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Damn.
“Ellie, it’s me. Listen. Legal’s involved now, and they’ve set up a meeting for tomorrow morning to interview your entire team. It’s only going to escalate from here. I hate that it’s come down to this, but we’re out of options. We need to come clean. I can break the news, or you can do it yourself, or we can do it together. Your choice, but it has to be done before this meeting tomorrow. We can’t let this nonsense with Blair continue. Please call me back as soon as you get this so we can strategize. I’m really worried about you. I’m… Yeah. Call me back. Please.”
But she doesn’t call back. Not for this voice mail, or the four others I leave throughout the day.
By closing bell, I’m against the ropes—we both are. As much as I hate to move forward on this without her, she’s left me no choice.
This ends now.
I start a new email, cc’ing everyone involved.
Subject: The allegations are false. Eric Webb is not a man.
CHAPTER 20
Ellie
Day 21 Tues Aug 21
I’m ready. Or as ready as I’ll ever be.
I’m wearing a new navy designer shift dress I couldn’t afford to splurge on, flesh-toned pumps, and a vintage pearl necklace that once belonged to my mother. My hair is swept into an elegant up-do, and Spencer came over early to do my makeup so my blue eyes are popping amidst perfectly blended copper and brown eye shadow and my complexion appears deceptively flawless.
It’s been a long time since I’ve been this well pulled-together, but I might as well be naked.
I feel naked.
Exposed.
Vulnerable and defenseless without my bulky suit and oversize shoes, without my mustache and penciled-in man-brows and the armor that allowed Eric to stride confidently into the S&H offices for three weeks, certain he could make the world—or at least this company—a better place.
I can’t believe it’s only been three weeks.
I can’t believe everything’s gone to shit in a weekend.
I can’t believe I’m teetering down the hall to the conference room as myself, as Ellie, the compromised reporter and Failure at All Things.
The email from my editor at Barrington came through while I was on the train. An exposé is only an exposé if the reporter isn’t outed in the middle of getting her story. Denise no longer has any interest in the piece on S&H, and I doubt she’ll want anything else from me in the future.
People say you can’t read tone from an email, but Denise is a professional word wrangler. Her five clipped sentences made it abundantly clear that she isn’t impressed.
Neither am I.
And neither are the angry, shocked, and betrayed faces that turn my way as Hannah spies me through the windows of the conference room and rises to open the door.
As I step into the charged space, I’m keenly aware of Jack standing in the corner of the room—the smell of him, the tension rolling off his powerful form, the way something deep in my chest aches to turn to him, run to him, wrap my arms around him and hold on tight until we find a way out of this mess—but I avoid making eye contact.
I can’t look at Jack, or I won’t be able to hold it together through what comes next.
I set my briefcase on the smooth glass at the head of the table, but I don’t sit down. Sitting will only make me feel more vulnerable, and I get the sense I won’t be here long.
These people don’t look like the friends and coworkers Eric knew. They don’t look like people who want to ask questions, listen, and come to an understanding. They look pissed off, scared, or too stunned to have an opinion, and I wish all over again that Jack had waited. That he’d trusted me, believed in me, and given me just a little more time.
Or that I had listened to his voice mails sooner, instead of shutting down communication and hiding in my lair like the old, socially dysfunctional Ellie because the thought of losing Jack and this story at the same time was enough to short circuit my coping mechanisms.
I understand why Jack felt backed into a corner, but did he really have to send out that group email last night, before we’d even had a chance to regroup?
If he had waited just a day or two, I might have been able to walk in here with my head held high, a criminal-activity-exposing hero. At the very least, I would’ve been armed with complete and professionally presented research that would have justified my deception.
