“I…” Nadine blinked and dipped her head down, then put up her hand as if she’d had enough. “I need to get some fresh air.”
She left him standing in the kitchen alone with the celebration wine, feeling the regret take over. What had he done?
Thirty-three
Nadine was back in the pagoda. She drank the wine, and she felt bad. She hadn’t felt bad when she’d left Wes and had gone to her room to pace around, upset and unable to focus. It wasn’t until she heard the front door open and close that the doubt snuck in, dragging along its friend regret to the party and eventually leading her to the bottle of wine and lying in a pagoda, hoping spiders didn’t drop on her head.
She hugged her knees into her chest. Without the heat of anger, she could map out where things had gone wrong. Wes wanted to talk to his editor. Nadine had said no because she wasn’t ready for either of them to escalate the story, and Wes had interpreted it as she wasn’t, but he was good to go. That was still weird, but she could at least see how a miscommunication could happen.
Then it had escalated when she saw that story on his laptop. Those doubts about Wes she thought she’d put to rest reared back up. If she hadn’t gone on the attack, they could have sorted it out in the moment, but her response had been almost instinctive. She was under no illusions that she could kiss her job goodbye if Daniel found out what she’d been up to, not from her but from theSpear. Wes’s response had notbeen reassuring and had added to her fury.
She cringed at how she’d lost control and said those things, even if deep down, she felt they were partially true. If only she could be as clearheaded in the moment as she was after the fact. She probably had to apologize.
However, Wes had been a vindictive asshole, so she wasn’t the only one who had to say sorry.
A rustle came from the bushes, and Nadine sat up, listening hard before she grabbed the wine bottle and stood, ready to take on the intruder.
“Nadine?”
Wes stood on the opposite side of the moat. She sagged in a relief that was only momentary because although it wasn’t a killer (hooray), she thought she had until morning to figure out a game plan for dealing with Wes. She was going to have to wing it.
He stepped back. “Is this a pagoda?” he asked. “With a moat?”
“There’s a bridge on the other side.” The small peace offering gave Wes a choice: come in and talk, or leave. For a sickening moment, she wasn’t sure what he would do, but then he moved around and came over the bridge.
Nadine watched him approach, heart dancing a cha-cha. She’d covered a lot of corporate apologies for work, but she didn’t have a PR person to help her craft a response here. Best not to overthink it.
Once Wes entered the pagoda as a darker shadow against the black of the night, she said, “Misunderstandings were made earlier, and I might have been an ass to you.”
“Is that your attempt at an apology?” he asked.
Her desire to be the bigger person withered. She glared at him. “I don’t know. Why don’t we see after I hear yours?”
“You were the one to jump all over me,” he said, hands flat on the bench.
“Right, and when you told me I was ridiculous and you didn’t needme?” That had hurt, and she couldn’t keep her voice from breaking. “That I was terrible at my job?”
“How about when you said I was a failure at mine?”
They both looked away. It was Nadine who spoke first. “That was wrong of me. I feel awful that I said that to you.” She did, too, filled with a sick emptiness that she could have been so nasty.
That reduced the tension between them.
“I shouldn’t have said what I did either,” said Wes. “I was angry, and it was shitty of me.”
“Yes, it was.” She looked at the wine and came out with it. “I’m sorry.”
Wes sat down. “I’m sorry too.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “For what I said and also for going to talk to theSpear. I think I might have heard what I wanted when we talked about going to the editor. I should have told you straight out that I was going to talk to Jason and pitch the story to make sure there was no misunderstanding. That’s my fault.”
“I knew it!” Nadine jumped up, feeling vindicated. “I was right about that conversation. I knew I was. Itwasa big deal.”
Wes’s face made it clear he was trying his best. “I’m sorry for saying that. I swear I wasn’t consciously trying to scoop you.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Who did you tell?”
“Jason wasn’t in. I talked to Tyler.” He told her the conversation, and she sat back down.
“First, what a dick. Second, no one saw the story you were writing?” she confirmed. “You only used Dot’s name and not John Wilson? Or mentioned me?”
