Page 348 of The Doctors Will See You Now

“Uh…”

“Have a nice day,” she said and gestured for me to leave through the reception area exit doors, but I shook my head. I hadn’t come this far, given in so easily to this impulse, to give up now.

“Yeah. No. This isn’t going to work,” I denied, and she rolled her eyes.

“I think it’s time for you to leave. Or, if you’d like, I can have security escort you out.”

Jesus. This fucking woman. She was a witch, who I was pretty sure had breast implants, but that was neither here nor there. I didn’t have time to waste arguing with her. I needed to find a way into Brent’s office, and I needed to do it now.

Would it be considered assault if I tackled her to the ground before running inside of Brent’s office?

Did it really matter at this point?

I mean, my boyfriend had basically been accused of rape in a column that had my name on it. What else did I have to lose?

Nothing.

I stared at her and she stared back at me, and just before I started to rush toward her, Brent’s voice was behind me. “Harlow?”

Thank fucking God.

I honestly never thought I’d be happy for his presence, but I’d also never thought someone would write a fake, blasphemous, fucking terrible column about my boyfriend under my goddamn name and it would get posted.

I turned around and met his eyes. “I need your help,” I blurted out.

“I was just getting ready to escort Miss Paige out, Mr. Mayor,” Pam chimed in. “I told her that your schedule is too full today for an appointment, but that I would schedule her in for sometime next week.”

God, she was a piece of work. And a fucking liar.

“I need your help now,” I said, and he nodded.

“Okay.” He looked at Pam. “Reschedule my next meeting.”

“But…but…” she stuttered over her words.

“Clear it, Pam,” he demanded. Her face paled, but with no other choice, she nodded her acceptance and walked toward her desk.

He gestured me toward his office and shut the door behind us. “Take a seat,” he directed, shrugging out of his suit jacket before sitting down in the big leather chair behind his mahogany monstrosity of a desk.

“What can I help you with, LoLo?”

I fought the urge to cringe and focused on the task at hand. “It’s Dr. Shepard,” I started. “Someone wrote a column under my name, and it was posted this morning. Everything in it is false.”

Brent stared back at me without anything but neutral, curious eyes. “If you didn’t write it, how’d it get posted under your name?”

“I don’t have proof yet,” I answered honestly. “But I know someone hacked my email and sent the fake column to my editor.”

He quirked one perfectly shaped—and I strongly suspect, waxed—brow. “How bad is it?”

“You haven’t read it yet?”

He shook his head.

“It’s bad,” I said through the growing thickness in my throat. Jesus, just thinking about what that goddamn column had done made me feel like sobbing and vomiting simultaneously. “Career-ending kind of bad,” I added, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t hide the desperation in my voice.

Because, fuck. I was desperate. I felt completely helpless, and the most important person in my life had been destroyed by terrible words that were presented as mine.

“That doesn’t sound good.” He steepled his hands together on his desk. “Is there an IT team investigating it?”