Edward
By the following morning, news of the deal was everywhere.
The internet wouldn't shut up about it. Neither would the newspapers, billboards, news sites, social media, or magazines. Everywhere I looked, there was another headline screaming about my latest "lapse in judgment".
My face was plastered across half the city. Luka's wasn't far behind. Even Michael and James had managed to appear in a few photographs.
Although I had expected something far worse.
Not that the headlines were particularly flattering, but they could have been considerably more vicious. Given the circumstances, I had fully prepared myself for pages of speculation, outrage, and mockery.
On the contrary, the whole thing had been handled with surprising restraint.
I was entirely certain Michael was responsible for that. The bastard possessed a talent for managing journalists, influencers, and anyone else who made a living from other people's business.
Nevertheless, no amount of pressure could completely suppress the urge for drama.
A few papers had found ways around it. The headlines weren't as provocative as they could have been, although there was some aggression in a few of them.
"Mad Millionaire Purchases Infamous Bar."
"Moncler Heir Finally Loses His Mind."
Well, I'd seen far worse headlines before, so I could probably consider the news to have been received quite calmly.
What worried me far more than any of those loud headlines, however, was whether he had seen them.
But there was no point doubting that. The news had been everywhere.
Surely it had been the first thing he saw that morning. Even if he had somehow managed to avoid it himself, someone else would have told him. One of the volunteers he worked with, perhaps. Or anyone else nearby.
There was simply no chance the information hadn't reached him by now.
The question was what he thought of it.
Had we gone too far?
What if they decided to refuse?
What if they saw the whole thing as insulting, or simply more trouble than it was worth?
Or what if they agreed for entirely different reasons? What if the attention had become so overwhelming that refusing was no longer a realistic option?
The questions circled endlessly through my mind, and I had no answers for any of them.
For the next twenty-four hours, I was buried in work.
Then again, so was James.
We spent the entire day dealing with the fallout from those articles—the fallout from my own decisions, for that matter.
Not that I was surprised by any of it.
In fact, part of me was grateful.
The sheer volume of work left me with very little time to obsess over the waiting. Very little time to count the hours or watch the minutes crawl by while expecting their answer.
Now, however, a full day had passed.
I sat in my office. The workload had finally eased. Things had begun to settle down again. Everything was returning to normal.
Unfortunately, that didn't make me feel any better.
If anything, it made the waiting worse.
It was that unpleasant feeling that came when you were expecting something desperately and had no control over when it would arrive.
Time stretched.
Painfully slowly.
Every second seemed like an hour.
Crash!
The sound of breaking glass echoed from somewhere beyond my office door, followed by a few muffled voices.
I let out a quiet sigh.
Sounds like Michael had arrived.
What had he done this time?
Had he finally managed to drive James past his limit, prompting him to smash a kettle over his head?
Should I be calling an ambulance?
Or had he caused another disturbance in the corridor, forced open a door somewhere, and broken something in the process?
I was still considering further possibilities when the door opened.
Michael stepped into my office wearing a half-soaked shirt.
Well… That answered one question and raised several more.
"Good morning, my dear friend. Aren't you going to ask what happened to me?"
Michael sounded offended as he tugged at his damp shirt, apparently trying either to peel it away from his skin or persuade it to dry.
I sighed once more. "Am I supposed to?"
"Of course you are. When your best friend walks in looking like this, you're morally obligated to ask what the hell happened."
"Let me guess." I rested my chin on my hand. "You were harassing my secretary again and finally received the response you deserved?"
"Harassing him?" Michael clicked his tongue in outrage. "When was the last time I harassed anybody?"
The question hardly required an answer.
"I just got a bit too close to our little mouse while he happened to be holding a potentially hot beverage." He raised a single finger. "But fortunately for both of us, I was incredibly lucky. It wasn't nearly hot enough, which means you won't need to worry." His gaze dropped to his shirt again. "You think that's going to leave a stain?"
I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms across my chest.
"You can afford a new shirt. More importantly, stop pestering James." I said in a serious tone.
Michael rolled his eyes. "Fine."
He dropped into the nearest chair, grabbed one of the folders from my desk on the way down, and began fanning his damp shirt with it.
"So," I continued, "what's happening with your contact?"