Chapter 83: In the news

Tom gritted his teeth so hard he felt the pain.

He looked down at his body and felt the embarrassment land all over again.

It was not only that he had been dumped there. It was what he was wearing when it happened. He looked down again and immediately regretted the morning’s choice. The undergarment was one of the System’s pieces; close-cut, sitting low on his hips, the front shaped so clearly that the outline of his cock showed through the thin, stretch fabric without effort.

In ordinary briefs, a man might still pretend there was something left to interpretation. In these, there was none. Every contour was visible. Every shift of his body made it worse.

In the privacy of the house, the task had already been uncomfortable. Out here, under open morning light, with cars moving past and people able to see him at a glance, it felt brutal.

He shifted once, as if a different stance might make the fabric less obvious. It did not.

Then the anger under the embarrassment finally found a target.

"Where were you?" Tom asked under his breath. "When those men dragged me around in my own car, where was all this System power?"

[Present, just not intervening.] the System said.

Tom’s jaw tightened. "That’s convenient."

[It is necessary.] The System’s tone did not rise to match his temper. [If Host is extracted from every sharp moment the moment it becomes unpleasant, then all growth becomes artificial. Strength that only exists because I clear the road is not strength. Host must be left to handle life as it comes; including the parts that humiliate, frighten, and reduce him. Otherwise we will never know how far he can actually go.]

The answer landed harder than an empty excuse would have. Tom hated it. But he also understood it.

[Why is Host still standing here ashamed?] the System asked after a moment, milder now. [Has Host not been trained to carry himself with shameless confidence? Head down is old behavior. Every daily task until now has been building toward this exact point. Use the training.]

The words sat in him longer than he wanted them to. Walking through the house in revealing underwear, holding eye contact, forcing composure in front of Sienna and the staff, none of it had been random. It had all been preparation for moments when comfort would not be available.

Tom drew in a deep breath and lifted his chin.

People were already staring. A man in a passing car turned his head openly. Two pedestrians on the opposite side of the road slowed down just enough to look twice. Someone’s phone was up; he could feel that without needing confirmation. The humiliation did not disappear. He simply refused to let it fold him in half.

He walked toward the bush where the key had been thrown and began to search.

The ground under the roadside bush was uneven, littered with dry leaves and roadside dust. Tom moved carefully, eyes down now for a practical reason rather than a shameful one, searching through the branches and the shadowed base of the shrubs. The ruined morning sat on his bare shoulders like a weight. His expensive suit was gone, there was a debt hanging over him and now this -:half-naked by a busy road in underwear that left almost nothing private, hunting through a bush while strangers watched.

A car pulled up beside him and sounded its horn.

Tom did not look up immediately. He kept searching, pushing aside a low branch with one hand. The horn came again, longer this time. Only then did he turn.

The vehicle was large, dark, and looked absolutely expensive. The back window had been lowered. From inside, a woman in her early thirties was watching him with a clear, startled concern. No mockery sat in her expression. No idle amusement either. Just the look of someone who had seen enough of the scene to understand that it was wrong.

Their eyes met. She blinked once.

"Do you need help?" she asked calmly.

Tom hesitated. Pride made the easy answer stick in his throat. "Maybe."

"Then get in," she said. The certainty in her voice was calm rather than commanding. "Whatever this is, you shouldn’t stay out here like that."

"I need to find my car key first."

"I’ll sort that out. Just get in. Please." She glanced once toward the bush, then back at him.

Tom stood there for another second, caught between refusal and the plain fact that remaining on the roadside in those revealing underpants was not strength. It was only continued exposure. At last he nodded once, stiffly, and walked around to the car. Accepting the help did not come easily. It came as a practical decision forced through clenched pride.

He opened the door and got in.

~~~~~~~~~

Across the city, Sienna was working from home.

She had been in her study for most of the morning with design files open across the desk, the early structure of her new lingerie collection spread between sketches, fabric notes, and a timeline that no longer felt as stable as it had two days earlier. Not because of the work itself. Because of Stella.

The possible lawsuit sat at the edge of every productive thought. It was not only the money. Money could be managed. A public contractual fight with Stella Marchetti would hit her reputation as a designer, and reputation was harder to repair than a balance sheet.

More than once, the idea of speaking to Tom crossed her mind, not for comfort, but for utility. If he had some connection to Stella, maybe he could intervene.

Each time, she dismissed it almost immediately.

How was she supposed to explain that she had gone to Stella’s house to pick a fight in the first place? The whole thing was already humiliating enough without handing him that version of events.

Sienna exhaled, rubbed her temple, and decided to step away from the work for a moment. She unlocked her phone and opened her usual pages, intending only to skim enough noise to distract herself.

Then she stopped.

The image on the screen was unmistakable.

Tom... In the news, for the wrong reason.

There he was videoed, bare-chested, in a dark, low-cut underwear so closely fitted that the shape of him showed through with almost no mercy. Walking near a roadside bush beside a black Mercedes while morning traffic continued around him. The captions under the posts were already ugly, sharp with mockery and cheap speculation.

’Shame!’

’Sienna Kensington and her husband are up again!’

Sienna’s lips parted. For a second she only stared, the study around her fading under the blunt shock of the picture. Then she closed her eyes and pressed two fingers lightly against her brow.

"Tom," she muttered under her breath, "what have you done now?"