Page 53

chapter thirty-nine

Jillian

“ B ad news,” Marco said as I leaned toward the mirror, blinking carefully as I coated my lashes with mascara. I always did my hair and make-up at the studio before we went live. It was easier than having to do my make-up at home only to have to touch it up when I arrived.

Marco’s words made me freeze. Could this be about Graham and me? But he slid a few pages across the vanity table toward me, saying, “The water main break was fixed, and they lifted the boil order. I had to cut that and make some adjustments. Just look over it.”

“Got it,” I said, breathing a quiet sigh of relief as I turned back to the mirror. I smiled, moving my mascara wand to the other eye. “And I think most people would call that good news , Marco.”

He grumbled something and walked away. A moment later, I thought I saw him return in my peripheral vision as I swiped the wand through my lashes. “Don’t tell me we have to scrap the story about the new police cruisers now.”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” a deep voice responded. I lowered my hand to see Graham standing there looking a little more dressed up than usual with a suit jacket over his usual button-up. God, he looked good.

I hadn’t seen him since the airport yesterday. Hadn’t spoken to him much, either—not beyond the rambling texts I’d sent after my appointment. He’d rambled right back, sharing in my excitement that I was finally getting answers.

I thought he might call the night before, but he didn’t. I chalked it up to exhaustion after our New York trip.

Graham cleared his throat and stared down at me as he slipped his hands into his pockets. “I just came to tell you about something.”

“Good or bad?”

He licked his lips and glanced over his shoulder to make sure nobody was around. “I just wanted to give you the heads up that I told Olivia about us.” He paused, gazing into my eyes. “She didn’t take it well.”

I dropped both hands down to the table in front of me, my shoulders slumping forward. I would have thought the opposite, that Olivia would be delighted to know her father was dating me. Didn’t she like me?

Graham lightly touched my arm, noticing my expression. “She just thinks people are going to talk about her behind her back, and she believes they already are because of the pregnancy. She’s embarrassed.”

“I hate this, Graham” I said, the words coming out more like a whine than I’d intended.

For a moment, Graham’s gaze was locked on mine, but then his eyes flitted down to the floor. “I know. And I apologize for telling her without running it past you, but I wanted her to hear it from me instead of that punk-ass intern.”

It was hard not to notice the choice of words or the careless way his voice carried, like he wasn’t even trying to be discreet about this conversation.

Something about his tired eyes told me he was at the end of his rope.

It was all I could do not to wrap my arms around him and pull him in for a hug, but this wasn’t the right place for that.

“Graham,” I said, keeping my voice low, hoping he’d follow suit. “Isaiah has done nothing wrong. He’s just a kid who witnessed something he shouldn’t have. We can’t blame him for talking about it.”

He just gave a small nod, his gaze drifting toward something across the newsroom. Olivia had just arrived, and she walked right past us to put away her things in my cubicle. She didn’t look at either of us as she passed. No smile, no good morning, not even a glance.

My heart sank.

“She’s not mad at you,” Graham said, taking in my melancholy expression. “In fact, Andrea says Olivia goes home and gabs about you every night. She really looks up to you.”

I nodded, allowing those words to ease the pain in my chest a little. “I guess I’ll just talk to her.”

Graham shook his keys in his pocket, shifting his weight. “Yeah. That might help. And listen,” he said, moving a little closer. He glanced around again just to make sure we were completely alone. “Why don’t you come over tonight so we can… figure everything out?”

I blinked. Figure everything out?

My fingers found the delicate chain around my neck, fidgeting with the little heart pendant as I tried my best to appear calm. “Yeah, sure,” I answered, my voice overly hopeful.

He gave me a quick goodbye nod before turning and walking out of the studio, disappearing down the hallway without another word.

My pulse sped up as I returned to the mirror to finish my make-up.

“Figure everything out” might have referred to making a plan for dealing with the public reaction to our relationship, or it could be a “what are we doing here” conversation.

The kind of conversation that can end a relationship if both parties aren’t on the same page.

Based on the way he’d looked that morning—tired and distant—it was hard not to spiral. That morning, Graham gave off the energy of a man who was ready to be done with it all. The stress. The secrecy. Maybe even me.

