“Kara,” Celine said with a growl. “I get that she’s sick, but she really messed Riley up, you know?” Jack frowned. “Did something happen last night?” Celine waved his concern away. “No, he was fine. A little quiet at first, but he actually handled it better than I expected. I just mean...the way Kara has been in and out of his life has got to affect him.” “Yeah,” Jack said, running his hand through his hair with a heavy sigh. “Which is why I’m concerned about bringing Dianna into the mix. He’s had enough women leave him in his life—” “One woman, Jack,” Celine said. “And I’m a little offended that you don’t credit me and Mum and Tamara and Krista for sticking by you and being constants in Riley’s life.” Jack blinked up at his sister. She was right. He’d spent so long thinking women, in general, couldn’t be trusted when he’d had these four amazing women sticking steadfastly in his life. They had never let him down, not like Kara had. In fact, Kara was the only w
With the launch only a week away, Dianna had very little time to spend with Jack. They managed a couple of dinners together with Riley, but they were often cut short because she had work she needed to do. The interest in Paper Gate had increased exponentially with Jack’s articles and then the other bloggers and YouTubers who’d gained access in the week before launch. All that interest and attention only made Dianna’s stress load heavier. She struggled to keep focussed when what she really wanted to do was run around in circles pulling at her hair and screaming at the top of her lungs…okay, maybe that wasn’t what she really wanted to do. No. What she really, really wanted to do was burrow under her covers and hide from the world. Why the hell had she put herself in this position? When Dianna originally pitched the game to Mason, she’d thought it would go the way of all the other games under the Black Sheep banner. No individual game designer was singled out for attention. That wo
Jack took in her pale skin, so translucent he could see the blue cast of her veins beneath it. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she moved jerkily as she tried to sit up revealing an open bottle of pills beneath her body. “What the fuck, Dianna,” he growled, jumping away from her. Flashbacks of seeing Kara in similar states had him backing away from Diana as his anger built, overtaking his panic and worry. Dianna squeezed her eyes closed and groaned as she tried to lever herself up to a sitting position. She slumped back against the vanity, her eyes still closed and her breathing labored. “I’m…sick,” she whispered. Jack snorted. “Sick? Or high?” She opened her eyes and frowned up at him. “High?” He reached over her and flung open the medicine cabinet, revealing her bottles and packets of medication. “High,” he growled. “Are you on drugs, Dianna?” He slammed the cabinet doors and turned away from her, running a hand through his hair as he tried to make sense of what he was se
Jack was moping. Not that he would admit it. As far as he was concerned, he was behaving perfectly rationally. Holing up in his apartment for the rest of the weekend was perfectly fine. Other people did it all the time. Besides, he was working. He had one final article to write for The Playbook, and then he had to do a live stream as JJ and the Kid for his other YouTube channel. Carter had managed to reschedule the interview with Thomas Blayne, but it wasn’t for another month. Carter was pissed about it, but Jack didn’t really care. It was extenuating circumstances and really, this was all Carter’s fault. All of it, not just the missed interview. The whole fucking mess Jack now found himself in could be laid at the feet of Carter. If he hadn’t bought Dianna into the building, Jack wouldn’t be sitting in his apartment in the middle of the night nursing a tumbler of scotch and pretending he didn’t have a broken heart. Fucking Carter. He said he’d done a thorough background check.
Fran put the brush down and put her hands on her hips. “I didn’t want to say anything before,” Fran said, “but this has gone on long enough. You need to stop this. You hurt your ankle two years ago. Your ankle. And now you can’t do your own hair? How does that even work? How can your injured ankle stop you from lifting your arms to brush your hair? I know you’ve always believed we give your brother more attention than we give you, but this is an extreme way to get us to notice you, Dianna.” “You think I’m doing this to get attention?” Dianna asked, although she already knew it was the truth. Hadn’t she always known her mother didn’t believe her diagnosis? “That fibromyalgia-whatever nonsense your doctor was talking about is not even a real thing. It’s all in your head and he’s just humouring you. Half those drugs he’s got you on are probably nothing more than those sugar pill things they give people.” “Placebo,” Dianna mumbled. “They’re called placebos and you think my doctor is
“Maria. Help,” Diana said as she approached her assistant’s desk. Maria looked up and frowned. “What are you doing here?” “I have that interview this morning,” Dianna replied. “I thought it was a phone interview?” Dianna shook her head. “No, the journalist is coming here, so I need you to help me.” “What the hell happened to your hair?” Dianna groaned as she led the way into her office. “I asked my mother to come over and help me get ready and then we got into a fight and I asked her to leave before she could finish my hair.” “O-kay,” Maria said slowly, “but that doesn’t explain all this.” Maria waved her hand around in front of Dianna. “Well, let’s see if I can explain it to you. My arms don’t want to lift past my shoulders today so I had to sit on the toilet with my head between my knees just so I could get it into a messy bun.” “Hun, that’s not a messy bun, that’s…I don’t even know what to call that.” “Can you just help me fix it? Please? I already have one man
“What’s going on with you?” Finn whispered, leaning over to Jack so the others in the meeting couldn’t hear. “Is kara causing trouble again?” Jack shook his head. “Not kara.” “Okay, so what’s going on? You haven’t been this cranky for weeks.” “Nothing,” Jack replied. “Just wish Carter would shut up so I can do some actual work.” “You know what meeting days are like,” Finn replied, not letting the matter drop. “Something else is definitely going on.” “Do you have something you’d like to share with the class?” Carter asked, looking at Jack. Jack opened his mouth to hurl an insult at Carter and then closed it again when he saw the rest of the team watching him. He couldn’t get into this here with Carter. Not in front of all these people. He might be pissed off with Dianna, but he would never air her dirty laundry in front of everyone. Jack waved his hand at Carter to go on and turned away from Finn so his friend couldn’t draw him into another conversation and draw Carter’s
“This final article for Paper It’s shit. I am not going to put it up on the site.” “What are you talking about?” “Jack, this article reads like someone else wrote it. It doesn’t match up with any of the other posts and it doesn’t mention Dianna by name at all.” “I wrote nothing bad about the game or Black “No, but it is not exactly the glowing endorsement all the others are. Did you piss Dianna off again? Did the two of you get into a fight?” “Not a fight, no,” Jack said slowly. “But I found something out about her I thought you should have already known. In fact, if your background check into her was so thorough, then you never would have let her move into the building.” Carter frowned at Jack. “What the hell are you talking about? Dianna is squeaky clean. We couldn’t ask for a better tenant.” Jack snorted. “Yeah, if you think an addict is a good tenant.” “An addict?” Carter looked at Jack like he just sprouted a second head. “What the fuck are