On the Record

by K. A. Linde

  “Liz . . .”

  “You’re the definition of a coward, Hayden.”

  His jaw clenched and his hands balled into fists. She was pushing his buttons and feeding on his insecurities. He had to have known that this was going to happen. There was no coming back from what he had done. If he thought that she was going to let him walk all over her again, he was sadly mistaken. That Liz was never resurfacing.

  “I came to explain. Are you at least going to let me explain?” he demanded.

  “Sure. Go ahead and try to explain to me how this happened.”

  “Look, I didn’t mean for it to all go this way. I was upset about everything and I ended up talking to Calleigh about you. She tried to comfort me. Told me to throw myself into work. That’s when I spilled about the story. I didn’t give her your name or anything . . .”

  “Ugh! Digging the hole deeper,” she muttered under her breath.

  “It wasn’t like that. You know I’m not interested in Calleigh!”

  Brady’s words echoed in her mind about Hayden and Calleigh. “Sure seems that way to me.”

  “Nothing happened, but when I told her about the story, she pitched it to the editor without telling me. Once it was approved, I didn’t have much choice but to run with it.”

  “Right. Try to claim that you didn’t have a choice. Make it not about you. See if that works,” she said.

  “I messed up. I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. I wanted to do it in person, but . . .”

  “But what?” she snapped. “You lost your balls and had to go looking for them all weekend?”

  Liz heard Victoria snort laughing from the other room. That only ticked off Hayden more.

  “Are you serious right now?” he yelled into her face. “I’m trying to apologize to you. Can you take this seriously for a second?”

  Liz raised her eyebrows. “If you yell at me one more time, Hayden Lane, I promise that you will never be welcome in my house again. And I don’t make promises I can’t keep,” she said menacingly. Brady sure had an effect on her.

  “Sorry,” he apologized again. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “You’re probably itching for a cigarette,” Liz said offhandedly.

  “What?”

  “Oh, you thought I didn’t know that either?”

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “Lies. All lies. They just build the fire into an inferno,” she said, shaking her head.

  “I don’t smoke!” he said, raising his voice again. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to . . . Why do you think I smoke?”

  “Oh, because I saw you do it in October when you left the newspaper.”

  “You were watching me?”

  “It seems the only way to get you to tell the truth!”

  “I used to smoke,” Hayden admitted. “When I was in high school, the other guys on the track team smoked, but I quit. High-stress situations make me crave them.”

  “How many high-stress situations have you been in lately?” Liz asked accusingly.

  “A few,” he said stiffly. “But that’s not why I’m here. I’m here to try to make things right. How can I make things right?” He splayed his hands out in front of him and took a step forward.

  “If you came here to fix things, then you should have never come. You can’t make it right. There’s absolutely nothing that you could say to me that would get me to change my mind. You’ve already done enough damage here. I think you should maybe do some soul-searching and see how much you totally fucked up the best thing you’ll ever have in your life. How does it feel knowing that you ruined your own life?” she said calmly. “I hope that Calleigh beats you to that promotion and drops your ass. It would be what you deserve.”

  Hayden’s mouth dropped open and he just shook his head. “So I can’t make this better?”

  “No,” she said resolutely.

  “There’s no reasoning with you?” he asked, pleading with his big hazel eyes for some way to make it up to her.

  “I couldn’t think of a single thing that you could do to fix this. You broke me. You broke us. It’s over,” she said, her voice cracking. “And I think you should just go.”

  Hayden nodded, accepting his fate. As he pulled the door open to exit, he turned back to face her. “I am sorry, and I will never stopping looking for a way to make this right.”

  The door closed behind him and the energy left Liz in a huff. Emotionally she felt as if she had just run a marathon that she had never trained for. She stumbled to the couch and crashed back into the cushions. She didn’t think she would have been able to keep going even if she had wanted to. Her heart felt heavy, but at least she knew one thing: she still had Brady.

  Victoria rushed into the room. “Is he gone?”

  “Yeah, he just left,” Liz murmured. “I can’t believe I said all of that. I can’t believe it’s really over.”

  “Me either, but the bastard deserved every word. So . . . what happened?”

  “With Hayden? Didn’t you hear the whole thing?” Liz asked.

  “No! With the guy you left with on Friday. I heard you come home, but then you went right back out with him. Was he good? Were you in a sex coma? Why didn’t you answer your fucking phone, bitch!” Victoria said, punching her lightly in the arm.

  “Oh, Clay. No, I didn’t sleep with him. I knew him when I walked out with him.”

  “No fair! That wasn’t the game.”

  “He’s Brady’s brother,” Liz told her with a sigh.

  “You left to have sex with Brady’s brother!” Victoria gasped.

  “Well . . . originally.”

  “Holy fuck! I underestimated you. Forget my threesomes . . .”

  “Foursomes,” Liz muttered under her breath.

  “You might be dirtier than me!”

  Liz shook her head. “Not possible.”

  “Are you going to sleep with both of them?” Victoria literally gasped. “At the same time?”

  “Victoria, no. You’re living out your own fantasies, not mine. Clay is really good-looking, but I have no interest. I spent the weekend with Brady at his lake house.”

