Spotlight (37 page)

What would be the harm?
Lily wondered.

“Would you be willing to let me sleep on it? We have the exclusive until tomorrow, which means we could post them first thing in the morning and still beat the other media outlets. And it’s almost time to leave for the day, anyway.”

It was clear from Olivia’s expression that she didn’t fully agree, but she knew Lily had more at stake. “Okay . . . we both have that early management meeting in the morning, so we’d be able to post them before the East Coast. But we’re making a decision as soon as I walk in the door.”

“Thank you, Liv,” Lily said, letting out a breath in relief. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She continued to think about the situation as she drove home, flipping between the pros and cons on her mental list.

On the pros list: The photos came from an official source. They had easy deniability—she could hear the “just friends” argument in her head—and Olivia was right when she said the site would publish the photos if they were of anyone else.
They’ll be published anyway
, Lily thought.
Just wait until tomorrow
.

On the cons list: Her friends trusted her not to
say
anything publicly about them. Those particular shots had nothing to do with the movie itself and would bring attention to it for the wrong reasons. And she knew she’d be a hypocrite after all she and Nate had discussed.

In some small way, it helped that he had late meetings and didn’t have plans with her until later that week. She thought about calling him, but she needed the space to think this through clearly. Lily felt like this was a choice between her professional life and her personal one, and she knew talking to him would only make her lean in one direction. Lily prided herself on her editorial objectivity. Her professors drilled that neutrality into her writing, and she became a better journalist for it. Even when writing about something she cared about, she tried her best to remove herself emotionally from the topic. Her coverage of Daniel’s films showed that she could detach herself from her subject matter and was one of the reasons Devon hired her.

But now she found it harder and harder to be indifferent.

She sighed as she pulled into her designated parking spot in front of her apartment. For now, she needed to not think about it. Getting her mind off it by making dinner and relaxing with a book would no doubt give her a fresh perspective.

When she woke before dawn the next morning, her mind continued to run through the pros and cons of posting the photos, which was all the answer she needed. Something still caused her to hesitate, so perhaps it was better not to post the photos. It struck her as funny how quickly her mind settled once she made that decision. That’s how she knew it was the right one.

When she arrived at the office, she could already see the light on in Olivia’s office. She had a sneaking suspicion Olivia wouldn’t be happy—or surprised—with her request not to publish the photos. Lily took a deep breath as she knocked on Olivia’s door.

Olivia glanced up from her computer monitor. “Hey, Lily. Come on in.”

Lily sat across from her friend feeling suddenly nervous. “So I gave it quite a bit of thought . . . and I think we should leave out the photos with Samantha Conrad in them. Put the rest of them up, but not the shots that include her.”

Olivia sighed and leaned back in her ergonomically designed chair. “You know they’re going to be out there anyway, right?”

Lily nodded. “Probably sooner rather than later. But I can’t condone it. By leaving them out, we’re sending a message to the studios—as well as our readers and staff—that FilmInsanity.com will not support those particular kinds of paparazzi photos.”

“Maybe. But is this about setting a precedent, or is it about protecting your friends?” There was no malice in Olivia’s tone, but the implication of what she said hit Lily hard.

“Look, Olivia, I won’t deny that it’s beneficial to me personally to not publish those photos. But I do believe this is a good time to make a statement—let everyone know where this website and its staff stand on intrusive photos.

“You said yesterday that we would publish them if they were of anyone else, and that may be true. But
should
we be publishing them? The set photos are one thing—those should be published—but the personal photos are completely different, an invasion of their privacy. I admit that I never gave it much thought until I met Daniel. I looked at paparazzi photos and wondered why they complained when they lived what seemed like perfect lives. Getting caught by the paparazzi with Daniel completely and irrevocably changed my perception. We just had lunch together as part of an interview, and they cornered us leaving the restaurant. Daniel had to drive like he was on a racetrack to get us out of there. In that moment, I knew I never wanted to fuel their flames again. And if this is one small thing we can do to curb the appetite for invasive photos, don’t we have an obligation to do it?”

Olivia remained quiet for a few moments, taking in Lily’s impassioned words. “I can’t disagree with what you said, Lily. We straddle a fine line between providing enough and too much coverage, between satisfying our readers and keeping the studios happy. But trying to stop the paparazzi photos would be like trying to turn the tide.”

“It only takes one person to start a revolution, right?”

Olivia laughed as she turned back to her monitor, pulling up her Internet browser. She’d set their website as her homepage and a frown flickered across her face as the page loaded. The very photos they had been debating stared back at her.

“Your revolution may have to wait, Lily. Come look.”

Lily crossed behind Olivia’s desk, looking over her shoulder at the monitor.

She blinked three times, thinking she couldn’t possibly have seen what she thought she saw. But the photos continued to flash in front of her. Her heartbeat rose as her mind filled with panicked thoughts.

“Oh, no. No, no, no,” she muttered under her breath as she moved back around the desk and sat down. Lily tried to stay calm, but her voice rose in octave and volume with each question. “Who did . . . when were . . . how?”

“Lily,” Olivia said forcefully. “Stop. We’ll figure it out. But for now, we have to go to this meeting.”

Lily nodded, her mind still wondering how to deal with this. She wanted to call Nate, but she knew it would be useless without an explanation.

“It will be fine. Besides, I don’t know what we could do about it right now, anyway.” Olivia hoped her tone was reassuring.

Lily grabbed her notebook and silently made her way to the conference room.

