Chapter 226: Stress Cooking

Dorian stopped dead.

The contract.

Someone had leaked the fucking contract.

Eleanor turned the moment she heard him enter. "D... I’ve been trying to call you."

Dorian reached instinctively for his phone and saw the missed calls. "I’m sorry. Busy morning." His eyes went back to the television. "When did this begin?"

"Oliver called us and asked us to turn on the TV." Eleanor looked genuinely worried now. "How did this happen?"

"I don’t know yet, but I am going to find out." His thoughts immediately went to Naomi.

The media loved him on a normal day. His divorces had already given them years of material, and Serial Husband had once again become a nickname they were determined to carry to his grave.

But this was different. This involved Naomi. And worse, it reduced everything between them to five hundred thousand dollars with absolutely none of the context that had led them there.

"Would you please call Naomi and tell her not to leave home today? The sharks may hound her."

Eleanor nodded immediately. "Of course."

Dorian looked at his father. "Dad, I need to talk to you in your study."

Maurice took one final look at the television before getting to his feet.

Eleanor was already reaching for her phone as the two men walked away.

Once they reached Maurice’s office, Dorian shut the door behind them.

Maurice turned toward him. "What’s going on?"

"Uncle Alistair. He is at it again. And this time, I am going to finish him. He’s done."

"Tell me."

Dorian started with Camille somehow gaining access to the townhouse and worked backward and forward from there.

By the time Dorian finished, Maurice had settled into his chair with a grim expression. Finally, Maurice sighed.

"It’s not enough to kick him off the board. All he did was screen your applicants," Maurice continued. "You need proof that he was actually privy to the fact that the assistant was working for Camille."

"Oh, trust me, Dad. I’ll get proof. I will get proof." Dorian paced across the study, too restless to sit.

"Why would he do this? Was he sleeping with Camille too?"

"I don’t know. And honestly, I don’t fucking care."

There were only so many betrayals a person could dissect before the details stopped mattering. Whether Alistair had slept with Camille, used her or simply found her useful was becoming irrelevant.

What mattered was getting him out.

"I suggest you get to Camille. She needs to give you something on Alistair. At this point, he is going to ruin the firm’s reputation."

"She won’t give him up easily."

"No, she probably won’t. So what do you suggest?" Maurice asked.

"I have to get home," he finally said. "We have to find a way to get ahead of this media madness first."

Maurice nodded. "Call your sisters. They are worried about everything going on."

"Yeah." Dorian exhaled. "Thanks, Dad." He stepped out of the study and found his mother already waiting for him.

Eleanor crossed the room and pulled him into a hug. "It’s going to be okay, love."

"I’m fine, Mum. Truly." Dorian gave her the best reassuring look he could manage. "I just have to get to Naomi."

Eleanor nodded. "Okay. We are here if you both need us."

"I know." Dorian gave her another quick hug before heading out.

By the time he got into his car and started the drive home, he had accepted that his entire day was already shot.

There was no saving the schedule now.

He still had to get to court later, which meant he had only a limited window to get this mess under control before the press dug deeper, the partners started whispering.

And once the partners began circling, they would not stop.

When Dorian got home, Naomi was in the kitchen cooking up a storm.

"Hey!" she said brightly when she saw him.

Dorian slowed near the island and looked around. "I thought you didn’t have any jobs today."

"I don’t. This is for us."

His gaze moved across the kitchen.

There was already a finished lasagna resting off to one side, a pot of stew simmering on the stove and enough ingredients spread around Naomi to suggest she was now preparing meatloaf as well.

Dorian looked back at her. "Are we expecting guests?"

"No."

"Then why are you feeding a small country?"

Naomi kept working. "I’m going to store everything in the freezer. We can pick out whatever we want whenever."

He looked at the excessive food.

The suspiciously cheerful tone. The speed with which she was chopping.

"Naomi, are you stress cooking?"

Her knife stopped. She looked at him. "How can I not?! How can I not? The things these people say, my God!"

Dorian smiled.

The cheerful act lasted exactly as long as it took him to ask the right question.

Naomi set the knife down and gestured vaguely outside. "They have decided I’m some gold-digging woman you paid to remain married to you. I trapped you, seduced you, ruined your life."

"So cooking is some form of relaxation therapy? Never heard of that."

"Cooking calms me." Naomi picked up the knife again and went back to what she was doing, though with slightly less aggression this time. "It helps me concentrate on one thing instead of several problems at the same time. I’m making something beautiful, something that puts a smile on people’s faces and fills up their stomachs."

She paused. "Maybe shuts them up while they’re at it. Very therapeutic."

The kitchen was where Naomi made sense of things.

He understood that now.

Other people drank. Some shut themselves away.

Naomi made enough food to survive an apocalypse.

Still, they couldn’t live inside this room until the story died.

Dorian pushed away from the counter and moved closer. "We can’t hide in your kitchen forever, Naomi."

Her hands slowed.

"We have to get ahead of this. Make a statement. News like this gets the partners’ pants in a twist."

She set down what she was holding and turned fully toward him.

The anxiety underneath all that cooking showed clearly on her face.

"So what do we do?"