An unbearable tension squeezed the room from the moment Elijah realized he’d messed up to the second the door closed behind him.
“Anyway…” My face heated, and I kept my eyes on Kipling. “He’s a Syrian journalist living in Germany. His name is Saiid. I found his Twitter account late last night.”
“Or Tinder…” Bryce, one of the producers in the room, whispered under her breath.
Sitting at the head of the desk, Célian couldn’t hear it. But I could. And I wanted to die. I deserved it. Even I could see why it would make my peers bitter. While they were chasing leads, I’d been chasing orgasms with the future president of the network. The engaged future president of the network.
I took a deep breath, borrowing Kate’s iPad silently and entering a web address. “He uploaded this video, documenting Syrian refugees trying to smuggle their way back to Syria…”
“Back to Syria?” Jessica raised an eyebrow.
I nodded. “They find it difficult to integrate, and they miss their families. Hundreds of refugees come back into Syria every week, mostly through Greece. They enter their own country illegally, on foot, tracing back over the route they used to run away.”
I clicked on the video and turned it around so everyone could see. Most of all, I was relieved to find people no longer looking at me like I was the root of all evil. Now they saw toddlers crying in their mothers’ hands, their lives at great risk.
“Coverage?” Célian looked up at me after the video ended.
Shaking my head, I pointed at the screen. “This video has only been watched five hundred times or so, but I’m guessing more people will find it as time ticks by. This could be a great lead for the special we’re airing next week.”
“Good job.”
Maybe his words would’ve been more believable if they hadn’t felt like hail hitting my skin. I was growing tired of him being so callous. It’s like his heart was wrapped in a thick layer of dead skin—the kind you have on the sole of your foot. A needle could pierce it, and you wouldn’t feel a thing.
I bowed my head, not daring to look at the reaction his compliment had created.
People began to file out of the room, and so did Célian. He probably knew I was about ready to strangle him and didn’t want a shouting match. I stayed inside, watching Kate pretend to collect her things at a snail’s pace.
She looked down as she spoke to me. “Célian did the only thing he could to make sure both your asses were covered. He did it in his own fuck-you-very-much way, but he meant well. You’re about to get a lot of heat for it, but remember—better to address it here than let The Daily Gossip give people their version of your story.”
I looked up, through the glass wall, and watched the news spread like wildfire—people hunching down and whispering into their colleagues’ ears, secretaries marching out with their cigarette packs so they could gossip downstairs, reporters passing the newspaper James had brought between them.
“I think he just killed my career.” My head collapsed into my arms on the table.
“Killed? No.” Kate tossed her things into her bag and stood up. “But he just made it a lot harder for both of you. So you better get out there and start proving to people what I already know: that you were born to be a journalist.”
The next few days were a blur. Things somehow got both better and worse.
Better, because people had very little time to duck their heads down and whisper about us. Célian was running around the office, screaming his lungs out at them. We were severely short-staffed, and every calamity in the world had decided to land at our feet.
Worse, because ever since the new ads started rolling, Célian was in and out of meetings on the sixtieth floor, and every time he came back, he punched a wall to its untimely death. We were four holes in, with our ratings slipping each passing second and our competitors openly discussing our current situation as a network dying a slow, painful, and very public death.
Célian had not been kidding.
Mathias wanted to kill LBC before he left, and now that Célian was no longer engaged to Lily and in no position to overturn those decisions, he had to watch it crumble, eyes wide open, Clockwork Orange style.
Célian wasn’t the only one trying to plug LBC into a life-support machine.
James Townley got into a screaming match with Mathias in the middle of the newsroom the day after the commercials started running and threatened to quit.
“You’re ruining this business, and your son.” He’d thrown a batch of documents in Mathias’s face.
“If you’re unhappy, James, you know exactly where the door is.” Mathias had pointed at it for emphasis.
“Yes, Matt. You’ve showed it to me plenty. But I’ll never leave here, and we both know why.”
Célian had dragged his anchor to the conference room and had a heated conversation with him. They’d come out looking spent, just in time to see Mathias wink wickedly through the closing doors of the elevator.
If nothing else, Célian had found an ally in James, one person to cross off his Guinness records-worthy shit list.
The other downside of LBC’s looming demise was that Célian and I hadn’t had time to talk to each other since the news broke that we were together.
I was still mad at him, but it was difficult to confront him properly when he was running on coffee and energy shots, trying desperately to save his dying network. It was my educated guess that he hadn’t slept more than ten hours combined this week.
So when Friday evening rolled in, I was surprised to see him walk to my desk, in front of everyone, and lean his hip against my file cabinet, his signature hands-tucked-in-pockets and devil-may-care smirk on full display.
“Chucks.”
I looked up. He had dark circles around his eyes and a three-day stubble. I desperately wanted to give him a piece of my mind, but there was no point in kicking him while he was down.
“Jerk.”
He arched an eyebrow, and I shrugged. “I thought we nicknamed each other the things that represented us.”
He leaned down and placed a chaste kiss on my temple. Everybody stopped what they were doing and stared at us, and I felt myself turning crimson. The air stood still in the room. He was gasoline. I was a match.
“Dinner and an apology,” he said—not offered—in front of everyone, so cocky and sure that I would jump into his arms.
“You should probably start with the latter to get the former.” I sat back and looked at him blankly.
He hung his head and shook it, laughing. “I apologize for outing us in a less than diplomatic manner. But not for making sure everyone knows that you’re fucking mine.” He leaned down, his lips grazing my ear. “Hang on to this anger, Chucks. I’ll be happy to work your crazy ass up in bed and fuck every doubt and complaint out of your tight pussy.”
If I were an emoji, I would be drooling a little pool under my feet.
“I guess you could buy me dinner.” I kept my expression schooled, and he tugged at my jacket draped over the back of my seat, helping me into it.
“Guessing is a gambling game. I’m definitely buying you dinner tonight.”
“We’re going to have a long talk,” I said, feeling Jessica and Kate watching us with horror and fascination. I don’t think they’d ever seen anyone talk back to their boss.
“And even longer makeup sex.” He grinned.
Thirty minutes later, we were in a Chinese restaurant off Broadway. Célian was drinking bottled beer as I ordered every single thing on the menu.
“Sorry.” I handed our waiter the velvet red tariff. “I can’t eat when I’m stressed, and this is the first time we’ve spoken since Monday, so I’m making up for lost time.”
Célian unfolded his napkin, frowning at it like it had accused him of something, considering my words.