Page 79 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8
“I don’t,” Auggie said. “I don’t share your affinity for shark movies.”
“Well,” Irinka said. “InJaws, when they actually see the size of the shark, they realize they need a bigger boat. If you can’t have a smaller shark, get a bigger boat.”
“I’m not following,” Auggie said.
“If there’s a big headline, make a bigger one.”
“Well, first I need to talk to him, I need to find out what’s going on. I need to find out if there’s any truth to this. Because we can always squash it with the truth.”
Irinka laughed, the sound like a fork on crystal, and sat straight up in bed. “Are you that naïve, Auggie? You can’t fix lies with the truth. Because there’s a certain point where the truth doesn’t matter. That’s not what the public wants. They want a narrative. The idea that he might’ve done something underhanded to gain his success is a fantastic narrative, because you know he has secret haters.”
“He doesn’t. Everybody loves him. A light shines upon him. He is the most beautiful man in the world.”
“He has slept with more women than most men have evermet,” Irinka persisted. “He’s rich, he’s gorgeous, and people love to watch a guy like that fall. They really do.”
“You think they’re going to turn on him.”
“I think that’s what mobs do,” Irinka said.
“Hedgehogs also do that,” Maude said.
No one said anything in response.
“Okay,” Auggie said. “I’ll keep you posted. I have to go to... Wherever he’s at.”
“Good luck,” Lynna said.
“We all need it,” Auggie said, hanging up the phone. She took a couple of deep breaths and looked in the mirror. She was not quite as done up as she would like. But there were things she had to do. Very important things.
And then she was off like a hare, making a beeline straight for the residence that he kept in Barcelona. The address was in her files, and she had gotten a car before even finding it.
The whole drive she became more and more agitated. She was supposed to be finished with him soon and this was a logistical nightmare.
She had been nice, and she had been silent, and she had been the wallpaper, and look where it had gotten them both.
He was going to be reamed for this. She wasn’t going to handle him gently here. She had tried to warn him when he’d gotten off the plane and he hadn’t listened.
When she was dumped summarily out onto the sidewalk, she went to the wrought iron gates that led to a winding driveway, and pressed a button on the intercom. She was fueled by indignation and outrage. “Hello, Augusta Fremont is here to see Mr. Balcazar.”
She did not expect Matias himself to respond to the intercom. “Of course you may enter, Augusta.”
The gates swung open toward her, and she took two hopping steps backward, and then skittered inside, running up the steeply graded driveway toward the most opulent hacienda she had ever seen in her life. Tucked into the hills, with bright pink flowers spiraling all around, vines growing up a tall wall that encircled the outside of the stucco masterpiece. The red-tiled roof gleamed in the early morning sun, and Auggie had never been so full of hate. She leaned against the front door, trying to catch her breath. And then it opened, and she nearly tumbled inside, and right into the solid wall of Matias’s body.
She gasped, and lunged backward. “You are in a crisis,” she said.
His dark brows lifted, and he looked around. “Am I? I do not see a crisis anywhere in the vicinity.”
“Of course you don’t. Because it’s not printed yet. You took Charmaine to the office, didn’t you?”
“She wished to see the headquarters.”
“She wished to do some digging. I’m convinced. I saw an email on her phone...”
“You were on her phone?”
“I always check their phones, Matias,” she said, not breaking eye contact with him. “For photographs of your penis.”
He looked shocked. Not by the wordpenis, she supposed. But by her pushing back against him. She didn’t care. She had absolutely nothing to lose in this moment. She pinched the bridge of her nose and continued.