The lighting changed, and Alexa shifted like a true professional to face the other camera filming her. “Well, that’s going to do it for Foxx News. Remember, I’m Alexa Storm, signing in and signing off. Good night.”
“And we’re dark!” the director yelled. “Way to go, Miss Storm. Amazing first cast!”
I turned around to grab the bottle of champagne I’d brought with me purposely to toast to Alexa after her first newscast, but Malia was standing on the other side with her hand on the neck of the bottle.
“Champagne and a private audience. You must be really invested in this new anchor of yours,” Malia huffed.
“Why wouldn’t I? My entire business hinges on her success. I want to make sure she does well.”
“Uh huh. And that’s why you watched her this entire time like a schoolboy with a crush?” Malia asked.
“It wouldn’t matter if that is what I was doing. What difference does it make to you?” I snatched the bottle from her hand and started to pull the foil from the top.
“Don’t insult me by making me answer that. I’ve already made my feelings towards you perfectly clear.” Malia walked around the table and up to me. “I don’t understand. If we have to do this, why wouldn’t you just try to enjoy it?” She put her hand on my stomach and started to slide her hand downward. “There’s a lot of fun to be had.”
I stepped away from her touch. “I’ve already made my feelings towards you perfectly clear. The fact that you continue to push this is evident of your intent to ignore me entirely. Not one of my favorite qualities in a woman. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an anchor to celebrate.”
I popped the cork off the bottle and grabbed a couple of champagne glasses. I tried to turn to head over to where Alexa was chatting with the producer, but Malia grabbed my collar and pulled my face down to hers.
“You know better than anyone that I don’t like being rejected, Harley. If this new employee of yours is going to cause problems for me, then I’ll have no choice but to fix it.”
Malia’s dealings with Dante and a family of organized crime instantly gave her threat tons of weight. “What does that mean?”
Malia craned her neck and gave me, what felt like, a kiss of death. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?” She let me go and took the champagne bottle and glasses from my hands. “Allow me.” She turned around and held the bottle and glasses high in the air. “Congratulations to our new anchor!”
She walked over to where Alexa and the producer were standing and handed Alexa a glass. She tipped the champagne bottle and filled Alexa’s flute full to the top. As Alexa immediately took a drink from the glass, without so much as a second thought, Malia looked over at me. Her eyes said, in no uncertain terms, “I can do it whenever I want.”
I took out my phone and immediately dialed Huxley’s number. I knew he was in a meeting with a few of my brothers making a report to my dad about the status of the company, but I needed to communicate with him regardless. When his phone went to voicemail, I hung up and called back immediately. We had an understanding between us that if we called twice back-to-back, it meant trouble and the recipient of the calls had to answer.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Huxley answered.
“It’s Malia,” I responded, watching her laugh with Alexa as though there wasn’t a problem at all. “She knows about Alexa and she’s going to be even more of an issue than we originally thought.”
12
Huxley
Two Weeks Later
We had taken a step backwards with Alexa. We were supposed to be spending these past two weeks buttering her up and getting her to fall for us, but instead we ended up spending two weeks constantly looking over our shoulders. After Malia had threatened Harley about Alexa, she had mysteriously disappeared. In a two week period, she would typically come by Foxx Towers anywhere between 10 and 20 thousand times. Ever since Harley found out that a crack marriage had been arranged between the two of them, he’d done nothing but make it very clear that he wasn’t interested in being with Malia at all, but Malia had gone for the opposite approach. She wanted Harley, for real. Something about it made me inexplicably angry. Since high school, he and I had shared women. As weird as it sounded, I’d grown to expect that Harley was always going to be a huge part of my romantic life for that reason. Malia had done little else since she arrived but attempt to drive a stake between us, and now that she’d threatened Alexa, all I wanted was to see her gone.