Page 60 of Inarticulate

The last two were the real kickers—This isn’t what you think it is.AndGive me a chance to explain.

No, thank you. She was going to lock in option B and slink away with her tail between her previously spread legs.

She needed to decompress and clear her head. This wasn’t merely a case of being duped. Her job was on the line. Her reputation and dignity, too. Grant, Kelly, and Amanda would expect her to come back with answers, not a declaration that she’d been sleeping with the enemy.

The ultimate enemy.

“Shit.” Did they already know?

Keenan had spent the night in her room. He’d been given a keycard by one of the receptionists. Was that why the condoms in her trash had been such a big deal? Did everyone think she was working both sides?

“Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.” She ran on the toes of her pumps through the front doors of the building and closed her eyes to the piercing chill in the air.

The situation was snowballing. One mighty avalanche that was burying her. Her world was disintegrating, her professional and personal life crashing right before her eyes. And it was all because of one man.

Keenan Black.

The devil in wolf’s clothing.

Email

Date: 25thDecember

Subject: My Father

Dear Savannah,

It’s Christmas and I’m without you. I thought this year would be different. I hoped I’d spend the day with someone I loved. But you’re not here.

I never spend the holidays with my parents. I grew up in a household that demanded perfection. Clearly, I didn’t fit in.

I was forced out of my comfort zone so many times that, as an adult, I now cling to the infrequent moments that I feel at home.

And somehow I was always there with you.

I guess I didn’t want to burst that bubble.

Women have never been a challenge for me. They see the aesthetics and latch on like they would with any other man with wealth and a favorable smile. So I stopped smiling. I stopped showing my wealth, too. And I found you… not that I was looking.

Do you know that you never once questioned my integrity? Not aloud. And every time we were together I wished you would.

You trusted me, when you should’ve trusted Dominic.

But you weren’t meaningless, Savannah.

You were everything. You still are.

Let me prove that to you. Just write back.

Keenan

Chapter Twenty

Savannah had walkedthe Seattle streets for hours, without a coat, or common sense to notice she was numb to the freezing temperature. She was destined for hypothermia and, lucky her, that outcome had a silver lining because it was the ideal excuse to go home without admitting to the disaster she’d created.

She was a failure. A spectacular, highly accomplished failure who didn’t want to admit her heart hurt more than her pride. But it did. The pound in her chest was rampant, the heat in her cheeks announcing her humiliation to the world.

Her feet pounded the pavement until midday crept into late afternoon. Solace was nowhere to be found. Neither was understanding. She didn’t know why her emotions were a wrangled mess over something far more trivial than her broken relationship with Spencer. It had to be Penny—her conniving smile, her victorious taunts.

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