I was about to text her, when the preview video arrived in my inbox on the dot of 7:00 p.m. Since all our friends had to drive back to London tonight, I didn’t feel as though I could delay the showing. I told Tabs to go ahead and texted Amy that we had to start.
With a whoop, Tabs slipped out from under my arm, grabbed the remote, and bounced onto the sofa. I sat beside her, determined to ignore Darcy and quit worrying about his presence. Tabitha was here, and all I wanted to do was stare at her lovely face.
Monty plonked down on the other side of me and started chewing my ear off about the flight pattern of the ducks. I had no choice but to listen politely, while Darcy sat in the chair on Tabitha’s other side and murmured something to her.
Agitation burned through me.
When the show came on, I exhaled and shifted a bit closer to Tabs.
The preview video was only a half hour, and the start was a head-swinging bang, bang, bang of the conflict highlights. The first day with Aberdeeen, our annoyed faces, our eye-rolling. Then it flashed to me in the library—my “confessional” with that exec from London.
I tensed, remembering how they’d cornered me into saying things I didn’t believe about her. Thank God I’d had the sense to shut them down. Except the moment on the screen looked a hell of a lot like when I’d criticized her, and my body froze with a terrible foreboding.
“So,” the exec said on the telly, “there are a lot of comments about Tabitha online.”
49
Tabitha
Istiffened at theexec’s question to Tim. Why was this woman asking him about my online comments? And why hadn’t Tim mentioned it? The woman had taken my confessional too, but mine had only taken a couple minutes.
“Comments?” Tim asked her.
“Saying she’s dull and boring and dreary, a bit of a shrew, and she doesn’t seem at all fun.”
Onscreen, Tim visibly flinched. I couldn’t breathe.
How could they amplify those bloody nasty comments? The real Tim beside me shifted in his seat. I wanted to turn to him, get reassurance, but I wanted to hear what was next.
“What do you think?” she pushed.
Say it, Tim. Tell her to fuck off, without saying those words.
Beside me on the sofa, the real Tim cleared his throat.
Onscreen, he visibly dithered.
She pushed him again.
“We’ve been at odds about a lot of things, but—”
“C’mon, Tim. What do you really think? You can tell me.”
She was being all chummy, and it was so, so obvious what she was doing.
“Is she someone you’d normally work with?” she asked.
This was easy. Not only would he work with me again, he loves me.
“Not…normally,” onscreen Tim answered. “But—”
“But what?” she pressed. “What are you saying? You’re not friends now, are you?”
I knew we’d agreed that he was playing the role of my antagonist, but it still felt like a stab in my side.
“Are you telling me you two arefriends?” she asked.
“Oh no. Not friends, of course not.”