  Victoria shrieked and bounced up and down in her chair. “Oh my God! I’m so excited. Did you guys fuck? Are you back together?”

  Liz smiled coyly, her eyes drifting down to her hand. “Yes . . . on both counts.”

  “Okay. Okay,” she said, trying to stay calm but not succeeding. “Tell me all about it. You had sex with a congressman. This is too good to go without details.”

  “I’m not giving you details! We had sex . . . a couple times.”

  “Like how many times?” Victoria asked, clapping her hands together.

  “I don’t know.” Liz started counting in her head. “Um . . . like five times.”

  “That’s like fifteen orgasms! Lucky girl!”

  “You’re ridiculous!” Liz said. “Fifteen orgasms? Jesus, Vic.”

  “Oh, maybe I’m just that lucky,” Victoria said with a wink. “But, girl, you’re with Brady. What does that feel like?”

  Liz sighed and leaned back into the couch. “Perfection.”

  Chapter 29

  MISDIRECTION

  Liz took some Tylenol and then collapsed into her bed. The emotional roller coaster she had been riding the past week exhausted her, and all she could think about was sleeping through the day. Luckily Massey was covering the paper this weekend, so she could be a bum another day longer.

  She couldn’t believe everything that had happened. All she could concentrate on was Brady. She was with Brady. And not just that, but he wanted to go public with their relationship.

  It all felt so fast. And she felt ridiculous thinking that. A year ago if he had told her that he didn’t want to hide their relationship, she would have been jumping up and down, but so much had happened since then. The thought of being out in the open when she hadn’t been with the person more than a weekend in over a year made her nervous inside.

  The
only thing she knew for certain was that she had tried for a long time to get Brady out of her system and it simply hadn’t been possible. That thought was what fueled her forward. She and Brady couldn’t get enough of each other. They were meant to be together. It was what reminded her that this was all worth it.

  Because frankly, she was scared. She didn’t really care what people thought about her and Brady, but there were so many unknowns about their relationship and what was to come. When would they get to be alone? How would this all work with him in D.C.? Was she suddenly going to be swamped with reporters? She was already being portrayed as a scandal in the media. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like when her identity was revealed.

  She still had to finish her senior year of college, and there was her new job at the New York Times. She hadn’t been anticipating this relationship or the complications that came with it. That didn’t mean she didn’t want to go through with it. It just meant that she and Brady had a lot to work out themselves before they went public and their relationship was blasted all over the world for everyone else to scrutinize. Didn’t seem fair for everyone to pick apart their relationship before they even had the chance to have one.

  Not that she could let it sit forever. She didn’t want to become an even bigger story than Sandy Carmichael already was. She knew the benefit of beating reporters at their game. Then she got to tell the story, and not them.

  If anything, that only added stress to the situation. She felt as if she were in a box and all of the sides were slowly sliding in toward her. Every second wasted deciding what to do only brought them that much closer to being discovered.

  Jeez! She needed to cut the stress down a bit. She was back with Brady. She was back with Brady! Never in a million years had she thought that this moment would come. So now that it had, she just wanted to lie here and remember what it felt like waking up in his arms, the feel of his lips, the way his eyes met hers. Loving you takes so much less effort. He loved her. He had always loved her. That was where her focus should be. The rest would follow.

  And rest did follow. With all of those thoughts swirling through her mind, Liz fell asleep. Too much stress had completely wiped her out, and slumber became inevitable.

  Liz woke some time later to the sound of banging on her bedroom door. She yawned loudly and stretched out the kink in her neck.

  “Yeah?” she grumbled.

  How long had she been out? She hadn’t even remembered falling asleep. Shit! She had said that she was going to call Brady after Hayden left. He was probably freaking out. She didn’t want him to think that she had forgotten—or worse, that Hayden was still here. She had made it clear to Brady that it was over with Hayden, but he didn’t need a reason to doubt her.

  “Are you awake in there?” Victoria called.

  “Um . . . yeah. Sorry. I guess I passed out.” Liz stood and searched around for her phone. She needed to find out how long she had been asleep and then call Brady.

  “Well, get your ass out here. You have a visitor.”

  Liz scrunched her eyebrows together. Who the hell would be visiting her? She snatched her phone off of her desk and checked the time. Okay, she hadn’t been asleep that long. Forty-five minutes or so. Still too long not to respond to the text message flashing on her screen from Brady.

  Liz clicked on the text and jogged quickly into the bathroom. As she read the message, she found a hair tie in a basket by the sink and threw her hair into a ponytail.

  Haven’t heard from you. Everything all right? Do I need to swing back by?

  Shit! That had been fifteen minutes ago. Her visitor was probably Brady checking to make sure that Hayden was gone and she was all right.

  Liz checked out her face in the mirror and winced. Her nap hadn’t done her any good; she looked as if she hadn’t slept in weeks. After splashing some water on her face to try to wake herself up, she dabbed some foundation under her eyes to cover the dark circles and then slid her phone back into her pocket. Time to face the music.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” Liz said as she walked out of her bedroom. “I wasn’t expecting . . .”

