All That Really Matters, Nicole Deese [best detective novels of all time .TXT] 📗

“You should also note that by the time I pull out of this driveway, your access to any social media account associated with the brand Makeup Matters with Molly will be frozen. You’ll have no further access to edit any past content or the ability to post new content. Our sponsors will be made aware of our partnership termination with you via email tomorrow morning, and all future communication regarding this matter to any of those sponsors will be subject to swift legal action.” He clicked his fob to unlock his expensive rental car. “It likely goes without saying at this point, but as a terminated client of Cobalt Group, you are also no longer eligible to receive our corporate Dream Big Scholarship.”

“No.” I darted after him, breaking Silas’s hold on me. “You can’t do that! These kids need that money, Ethan. Please don’t punish them!”

Silas’s arms were around me a half second later, holding my back tight to his chest as he spoke my name. But I was too broken to hear it. Too lost to a world I thought I could escape without consequences.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Ethan looked at the two of us with disgust as he opened the driver’s door of his shiny silver Mercedes. “I hope it was worth it, Molls.”

36

Silas

As soon as Ethan’s tires squealed out of the driveway, Molly pushed away from my chest and ran toward the house. For half a second, I debated my next move: to go after her or to hunt down her snake of an ex-boyfriend. The flare his haughty words had ignited in me burned hot, and if not for the close proximity of the two dozen residents working around the corner, Ethan would not have had the last word.

I would have seen to that.

I flexed and released the fists at my sides, forcing an exhale that did nothing to ease the growing pressure in my chest. Not only because I wanted to pin that pretentious jerk to a wall and use him for dart practice, but also because I had no solid solution to offer the woman I loved.

Ethan’s legal team had covered all their bases. There were no loopholes to slip through this time. He’d annihilated Molly’s entire career with one kill shot.

A short list of possibilities as to where Molly might have headed ticked through my mind. But as I threw open the door to Fir Crest, I didn’t need to look far. She paced ten feet away from where I stood in the lobby. Her footsteps reverberated in the open space, her fingers pushing through the short locks of her hair.

“Talk to me, Molly,” I said with a calm I didn’t know I possessed. “Let me help you.”

She glanced my way, her eyes unseeing, her face awash with the kind of devastation that cut to the core. “It can’t be fixed, Silas. What he’s done, it’s . . . it’s . . .” She stopped, stared straight ahead. “It ruins everything.”

I positioned myself in front of her next pass, yet I wasn’t stupid enough to restrict her movement. That would only upset her more. We were the same in that regard. Molly needed a physical outlet, a way to vent her building steam. It was the same reason I’d committed to running in the early mornings.

Moving meant processing.

“It might seem that way right now, but we can figure this out. Together. I’ll make some calls and check on the validity of that C and D, and then I’ll look into the appeal process to find out what it will take to unfreeze your accounts—”

“Silas.” Her voice broke as she shook her head. “It’s pointless. Even if we did request an appeal, the process to unfreeze flagged accounts can take weeks, especially when the claims involve a third party—which is exactly why he went the route he did. We don’t have weeks until our event. We have days.” She looked ill, the color draining from her cheeks as she worked through the tangled webs her ex had strung. “Making the offer in person was his last test. And when I failed, he knew exactly how to retaliate.”

“What exactly did he offer you?” A question I’d been pondering since Glo told me an unregistered visitor was speaking to Molly.

With her back still to me, she exhaled slowly. “A final screening audition in LA. For Project New You.” She twisted around to face me. “My livestream, the one we shot in your office together, it caught the producer’s attention. I guess it was what he’s been looking for . . . in a host.”

My insides crystallized as a cold chokehold slipped around my neck. For several seconds I couldn’t speak, couldn’t utter a single word, much less a clarifying question. The idea of Molly leaving blindsided me. Yet, somehow the idea of her forfeiting her career, her dreams, her future was even more unbearable.

“Molly.” I studied her, the rosy blotches on her cheeks, the tremble in her chin, the defeat of her slumped shoulders. “A decision this monumental has to be about you, what you want for your future, not about what anyone else wants.” My words betrayed me, bucked against my chest like a caged animal, yet they were right. Painfully so.

“There is absolutely nothing Ethan could have offered that would have swayed me from what I decided weeks ago.” Tears slipped to her jaw, marking her pink tank top as they dripped onto her chest. “From the moment you followed me out to the parking lot that night after D&D, I knew this was where I was supposed to be. For the first time in my adult life, I want to give my heart to something that really matters—something bigger than what I could have ever seen for myself or my future. So no, this decision isn’t just about me at all. It’s about this program, these residents . . . you.”

She squeezed her eyes closed. “Only now I have nothing to offer in return for all you’ve