Chapter 85: Different images

The image of Tom arriving half-naked from another woman’s car remained fixed firmly behind Sienna’s eyes as she stood still...

The argument she had prepared was still somewhere in her mouth, unfinished, but it was no longer the first thing occupying her body.

The brief collision kept replaying whether she wanted it to or not... The sudden contact, the heat of his bare skin against her for that one awkward second before she staggered back. Her face warmed at the memory, and that reaction irritated her almost as much as the memory itself.

She pressed her fingers once against the side of her neck and forced the thought down.

"What the hell?" She mumbled under her breath. Then she shook her head.

What mattered was not the accidental contact. What mattered was the fact that pictures and videos of her contracted husband were already moving through the internet in close-cut underwear beside a roadside bush, and people were attaching her name to the embarrassment without waiting for context. That was the real problem. Reputation did not ask for privacy. It only asked for material.

Sienna drew in a slow breath and turned her focus there before anything softer could take shape under the discomfort.

~~~~~~~~~~

Upstairs, Tom had closed the door of his room behind him and let the quiet settle.

He changed into comfortable clothes, rolled the duvet back, and dropped onto the bed with his forearm over his eyes for a moment.

Then the morning sat on him in layers; there was the failed mission and the debt, then there was the men in his car, ripping his expensive suit off.

And under all of it, the one sentence from the back seat returned with clean accuracy;

*’Stay away from circles you don’t belong in.*’

Tom’s mouth tightened. He did not need a signed letter to understand the source. Adrian.

It fitted too well. The timing, the class contempt, the need to correct a man he considered beneath him. Stella’s fiancé had not used his own hands, but he had still made his point.

The anger that followed was quieter than the first wave on the roadside and more useful because of it as Tom analysed;

So that was the judgment. That he did not belong near Stella. That he did not belong anywhere near men like Adrian and the rooms they occupied. Tom stared at the ceiling and let the thought harden instead of bruise him.

"I will belong," he muttered.

The System answered as if it had been waiting for the line.

[Host’s ambition noted.]

Tom did not bother sitting up. "I want more than scattered rewards. I need something with weight. Something that makes it harder for men like that to look at me and see nothing. I need a company of my own." he said.

[That kind of growth comes,] [As long as Host continues completing missions.] the System replied.

"I want it faster."

[Then Host will be disappointed. Speed without foundation creates empty elevation. Keep moving. The rest follows.]

Tom exhaled through his nose, unsatisfied and yet unable to argue cleanly with the answer. Before he could push further, a familiar horn sounded from outside.

His car.

He knew the tone of it well enough to recognize it immediately.

Tom yanked the duvet off his body and got up, then went downstairs. Through the front entrance he saw the black Mercedes back where it belonged, as if the morning’s violence had not dragged it across the city and left him stranded beside it. Josie’s driver stood by the door, calm and impersonal.

Tom stepped out.

"You brought it back." he said more to himself than to the man.

The man gave a short nod. "Yes, sir."

"Thank you." Tom said in appreciation.

The driver did not linger for conversation. He left as efficiently as he had arrived, and Tom remained by the car for a second longer than necessary, one hand resting against the frame. He was so pleased that the key had been recovered and his vehicle was back home.

And for the fact that Josie had followed through exactly as she said she would, he was grateful.

"But who is she?"

The question rose and did not find an immediate answer. Tom stayed quiet on the thought for a moment before decided to let it go for now and walked back into the house.

He met Sienna pacing the living room.

She stopped when she saw him. Whatever she had been holding in since the online posts and his earlier refusal to talk came up at once to the surface of her face. Tom walked farther into the room and spoke before she could start from pure temper.

"What is the issue?" he asked her.

Sienna unlocked her phone and held it up. The roadside images were still there, with the ugly captions intact, his body on display in those sinful underpants while traffic moved past in the background.

Tom looked at the screen and sighed once through his nose.

"What caused this?" Sienna asked.

"You don’t need to dig into that," Tom said. His voice stayed even as he continued;

"The better question here is what we’re going to do to protect your brand image, because people are already using my name to attack it."

The shift in angle landed. Sienna had come prepared for excuses, defiance, maybe even shameless indifference. Instead he had moved straight past the personal embarrassment and into recognizing what this meant for her career.

The same sharp usefulness that kept unsettling her expectations showed itself again, and she hated that it impressed her as much as it did.

She opened her mouth to answer. Then her phone sounded with a new notification.

Sienna looked down. Whatever was on the screen drained the next words from her throat. Her eyes widened and her lips parted.

Tom watched the change closely.

"What happened?" he asked, furrowing his brows. He had a wild guess already - had the picture circulating around already cost Sienna something? He wished it hadn’t.