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“It was incredible,” he agrees. While he buttons his shirt and tucks it in, I fix my hair in the mirror along with touching up my makeup. Then my eyes flicker back to him, catching his gaze.
I turn around and march over to him, clasping my hand around the nape of his damp neck and pulling his mouth down to mine. After a long kiss that just about starts everything back up again, I rip my lips from his and look him dead in the eyes.
“And it can never happen again.” I state before turning on my heels and walking out of the bathroom and leaving the bar.
Chapter 4
Ethan
Five years later
I hear Liam Sloane enter the meeting room before I see him. Between the clacking of his shoes on the marble flooring and the sucking of his teeth—a habit he picked up when he became CEO of Next Big Thing, Denver’s hottest business magazine. It’s how I know he’s got that cocky smile on his smug face, something that also became a staple of his persona in the last ten years, and it’s also how I know he’s about to start talking.
“Gentlemen, we are on fire.”
That line is one of his signatures. Along withthis is going to be a hell of an issueandDo you assholes have any idea how lucky you are to be here?
All of these meeting openers make me cringe equally and I have to hide my expression behind a coffee thermos. Several of the journalists and editors are seated at the giant, round table watching him intently, waiting for his instruction. The younger guys, interns especially, sit like obedient puppies. I swear to god they don’t piss without his permission. A few of us have known him since the beginning and have been here enough to witness the hot air filling his head.
Sometimes we wonder if it’s going to pop.
Nobody in this room though has known him longer than me, and it’s not just because I am his chief editor and right-hand man. No, Liam has been my best friend since middle school. Over the years, I have grown to love him, to know how to fight with him, to understand who he really is and with that, and to see him as a brother of sorts.
But in the past five years, I’ve also come to the realization that Liam Sloane isn’t the man I thought he was. He used to be a literary shark. Now, I’d go as far as to call him a snake.
“Thanks to us,” Liam carries on as he drops a stack of papers on the table and takes the head seat. “Charts Magazine is tanking. A couple of their writers got pinned for plagiarism so won’t have to worry about them trying to knock us out of first place for best mag in the biz world any time soon.”
“Did they do it?” I ask dryly. Eyes around the table from me to Liam to the floor.
Liam sucks the air between his teeth. “Did they do what, Savage?”
“Plagiarize anything.”
“One of their articles came a little too close to something we printed so I’m going to call it what it is.”
“But if it’s not word for word, that’s not the definition of?—”
“Jesus Christ, Savage,” Liam lets out a haughty laugh, clearly annoyed with what I am implying. “Whose side are you on anyway?”
“The side of the truth.”
Liam’s smile fades and he chews the inside of his cheek before going on. Meanwhile, no one else at the table is stupid enough to say anything. Not when Liam and I square off, which is happening more and more these days.
“The truth is, we are the number one business magazine in Colorado. In the Midwest when you get down to the brass tacks. And we hold that position because we don’t fuck around.”
“No, we just fuck with other journalists. But being number one is about wins, isn’t it?” I am shoving his own words down the man’s throat right now. But to be honest, I’m getting tired of our magazine being at the top of the charts only because we shot people in the back to get there. Playing dirty doesn’t credit us much.
“If there’s something you want to say, Savage, why don’t you get it out now.”
I have a lot I want to say. Believe me. In the past five years, Liam has gone from bad to worse. When we first charted, we came in around third. And that for most of us was a huge win. Between online journals, blogs and the plethora of other business magazines still fighting to stay alive, it’s a cutthroat world for us right now. But while the rest of us were celebrating with cocktails and loosened ties, Liam was trying to figure out how to get to first place. And he did figure it out…and it wasn’t pretty.
One after another, Liam started finding ways to discredit other magazines, spilling info that may or may not be true about their journalists and editors and without any credible resources. It was like the Water Gate of the magazine world but the journalists were the ones going down. And he was Deep Throat.
Since then, I’ve lost a decent amount of respect for the man. And my fuse is really short right now.
Still. I decide to keep my mouth shut.
“Let’s talk sports, shall we?” He goes on.