Page 54 of Consumed By Desire

I can’t let him force his way inside my place. There’s no telling what he’d do. This isn’t the Owen I used to know. I can’t tell if he’s changed, or if I never got to know the real him. Which scares me even more. He’s never been the greatest guy, but this is next level.

All too soon, we reach my door. If he comes in, I’ll never get him to leave. I have no idea how to talk him down from whatever he’s thinking.

“You need to go,” I tell him again. “I’m not inviting you in.”

“I’m not leaving,” he says, pressing his hand against the wall for support. “We’ve got to spend some time together. Go on. Let’s go inside.” Owen rips my purse off my arm. “Need some help finding your keys?”

“You heard her. She’s not leaving.”

I’m so focused on Owen that I didn’t hear the footsteps on the thick carpet. I turn around to find Logan and Asher and Julian striding over to us.

“Get lost,” he tells them. “We’re busy.”

That pisses Logan off. “Elena told you to leave,” he says tightly. “That’s what you need to do.”

“You’d best be going now,” Asher says, closing in on Owen along with Logan. Even mild-mannered Julian’s getting angry.

For a moment I wonder if Owen’s thinking about fighting them, but even he’s smart enough to realize he’s out-numbered by three men who are all bigger than him. He’s not that drunk.

“Okay, fine.” He lifts his hands up as if in surrender.

“I’ll see you later, Elena,” he says in an undertone to me, but he’s not quiet enough.

“Not if she doesn’t want to,” Logan says. “I don’t want to catch you in our building ever again.”

“You’re going to have to come through us if you even think of showing up here,” Asher says. Julian looks like he’s going to shove Owen as he passes by, but he thinks the better of it.

“Are you okay?” Logan asks me. They all crowd around me, concerned. My eyes burn. No matter how angry at me they are, they’ll always protect me.

“I’m fine. I’m just glad he’s gone.” I swallow hard. “Can I talk to you?”

With that Logan’s guard goes right back up. Same with the others. It was their instinct to protect me but nothing’s changed between us.

“I need to talk to all of you. Please. It’s important.”

“Sure,” Julian says. “Come on.” He puts his arm around my shoulders in a surprisingly affectionate gesture as he guides me to their place.

I’m almost overcome with nerves. I was hoping to plan exactly what to say before I met up with them. I don’t have time to come up with the perfect thing now, but I need to bite the bullet.

“Elena, there’s something we need to tell you,” Asher says as we all settle in their living room.

“I really want to say something first if you don’t mind. I’m so sorry about what happened. My ex, who you just met, is the one who leaked everything to City Scan. Although the whole thingis still my fault. I should’ve come clean with all of you in the beginning.”

I take a deep breath and continue. “I was just at the office to try to stop my editor from publishing the story. It’s been so heavily edited, it’s not even close to what I originally submitted to her. I’m not making any excuses, I just want you to know that I would never have written that kind of a story. I’m really sorry about how everything turned out. I got so caught up in wanting to get hired, and what was happening with us. It was so wrong of me. I don’t expect you to forgive me and I don’t deserve it. All I want you to know is that I would never have hurt you intentionally.”

Logan folds his arms across his chest. “You really tried to stop the article from running?”

“Yes, I did. I did everything short of wrestling my editor to the ground so I could delete it off her computer myself.”

“I don’t know what you said, but it worked,” Logan says.

I frown. “What do you mean?”

“Our legal team just got back to us. They got through to the publisher and he assured them that he’s pulling the story,” Asher says.

I gape at him. “The publisher?” So he did pay attention to what I told him after all. I thought he might’ve flinched just a little when I told him how Owen and Zan got the info about our relationships, and how much editing she had to do. “I can’t believe he came through.”

I explain what Owen did with my computer and everything else. “I don’t know if it’s actually illegal to tap into someone’s computer like that. If it isn’t, it should be. Owen said it wasn’t, but I don’t know. He lies all the time.”

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