Even now, she covered her mouth as she yawned, giving her head a shake to force herself to stay up a little while longer.
It wouldn’t be too much longer before she sent the finished piece off to Camilla and that would be the end of it, at least until the papers went out, but in that sweet interim, she wouldn’t have to worry about comma placements or word counts.
Karina was nearly to the foot of the staircase—just off to the left of the room Uilleam had converted into an office. The door was cracked instead of closed, making her wonder if he had stepped inside in a bit of hurry.
She could hear him speaking on the other side, and though she couldn’t be sure, she thought she heard barely restrained annoyance in his voice, which wouldn’t have been out of the ordinary—considering he had a tendency to sound annoyed with anyone that called him—but it was the other voice that gave her pause.
That made her stop in the middle of the hallway to actually listen to what was being said.
Or rather … what he whispered.
This was the first time she could think of that he spoke as quietly as he was now.
It was for that reason that she lingered, not because she was curious or anything.
“If he’s selling off stock in the company, then it’s better to go forward now than to wait. No, I’m not asking.” He was silent for a while longer now. “If I thought McDonall would go away without a fight, I severely doubt we would be having this conversation tonight.”
It was as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over her. She was fully awake now, her fatigue forgotten as she continued to stand there and listen.
She hardly made a sound despite how fast her heart was beating and the shallow breaths she took.
And worse, he continued, unaware that he was giving her more than he ever thought possible.
She could hardly wait until he ended the call to make her presence known by stepping into his office.
“What was that?”
“What was what?”
Ah, so they were playing this game.
“Do you know what I’m working on?” She hadn’t mentioned a great deal about it …
“I wouldn’t say I’m unfamiliar.”
“Semantics,” she returned, far too tired to call it anything other than what it was.
“There’s nothing to discuss.”
“You’re not involved in this, are you?”
Steady eye contact.
No excessive blinking. No glancing away.
“What gave you the impression that I was?”
Well, it would certainly fit if he were. That would explain Claire and all the rest of this particular story that didn’t entirely make sense.
“There’s nothing for you to concern yourself about.”
“But that doesn’t tell me why you were talking about Hugh McDonall,” she said carefully, wondering whether if the constant strain she was under made her temper shorter than usual.
Because when he continued to just stare at her, refusing to answer, it only made her anger peak.
“Well?”
“There is no right way for me to answer that, poppet.”
“No,” she said with a sharp shake of her head. “Not poppet. Not right now. And I don’t care about the right answer; I want the truth. Are you working with Hugh?”
That familiar muscle clenched in his jaw as he stared at her. A second ticked by. “No.”
“Your hesitation says there’s something you’re not telling me.”
“If I asked you to walk away from this, would you do that for me?”
“Give me a reason,” she said before she could truly think about what he was saying.
“Could you not do it just because I asked?”
“It depends on why you’re asking.”
There was a reason behind everything he did.
“I can’t give you a reason.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. Why now?”
It wasn’t as if she had only recently started working on this. She’d been doing this for weeks. And while he might not have known the extent of what she was doing, he at least knew it was something she had spent a significant amount of time on.
“There will always be things I can’t share with you, Karina. That’s just the way it is.”
She frowned at him, ready to argue that point, but she thought about what else she had heard him say.
About stock in the company being traded off.
That could prove important …
She met his gaze, unblinking. “And there will be times when you won’t get to decide what I do.”
Because just as he had his career, she had her own.
Fighting with Uilleam had only managed to keep her up even later than she wanted to be after sending off the file.
Sleep had evaded her for hours before she slipped into a fitful slumber. By the time she was heading into the office the next afternoon, she still felt as if she hadn’t slept at all.
As she walked out of the elevator, Karina could have heard a pin drop.
It was that unsettled sort of silence that made her hyper aware of everything around her. The way people who usually smiled in greeting ducked their heads as she walked in, or the way others’ expression made her wonder what she had just interrupted.
But she didn’t have to get an answer from them to know that whatever it was, she was in deep trouble.
So much so that the paper’s president was standing in Camilla’s office, his hands on his hips and his face a muddled shade of red that spoke of his anger. Considering she had only seen the man in passing once in all the time she had worked here, she knew his presence couldn’t mean anything good.
Just as she was passing the kitchen, she caught sight of Samantha lingering next to the coffeepot, a muted beige mug clutched in her hands. Unlike the others, she didn’t turn away from Karina. Rather, Samantha met her stare with an apologetic expression.
Something was unabashedly wrong.
“Karina.”
