Page 78 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

“Is this Augusta Fremont?”

“Yes?” She rubbed her eyes and rolled over in her large, empty bed. If she was like Matias she would have gone out and found herself a bedmate. She would have batted her eyelashes and seduced a gorgeous Spaniard. But she was not, and she was alone. As per always. Her and her cell phone.

“Augusta Fremont of Your Girl Friday?”

“The very one,” she said. She did not tell the woman on the other end of the line that everybody called her Auggie. She had hoped, when she was younger, that the nickname Gus might catch on. It was cuter, in her opinion. But no. She was Auggie forever. Now though, when she thought of the nickname, she heard it in her mother’s voice, and it softened things inside of her.

“Do you have a comment to make on the news that Matias Balcazar is a fraud?”

“Excuse me?” she asked.

“Yes. Media outlets received reports this morning from an anonymous source alleging that he has engaged in a years-long corporate espionage campaign which has stolen information from his father, Javier Balcazar, and therefore he has built his image on lies.”

“It isn’t true,” she said, sitting up and pushing her brown hair out of her face. “I know that for a fact. Matias is a self-made man whose reputation as such is very important to him. I’ve spent a great deal of time with him, and I can tell you, he never even mentions his father.”

“Well, the evidence that was faxed to us this morning is quite compelling. It doesn’t really matter whether you have a comment or not, the story is going to run everywhere.”

“Expect a cease-and-desist,” she said, hanging up the phone. She was panicking. Not so much because she cared about Matias, but because she was so connected with him.

She scrambled out of bed and put her clothes on. She was his keeper. For better or for worse. And Your Girl Friday was associated with him. His name was going to be strongly linked to them no matter what, and if this...

She was immediately spinning stories in her mind. Even as she was FaceTiming the work wives.

Irinka was lying in bed, glaring intently at the camera. Maude was out on a country road somewhere, she seemed to be walking a spaniel, but the camera was jiggling wildly, so it was hard to say.

Lynna was in a chicken coop. “Fresh eggs,” she commented, lifting a shoulder.

“Well, here are some not fresh eggs. There’s going to be a major scandal connected to the Pitbull.”

“What, did he get caught with his hand in the honey jar, so to speak?” Irinka asked, rolling onto her back and bringing the phone with her. She sat up, revealing that she was wearing extremely luxe-looking pajamas.

“I wish. He got...” She covered her face with her free hand. “Somebody stole something from his office. It was Charmaine. I’m convinced. So that is some commitment to the bit, because she definitely slept with him.”

“Auggie,” Lynna said. “We’ve all seen him. It’s not really hugely sacrificial for a woman to sleep with him.”

“Like you would know,” Auggie said.

If Lynna was put out by that shot about her nonexistent love life, she didn’t let it show. Instead, she stroked a chicken’s head, and stood, holding the phone up toward her face as she began to walk out of the chicken coop area.

Lynna was professionally unbothered.

“I have to fix this. What am I going to do?”

“You’re not his publicist,” Irinka pointed out. “She needs to get involved with this.”

“But they called me. They called me in the morning, and they asked if I was Augusta Fremont of Your Girl Friday. And I am. We are all Your Girl Friday. If my most prominent client that I have ever had goes down in flames while I’m embedded in his life like this...”

“You need to be embedded in fixing it,” Maude said, red-cheeked in the cold English air.

“Right. I do. You’re right. I have to fix it. We built this business ourselves. And I can’t count on anyone else to do this. Not a publicist, who thinks that the best way to shape his image is to paint him as an idiot. This just makes him look even more stupid.”

“He’s probably notstupid,” Maude said thoughtfully. “It’s just that he’s egotistical. Overconfidence gets beagles into a lot of trouble also.”

“He’s not a beagle,” she said.

“No, I know that,” Maude said.

Auggie decided to let that go. “Remember inJaws,” Irinka said.