“I know, I know.”
“And not by users who check the book’s rank on the bestseller list dozens of times a day, Hannah. This is the one.”
I shuffled to the next page and stopped. This is the one. Who is the one? I stared at the printout of Melanie’s profile. “Impossible,” I whispered.
“She looks so young, I know.”
I began to laugh. The sound was hysterical and unstoppable. Melanie. Alexis Stromgard. Matt’s “private driver” stared at me from the page. There was her unmistakable hair, the short red waves surrounding her face. She grinned at me like she’d grinned at Matt while I watched from the bedroom window.
“Hannah?”
My laughter rose and rose, and then it stopped. I felt nauseous.
“She’s just … so young,” I stammered. No—what did this mean? It couldn’t be a coincidence. The girl who published Night Owl couldn’t work as a private driver for hire on Craigslist and just happen to be working for Matt.
Matt lied to me. Again.
Matt knew who she was and he lied to me.
All this time, he knew who put Night Owl online. While I dodged Shapiro and Nate and Aaron Snow. While I lied for him, he lied to me.
Questions swarmed my mind. I covered my mouth and pressed my forehead against the car window. Tears threatened, stinging in my eyes.
“Hannah, please. Talk to me.” Nate touched my shoulder. He always touched my shoulder, my elbow, somewhere chaste and safe. After a moment, his hand slid to the middle of my back. “I shouldn’t have brought this up. It makes you miserable. God, I’m so insensitive.”
Nate loosened the papers from my hand and shoved them back in the glove box.
“I’m fine,” I mumbled.
“No, you aren’t. I can’t imagine how horrible it’s been for you—this book circulating—after everything that happened. Forget this, please. Look at me.”
I swiped my coat sleeve across my face and turned to Nate. I almost started to cry again when I saw his worried gaze.
“Do you seriously”—I sniffled—“think she wrote it?”
“I think she published it. Did she write it? Maybe not. She’s legally liable for distributing it, though—and more so if it’s not her own work. But that doesn’t matter, Hannah.” Nate tilted my chin up. I flinched at the touch. His long, elegant hand was exactly like Matt’s, but his eyes were far kinder. Why didn’t guys like Nate ever fall for me? “The lawsuit, I can see how much it bothers you. If you wanted me to drop it, you only ever had to ask.”
Nate’s words settled on me slowly.
He would drop the lawsuit for me, which Matt and I wanted all along.
“No,” I said. I buckled my seat belt and steadied my breath. “I don’t want you to drop it, Nate. I want you to ruin that girl’s life. And I want a drink.”
*
Nate was staying in the Chancellor’s Suite at the Hotel Teatro.
“I have a bottle in the room,” he told me, which turned out to be two bottles—Johnnie Walker Quest and Balvenie. (And “the room” turned out to be three rooms—a bedroom, boardroom, and living room—with wood-paneled walls, European furniture, a table for ten, and a limestone fireplace. Damn.) “Too early for this?” He lifted the Balvenie. “I like to bring something nice when I travel. I’d rather not be at the mercy of wet bars, if you know what I mean.”
Nate seemed altogether comfortable with me in his hotel room, maybe because Owen was present. After Nate carried him up, Owen went straight to the bedroom. I heard the TV.
I checked my watch. “It’s past noon. A good time for a drink.”
“Agreed, Miss Catalano. Single malt or blend?”
I blushed. Scotch whiskey was all Greek to me.