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‘I need you to take a few deep breaths, Tate. I’m on your side, but we need to own this before the press blows it out of all proportion. Anyway, before we even get to that I’m afraid there’s another problem.’
Tate laughs harshly as he pushes to his feet. ‘Of course there is. Go for it.’ He grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and leans against the counter. Ellen opens a file and passes him a piece of paper. Tate reads it and his expression darkens.
‘What is it?’ Chloe asks, even though she’s not so sure she wants to know.
Tate ignores her and addresses Ellen instead. ‘Is this legit?’
‘I’m afraid so. It’ll be out tomorrow.’
‘Fuck!’ Tate scrubs his hand through his hair and looks like he’d happily kill something. Chloe takes the page from his hand and reads what she now sees is a mock-up of a newspaper article. ‘‘Rehab Love.’’ I don’t understand?’
‘Read the rest,’ Ellen says as Tate continues to glare at a tile on the floor.
‘Tate Archer appears to have finally found love with school teacher Chloe Quinn. The couple met while they attended a drug rehabilitation facility at the same time a few months ago.’
She reads the words again and again, but they don’t change.
‘Oh my God. They actually say I’m a recovering heroin addict.’ Chloe looks up at Tate but he’s still glaring at the floor, so she turns to Ellen. ‘You can stop this, right?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘But you have to. I’m a teacher. If they think for one second this is true, my career is over. It’s a lie. They can’t print it if it’s a lie.’
‘There’s no way of stopping it, Chloe. They may be willing to print a retraction the following day, but this is going out. Tate... well, he’s big news, especially after yesterday. There’s so much speculation about what happened anything that gives the reporters the slightest hint of a story, they’ll grab it. I’m so sorry, Chloe.’
‘No. You have to do something. Tate? Please say you can stop this.’
Tate finally looks up from the floor but doesn’t say anything. He won’t even look her in the eye and that pisses her off.
‘Look at me!’ Still nothing so she gets up and stands in front of him. ‘So you’re not even going to look at me now?’
Instead of replying he scratches his arm. It’s the first time she’s seen him do that for weeks. She grabs his hand. ‘Stop that and look at me.’ He lifts his head but she can’t read anything in his expression. ‘Help me. What can I do? There has to be some way of stopping this. What can I do?’
He shakes his head. ‘Nothing.’
Chloe drops his hand and takes a step back. ‘Nothing? You mean to tell me my boss, all the parents of my students, all my friends, my family are going to read an article saying I’m an addict?’
‘Chloe—’
‘But hey! What am I worried about?’ she says, feeling a little hysterical. ‘I got to meet superstar Tate Archer while I was there. That’ll make up for having no job and no future!’
That gets a reaction, but not the one she wanted. His dark eyes target her. ‘You’re not the only one who’s just had their career pulled out from under them. I’m facing seven years, Chloe!’
‘The big difference is you did it to yourself. You made the choice to fuck up your career. I didn’t! My only mistake was—’ Chloe hates herself the second the words come out of her mouth, but she’s furious. At him. At the situation. At everything. She knows she’s rammed her fist into his chest by the look on his face, but at that moment, her career is the one she’s worried about.
‘Your only mistake was what?’
Chloe doesn’t know where they came from but the guys appear and put themselves between Tate and Chloe.
‘Calm down, mate.’ Gregg tries to get Tate’s attention, but he’s refusing to break eye contact with Chloe.
‘Your only mistake was what?’
Ellen takes Chloe’s arm and leads her into the living room. Chloe looks back at Tate but she can barely see him behind Luke and Gregg who are trying to talk him down.
Ellen closes the door and takes a long breath. ‘Sorry about dragging you away, but I need to talk to you without all that drama.’
‘I can’t believe I just said that to him.’