She turned in time to see Camilla step out of her office, the men standing behind her watching and waiting, her expression just as grim as everyone else’s. It was her that gave Karina her first clue as to why she was being called and why there was a certain tension to the air that had people afraid to speak.
This was about the article.
The one she had struggled so much with for as long as she had been digging into the story. The one she hadn’t been sure she would actually finish until the night before it went to print.
“I’d like to see you in my office,” she said, a far cry from her usual gesture with a flick of her fingers.
Everything about this was different than how things usually were.
With each step she took in that direction, she tried to discern what she’d written that would have prompted this meeting, but even as she cast her mind back to everything she had uncovered when it came to the McDonalls, she couldn’t think of anything that would have warranted this.
Except … one thing.
But before her brain could fully seize on that thought, she cleared her throat and stepped into the office.
Jeremiah Cunningham had the sort of appearance that made someone instantly aware of his presence. Not only was he over six feet tall but he also had the girth to fill it out. Massive was an understatement. Despite his relative size, he was rumored to be a man as nice as he was giant, but considering his current expression and the way he’d removed his glasses and left them on Camilla’s desk, she wasn’t so sure the description she’d heard of him before was accurate.
“Karina, this is—”
“What the hell were you thinking?” Jeremiah asked, his barely cool demeanor slipping so quickly that she hardly had an opportunity to even ask what was going on.
But he made it clear, very quickly, that her presence wasn’t requested for her to explain herself.
“I don’t understand,” she said, looking first at Jeremiah before turning to Camilla, hoping f
or an explanation even as she was afraid of whatever it might be.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” he asked, his expression filled with rage. “You’ve opened this paper up to a lawsuit, and you allowed her to do it!” he finished, pointing a meaty finger at Camilla who was as silent as she was, though judging from her downturned expression, she at least knew what this was about.
Or at least the details of it.
Karina could infer well enough that it was about her article, but even as she thought over what she wrote, she couldn’t think of anything that would have sparked this reaction.
“Clean out your desk.”
No other words had ever felt this much like a physical blow before—one that brought a pang to her chest and made her wonder whether the ringing she was heard was audible to them as well.
Worse, she couldn’t get her lips to move—to argue her case and try to get him to change his mind. Give her a second chance at the very least, but nothing came out.
Not a word.
Not a sound.
She just stood there rooted in place, listening to those words repeat themselves over and over again until they were the only things playing inside her head.
But Jeremiah didn’t care about her surprise, or that she still hadn’t explained herself at all. He merely picked up his overcoat, turned on his heel, and stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind him.
It wasn’t until he had boarded one of the elevators did Camilla speak. “I’m so sorry about this, Karina.”
Not sorry in the way that she might have been explaining a boss on a trade, needing to apologize for his behavior, but apologetic in the way that she had heard correctly and this day, this moment, would be her last with the Post.
Before that thought could even solidify, she shoved it away as far as she possibly could, refusing to acknowledge it until she absolutely had to.
At some point in the next few seconds, she finally found her voice. “What happened?” She hated the way she sounded, fearful—low enough that it was almost hard to hear herself.
“The police were called to the McDonall residence early this morning. There was an … incident.”
Her brows drew together, confusion settling in. “What incident? Why didn’t anyone—”
“I tried calling, but you didn’t pick up.”
Because she’d probably been too exhausted and out of it to even hear the phone ring.
It also explained why she had missed calls from the office line.
“They had a rather loud fight, and he threw a vase. The last I heard, Hugh checked into a rehab for alcohol abuse.”
Karina tried to picture the man she had met and talked with becoming the one Camilla described. The two images just didn’t mesh. While she knew all too well what someone could hide behind a careful smile, she just didn’t get that vibe from him.
She was missing something here.
“Why would that open the paper to a lawsuit?” she asked, not understanding.
“Claire is adamant that the article you wrote painted Hugh as a victim. She’s arguing that you’re attempting to garner sympathy for an abuser.”
That made her physically recoil.
It was the very last thing she would ever do. Even if she didn’t particularly like Claire, she would never stand idly by and help someone who abused women.
Not ever.
“And considering the coverage over this in the past five hours alone … it doesn’t look good.” Camilla looked down, her expression remorseful.
And it was only then that Karina noticed she wouldn’t be the only one packing up her things.
“I didn’t mean for you to get in trouble. If I talk to Jere—”
“There’s no need for that,” she said with a sad smile. “Considering my relationship with Hugh, in the past or not, I’m just as guilty.”
And now, they were both suffering the consequences of her actions.
Karina turned to leave, wishing she knew what to say or do, but for the first time in a long time, she felt … lost.
“How did they know?” Karina asked, turning back to look at her over her shoulder.
