The Leak
521 Words
Chapter Nine: The Leak
It started with a headline.
Elsie’s phone buzzed just as she stepped out of the elevator into Blackthorn’s executive floor.
> "Blackthorn Billionaire Sleeping with Secretary?"
Exclusive photos emerge from anonymous source.
Her stomach dropped.
She opened the link with trembling fingers.
There they were.
Grainy, but unmistakable.
Her and Damian in the wine cellar—her dress hiked up, his hand in her hair.
Another one, blurred but damning: Damian’s mouth at her throat. Her legs wrapped around his waist.
Elsie could barely breathe.
Gasps echoed across the office as others saw it too.
Then—the boardroom doors flew open.
Damian stepped out like a storm in a tailored suit.
“Miss Lane,” he said, voice a blade. “My office. Now.”
---
Inside, the blinds were already shut.
He didn’t pace. He stood perfectly still.
“We have two hours,” he said coldly. “Before the shareholders demand blood.”
She stared at him, wide-eyed. “You think I leaked it?”
His jaw flexed. “I know you didn’t. But they won’t care. All they’ll see is weakness.”
Elsie swallowed. “Celeste.”
He nodded once. “She’s showing her teeth.”
“So what do we do?”
“We take them out first.”
---
By afternoon, the press was everywhere.
Paparrazi outside.
Security doubled.
The office a warzone.
Damian’s PR team went into overdrive, scrambling to draft statements, control the narrative, and run damage control.
But Celeste wasn't done.
By 3 PM, another scandal hit.
A lawsuit. s****l misconduct. Filed anonymously. Dated back two years—the exact time Damian and Celeste broke off their engagement.
Elsie burst into his office, shaking. “She’s accusing you of—”
“I know.”
“Is it true?”
He looked at her like she’d slapped him.
“No. But that won’t matter if it sticks.”
“Then fight.”
His lips curled. “Oh, I will. But this time... not alone.”
---
That night, Elsie stood beside Damian at the emergency shareholder meeting.
The room was filled with suits, cameras, suspicion.
But she didn’t flinch.
Damian spoke with iron calm, clearing his name with digital evidence—timestamped footage proving his whereabouts, audio logs from the night in question, and a surprise sworn statement from Celeste’s former assistant, who’d quit days before.
It worked.
But barely.
As they left the building through the back exit, Damian turned to her.
“I’ve had women come after me for money, power, even revenge. But none of them ever got to me.”
“You mean she did?”
“No,” he said, pulling her into the car. “You did. That’s why she wants to destroy you.”
---
Later, in his penthouse, Elsie let him undress her slowly, deliberately, on his balcony beneath the stars.
No cameras. No audience.
Just them.
She straddled him on the lounge chair, kissed him hard, and whispered:
> “Then let her watch me take what she never could.”
And she rode him like she meant it.
- Writer