  She trailed off when she caught a glimpse of red hair. Her stomach plummeted.

  Not good.

  What the hell was Calleigh Hollingsworth doing in her living room? Liz wanted to walk over there, snatch the woman’s box-maroon hair in her hand, and throw her out of her house. As much as Liz despised Hayden, he had supposedly only gone through with the article because of Calleigh’s interference; then her name had appeared next to his byline, and now she was standing here in front of Liz.

  Liz couldn’t think of a single good reason for her to be here. Not one. Hayden had claimed that he hadn’t given Calleigh Liz’s name in the whole thing, but how much did Calleigh really know? She had been taunting Liz at Brady’s primary about this sort of thing. It made Liz anxious, and she didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to do.

  “Liz,” Calleigh said, turning around to face her. “How are you, doll?”

  Liz cringed slightly at the nickname. She hated that. Everything about Calleigh irritated her at this point.

  “I’m good, Calleigh. How are you?” Liz asked amicably. Maybe if she acted nice then Calleigh would leave quicker.

  “Good. Good. Just been busy,” Calleigh said flippantly.

  “I can only imagine,” Liz said dryly. Busy ruining lives and such.

  “How’s Hayden?”

  Liz narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

  She had a million other questions she wanted to ask in response to that, but that was all that came out. Why? Because Calleigh couldn’t get into his pants or because she was testing to see if they had broken up or what?

  “Geez, calm down, Liz. I was just asking.”

  “But why? Don’t you work together? I would think you see him more than me right now, since we’re both so busy,” Liz said, trying to keep her anger about Hayden at bay for a few minutes. If she acted super pissed, then Calleigh would start piecing things together.

  “Oh, well, yeah, I suppose,” Calleigh said, flipping her hair over her shoulder and smiling coyly. “I just hadn’t seen him since Friday, when we submitted that article. Did you read it? We’re getting so much interest from it.”

  “I did read it. It was well written.”

  Calleigh nodded but looked at Liz as if she was waiting for something. “Thank you. We worked on it together.”

  “Do you think you’re going to get a promotion?” Liz asked. She was itching to pull her phone out and text Brady.

  “Remains to be seen, I think. After this I’d say we’re in line for whatever is next,” she said, smiling brightly.

  Liz just wished that Calleigh could be ugly instead of this exotic beauty with long straight hair, high cheekbones, and stunning green eyes. It would serve her right for having such a cold heart.

  “Well, congrats!” Liz said, evading the one question she really wanted to ask. What the fuck are you doing here?

  “Thanks. I just thought I’d stop by, since I’m in the area doing some research,” Calleigh said.

  She paused as if she were waiting for Liz to say something. So Liz didn’t. She just stared at Calleigh blankly.

  “I’ve been through the registrar records and it seems, as I suspected, that no one by the name of Sandy Carmichael ever actually went to UNC during the time we wrote about in the article.”

  “You did say that it was a fake name or something, right? I wouldn’t think you would waste your time looking, or at the very least that you would have checked it over before writing the article,” Liz said snippily.

  Calleigh laughed softly and nodded. “I just thought I’d double- and triple-check. Cover my bases. But it looks like, as Hayden said, she doesn’t exist. And he won’t tell me who told him.”

  Liz stood frozen, not wanting to move or shift or even blink. Calleigh didn’t need any kind of indicators from Liz as to how Hayden got his information.

  “Well, I’d assume
that if he wanted to tell you, then he would have,” she said simply.

  “Hayden seems to be withholding the information for a specific reason. I mean, he wouldn’t have told me if the person told him about it off the record. That’s breaking ethical boundaries . . .”

  Liz gasped lightly. “Oh my God, are you afraid of getting sued for libel? Careers have been ended for less, Calleigh.”

  Color drained slowly out of her face and she shook her head. “No. I’m not . . . I’m not concerned about that.”

  Liz seemed to have thrown her off her rhythm, at least for a moment. The wheels were clearly working in Calleigh’s mind. She hoped that Calleigh thought that Hayden had lied to her about how he had acquired the information, or even that there was the potential for the Maxwell family to come back and destroy them. Good-bye, reporting career.

  “Has he told you?” Calleigh finally blurted out.

  “Told me what?” Liz asked, tilting her head and looking at Calleigh innocently.

  “Who Sandy Carmichael is? Has he told you who he spoke with? Y’all have been dating over a year, I would think a strong, stable relationship like that,” Calleigh said with a gleam of mischief in her eye, “you would tell each other everything.”

  Liz just smiled sweetly. “Oh, we do. We tell each other everything.”

  Calleigh’s eyes enlarged slightly and then returned to their normal size. “So then . . . you know?”

  “Know what?” Liz prompted. “About Sandy Carmichael or about you and Hayden?”

  “Um . . .” Calleigh said, her mouth dropping open. Then she shook her head as she recovered. “I was simply asking about Sandy Carmichael.”

  “Well, I’m asking about Hayden. Is there anything going on between y’all? Because he told me it was over since he dumped you after you graduated and that he’s been happy to fend you off since he moved to Charlotte.”

  “You can believe that if you want,” she said, sticking her nose in the air.