Page 82 of Modern Romance January 2025 5-8

They didn’t know him. Of course they didn’t. But the performance he put on with them was a pleasant one.

If he could say one thing for the way he chose to live his life it was that he didn’t cause harm without intending to.

And he would never hurt the innocent.

The guilty, on the other hand...

“We will have to come up with a convincing story, obviously,” he said.

She blinked, her mouth dropping open. “About what exactly?”

“There have been witnesses,” he said. “To my being in the same space as you while enjoying the company of another woman.”

“Well, and maybe your plan is crazy,” she said. “Did you ever stop to think of that?”

“No. Because it must be a woman that I have spent significant time with, and there is no one else.”

“Well... Obviously we just got together then,” she said. He could see the brightness in her eyes, a frantic thought process turning there. “It can work. So yes, there have been other women, but we were trying to keep things professional.”

“Obviously. Because we have a contract.”

“It’s up next week,” she said.

“Too long,” he said. “We have to get the news out immediately. We almost have to make it look as if this is a backlash to our announcement. We have no time.”

He picked up his phone and texted his PR firm. “There. I told them that they need to see the story that we are engaged. We will supply photographs within the next few hours, but we need the rumors to get out now.”

“This is... Well, this is utterly unhinged,” she said, flexing her hands like little claws, looking extremely twitchy.

An odd thing, because Auggie had, in his view, always been polished and calm. But she’d shown up here in a rage he’d never seen before, and had not seemed to take a full breath since.

“Very few things matter to me, Augusta. But one is that I extricate myself from my father’s legacy, and I will not have a narrative dominating the media that I have stolen my success from him. My father is a horrible man.”

“I got the feeling that you didn’t like him very much.”

Few people spent large amounts of time in his presence. He was always on the move. But he wasn’t shocked that Auggie had picked up on that after being around him so frequently these past months. Even with his most polished veneer on he never said a nice thing about Javier Balcazar.

She’d been present when his father had called on a couple of occasions. His father only ever called to remind Matias of the past. He only ever did it to drip poison into his ear, and he knew in those moments his veneer...slipped.

“An understatement,” he said. “I hate my father. I hate him with every fiber of my being. I hope that he dies an old, lonely man. I wish him a long life only so that time can begin to twist everything that he is so proud of. That he might lose control of everything, including his body, so that he can know what it was like to grow up in his shadow. I despise my father,” he said, all of the darkness in him rising up to the surface. “And this is the most appalling claim that could’ve ever been made against me.”

“Do you think perhaps it’s worth combating the rumors?”

“No,” he said, his voice rough. “If we deny them, it cannot be right away. And it must be with the sort of attitude that suggests I find the rumors beneath me. I am living my life.”

“They aren’t true, though,” she said.

“No,” he said. “They’re not true. I keep information on my father’s company, but it isn’t to steal from him. It’s to keep tabs on him.”

“You have stolen information,” she said.

“No one will understand why except for me,” he said.

“Well, all the world thinks that you’re this... Dumb handsome log who sort of charmed his way into success.”

“Because it doesn’t benefit me to have them think of me otherwise. I like it that my enemies don’t see me coming. You know I’m not dumb, Augusta.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do. Except the whole thing with Charmaine was dumb.”