AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m paying too.”
I laughed without humor. “Come on, Landon, that’s not true and you know it. Guys like youneversuffer consequences for your actions. You just strut around, acting like you own the world, while you break everyone.”
“Did I break you?”
“Maybe. Is that what you wanted?”
He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets and moved a few steps closer to me. I crossed my arms and braced myself against whatever was coming next. “For what it’s worth, I liked the piece,” he said. “I never had a chance to tell you that. It was excellent. You’re a fantastic writer.”
“We should have never crossed that line,” I replied, the words bitter on my tongue. I couldn’t even bring myself to acknowledge his compliment, to accept what he’d said. Not that it really mattered. He might have loved the write-up, but everything had shattered around us. “We made a mistake.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You don’t?” I almost spit the words. “How can younot? You’ve seen the coverage. The sex tape is going to follow us for the rest of our lives.” I shook my head. “Correction. Like I said earlier, it’s going to follow me. It’s going to followmefor the rest ofmylife.”
“My people are working on it. We’re going to figure out who did it, who leaked it.”
“The damage is already done.”
My heart raced in my chest, the beats quickening with stress. While the last few days of solitude had given me a chance for peace and quiet, I hadn’t processed the idea of returning to reality. And the fact was that at some point, I was going to face what had happened.God, I am dreading that.
“I can’t go back to writing the newsletter, for example. My credibility is totally shot.” I sneered. “Not that I ever had much.”
“We’ll fix it.”
The word “we” stood out, like a bell sounding in a silent night. He wasn’t my savior. Landon wasn’t anyone’s savior. He was a filthy rich businessman who’d made a ton of money and nearly made me fall for him. That’s it. That’s all he was.
“Wewon’t,” I said. “I will. I’ll figure something out because I always do. It’s my MO.”
He closed the space between us, and I caught a whiff of his aftershave, or maybe it was cologne, a mix of dark sandalwood and mint, the same smell on the sheets when we woke up together. Warmth spread in my stomach, desire overtaking my concern. But I disregarded those feelings.I can’t afford to lose my head again.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Sorry about what? You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”
I shook my head, feeling like he still didn’t get it. With anger over the situation in the front of my mind, I said, “Sorry I ever got involved with you.”
His shoulders slumped. “Jesus, Rebecca—”
“Landon, think of it from my perspective. I can’t come back from this. I know you want tofixthis, but you can’t. We can’t. It’s...it must be over.”
It was a dramatic, exaggerated way of putting things, but I wanted to push him away. No matter what I thought about Landon, it would never work between us, and a tiny voice in the back of my head had been screaming it the entire time, since that first kiss in Palm Beach. Landon was a billionaire with the world at his feet and ownership of one of the biggest social media companies on the planet. He snapped his fingers and received anything he wanted, whenever he wanted it. I was a middling journalist from the Midwest with the vague notion of one day writing a book, a woman with no style and no idea how to handle herself.
This was a match made in hell. And I knew it.
“Let’s leave it at that,” I added.
He arched his eyebrow. “What about those things we said at the Ohio River Club? That morning with your parents? All the...what aboutus?”
I waved away that moment, that memory, and the feelings I had about it. If I tried hard enough, I might be able to completely erase them.One day.“There was no ‘us.’”
“You don’t mean that.”
I pursed my lips, not allowing myself to question my resolve. I’d committed to this, needed to be steadfast. No matter how much it hurt, we were better apart. “Wrong place, wrong time, wrong people. That was us, Landon. This was never meant to work out. Some things never do.”
His eyes narrowed, and I saw pain behind them, but then he took two steps backward. “I’m sorry, Rebecca.”
“I’m sorry too.”
