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“Me? Why not you? You stop trying to ruin mine. All you’ve done from the beginning is jerk me around, toss me bones, make promises, and never deliver. Fuck you, Siena. You deserve the bed you make.”

Siena dropped the phone. She thought about picking up the receiver and finishing the call with Jamie, but she just couldn’t handle it anymore. She hadn’t signed up for this. And she wouldn’t stand for it. Picking up the receiver, Siena hung up.

Her priority had to be her clients, and not some journalist with a vendetta against her. She’d thought Jamie was different, she’d thought that she’d seen under the hard shell that Jamie seemed to wear everywhere she went, but she was wrong.

“That didn’t seem to go well,” Ingrid said, coming back into the room.

“Jesus.” Siena scrubbed her face, finding tears on her cheeks. “Were you listening in at the door?”

Ingrid shrugged. “I don’t trust her.”

“Yeah, well, that makes two of us.” Siena had had enough of her trust being broken. She wasn’t going to let it happen again.

Ingrid softened her tone as she stepped back over to Siena’s desk. “Was it more than just a quickie?”

“Yeah. Yeah, it was.”

“Was it love?” Ingrid said the words slowly but honestly, no judgement in her tone.

“No. It clearly wasn’t.” Because if it hadn’t been love, then this wouldn’t hurt so damn much. Siena wouldn’t have to face the fact that Jamie had willingly gone behind her back and done something as egregious as this. “Come on. We’ve got some press releases to write.”

“You sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

“I don’t.” Siena squared her shoulders. “Right now I want to make sure that I still have a job at the end of tomorrow.”

“Deal. You saved my ass. I’ll save yours.”

“Thanks. What would I do without you?” Siena smiled. She’d forgotten just how brilliant Ingrid could be, and that she really needed to rely on her as a friend more often.

“Cry alone in your office.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Siena said with a laugh and a roll of her eyes.

twenty-eight

Jamie’s stomach churned and everything seemed harder and sharper as she stepped into the elevator at work. After the call with Siena, she knew it was the last straw for her. She couldn’t keep living this way. Jessie had been right. Not that she would admit that to her sister. But once she looked around at her clean apartment and admitted at least to herself how bad she had let it get, she couldn’t keep fooling herself.

And then to top it all off, she had opened her phone only to find photos of the fake engagement splattered across the internet. With a hollow pit in her stomach, she had brought up her workplace’s paper. And the rock of truth plummeted into the cavernous pit of who she had become.

Her phone rang, and she watched as Siena’s name flashed across the screen before her voicemail finally picked up. Because like hell was Jamie going to answerthatcall. That wasn’t a personal call. That was a call where she was going to be screamed and yelled at, and that was a call that was going to be dangerously painful.

Tentatively she had listened to the message and knew that no matter what she said, Siena was going to play it the wayJamie had feared. She was the bad guy. But Siena had been the one person who had seen beyond the hate and dislike and assumptions about who Jamie was. At least, Jamie thought she had. But now the writing was on the wall.

After she’d called back, on Siena’s work line, Jamie had been done.

Done with everything. But she wouldn’t just scurry off into the darkness like Siena obviously hoped she would.

The elevator stopped, and the rush and bustle of the workday at the paper whooshed into the quiet elevator, trying to drown out the intrusive thoughts and spirals that had been going on in her head all morning. Usually it worked. It was one of the perks of working in a loud and busy office. It was why she hadn’t opted for a place with a true graveyard shift. She needed the bustle at the start of her shift to get through the quiet of the rest of it.

“Hey.” Scott looked up and smiled.

Jamie returned the smile but feared opening her mouth right then would result in her vomiting. She continued past her desk and pretended not to notice Scott’s furrowed brow and the concerned pout on his lips.

She knocked on the boss’s door as soon as she reached it, not allowing herself to hesitate or second-guess this move. It would mean everything she worked for would be gone, but she couldn’t live with herself anymore. Not like this.

“What?” The grunt from within was all she needed to open the door, step in, and close it behind her before he could argue.

“Kettlehouse, what the hell?” Bossman scowled, but he leaned back in his chair and looked her up and down.