Good grief. “You told him about me?”
“Of course I did. And he was very, very interested. Oh, and here’s the best part. He’s hot.Reallyhot. Like I said, he’s perfect.”
Jade doubted that. Sebastian was perfection. Her heart squeezed as the computer screen flickered to life. “Thanks, Charlotte. I’m not interested.”
Charlotte’s expression fell and she handed Jade a business card. “Take it. Just in case.”
She hesitated, then accepted it, not bothering to look at the information. She set it aside just as her office phone rang. Charlotte nodded and slipped away while Jade answered it. “Jade Smith.”
“Hello, Ms. Smith.”
Uh-oh. “Hi, Tifanni.”
“Mr. Harrington would like to see you in his office as soon as possible.”
This couldn’t be good. Her interaction with Miles had been brief since she left Clementine. Her quick phone call to him after she left the Little Rock airport had taken only two minutes, if that. “Mr. Hudson isn’t going to sell.”
“I’m the one who will determine that,” Miles countered, not hiding his annoyance. “When can I talk to him?”
She hesitated. Sebastian had agreed to listen to Miles, but that was before he found out she’d taken his ledger. He had no reason to follow through on that promise. Miles was wasting his time anyway. “I couldn’t convince him to do that either.” Not the truth, but not quite a full lie. That would be her last one.
The silence on the other end of the line was harrowing, and she expected him to rant at her at any second. Instead, he said, “Thank you for trying.”
When she got back to work, she expected he would want to meet with her for a more thorough explanation. He’d spent the money on her plane tickets, and under normal circumstances she would have expensed everything else she’d spent on the trip other than the extra flight. Since she failed in every single way, other than reconciling with her family, she would pay for the rest. She’d lost her raise and bonus, but having Logan and Lydia back in her life in a healthy way was priceless. Fortunately Miles had been ignoring her, and she thought she was in the clear. Until now.
“I’ll be right up.” She hung up the phone and stared at her screen. This was it. She was going to get fired. Or at least yelled at. Although she didn’t agree with Miles acquiringThe Times, she let him—and herself—down.
Bracing for the worst, she made her way to his office. When she entered the reception area, Tifanni was tapping away at her computer. She gave her a quick glance. “He’s waiting on you.”
Her coldness wasn’t a good sign. Jade walked into the office.
Miles stood in front of one of the large windows overlooking the downtown Atlanta landscape. Her hands started to shake as she waited for him to turn around. She thrust them behind her. For a man in a hurry to talk to her, he was taking his time. If he was trying to scare her, it was working—she felt like throwing up.
Finally he turned around, expressionless. Then he took a step toward her, and another one. “I’m not a man who second-guesses himself, Ms. Smith. I also like coming up with creative solutions to problems. I thought I had when I sent you to Clementine. I thought it was a simple assignment, and that you understood how important it was. It became clear soon after you arrived that I may have made a mistake, but I was willing to give you time. I foolishly trusted you.”
Jade was stunned. Where was this coming from? “You can trust me, Mr. Harrington. Sebast—Mr. Hudson is adamant about keepingThe Times.”
“Then explain why he’s not only willing to sell, but he’s also shopping the paper around. To everyone but me.”
“What?”
“You lied to me, Ms. Smith.” He continued moving until he was standing in front of her. He wasn’t as tall as Sebastian, but he could still look down on her.
“But I didn’t. I promise, he told me he wasn’t going to sell. He said that several times.”
“Then he lied to you.” His eyes narrowed. “I don’t like being stabbed in the back.”
Her mind was reeling. Surely Miles was wrong. Sebastian would never sell the paper, much less seek out buyers. “I would never...” She’d been underhanded in taking Sebastian’s ledger, but she wasn’t that cutthroat. “You have to believe me.”
“Then prove it. Go back to Clementine. Make sure he sells the paper to me.”
“I... can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
She paused. This didn’t make sense. Sebastian lovedThe Times. Something must have happened to make him change his mind, but she couldn’t imagine what would drive him to go against his principles and give up the newspaper that meant so much to him.
“Got my answer,” he sneered. “You’re fired. I want you gone within the hour.”
