Chapter 193 She helped him
_Rowena’s POV_
My phone started ringing so early the following morning after I had that conversation with Alaric, I rolled over in bed, squinting against the bright glare of the screen.
Ezekiel’s name appeared on his screen. I picked it up immediately because I had a bad feeling about this call.
That suspicion was confirmed within the first three seconds of hearing his voice, he sounded so loose, slightly too loud, and he had the exact voice of someone who had been drinking.
He wasn’t crying, but he was dangerously close to something, and the alcohol had completely stripped away whatever defenses he normally used to keep his feelings at a safe distance.
"Where are you?" I asked, sitting up straight.
He blurted out the name of a dingy bar near his hotel and the street it was on. "I’m totally fine, Rowena," he added immediately, which completely contradicted the absolute mess in his voice.
"Stay right there. Don’t move," I said.
I threw on some comfortable clothes, grabbed my coat, and left the Ebonmoon Pack before Alaric returned.
The bar was practically empty by the time I walked in. It was late enough that all the normal people had gone home to sleep, leaving behind the usual end-of-the-night crowd that had nowhere better to be.
I spotted Ezekiel sitting in a booth near the back. Two empty whiskey glasses sat in front of him, along with a third glass that was still half-full. He was wearing wrinkled clothes, looking like a total waste.
I could already tell what was wrong with him.
He looked up when I slid into the seat directly across from him.
"You actually came," he muttered, his eyes wide with genuine surprise, like he hadn’t been entirely sure I would show up.
"You called," I said simply.
I didn’t force him to explain everything right away. I just sat with him in the booth and let him talk at his own pace.
He rambled on about his father’s harsh phone call, the exact cold words his father had used, and how seeing a man be genuinely heartbroken hit so much harder than seeing him angry.
Then he talked about Pierre. He explained how Pierre had ended their call so abruptly, saying they shouldn’t contact each other right now and hanging up before Ezekiel could even offer a response.
"He just hung up," Ezekiel said, staring blankly at his glass. "I’ve been sitting here for hours trying to figure out what to do with a silence I didn’t even get a say in."
I listened to every single word without interrupting him once. When he finally ran out of steam and went quiet, I reached across the table, snatched his half-full glass right out of his hand, and drank the rest of the whiskey myself.
He stared at me in complete shock.
"We are leaving," I announced, sliding out of the booth.
To my relief, he didn’t argue with me. He just wobbled to his feet and followed me out the door.
I drove him straight to the Ashthorne residence instead of the hotel because he already had one scandal at hand, he couldn’t afford more.
The household staff were already awake without a single complaint after I sent a text.
They got Ezekiel settled into a comfortable guest room and I left him to sleep off the liquor.
I didn’t go to sleep myself, I walked into my private study, flipped open my laptop, and went straight to work.
I started calling in every single favor I had been saving up over the years, then I called in a few more.
By four in the morning, I had contacted four powerful executives across two major media networks. I had two separate, intense phone calls with high-ranking publicists who owed me massive debts, and they were more than happy to pay those debts back right now.
I couldn’t make the photograph disappear entirely, that ship had sailed, and I knew it. But I could easily change the entire shape of the conversation around it.
I could redirect the public noise and force other massive scandals into the exact same news channels to drown it out.
By the time the sun came up, the photograph was still online, but it was no longer the loudest or most exciting news story in the room.
Around ten in the morning, Ezekiel stumbled downstairs into the hallway. He looked like someone who had slept hard for hours and woken up entirely confused about where on earth he was.
The servants had already set out a massive breakfast spread on the long dining table. There was far more food than one person could ever eat, mostly because the Ashthorne staff fed our guests the exact way Nana Seraphine had taught them.
Plus, Ezekiel was a prince.
Ezekiel sat down, blinked at the towering plates of bacon, eggs, pastries, and fresh fruit, and immediately began eating.
I sat directly across from him, quietly sipping my hot black coffee, watching him piece together the events of the morning.
At one point, he reached for his phone on the table to check the news. He scrolled through his feed, went completely still for a full five seconds, and then slowly looked up at me over his screen.
I looked back at him over the rim of my coffee cup, keeping my face totally neutral.
"You did this?” he asked softly, his voice full of disbelief as he saw the news coverage shifting in his favor.
"The breakfast spread was the servants’ idea," I replied calmly.
"Rowena."
"Eat your food, Ezekiel," I ordered gently.
He stared at me for a long moment with an expression that had way too many complex emotions to separate out neatly. Immense gratitude was definitely the biggest one, closely followed by a massive wave of pure relief.
He opened his mouth to say something emotional, but I gave him a small shake of my head, warning him not to start crying in my dining room.
He closed his mouth, looked down at his plate, and picked up his fork again.
Around mid-morning, the front door opened, and Kasper arrived.
He had dropped by to pick up a file he had left here the previous day. He gave Ezekiel a brief, polite nod of respect when he saw him sitting at the head of the dining table, and then turned to me.
"I am heading out shortly, Rowena," Kasper mentioned casually, adjusting his shirt.
"Oh?" I asked. "Where are you going?"
"Golfing," Kasper replied. "With Gideon."
Ezekiel immediately froze, his fork halfway to his mouth. Running entirely on zero sleep and lingering alcohol, he looked right at Kasper.
"Gideon?" Ezekiel blurted out loudly. "Wait, aren’t you and Gideon supposed to absolutely hate each other’s guts?"
The entire dining room went dead silent.
I turned my head very slowly and locked eyes with Ezekiel. I gave him the terrifying warning look to shut the hell up.
Ezekiel looked at my death-glare, then glanced at Kasper’s completely unreadable face, and then quickly lowered his eyes back down to his plate.
He made a hilariously panicked face, did not say another word, and just shoved a massive bite of eggs into his mouth.