Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 112917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112917 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 565(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“Lou touched me,” I said, pointing to the screen. Lou’s eyes widened in surprise before she realized I was joking.
“Yeah,” she muttered. “All I need is for them to fire Ryan so I have to do double duty.”
Her words took me by surprise. “Fire Ryan?” I glanced at Ryan, who was pretending to ignore our conversation. Thankfully, Violet was busy talking to someone in the conference room with her.
Lou shrugged. “What else could their motive be? All their emails seem to point out Ryan’s inability to keep you protected.”
I was confused. “All their emails? I thought there was only one?”
Bear glared at Lou, and her eyes went wide. Violet came back on, oblivious to what had just happened. “So, Alana Vasa was in Paris when the LA stamping happened. She’s clear. But we need to talk about canceling Berlin. I’m not sure the label is going to be comfortable with the exposure, considering…”
I didn’t listen to her words. All I could see was the truth in Bear’s expression. There’d been more emails. Emails no one had bothered to tell me about. I turned away from Bear and focused on Lou’s phone. “Violet, I want you to send me every email I’ve received, right fucking now.”
There was a pause. “Uh… Zee, you’re the one with the emails. They came to your account, and you and Ryan forwarded them to me. Remember?”
Embarrassment heated my face at the confirmation. I took a deep breath and tried to stay professional… something I was wildly unfamiliar with lately. “Yes, sorry. My bad. They must still be in my email account. Well, I’ll leave you and the team to sort this out. I’m going to bed. Thank you for your help tonight.”
And with that, I stood up, avoided Bear’s face like the fucking plague, and escaped to my room.
Where I locked the door and spent the next half hour catching up on his many lies.
TWENTY-TWO
RYAN
Bears are actually brilliant problem-solvers. With their sharp memories and knack for figuring things out, they’re known to use tools, crack puzzles, and even open car doors if they smell a snack inside. But even the brainiest bears sometimes get goofy when they’re feeling the bear version of a crush. Imagine a smart bear who can remember every trail and scent suddenly stumbling around, distracted. Love makes even the cleverest bears a little clumsy!
—Bear Facts for Insomniacs, Episode 108
“Fuck,” I hissed under my breath as soon as Violet ended the call twenty minutes later. “Fuck!”
Lou shot me a glare. “You didn’t tell him about the other emails? What? Did you think he couldn’t handle it?”
“Fuck!” I snapped at the ceiling.
Lou stood up, shaking her head. “For someone who cares about Zane, you sure do treat him like he’s incapable of handling things.”
I glared at her. “Are you fucking kidding me? I didn’t keep those emails from him because I think he’s incapable of handling things. I kept them from him to guard his peace! That’s my fucking job, Lou, to guard him in every way possible. What good would it have done to let him see them? They would have either scared him or enraged him. Either way, that wouldn’t have gotten us anywhere.”
“You don’t know that. Maybe there was something in those messages that would have seemed familiar to him.”
“Bullshit. They were the same stupid message over and over again. And if he’d been busy worrying over those emails, he wouldn’t have completed that new song he sang tonight. That man had a wonderful two weeks in Norway because he didn’t have this shit crawling all over him every night.”
Lou met my eyes with a knowing glare. “I could make a very tidy comment about something else crawling all over him every night, but I’m a lady.”
Heat rushed to my face. “How did you know?”
Her face softened, and she reached out to squeeze my arm. “I saw it coming a million miles away. The two of you are so into each other it’s disgusting. But it’s also kind of wonderful. Go talk to him, Ryan. Help him understand you were trying to protect him, but don’t—” She held up her hand to stop me from interrupting. “Don’t make it sound like you were doing it because it’s your job.”
I sucked in a breath and nodded. She was right. “Thank you.”
She leaned in and gave me a rare and quick hug. “And stop blaming yourself for this asshole. We’ll figure out who it is. In the meantime, I’m going to give you a little bit of unsolicited advice.”
I prickled at the idea she could know Zane more than I did, but then again, she’d been with him much longer. “What?”
“He’s going to try and act like he doesn’t need or want a protector. He hates being seen as weak, hates needing or accepting help from anyone. You know this. But what you may not realize is that he actually does need and want a protector. He does need help from someone, and that someone is you. Your job is to give him those things while also respecting that he’s a man with dignity and agency. He wants to be part of the team. He wants to help find this asshole and take him down. Don’t put that sweet man on a pedestal the way the rest of the world does, Ryan. He needs you to treat him like a regular person, not a trophy made of spun glass.”