If it weren’t for this…”
Justin swipes right, and my heart shatters.
My stomach sinks, and my jaw drops. All understanding I thought I had with the world is ripped away from me in that single instant as I see a photo of Ethan, clad in boots and jungle survival gear, standing high on a ridge overlooking hundreds of workers slaving away in the mud and filth beneath him.
“No…” I whisper, the word barely escaping my lips on a breath.
Justin continues to swipe, showing more photos of Ethan standing over his workers, talking to another man beside him, a man I don’t recognize, who he is clearly giving orders to.
“Sorry, but yes,” Justin replies as he locks the tablet and sets it aside. “I told you, you’re being played.”
I feel sick.
I feel suddenly hollow and gutted, like my heart has been torn from my chest and shot out into the cold vacuum of space.
I fell for it. How could I?
I went to that event with my squirt bottle of ketchup, all ready to crash things and make a statement, and I let Ethan, Mr. Billionaire Playboy, completely turn the tables on me like the experienced cad he is. Unbelievable.
The tears are welling up in my eyes, but I’m fighting a war to push them back. I can’t cry here. I just can’t. I can’t let him have that power over me after already having such power over me up until now.
“Why?” I mutter. “Why are you showing me this?”
“Because,” Justin replies, “no one’s closer to Ethan at Newhouse International than you, Whitney. We need to take him down. Stop him from committing these atrocities, and if anyone can help me do it, that’s you. Will you help me?”
The world is moving at light speed. Now Justin wants my help taking down Ethan? Ten minutes ago, I couldn’t wait to see him when he got home. Now my heart’s broken, and I have to decide if I want to bring down his company with his sworn enemy.
It’s getting hard to breathe.
“I-I need to think.” I shove open the door and swing my leg out of the car. I feel Justin’s hand in my pocket as I step out.