“Right. Fire the expendable girl, cover it up so that you don’t look bad, and then talk about how it could have hurt you and not her,” I spat.
“That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m trying to get you back!” he said. “I already tried to quit, hoping to get you your job back.”
My eyes rounded. “You did?”
“Yeah. I went straight to Jensen after you broke up with me. I told him I’d figure out my own shit.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said, my voice small.
“Yeah. But he refused. He said that, even if I quit, it wouldn’t guarantee you your job. At least not until they find out who sent the videos and if they were going to issue any more threats. Or at the very least until he could find me another position.”
“Wait, threats? You think the videos were a threat?”
“Don’t you?” he asked. “And it worked, too.”
“You think Miranda was threatening the company?”
“Any threat against a member of the Wright family is a threat against the company. And those videos being leaked strategically show me with an employee. Yeah, that’s a threat.”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead. I had been in my own bubble all week. Dejected and depressed over the loss of my job. I hadn’t once thought about this like a pool game. Lining up the balls for three moves from now. Seeing where your opponent would move to get you in the right position. It was strategic. And, if Miranda was playing this game, then it absolutely was more than just getting me out of the way.
“Fuck, she is trying for a bigger game, isn’t she?” I whispered. “She wants something more than me out of the way.”
Landon nodded. “Yeah, we’re waiting for her to show her hand, and Jensen is trying to anticipate it. I’m so sorry that you got caught in her crosshairs.”
I glanced over his shoulder and froze. “I think we’re about to find out.”
“Why do you…” Landon started.
Then, he followed my gaze and found Miranda striding straight toward us.
Thirty-Eight
Landon
Miranda’s painted-on cherry-red dress drew eyes from all directions. And it was exactly what she wanted. So, I purposefully looked away from her and searched out Jensen and Morgan in the crowd. They weren’t hard to find, standing at the front of the room with a handful of big donors. As if she could sense me watching her, Morgan nudged Jensen, and he frowned in my direction when he realized Miranda was here.
Showtime.
“Don’t engage her,” I told Heidi. I moved in front of her, so I was shielding her from Miranda.
“Landon, I am not going to sit back and let her assault you. If she’s the bitch who made me lose my job, then I’m going to give her a piece of my mind.”
Oh, Heidi. God, I love you.
“You’ll be giving her what she wants. It’d be better if you let me handle this. She wants to fuck with me anyway. You’re just…in her way.”
“Fuck that,” she muttered.
“I second that, love,” I whispered before Miranda came face-to-face with me.
Miranda stopped only a foot from me and smiled, as if she were truly excited to see me. As if the last time we had come face-to-face, I hadn’t thrown money at her like a common whore.
“Hello, darling,” Miranda said with a seductive smile. “I’ve missed you.”
“Can’t say the same,” I said.
Her eyes darted behind me to find Heidi standing there. I was sure she was glaring.
Miranda huffed. “I guess Wright has really lowered their standards this year on who they let in to their biggest charity event of the season.”
I gave her a pointed look. “It seems so.”
“Oh, you’re so adorable when you’re upset.”
“Did you do it, Miranda?”
“Do what, pet? I’ve done a lot of things,” she said with a wink.
“Did you take the videos and send them to the company?”
She batted her eyelashes at me. “What videos?”
“You know damn well what videos.”
“I asked you point-blank if you were seeing someone else, Landon. You told me no.” She cocked her head to the side. “I wanted proof for myself.”
“What did you hope to accomplish by this?” I asked. I had to clench my hands into fists to keep them from shaking in anger.
“I thought you would see the error of your ways and come back to me,” Miranda told me.
Heidi snorted behind me and then dissolved into laughter. That did nothing for Miranda. She went from Southern sweet to bitch mode in about two seconds. She sneered at Heidi, and I had to hold myself together.
“That’s not ever going to happen, Miranda,” I told her. “You should turn around and leave here now. Just sign the fucking paperwork and get out of my life with all your fucking manipulative ways and scheming. The fact that you could take those videos and send them to the company to try to get ahead disgusts me.”
“You were the one going behind my back and cheating,” she snapped. “Of course I hired a private investigator to look into my interests!”
“I never cheated on you,” I said as calmly as I could. “But I would never in a million years choose you over Heidi.”
There. I’d laid it all out.
Everyone in the building could hear what I had to say. It didn’t matter to me any longer. Miranda’s threats weren’t valid. Whatever she wanted from me, she was never going to get. And I was tired of hiding my feelings for Heidi. She was the one for me, and I didn’t care who knew it.
“You’re not serious,” Miranda cried. “You’re so desperate to be with someone that you hooked up with your ex-girlfriend’s best friend? Were you disappointed that Jensen had claimed Emery, so you went for second best? I mean, God, it’s fucking repulsive.”
“Shut your mouth.”
“Just face it, Landon. You can’t be alone. You’re addicted to being in love, to being in a relationship.”
“Maybe I don’t like to be alone, but I’d rather alone than be with you any day. And, fuck, Miranda, you have no room to talk. You were already trying to replace me with another golfer in Atlanta.”
Miranda rolled her eyes. “I had no interest in Ben. I was trying to check up on you. And it turned out, you had been lying to me, so I had good reason to do so. And, God, look at what you are trying to replace me with.”
She sneered at Heidi, and I felt her shift, as if to defend herself, but I shook my head. It wasn’t worth it.
“Miranda,” I warned.
“I mean…you went slumming,” Miranda said with a coquettish laugh. “So cute that you think Texas trailer trash with a drug-dealer daddy could ever replace someone like me.”
Heidi lunged out from behind me. Really, after that comment, I didn’t blame her.
“Go to hell!” Heidi cried. “Why do you have to try to ruin everyone else’s lives just because you’re miserable?”
“Oh, honey, I’m not miserable. I had the best years of Landon Wright. Are you enjoying my sloppy seconds?”