I didn’t have time to dwell on it. I needed to get to the news desk, greet Chase, and go over our headlines for the day. What was left of them, anyway—we were going to have to fill our time with more banter than usual.

Chase handled that better, anyway.

“Should we talk about New York?” I asked him as we went over our notes. “I can tease you about the ghost hunting shenanigans you got into, and you can dish it back because I went back to the hotel and slept.”

Chase nodded, and then he began to grin. “It all makes so much sense now,” he murmured, making sure the camera crew wasn’t listening. “I kept telling Meghan I felt bad that we abandoned you with Graham at Times Square, but she acted like it was no big deal.”

I bit my lip, glancing over at Clint, who was untangling some cords behind Camera One. “Well, maybe we won’t talk about that when we’re live.”

“Obviously.” Chase smiled from one side of his mouth. “We should tell them Xander from the Woodvale Times clearly has a fear of flying.”

“Oh my God,” I said with a laugh, flipping a page in my script. “I thought I was the only one who noticed.”

Chase shook his head, chuckling, and we continued going over the morning’s stories. Marco gave us the five-minute warning, and we gave each other a fist bump—something we’d started last week that seemed to be a new ritual.

“Hey,” Chase said, clearing his throat as he sorted his papers. His expression was suddenly less playful.

“What’s up?”

“Do you think this is going to work out?”

My stomach sank as my mind jumped to my relationship with Graham, assuming that’s what Chase was talking about. But why would he be asking about that? “What do you mean?”

“Me being your co-anchor. I’m still in my trial period here, but I’m starting to like this. I’m just afraid I’ve made so many mistakes that they’re going to put me back where I was.”

“Oh.” I let out a breath of relief, running my fingers through the ends of my hair. “Actually, Chase, I think you’re getting better every day. If they try to yank you away, I’ll stage a revolt.”

I meant every word. Somehow, against all odds, we were making this work better than I’d imagined.

But in the back of my mind, I worried he might be the sole anchor soon, depending on how the network chose to handle my reckless, totally fireable relationship with our CEO.

But again, there wasn’t time to dwell on that.

The countdown hit zero, and the cameras began rolling. Chase was still a little stiff while reading some of the headlines from the teleprompter, but this time, when he stumbled, he chuckled at himself and started over. It was endearing, in a way.

And once we started talking about our New York trip, he loosened up even more, taking my teasing about ghost hunting at the library in stride.

During Bernard’s weekly forecast, I glanced around for Olivia, spotting her across the studio with her eyes glued to her phone.

Since one of her jobs was to compile potential stories for us, I didn’t think much of it.

But then, during the final commercial break, Olivia walked right past the crew and all the cameras, her face pale as she handed her phone out toward me, “Sorry, you need to see this right now.”

My skin crawled with dread as I took the phone from her and looked down at the screen. The first thing I noticed was a picture someone had snapped of Chase and me on their TV screen with the caption, “Is it just me or do these two have a lot of chemistry? Wonder if they’re dating IRL.”

That wasn’t so bad. In fact, I’d even warned Chase people were probably going to say stuff like that. It came with the territory, and it wasn’t exactly a scandal. It was probably good for our ratings if people assumed we were into each other.

My relief was short-lived, however.

Someone else, an anonymous group member, had shared the post in Concerned Citizens of Woodvale Facebook Group, and their caption made me go completely still.

She’s too busy screwing the CEO to mess around with this guy. Lots of fishy stuff going on at WWTV. I’ve been hearing that this CEO is just as corrupt as the last one. It should probably be looked into, if you ask me.

The studio spun around me as bile rose to my throat.“Olivia,” I said, widening my eyes at her. “Go show that to your father right now. Tell him to contact Randy Sloane at Sloane’s Automotive immediately to have the post removed. He’s the admin of that group.”

“Okay, I will,” she said, nodding and giving me a worried, almost sympathetic look before turning to leave. Maybe she wasn’t that upset with us, or at least not upset enough to root for our downfall.

“What’s going on?” Chase asked, but I was too busy eyeing Marco, who was slipping his phone back into his pocket in the doorway of the control room.

Did he know something?

And would he sabotage the whole network just to make Graham look bad?

“Ten seconds,” I heard him say in my ear.