Page 62 of Saved By the CEO

For a while, we eat in silence. It isn’t exactly comfortable, but it isn’t unbearable either. Both of us know there are things we could say, but neither of us is stupid enough to say them at an airport gate surrounded by strangers.

I finish the sandwich and eat my tiny cookie crumb for dessert. He finishes his substantially bigger piece. When boarding finally starts, we stand with everyone else. Andrew’s hand settles briefly at the small of my back, guiding me forward through the crowd. Barely there and completely unnecessary.

I feel it everywhere.

SEVENTEEN

Josh is a fucking piece of shit.

I’m back in the office after our New York trip, and something is off. There’s a weird, charged energy in every room I enter. People avoid my gaze. Conversations die when I get too close. Jessica from Client Relations points at me and whispers to the woman beside her like we’re in fucking high school. Louie from Architecture walks so slowly toward the elevator that it’s painfully obvious he’s hoping the doors will close before he gets there, so he won’t have to ride with me. And Tate from IT just straight-up glares at me in the hallway.

I spend the first few hours of the day wondering what the ever-loving fuck is going on. Then, while I’m sitting alone in the cafeteria, watching people very pointedly avoid my table, it hits me.

Josh.

This has to be Josh’s doing.

I see Megan walk in and call her name. Loudly. She freezes for half a second, and I can see the exact moment she considers pretending not to hear me. Unfortunately for her, I am not above making this everyone’s problem.

“Megan!”

A few heads turn.

Good.

I wave one hand in the air like a complete idiot until she finally walks over to my table. She doesn’t sit down.

“Carly, hi,” she says, avoiding my eyes. “How was New York?”

“Terrific. Now tell me why everyone is avoiding me.” I lean forward. “Did Josh say something?”

She shifts.

“Megan.”

She bites her lip, glances around at all the people pretending not to listen, then sits across from me. “Okay, but please don’t tell anyone I told you.”

I give her a tight nod.

She lowers her voice. “Josh has been saying things.”

“What things?”

Megan winces.

And then she tells me.

Apparently, Josh has been telling people that I cheated on him with Andrew. He’s gone into gross, humiliating detail about how we were supposedly fucking in Andrew’s office and how the New York trip was just a cover for some kind of sex bender.

Oh, and get this: he’s also been telling people I’m actually kind of shit at my job. That other people have to pick up my slack all the time. That Andrew only keeps me around because we’re sleeping together.

And apparently, the only reason I got to help with the press briefings is because I begged Andrew for the chance, and he agreed because, you guessed it, we’re fucking.

I’m going to kill him.

I’m going to strangle that little rat of a man with my own two hands until his throat is nothing but a chewed-up pool noodle.

“That’s not true,” I say, my voice sharp. “You know that’s not true, right?”