CHAPTER SEVEN
584 Words
The Announcement
The internet, Elara had long believed, was a living organism with the attention span of a golden retriever and the memory of an elephant.
It forgot nothing and focused on everything for approximately four minutes before moving on to the next thing. She had built her entire social media strategy around this principle: give it something shiny, give it something real, give it something to argue about, and then step back and let it run.
She had never given it anything like this.
The post went live at 7 PM on Thursday.
A single photo taken by Zaire's PR team in a rooftop session that had lasted ninety minutes and felt like a fever dream. She was in a deep burgundy wrap dress that his stylist had selected and she'd almost refused on principle until she'd seen it on. He was in a dark suit, no tie, one hand at the small of her back with the practiced ease of someone who'd rehearsed the gesture.
Except he hadn't rehearsed it. She would have noticed.
Some things are worth keeping quiet. This isn't one of them. @valecrестgroupofficial
She'd stared at it during the staging session. "That's what we're going with?"
"Simple is more believable," he'd said, and she'd heard her own words from three days ago come back at her.
By 7:04 PM it had ten thousand likes.
By 7:30 PM it had a hundred thousand.
By nine PM her phone had died twice.
Theron had sent seventeen messages ranging from ‘IT'S WORKING’ to ‘Vogue wants a comment’ to ‘a string of fire emojis that went on longer than necessary.’
She was sitting on her bed reading comments, a thing she knew better than to do and couldn't stop doing when Zaire appeared in the doorway holding two glasses of bourbon.
She took hers. "Half a million engagements."
"I know. Marcus tracks it."
"Of course he does." She looked at the glass. Then at him. He was still in the dress shirt from the photo session, collar open now, and she was very firmly not thinking about that. "The comments are something."
"Don't read the comments."
"I know. I did anyway."
"And?"
She took a sip. "Most people think you're out of my league." A pause. "One person said I looked like I was planning something."
Something moved across his face. "Are you?"
"I'm always planning something," she said. "That's not specific to you."
He almost smiled. She was learning to catch them, these almost-smiles, fractional and quickly gone.
She thought about Theron's message from earlier. I found something on the acquisition group. She'd called him back and he'd been vague, careful, and said he needed more time to verify. She'd pushed and he'd deflected warmly the way he always did when he wanted her not to worry.
She didn't know why she hadn't mentioned it to Zaire.
"Get some sleep," Zaire said. "It gets louder before it gets quieter."
"Zaire."
He stopped.
"Thank you," she said. "For the bourbon. And for the..." she gestured vaguely at everything. "The rest of it."
He looked at her for a moment. Just a moment.
"We had a deal," he said.
But he said it more quietly than usual.
And he waited until she'd closed the door before she heard his footsteps move away down the hall.
She stood with her back against the door and her bourbon in her hand and told her heart, very firmly, to behave itself.
It didn't listen.
- Writer
