Page 50 of Consumed By Desire

“You’re…together?” It can’t be true. How in the hell does he even know Zan?

“Yes. We are,” Owen says.

I ignore him as he waits for me to react. “Okay. Zan, please. You can’t run the story. That’s private information that can’t be leaked out.”

“Since you didn’t write the type of article that we discussed, I’ve had to take matters into my own hands,” Zan says. “The information you wrote on your blog is about the CEOs of Vivojen, is it not?”

“What makes you think that?” I straighten up. I never imagined standing up to my boss but I’ve got no choice. I have to stop this from happening. “You have no reason to believe that’s who I wrote about. There’s no evidence to support that claim.” The best chance I have is to appeal to her professional side. Zan’s very big on proper journalism and real evidence to back up any claim.

“We have more than enough to support the story,” Zan says.

“That’s right,” Owen adds. “You use those guys’ names when you write about them, then you change them right before you post to your blog.”

I go numb. “Owen,” I say carefully. “Did you somehow plant a camera in my apartment? Is that why you manipulated my best friend into getting me to stay there?”

He laughs. “I didn’t manipulate Riley at all. All I did was make a suggestion. I thought I’d have to work harder to convince her. Instead she was all concerned about helping you out, as if it was so urgent for you to leave our place.” His mouth curls up in contempt. “It was so easy to get you into that building, I was a little surprised.”

“If you put a camera in the apartment without my knowledge.” I’m trying to keep my voice steady as I force myself to look at his smug, arrogant expression. “That’s so, so illegal. You fucked up hard if that’s what you did.”

There’s that annoying laugh again and I want to strangle him to make him stop. “No. I didn’t do that. I’ve never even been there. I know that housesitter that Riley’s friends with. It’s how I met Riley in the first place, through her.”

“Owen.” Zan’s tone holds a warning. He shakes his head at her dismissively. Nice to know that he’s no more respectful with her than he was with me.

“I didn’t need a camera,” he says. “I was monitoring your computer.”

I gape at him. “You can do that?”

“You can do anything these days,” he scoffs. “I saw everything you did. I watched every single boring keystroke you made. Every agonizingly dull word you wrote about those CEOs. Do you actually believe that you’re in a relationship with two of them? That’s crazy.”

I want so much to tear Owen down but I can’t. Instead I’ve got to convince him and Zan that what they’re doing is wrong, because it looks like they’re in this together.

“You use their names whenever you write a draft before you post it, then change them later. Maybe that was the only way you could tell them apart from each other. It was a great help to us, so thanks for that,” Owen says.

I didn’t even know that monitoring someone’s computer from a distance was possible. Surely it’s got to be against the law.

“That’s not right. Zan, you can’t seriously be going along with this, can you? Owen got all this information without my consent.”

Zan’s eyes narrow. “Tell me, Elena. Did you get consent from any of the CEOs before you spoke to them?”

I open my mouth and close it. Her lips curl up in a way that makes her look mean. “Exactly. And before you ask how I know, I’ve been doing this job for quite some time. I can tell when a writer is BSing me. If I couldn’t tell from the way you acted when we spoke, I certainly would’ve figured it out from that story you submitted to me. It’s not hard to know when formal interviews are conducted. Nothing you wrote reflected that.”

I flinch. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have done that. That doesn’t mean it’s okay for you to publish a piece that will do serious damage to their company. They don’t deserve that.”

The story’s the story,” she says firmly. “It’s going to run as is, as long as you told the truth in your blog. You did, didn’t you?”

I clamp my jaw shut to keep from telling her where to go, but I’ve never been good at hiding what I’m thinking.

Zan gives a self-satisfied nod. “I knew you would, Elena. Since it’s true, we can publish it. City Scan’s got the inside scoop on the very unusual love lives of the Vivojen CEOs. The world will find out all about them tonight.”

Chapter 23

Elena

Miserably I step out into the lobby. I don’t want to leave yet. I’ll regroup and come up with the perfect plan that’ll make Zan reconsider everything and pull the story.

The coffee shop that joins up with the building is still open and it’s almost as busy as a Monday morning. Peering through the glass, I recognize one out of several men in suits. It take me a moment to place him but when I do, my mind takes a turn. It’s the publisher of City Scan. He actually runs quite a few of the company’s magazines and I only know him from his formal picture in the print copies. He looks almost exactly the same as he does in his photo.

I’ve never met him and he has no idea who I am. I don’t know much about what a publisher does but Peyton told me he always has the final say over everything that goes into the magazines.

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