Home>>read Roman-2(Lane Brothers, Book 5) free online

Roman-2(Lane Brothers, Book 5)(164)

By:Kristina Weaver


The first person she bumped into when she got into the office was Alicia, recovered from her food-poisoning and back to her full, healthy, raven-haired beauty. By the look on Alicia’s face, it was clear that she’d been briefed on the whole Sasha-Thomas situation. And she wasn’t too happy about having been usurped.

Sasha tried to write her article, but every time she looked up from her desk she saw Alicia—walking past her to the bathroom, getting a top-off from the coffee machine, standing outside her window while having a cigarette. She was pissed, and she wanted to make sure Sasha knew it in every passive-aggressive way conceivable. No words were coming to her. No spin on this, no way of telling a story about Thomas Lloyd that wouldn’t make her seem like a sore loser.

Just then, Sasha’s cell phone started ringing. It was Thomas. She hit the decline button.

A moment later one of the receptionist approached her, an excited look on her face.

“I have Thomas Lloyd on the phone. He wants to talk to you.”

“Tell him I’m busy,” came Sasha’s terse response.

The receptionist looked beyond confused. “Are you sure? I mean, it’s Thomas Lloyd. The actor.” She spoke slowly and deliberately, as though Sasha were dumb.

“I know who he is. I don’t want to speak to him.”

The receptionist shrugged and walked away, only to return a moment later. “He says it’s urgent.”

Sasha gave her a wry look. “I don’t want to speak to him,” she repeated.

Once again the receptionist went away. Once again, she returned a moment later. “He was really persistent. I gave him your email address.” Then she smirked. “And my phone number.”

“Great,” Sasha muttered under her breath as the air-headed receptionist walked away.

Straight away, her computer pinged, signaling an incoming email.

The subject line read: Thought you might need this x

She opened the email. It was a stream of questions in bold with the answers beneath. He’d written his own interview.

She shot back an immediate reply. “Thanks but no thanks. I don’t need you to write an article on my behalf for a job you don’t think I need to do. Leave me alone, Thomas.”

She deleted the email. Another one immediately took its place. It was entitled, ‘I’m sorry.’ The next was titled, ‘I can be a jerk, I know.’ The following one, ‘Not that that’s an excuse.’ And a final one arrived that read, ‘Please help me be a better man.’

Sasha sighed heavily. Just then, she noticed Kelly at the other end of the office, striding towards her desk purposefully.

Shit, she thought. If she asks about the article, I’ll have to show her the email from Thomas just so it looks like I’ve made some kind of progress. It’ll buy me some time at least.

Kelly sidled up to her desk. “Have you looked on the internet today?” she said, without any kind of greeting.

“Excuse me?” Sasha replied, frowning.

“The internet. You know. The world at your fingertips. Well, have you?”

“Looked at what specifically?”

“Your boyfriend’s been caught up in a sex tape scandal.”

Sasha felt the blood drain from her face. She swiveled her office chair to face her computer and opened up a browser. As soon as she typed ‘Thomas Lloyd’, her browser automatically suggested finishing the search term with ‘sex tape’.

Squinting like a kid watching a scary movie, she hit enter and watched the screen fill up with headline after headline of the breaking news. She picked one at random and waited a moment as the video loaded. And there it was, a place that was immediately familiar to her, Thomas’s kitchen. The image was shot from somewhere inside the room, as though there were a hidden camera amongst the boxes of cereal. It was nighttime, but the room was filled with bright light. It was easy to make out the back of Thomas’s crouched figure and the legs of a naked woman either side of his head.

Ha, Sasha thought. The kitchen countertop. I knew he’d…

But her thoughts were interrupted mid-flow, as a strong sense of familiarity hit her. Thomas’s suit. The glasses of white wine. The woman’s legs…

“Kelly that’s…”

“You. I know.” The older woman folded her arms and raised an eyebrow.

Revulsion swirled in Sasha’s stomach. Her head dropped into her hands. He’d filmed her? Without her knowing? “Oh God. This can’t be happening.”

She clicked her browser closed to shut off the video. As she did so, her Outlook screen popped up. There were fifteen messages from Thomas, all with titles related to the scandal. They became progressively more frantic, written in capital letters and aggressively punctuated.