Page 105 of Breaking News

“What’s up?”

“Do you think this is going to work out?”

My stomach sank as my mind jumped to my relationship with Graham, assuming that’s what Chase was talking about. But why would he be asking about that? “What do you mean?”

“Me being your co-anchor. I’m still in my trial period here, but I’m starting to like this. I’m just afraid I’ve made so many mistakes that they’re going to put me back where I was.”

“Oh.” I let out a breath of relief, running my fingers through the ends of my hair. “Actually, Chase, I think you’re getting better every day. If they try to yank you away, I’ll stage a revolt.”

I meant every word. Somehow, against all odds, we were making this work better than I’d imagined.

But in the back of my mind, I worried he might be the sole anchor soon, depending on how the network chose to handle my reckless, totally fireable relationship with our CEO.

But again, there wasn’t time to dwell on that.

The countdown hit zero, and the cameras began rolling. Chase was still a little stiff while reading some of the headlines from the teleprompter, but this time, when he stumbled, he chuckled at himself and started over. It was endearing, in a way.

And once we started talking about our New York trip, he loosened up even more, taking my teasing about ghost hunting at the library in stride. During Bernard’s weekly forecast, I glanced around for Olivia, spotting her across the studio with her eyes glued to her phone. Since one of her jobs was to compile potential stories for us, I didn’t think much of it.

But then, during the final commercial break, Olivia walked right past the crew and all the cameras, her face pale as she handed her phone out toward me, “Sorry, you need to see this right now.”

My skin crawled with dread as I took the phone from her and looked down at the screen. The first thing I noticed was a picture someone had snapped of Chase and me on their TV screen with the caption, “Is it just me or do these two have a lot of chemistry? Wonder if they’re dating IRL.”

That wasn’t so bad. In fact, I’d even warned Chase people were probably going to say stuff like that. It came with the territory, and it wasn’t exactly a scandal. It was probably good for our ratings if people assumed we were into each other.

My relief was short-lived, however.

Someone else, an anonymous group member, had shared the post in Concerned Citizens of Woodvale Facebook Group, and their caption made me go completely still.

She’s too busy screwing the CEO to mess around with this guy. Lots of fishy stuff going on at WWTV. I’ve been hearing that this CEO is just as corrupt as the last one. It should probably be looked into, if you ask me.

The studio spun around me as bile rose to my throat.“Olivia,” I said, widening my eyes at her. “Go show that to your father right now. Tell him to contact Randy Sloane at Sloane’s Automotive immediately to have the post removed. He’s the admin of that group.”

“Okay, I will,” she said, nodding and giving me a worried, almost sympathetic look before turning to leave. Maybe shewasn’t that upset with us, or at least not upset enough to root for our downfall.

“What’s going on?” Chase asked, but I was too busy eyeing Marco, who was slipping his phone back into his pocket in the doorway of the control room.

Did he know something?

And would he sabotage the whole network just to make Graham look bad?

“Ten seconds,” I heard him say in my ear.

I didn’t answer Chase’s question—there was no time. Instead, I took a deep, shaky breath and launched into our final segment like everything was fine. I closed out the show with a lighthearted reminder about the upcoming Watermelon Festival, as if my entire career wasn’t suddenly dangling by a thread.

It was rough, but I made it through. And the second the cameras cut, I ripped off my lapel mic and stood up. “Graham and I were exposed,” I muttered to Chase, knowing he’d pass it on to Meghan pretty quickly.

I spun on my heel and walked straight off set, my flats smacking the tile with more force than I intended. How many people had already seen? How many times had it been shared? With my hand clutching my stomach like I might throw up, I burst through the studio doors and took off down the hallway in the direction of Graham’s office.

But I heard Xander’s voice echoing from the stairwell, and it stopped me in my tracks. I turned to see he had Isaiah cornered, and it didn’t sound like a friendly chat.

“I want every name,” Xander said. “Every single person you talked to about this.”

I approached him from behind as Isaiah stuttered and stumbled over his words.

“Spit it out, Napoleon,” Xander urged, motioning with his hand for Isaiah to hurry up.

I clutched his arm. “Xander. Enough,” I demanded, meeting his eyes. “You really think threatening an intern and calling him names is a good idea?”

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