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“Do you know who did?”

“Nope.”

“Why is this big news?”

“Because in our town, every little piece of news is huge. No matter what you might like to say or think, you’re important, Toni. You’re a leader. Not only that, but you’re a woman leader. You’re a gay woman leader.”

“I wouldn’t describe myself like that.”

“The people of Ashbury will. Not only are two big-time businesswomen going for each other’s throats, but you used to date. In the media world, this is a big deal. Huge.”

“What do we do?”

“I’ve called a crisis PR representative to help us out.”

“And?”

“She’ll meet with us in an hour.”

4

Jessica

“She’s taken things too far.” I’m staring at the piece of paper in front of me. I don’t know why, but Toni has apparently decided to take our not-so-sneaky feud to the World Wide Web, and somehow, the bloggers and influencers in town have decided that they’d like to spend their time weaving intricate lies that revolve around both me and Toni.

Why the hell would she do something like this?

“To be fair, we knew something like this could happen.” Patrick is standing in front of my desk wearing a crisp blue suit. It brings out the blue in his eyes – something I know he does to attract the attention of both men and women. Patrick doesn’t talk about his dating life, but he sure seems to know a lot about mine.

“Is that something we knew?” I’m desperate here. It sounds like Patrick was expecting something like this, but I definitely wasn’t. “How would we know this?”

“You kind of planned to steamroll her, didn’t you?”

“I wouldn’t describe it like that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you prefer ‘hostile takeover’?”

“No.”

“Either way, it doesn’t matter. Not anymore. Cat’s out of the bag on this one, and no matter how you paint it, you’re screwed.”

“How do you figure?”

“It’s a total PR crisis,” he assures me. “We need to get a specialist in here.”