She’s still in a board meeting. Has been for two hours.
Lizzie looked up at the window, the narrow one that looked out onto the east corridor. A housekeeper walked past and did not look in. She looked down at her phone again.
It was Cynthia,Maya texted.Had to be. She’s the only one who knew enough. About you, I mean. This mess with Sarah’s mom is on another level but I doubt her mom would go to the press after getting all that money.
Lizzie had thought the same. She’d wanted to scream that morning when she’d seen the headline. She hadn’t realized that the paper would go to print that quickly. She’d thought there was some time. Time to speak to Sarah. Time to do something…
But Sarah hadn’t called the previous night. She’d texted her after midnight to tell her it was too late to talk and she was going to sleep. They’d speak in the morning. But come morning, it had all been too late.
The reporter had to have that story ready to go to print before she even called her. She was going to print it regardless of Lizzie’s comments. That realization had made her feel a little better, but not by much.
Knowing that Cynthia was likely involved hadn’t helped much either. Because again, without her, Cynthia would not have cared about Sarah and her secrets.
She heard footsteps in the hall and rushed to the window again. There was Sarah, looking like she was barely holding it together.
Gotta go. She’s here.
Lizzie set the phone down on the desk and looked at the door. The handle moved down, and Sarah entered.
She knew immediately. Not from Sarah’s face, which was composed, but from the way she walked. Too deliberate. The particular control of someone who has decided they are not going to fall apart in a hallway.
Sarah closed the door. She stood with her back to it for a moment.
“They’re putting Derek in as interim GM.”
The words sat in the room.
“Pending review,” Sarah continued. “They want the story to settle. They want a period of stability. Stavros was on the phone, he tried to get me some air, told them to not rush to judgement but they voted. I’m out.”
“No way!”
“They’ve wanted this for years. They’ve been waiting for something to justify it and now they have it.” She stopped. She pressed her fingers harder against the desk and then, tears spilled out of her eyes.
Lizzie had never seen her cry like this. Not without composure around it. It was quiet and it was real and it was somehow worse than anything she’d imagined on her way here this morning. She crossed the room and crouched beside the chair. “Sarah.”
“I built this.” Sarah’s voice came from behind her hands. “I was here before the renovation. And now Derek Mitchell, who even made a mess of timeshare desk, is going to sit in this office, and the board is going to call it temporary, until they can make it permanent. Jonathan is going to use this to prove I was a gold digger. My lawyers are already calling nonstop to discuss this. How did this happen? I mean, I know my mom told them but you? How did they know about you?”
This was the worst possible time to tell her the truth, but Lizzie knew she had to. She took a breath, counted to three, and then let it out. “Listen to me.” Lizzie put a hand on her arm. “I have to tell you something.”
“Not right now.” Sarah lowered her hands. Her face was wrecked in the way of someone who doesn’t cry often. She looked at Lizzie, and whatever she saw there made her lean forward and kiss her. Not carefully. Not briefly. Like something she needed to hold onto.
Lizzie kissed her back. For a moment she let herself, because Sarah was shaking and her hands had come up and it was hard to be the person who made this worse.
Then she pulled back.
“I have to tell you,” she said. “Right now, before anything else.”
Sarah went still.
“The reporter called the resort yesterday evening. She started asking questions and I—” Lizzie made herself say it plainly, no cushioning. “She told me you had a lot of other women, and that she knew you and I had been carrying on and that it was shocking because I’m half your age and…I replied that I wasn’t half your age and that there weren’t other women and she took that and she said…she … she took it as confirmation and…”
The room was very quiet.
Sarah sat back. The distance between them, which had been nothing, became a chair’s width. Became a room.
“You talked to her.”
“I didn’t know—”
