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“Gareth! You have to see this!”
I notice the newspaper in her hands and smile.
“Hailey!” she exclaims as she comes forward.
My heart misses a beat. Has something happened to Hailey? I yank the newspaper from her hand even before she reaches me.
“She was named in this story Hunter wrote. It looks like she has exposed… your secret relationship!”
“That’s nonsense,” I retort before staring at the copy of the New York Magazine. My blood runs cold as I read the headline in the gossip section.
Scorned lover and former employee of tech billionaire Gareth Payne tells all.
Beneath the caption is a picture of me, and beside it is that of Hailey.
“I didn’t want to interrupt your meeting, but the phone has been ringing off the hook with journalists who want your response, and your clients as well.” Susan paces the floor in distress. “Security told me they’re holding off the journalists bold enough to come here. This is a disaster! You and Hailey? How? When? Where?”
Ignoring her outburst, I take a seat and go through the content of the article. Foolishly in love as I am, I still can’t believe Hailey did this. I presume someone discovered our relationship and wants to ruin things between us. But after reading the piece and the intimate details which only she and I know about, my heart sinks. No one knew I went to Aspen with her. No one knew about the numerous sex encounters in the office. Granted, they might have followed me to her house without me noticing. I can accept that. But no one knew about her suspected pregnancy, yet they’re all in the publication.
He denied my pregnancy. He made me feel like I cheated on him and deliberately got pregnant. I have never felt so used in my life. I had to abort the baby since he rejected it. And now, he has moved on to another female employee.
Not only did she expose our relationship, but she also made me look like a monster. I grip the paper so tightly that the edges crumble in my grasp. So, this is her idea of revenge because she thinks I dumped her for another woman?
“What do we do, Gareth? How do we fix this? This will cost the company huge profits. There’s nothing wrong with a man having an affair with his employee; it happens all the time. But she has made you look like an insensitive womanizer. Oh, Hailey. I wish she had come to me with this instead of going public. I thought she was my friend.”
And I thought she was the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
With deadly calm, even though fury pulsates in my veins, I say, “Calm down, Susan. It will blow over like everything else.”
She gawks at me as if I’ve lost my senses.
“In the meantime, call my board of directors for a meeting. Let PR handle all the publicity. They should issue a statement requesting Hunter come up with proof of the affair with Hailey, you, and the supposed other female employees. That should keep Hunter busy, unless Hailey gave him proof of our being together. Even if she did, we’ll find a way around it.”
Susan stares at me, nonplussed. “Is that all, Gareth? You won’t go to Hailey and make her retract her statement? You won’t sue her for divulging such sensitive information?”
I give her an icy smile. “Don’t worry about that, Susan. I’ll handle Hailey. Just do as I instructed.”
Looking as if she still wants to argue, she nods and hurries off to her office, where the phones are ringing incessantly.
Pain squeezes my chest as I stare at the newspaper. What possessed Hailey to go to Hunter of all people, when she knows how much I detest him? This is the woman I love and wanted to marry. How foolish of me! How could she have done this to me? And Amber! Dear God, what will this do to my daughter? She will hate me and refuse to speak to me when she discovers the truth. No doubt her schoolmates will bring it up and tease her repeatedly about it.
Picking up my phone, which I placed on silent before my meeting, I see multiple missed calls from family friends, business partners, and even Linda. I dial Amber’s number, but it’s switched off. My poor girl. Busybodies might have started calling her, too.
Fury consumes me at what Hailey has done to my innocent daughter. I was wrong about her, after all. She isn’t like Linda. She’s worse than Linda! She will regret the day she spoke to Hunter.
CHAPTER25
HAILEY
“Oh, baby. Are you still crying? Everything will be fine,” soothes my mom as she enters the room carrying two steaming mugs of coffee.
I sniff and drag myself to a sitting position on the bed as I try to control my tears. My mom hands me one of the mugs and sits beside me.
“I can’t help it, Mom. I made a mess of things.” I stare unseeingly into the cup as tears blind me again.
“Honey, you can’t continue like this. Humans make mistakes sometimes. It’s normal, but you can’t dwell on it forever. You’ve acknowledged the mistake. It’s time to let go and move on.”
“But I lost my job and the man I love. Gareth thinks I’m just like his ex-wife.”
