“Hey!”he says, springing up.
I delete the latest recording, assuming it’s Chloe.And then in a fit of rage, I smash the phone against the pillar, shattering the screen and almost splitting the phone in two.
“What the fuck?Have you been listening?”he says, frowning, looking back toward the entrance, expecting, I think, to see Chloe there.
“Chloe didn’t know I was here,” I say quickly, handing him back his destroyed phone and then crossing my arms over my chest.“Did she know you recorded her?”
“That’s none of your damn business,” Jack says, standing and sliding what’s left of his phone into his back pocket while picking up his waxed messenger bag and hitching it over his shoulder.He slicks his hair back from his forehead, and then stares at me, pointedly.“What?”
“Why do you hate me so much?”
Jack’s eyes are steady, his face impassive.“I’m just doing my job, Matt.”
The anger inside me hardens, and my right hand starts to twitch.I want to hit him.So bad.Punch him in his slimy mouth.
“That article was a stitch-up.”
“It was worth burning the source for.”
“You need to leave her alone,” I say, standing up a little straighter.Jack’s on the skinny side of lean and clearly stopped working out some time ago.I could take him.Easily.
“You don’t know what Chloe needs,” he says, and then his eyes narrow.
I steady my breath.“What you did?It’s really fucking unethical.”
Jack scoffs.“You want to lecture me about ethics?How’s Stavros?”
I tip my head back and stare at the ceiling, my hand balling into a fist.
“Jack,” I say quietly, in warning.
“Oh, you still haven’t seen him?”
I take a step forward, drop my head, and stare him down.
“You gonna hit me?Ever the intellectual, Matt,” he says, laughing.“Remind me.Did you actually finish school in the end?”
Don’t do this.A voice inside my head pushes all of it aside, and then Chloe’s words come back to me.She didn’t deny being in love with me.She didn’t flat-out deny it.And there would be no reason to lie to Jack.Unless she simply couldn’t lie.
“I’d rather be a fool.”Her admission to Jack that she had fallen for me was there in what she didn’t say.Could it be true?I feel my anger disperse a little and I relax my fist, deciding to let it all slide.
“Off you trot, Jack.Print your little stories about how awful I am.You are...what did she call you?A soulless snake?”
“Oh, I’ve got another, more interesting story now,” he says.
I don’t falter.I don’t change my expression.“Yeah?”
“The team principal of Arden and her first driver having an affair.”
Now, that onewouldhurt Chloe.
But he has no evidence of it.No one has seen us.Except...maybe me standing here, about to punch him in the face, is enough proof.
“Yeah,” he says, a smarmy little smile crawling up his face.
I do what I have to do.What Chloe would want me to do.I do what’s best for her and the team.
I laugh.Then I lie.