The meeting lasted several hours. Lily paid enough attention to keep her coworkers from being suspicious but spent most of her time considering the possibilities—who could have posted them, what Nate would say, and how Daniel would react.

When Lily made her way back to her office around lunchtime, she immediately checked her phone, dreading the thought of what she would find.

Her phone blinked with one message from Nate, sent early that morning. Lily had been with Olivia when he sent it.

We need to talk later.

She sighed and tried not to jump to the worst case scenario, tapping the reply button.

Of course. ILY.

His response came quickly.

Later.

Definitely not good,
Lily thought. She could picture the crease forming between his eyes.

She tried to concentrate on work for the rest of the day but felt extremely restless. She tapped nervously on her keyboard, trying to organize her chaotic thoughts into a story that made sense. Both Lily and Olivia decided to leave the photos as they were. Any damage had already been done by now, so there was no point in taking them down. When Lily checked the reports later that afternoon, the enormous amount of hits on the link to the photos didn’t surprise her.

And that unsettling feeling never left Lily’s stomach. By the time she finished work for the day, her veins felt like live wires, zapping nervous energy throughout her already overstimulated system. On her drive home, her grip on the steering wheel turned her knuckles white, and her left foot tapped anxiously along with the radio, which Lily turned up in an effort to drown out her thoughts.

Lily forced down her dinner and hoped that her favorite television show would distract her. It didn’t help. Just before nine, she heard her phone beep with an incoming text message.

Okay if I come over?

Of course. You don’t have to ask. You’re always welcome.

As soon as the screen on her phone went dark, Lily started to pace, her heart beating faster with every step back and forth across her living room.

Less than half an hour later, she heard three timid knocks on her door.

Here goes nothing
, she thought as she unlocked it.

Her eyes betrayed her uncertainty. She looked up to see hurt and fury turning Nate’s eyes into hard emeralds.

“Hi. Come in.” Lily tried to make her voice sound stronger than she felt. Nate nodded and walked past her into the living room. Lily worried when he made no move to sit down. He shifted his weight from foot to foot while his gaze roamed, landing on anything but her. His irritation boiled just beneath the surface, like a tea kettle ready to whistle with fast-blowing steam.

“I’m guessing you already know what I came over to talk about?” His flat tone caused Lily to flinch.

She nodded, her eyes focused on the floor. “I’m sorry, Nate.”

In the moment, it was all she could think to say.

“You’re sorry?” he repeated. “For what? For being disloyal to people who care about you, or that you’re paying for your actions?”

That caused Lily’s gaze to fly to meet his, anger cutting through the turmoil. “I was never disloyal to you. Or to Daniel. And this wasn’t
my
action.”

“Oh, really?” Nate scoffed. “So you figured it would be better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission? Explain this to me, Lily, because I’m trying to understand.”

As Nate spoke, he moved toward her. They stood inches apart in the middle of Lily’s living room. His glare seemed to cut through her.

Tears pricked her eyes, and she glanced down at her hardwood floors, unable to look at him. Her throat felt tight, and she had to clear it just to speak. “How dare you? I would never do that. I don’t even know how it happened or who posted them.”

Nate took a step back. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

Lily angrily wiped her tears away and huffed as she met his gaze. “I mean I. Don’t.
Know!
”

His eyes narrowed. “And you expect me to believe that?”

Lily blinked and refused to look away. “You know what? Yes, I do. I expect you to trust me. To believe in me.”

He broke their stare and turned to sit on the edge of Lily’s couch. He moved his glasses to the top of his head and roughly ran his hands over his face.

“What the hell happened, Lily?” he asked quietly. “And why didn’t you come to me with this right away?”

She sighed and sat in the chair across from Nate, wrapping her arms around her knees, and resting her cheek on top of them. She cleared her throat before answering his first question to the best of her ability.

“Reel Pictures e-mailed us the photos yesterday afternoon, around the time the office closed. They gave us the exclusive until today. I talked to Olivia about posting the photos. I could tell she wanted them to go up immediately, but I asked her if I could sleep on it.

“When I got to work this morning, I told Olivia that I didn’t want to publish the photos of the two of them. I suggested posting all the photos except those. She wasn’t happy. But when she opened her browser, we saw that the photos were already on our site. I don’t know who posted them, but apparently we weren’t the only staff members to get the photos.”

Nate shook his head.

“Assuming what you say is true, that still doesn’t explain why you didn’t call or text.”

Nate’s words stung. “First of all, it is true. And I didn’t call you last night because . . . I thought I had more time.”

Nate smirked. “Or because you chose your job over me and everyone else who trusted you.”

“That is both unfair and untrue,” Lily argued. “I don’t know why it’s so hard for you to believe me right now, but I’m telling you the truth. I want to know how this happened, too.”

They each sat in silence for a few minutes.

“So someone in your office posted them? But not you.”

Lily felt like screaming but took a deep breath to try to calm herself before speaking. “No, and we’re going to take the proper disciplinary action when we get to the bottom of this.”

“You should have better control of your staff.”

Lily folded her arms over her chest. “I understand you’re upset, but don’t lecture me on how to do my job. I know that as a senior manager they—and their content—are my responsibility. That’s the reason I apologized to you in the first place.”

Nate sighed. “Look, I didn’t mean to lecture you. I know you can’t control their every move. I just . . . you know how much of a mess this created for me. Or at least I thought you understood. You keep talking about the difference between responsible journalism and gossip, but that’s exactly what your site reported. I thought you would have taken a stand on this.”