“Sorry?”
“How would Jeremiah know about your relationship with Hugh?”
She severely doubted the other woman had offered up the information herself, considering she’d barely wanted to discuss it with her.
So how?
“I don’t know,” she answered with a shrug, “but I don’t think it very much matters now. It’s over.”
For both of them.
And there was nothing they could do about it.
26
A Reminder
Standing beneath the heavenly spray of hot water, Karina turned her face up to it, letting it rain down her skin and soak her hair as she took a moment to wake herself up.
Today was a new day, and not one that should be defined by the mistakes of the ones that came before it. She needed to look to the future and all the good she would eventually do—or, if she was insistent on thinking back to old stories, she should at least remember the ones she’d excelled at. One fatal error shouldn’t be the deciding factor in who she was.
But it certainly felt that way.
No matter how she tried to put Hugh McDonall and everything that had happened to the back of her mind—to move forward as everyone else had—he always came racing back. She couldn’t get the look of resigned sadness on his face out of her head. She saw it when she closed her eyes. When she tried to focus on work or some other mindless task that couldn’t do its job.
It was all she could think about.
Yet she knew if this was the way she felt —completely gutted and still wondering where she had gone wrong—she could only imagine what Hugh was going through. Forced to enter a problem that he didn’t need if only because the image of who he was had demanded it. There was no guarantee he’d even be able to see his children after it was all said and done.
Especially not with a woman like Claire.
And not after she had figured out just what Karina’s plan had been. She would keep them away simply out of spite.
And despite everything she had worked for and the plan she had come up with, it was over. Done. The public had formed their own opinion, and after her last check on the web, Hugh had willingly stepped down as CEO from the company he had built, and when the completely heartbroken victim portrayed by his wife had done one teary-eyed interview, that had been the last nail in the coffin.
Still, there was nothing she could do about it.
Blowing out a heavy breath, Karina opened her eyes, running her fingers through her hair as she rinsed out the last bit of conditioner. Today was a new day, one she fully intended on starting off on the right foot.
Turning the water off, she grabbed one of the fluffy towels off its hook and wrapped it around her body before gingerly stepping out of the tub. The cold tile was a shock to her feet, but she dutifully continued forward, grabbing the other towel to rub through her hair.
So long as she focused on the task at hand and nothing more—brushing her teeth and using her favorite moisturizer on her face, then blow drying her hair until it was straight—she was fine. She didn’t feel the weight of failure or the guilt of knowing she had played a hand in ruining a man’s life.
She only needed to focus.
By the time she dressed in a pair of boyfriend-cut jeans and a sweater that fell off one shoulder, Karina was considering what she could work on now that she didn’t have the paper to look forward to. With her mind elsewhere, she walked into the kitchen and started a pot of coffee.
As it brewed, she grabbed a mug from the counter and set it aside before she opened the refrigerator and grabbed last night’s leftovers to stick it in the microwave to warm. The last thing she was in the mood to do was actually put in more effort than she was already exerting.
With her coffee and her food, she set it all on the table before grabbing her laptop and sitting cross-legged on o
ne of the floor pillows.
Today was just like any other day. It would only be bad if she let it.
Uilleam was doing what he could to cheer her up—had even flown her to Wales so that she could finally see his childhood home that had seemed as cold and lonesome as he’d described it.
That had managed to take her mind off her troubles for a while, but as soon as they’d arrived back home, she remembered why they’d left in the first place.
For a moment, her fingers hovered over the keypad, considering whether she wanted to check the local news for anything she hadn’t heard yet, but as the thought crossed her mind ... she thought about another website she hadn’t used in a while.
Even before Katherine had ever deigned to tell her about the black web, Karina had already seen it. There’d been a girl she knew at the boarding school she’d attended who’d had an affinity for not just computers but also for everything she could do with them.
She’d spent hours learning codes and how to run particular programs. She had even secretly done other things around the school’s programs without anyone, save Karina, being the wiser.
But that was just the tip of the iceberg from what she had said.
Because writing code was child’s play—what she’d really excelled at was hacking. If she wanted to get into something, it took her no time at all. She might not have understood half of what she was seeing on those websites as they browsed more than a dozen, but she had known even then that there was a different world out there. One she had yet to truly explore.
Karina truly had her to thank for the website she browsed through now, hunting through the different forums and marketplaces until she found the one she was looking for.
The beautiful thing about Red Rum was the fact that whatever news was reported within the site, it had nothing at all to do with upstanding citizens in the world. It followed the people on the other side of the moral line.
People like her family whose names weren’t mentioned by careful design.
White Rabbit Page 27
