Page 146 of The Love Haters

“He doesn’t know that.”

“So Hutch thinks that you and I—evilly,deceitfully—planned this whole thing from the beginning for nothing more important than not getting fired?”

I could sense Cole shrugging on the other end. “Maybe?”

All that wondering I’d done over why he wasn’t taking my calls?

Guess we’d cleared that up.

“Cole! You lied to him! Hedetestsme now. He won’t even look at me. You can’t just leave him thinking that!”

“I can’t expose Rue. She hasn’t even told him she’s sick.”

“Rue should tell him the truth now! You both should! About everything!”

“I agree. There’s only one problem: he’s not answering his phone. And he’s probably a little busy right now. But I’ll keep trying, okay? I’ll find him, and so will Rue, and we’ll set all the records straight—okay?”

What else was there to say? “Okay.”

“By the way,” Cole said. “We’re all good with Sullivan now.”

“What do you mean,all good?”

“I mean, she knows you and I aren’t dating, and she’s fine with it.”

“Why would she be fine with it? I thought she was going to blackball you and destroy your career.”

“That was before we spent the night together.”

“What!”

“Remember when you kicked me out?”

“Yeah?”

“She took me in. Enthusiastically.”

“Please tell me you didn’t take advantage of our boss that night! She was so drunk! She vomited up two bottles of prosecco!”

“I did not take advantage of Sullivan that night,” Cole said.

“Thank you.”

“It was the next morning.”

“Oh, my god, Cole. Why do you always have to make everything worse?”

“Pretty sure I made things a whole lot better.”

“YousleptwithSullivan?”

“Yep. Except now I call her Sully.”

“Now she’s really going to fire you.”

“Nope.”

“Nope?”

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