It made her jittery with excitement.
“Liz, it’s Nancy. How are you?” she said in her thick northern accent.
“I’m doing well, and yourself?”
“Really well up here. When do I see you again?”
Liz furrowed her brow and tried to recall when she was next scheduled to be in New York. She knew for sure the first weekend of her spring break, and that was only a couple weeks away. She told Nancy as much.
“Perfect. That’s perfect timing.”
“For what?”
“Liz, I’m really very pleased to have worked with you so far this year, and I’d like to extend a job offer to you working as a political journalist here at the New York Times starting post-graduation.”
“Oh my God,” Liz breathed softly.
She had been waiting to hear about her job applications. She had heard back two noes already, but they hadn’t been a surprise. And now she had a job offer on the table. Her head told her that she should take some time to think about it and weigh her options, but her gut told her just to take the damn deal.
It would get her out of Chapel Hill. She could start over, move to New York, get a crappy place for way too much money, and just live out her dream. It sounded too good to be true.
“Yes,” she said without another thought. “Yes, I want to take the job.”
No way was she getting a better offer than that, and even if she did, she couldn’t imagine having as good a boss as Nancy. She was ecstatic.
“Wonderful. I can’t wait for you to start. We’ll be in touch with further details.”
“Thank you so much,” Liz murmured before hanging up her phone.
She sat in her chair in shock. She had just accepted an offer to work as a reporter in New York City. Holy shit! Her hands were shaking. She didn’t even know what to do. It was as if everything was finally falling into place. She couldn’t believe it.
The first thing she did was press the button to dial Hayden’s number. It was automatic. She had to let him know. He would be excited for her. This was what they had always talked about.
It rang three times before going to voice mail.
“Hey, Hayden, I have some exciting news! Call me back!”
Liz hung up the phone and tossed it down on her cluttered desk. Job offer at the New York Times. She had to keep reminding herself it was real. When she had gotten the internship there, she had been freaking ecstatic, but that paled in comparison to what she was feeling right now. She didn’t even know what to do or who to tell first.
She opened her email and started sorting through them, hoping that Hayden would call her back soon. She had been so out of it lately that the emails were piling up quickly. She was finding it hard to focus with all the adrenaline pumping through her, but since Massey had taken over, Liz knew she had a lot to do. She would tell Victoria when she got home and they would celebrate with some Patrón, if Liz knew Victoria. Hayden would get there shortly after and then it would all be as it was supposed to be.
Liz stopped on an email that she had from the Charlotte Times. She had become a junkie of that paper’s ever since Hayden had started working there. She subscribed to his byline, which allowed her to read all of the articles that had his name on them. Not that many did, but she wanted to know when they were there.
The email opened up and Liz froze. Her stomach dropped out, and she was pretty sure that she saw stars. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t.
The headline read, “Congressman Brady Maxwell’s Alleged Affair with University of North Carolina Student.”
Liz’s vision dipped and she had to clutch on to the desk to hold herself steady. Oh no. No, no, no. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t possibly be happening.
She needed to read the rest. She needed to see what he had written. Her hands shook as she scrolled down the page. She covered her mouth with her hand as she looked at a picture of Brady under the headline. She had been avoiding him at all costs, and seeing his picture now just made her whole body want to curl up into a ball and die. What had she done?
They had given up their entire relationship, everything, so that he could have his career. Now he was going to be faced with their relationship in the papers anyway! And he had just announced his run for reelection. This could fuck up everything.
She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t even focus enough to comprehend what she was seeing in front of her. All she saw was Brady and how horribly she had fucked everything up.
Her fingers curled around the desk, and she forced herself to read the article. It was all in there. Everything she had told Hayden and every twisted way he had interpreted her relationship with Brady. How she and Brady had met, their sexual relationship, the age difference, the pseudonym Sandy Carmichael, even the fact that Heather and Elliott were aware of the relationship. The only thing that wasn’t in the article was Liz’s actual name. She was the anonymous source to her own nightmare.
Liz reached the bottom of the article, and just when she thought she couldn’t hate what had happened any more, she read the byline: Hayden Lane and Calleigh Hollingsworth.
Banging on her office door pulled her out of her stupor. “Come in.”
Savannah stumbled through the door and immediately closed it behind her. She was breathing heavily and looked to be on the verge of tears. “Have you seen what your boyfriend has done?” she asked.
“Yeah. I just saw,” Liz managed to get out.
“Did you know? Did you know he was going to write this?” Savannah looked manic.
“No,” Liz said with enough ferocity that Savannah had to believe her. “No, I had no idea.”
Savannah sank to the ground and buried her head into her knees. “I can’t believe this is happening. Brady isn’t that kind of person. He would never just sleep with a random undergrad. He wouldn’t do that. I love my brother, but Clay is that kind of person. He would do it just for fun, but not Brady. He’s a good man, and Hayden is trying to ruin him.”
Liz didn’t know what to say. The story was true, but she couldn’t say that without explaining how she knew. And after telling Hayden what had happened, she never wanted to tell anyone else ever again.
“Do you know anyone named Sandy Carmichael? I mean, I know he said it’s a pseudonym, but maybe it’s not,” Savannah said hopefully.
Liz shook her head. “No. I don’t know anyone by that name.”
“Me either,” Savannah said with a sigh. “I just don’t understand what any of this has to do with Brady’s reelection, with what he’s done as a congressman. His private life should be private. I know Hayden’s your boyfriend, but I want to strangle him.”
“No need to apologize to me,” Liz said gruffly. “I want to strangle him too.”
Savannah turned her head to the side and narrowed her eyes. “Yeah? What’s been going on?”
“It’s been bad for a while,” she admitted. Ever since she had seen Brady again. He sauntered back into her life and she remembered in those fleeting hours what passion was. Her relationship with Hayden had never been the same. “It’s over.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” Liz said, shaking her head. “He had it coming.”
Chapter 22
MELODRAMA
Savannah left ten minutes later when she received a call from her father. Liz tried not to overhear, but the words lockdown and emergency were definitely thrown around. Before Savannah walked out of Liz’s office, Liz hugged her. She wished that she could tell Savannah how sorry she was and how much she wished that she could take it all back, but it wasn’t possible. No one could know what had happened. She still had to protect Brady however she could.