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“I know.”
“He’s not a bad guy, Rebecca.”
I chose to ignore that comment. “You’re at the bar right now?”
“Yep, but it’s not too busy, and Spencer is here taking care of the other customers. I can totally talk.”
“But I feel bad. You’ve done too much for me over the last couple of weeks, and if someone comes in, I don’t want you to be distracted.”
“I’m not.”
“Just... again, thank you.” I turned off the car and unhooked my phone. “Thank you for doing all you did.”
“What are friends for?”
“I don’t think I can ever repay you.” I thought back to Landon’s unexpected visit to the lodge. Part of me was so angry he showed up out of the blue, and part of me...wasn’t. “Even though you told him where I was—I’m sort of glad you did.”
“He cares about you. That was obvious to me. It was more than a fling for him.” She paused. “He was upset in a way I didn’t expect.”
I sighed as I got out of the car. “I know, but no matter what he wanted to believe, we were doomed. We can’t be together. There’s no future for us.”
She didn’t need to know how much time I’d spent lying on the bed or the couch at her parents’ cottage trying to convince myself those three sentences were true. And even as I said them to her, they felt unsteady and shaky. But I pressed onward, anyway.
“I need to forget him. Need to move on. Once I do, things will get better. They have to.”
“They will,” my friend agreed. “They will.”
We hung up and I crept up the service entrance, then rode the maintenance elevator to my floor. When I arrived, I poked my head out and made sure I was alone before I rushed down the hallway and into my unit. Once I had the door shut and locked behind me, I relaxed a little. Somehow, I’d managed to make it through this entire ordeal without being photographed once by the media. Each passing day drew me further from the scandal.
And further from Landon.
Landon, with unexpected kindness in his eyes. With a crooked smile and a wry playfulness that I knew he kept from most people. Landon, who was better in bed than anyone I’d been with before, so much so that I was almost addicted to the physical connection we had, and who made me feel worshipped and important, even though he was one of the richest men on the planet. Landon, who I couldn’t stop thinking about, no matter how much I tried to drive him from my mind.
And Landon, who had seemed so hopeful we could work it out. But I knew we couldn’t.
My shoulders heavy with stress, I pushed through the motions of unpacking my clothes, throwing dirty ones in the washer, and shoving clean ones onto the shelves in my closet. I took my toiletries out of the case and put my laptop in its storage spot in my home office. And when I finished, I took a long shower and threw myself into bed.
Once more, I needed sleep.
Two hours later, I woke up, still groggy from the drive, my stomach rumbling from hunger. I’d forgotten to eat on the drive home, and now my body was ready to make me pay for it. I got out of bed and shuffled to the kitchen. There wasn’t much in the fridge, but I cobbled together a plate of cheese, salami, and crackers alongside a lonely can of sparkling water. I took it all into the living room and flopped on the couch before turning on the television, something I rarely did.
A twenty-four-hour business news channel came on screen. A brunette woman with teased hair and thick fake eyelashes moderated a panel of people discussing recent stock market trends and a pending decision on interest rates from the Federal Reserve. It wasn’t the kind of thing I normally watched so I grabbed the remote from the coffee table tray, ready to change the channel.
But then her next words stopped me.
“Coming up, breaking news from Sparks Innovation. A major departure has sent the company into a free fall. We’ll discuss what it means for investors, as well as if this means the organization is headed in a different direction after a recent major scandal...”
A lump formed in my throat. Major departure?What?
I didn’t wait for the newscast to return after the commercial break. Instead, I leapt to my feet and rushed into the bedroom, where I located my phone on the nightstand charger. For the first time in almost two weeks, I allowed myself to scroll through the myriad of messages Landon had left me, all of them desperate to have me call him back, to contact him in the wake of the scandal.
The last one was sent three days ago.
I took the phone out to the living room, contemplating if I should reach out to him, or wait to find out what the newscast was about to say. A toothpaste commercial featuring a woman with an unnaturally white smile finished, and the news anchor appeared on-screen again, her eyes bright and a triumphant look on her face. She relished whatever it was she was about to say next.
“Landon Sparks is known for being an innovator, and a maverick at times, and late breaking...we’ve learned Landon has fired his closest advisor, Robert Grayson. Robert has been with Sparks Innovation since the beginning of the company...and this is a major development...”
As I gaped at the TV, the screen switched from the woman to a panel, and the participants began to debate the merits of the firing as well as the circumstances around it, which they agreed had to do with the recent sex scandal.
