I woke at dawn the next morning and found Oren standing directly outside my door. “Have you been out here all night?” I asked him.
He gave me a look. “What do you think?”
He’d warned me that if the news about Toby got out, it would be a security liability. I had no idea how the news had gotten out, but here we were.
“Right,” I said.
“Consider yourself on a six-foot leash,” Oren told me. “You’re not leaving my side until this dies down. If it dies down.”
I winced. “How bad is it?”
Oren’s reply was matter-of-fact. “I have Carlos and Heinrich posted at the entrance to your wing. They’ve already had to turn away Zara, Constantine, and both Laughlins, in some cases forcibly. And that’s not even touching what Skye tried at the gates, in full view of the paparazzi.”
“How many paparazzi?” I asked tentatively. “Double what we’ve seen before.”
“How is that even possible?” I’d already been front-page news before last night’s interview had aired.
“If there’s one thing the world loves more than an accidental heiress,” Oren replied, “it’s a lost heir.” He very deliberately did not say, I told you so, but I knew he was thinking it.
“I am sorry about this,” I said. “So am I.”
“What do you have to be sorry for?” I asked flippantly.
Oren’s answer wasn’t flippant at all. “When I said that I would be within six feet of you at all times, I meant me, personally. I never should have delegated that responsibility, under any circumstance.”
“You’re human,” I said. “You have to sleep.” He didn’t reply, and I
crossed my arms over my chest. “Where’s Eli?” “Eli has been removed from the premises.”
“Why?” I demanded, but my brain was already whirring. Oren had apologized to me. He blamed himself for allowing someone else in on my immediate protection detail, and that someone else had been barred from Hawthorne House.
Eli had been the one guarding me when I’d gone to talk to Mrs.
Laughlin about Toby.
“He leaked the pictures.” I answered my own question. Eli had been on my protection detail for over a week. He’d been in a position to overhear… a lot.
“Eli isn’t as good at hiding his digital footprint as my man is at uncovering digital ghosts,” Oren told me, his voice like steel. “He leaked the photos. In all likelihood, he’s also the one who’s responsible for the heart and the snake.”
I stared at Oren. “Why?”
“I assigned him to your protection detail at school. He obviously wanted that extended to the estate. I trusted Eli. That trust was clearly misplaced. For whatever reason—possibly a payout from the press—he wanted to be closer to you. I didn’t see it. I should have.”
I’d never felt unsafe around Eli. He hadn’t harmed me, and he could have, if that had been his goal. For whatever reason, I replayed Oren’s words in my head. Possibly a payout from the press.
I thought of Max’s ex-boyfriend, who’d tried to access her phone, so he could sell our texts. About my “father” and Skye selling their stories. About the payout that Alisa had arranged, back at the beginning, to have Libby’s mother sign an NDA.
It was starting to sink in that for the rest of my life, the people I met, the people I became close to—there would always be a chance that they saw me as a payout.
“This is the second time that my error in judgment has cost you dearly,” Oren said stiffly. “If you feel the need to hire new security, I’m sure Alisa could—”
“No!” I said. If Alisa hired someone, that person’s loyalty would be to her. Whatever mistakes Oren had made, I believed that his allegiance was to me. He’d do whatever he could to protect me, because Tobias Hawthorne
had asked him to.
“Yes?” Oren said curtly. It took me a second to realize that he wasn’t talking to me. He was wearing an earpiece and talking to one of his men. How many of them can we trust? How many of them would sell me out for the right payout?
“Let them through,” Oren ordered, and then he turned back to me. “Your sister and Nash have arrived at the gates.”
