cadenbyrne:
AS they walk in, kit sends aurelie a sweet smile before shaking ronan’s hand. as he sits beside caden he has a moment of panic – eyes widening, and caden had just told him ronan needs to know, but it doesn’t stop him from panicking that this is the wrong decision. that somehow he’ll say her name and she’ll get fired and he’ll feel so guilty that he’ll end up giving her money every month. no, no, they have this. caden’ll help him through his, “it’s fine, um – thank you both for agreeing to see us. i know we’ve, um, uh – we’ve had meetings in the past. especially when me and caden first became official. and it just means a lot that you both could be here.” he’s stuttering, along – dragging his words out in his slow pace. trying to figure out where to start he avoids everyones eyes for a moment. he talks to the public all the time this should be easy, but it wasn’t. he looks up finally, focusing on ronan mostly – playing with caden’s fingers as he holds onto his hand like a lifeline, “i guess i’ll just start,” he looks towards caden for reassurance before leaning in just enough, “jump in if – if i,” he leaves it at that, at the if i can’t get through the words. “i was out y’know, i had to get pap’d because that happens occasionally my management agrees to outfits i need to be seen in them. and i’d go into this coffee shop because i was dying for a cuppa, and i – i ran into this girl there, um. she – well,” he’s not going to cry about this but he exhales a little shaky, looks towards ronan the aurelie again, “m’sorry i must sound so dramatic,” he squeezes caden’s hand, “love,” a soft plead for caden to continue for him so he can find his way back.
Aurelie returns Ronan’s look with a tense smile – she’s had many meetings with these same people before ( escorts dating clients was an HR nightmare in itself, but when the client happened to be so high profile ), so she’s no stranger to the situation. She can’t help but wonder if something’s gone wrong, if they need more contracts drawn up. But she keeps her pen against the paper, the tip moving fluidly across the pages as Kit starts talking.
Caden lets Kit start, lets him get as much out as he can – he can feel he’ll be tapped in soon, can always tell when it’s just too much for his boy, when he needs to take over, take charge of the situation. Love. That’s his cue. He brings Kit’s fingers to his lips and kisses them softly, before he starts speaking. “He ran into an escort here,” he starts, and no matter how worried he is about getting in trouble, he knows Ronan will put Kit’s safety first. And that’s all he wants. “And she… well, she rather loudly like… said she’d seen Kit here. Which isn’t… great.” He manages a bitter laugh. “Both of you know the trouble we’ve gone to and the lies we’ve told to keep this a secret from the media, from Kit’s fans. And we like… we sign contracts to keep this kind of shite from happening.” He shrugs at that, then continues on. “We don’t want like… we don’t want to tell you her name or anything because like, even though I’m feckin’ furious – uh, sorry about the language – we don’t want someone to lose their job over what was a moment of carelessness.”
“We have contracts and NDA’s for a reason,” Aurelie cuts in, looking to Ronan. This is more of his area of expertise, and it’s up to him how he decides to proceed, but it’s important to remind all of them that the measures set in place are not ones set lightly.
Ronan is silent. He knows there is a lot of information to get through, it’s clearly going to be difficult; it’s hard to say anything that people don’t want to hear, much less go into some way that The Votive hasn’t been satisfactory, but there is an issue, and it starts to become clearer. Ronan’s head is swimming at first, running through the options. Kit went out. In public to get photographed. Kit needed confidentiality. Maybe he’d been photographed on the edge of The Votive’s campus and people had made assumptions. Maybe he just realized that this was too much and now he and Caden were planning to leave.
But it was worse than that. So much worse. Ronan stays silent, even after Kit mentioned being dramatic; it often just made things worse when someone was interrupted, even if only to offer assurances. But when Caden mentions the fucking breach of confidentiality, Ronan’s jaw sets. His nostrils flare. He’s enraged, but he keeps it in somehow, though it’s barely bubbling under the surface. Aurelie speaks, and Ronan quickly holds up his hand as though to silence her. Not helping, they fucking know that.
It won’t help, however. Nothing will help. And Ronan is just infuriated, and it isn’t fair to take it out on Aurelie, even if only to hold her back from speaking her piece. And he doesn’t need another HR nightmare right now. Ronan has to force his voice to keep the same calm pathos, though it’s slightly stretched a little thinner. “This... is not okay. By... any stretch.” His eyes are on Kit, bearing in, laser focused. “This... is a breach. And it would be... very... helpful to know who did this. But even if... you don’t tell me, let me just... assure you. This will not happen. Ever again.”
