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“I . . . I can’t really say.” And I couldn’t, because I was bound by the law and attorney general himself not to say anything. I also couldn’t make up some excuse and lie to Leo. All I could do was watch his perfect face scowl into deeper anger. Anger with me.
“You told me once that this job was your number-one priority,” he said, “and I believed you. In reality it was your end game. I should have known.”
“It’s not like that.” My voice cracked, which was exactly what my heart was doing in the same moment.
“No?” He glanced at Colin in the other room, then at the phone in his hand with the story currently destroying more than my reputation—it was destroying me to the core. “This article says it has sources claiming otherwise. Lying, stealing—”
“I didn’t take any state money,” I said quickly, frantic terror setting in along with the need to beg Leo to believe me. It settled in my bones like lead.
Leo looked at the phone again, then returned his gaze to me. “Fucking the boss?” I shook my head but his eyes were already on the phone. “Look here, there’s even a picture.”
I knew which one he was referring to. The one where Bill was whispering in my ear and I looked happy.
“It’s not what it looks like,” I pleaded.
“Just like at the gala with Colin?”
“I wasn’t the only one there, Leo.”
“But you were the only one who spoke to him besides me! What the fuck do you expect me to believe, Paige?”
“Me,” I whispered. “Believe me.”
He shook his head and my entire chest shattered into a thousand pieces.
I had held it together when I was scared, I even held it together when my mother chose Frank for the last time over me and cut ties for good. But standing there, watching the one thing I loved in the world slip away, the tears got the better of me. And one fell.
“I have to get into that meeting and try to save this deal.” He looked me over once like I was something rotten. So much anger and betrayal marred his voice. “I’ll make arrangements for your flight home immediately once I’m done in there.”
I saw it on his face, Leo was done with me. When he turned his back, it hurt worse than any other moment in my life.
He didn’t believe me.
When the door shut behind him, effectively cutting him off from me, the message was clear and my place in the world sealed.
Alone.
I was alone. And that small piece of hope I had for the future, a future with Leo, disappeared.
Chapter Twenty-Five
You’re where?” Roman asked through the phone.
“I’m at the airport,” I said, rolling my little suitcase and hustling to make my flight home. I didn’t wait for Leo, not that he wanted me to. A red-eye international flight from London put a nice ding in my savings account, but I couldn’t think of that now. I had to get home. Well . . . to a hotel. I technically didn’t have a home. Or a job anymore.
I couldn’t call Hazel, not now. I’d have to start at the beginning and if she was watching the news, she already saw my name out there. I couldn’t bear to let another person down. I wouldn’t even know how to go about explaining. And judging by the lack of invitation to Amy’s dinner party, I couldn’t call her either.
Roman was my last resort.
“I’m coming home,” I said. “I just wanted you to know I found out about the breaking story in the news.”
“Paige, I don’t know who named you, but the money has a paper trail and it’s all leading back to Bill. Not you. I’m working now to get this finalized and over to the press. You have nothing to do with the missing money.”
“That’s not what the article alluded to.” While I appreciated Roman working on this, he said things I already knew, things I’d tried telling him from the beginning. I never touched the campaign funds. But speculation was a bitch.
I also knew that New York wasn’t an option for me anymore. My reputation was ruined in politics and after this story, likely in everything else, and Colin would make sure that in his circle, I would be shamed. There was nothing left for me in New York.
“Thanks for calling, Roman, but I need to catch my flight. Tell Amy I love her and you’re right, staying away is best.”
