Page 55 of Consumed By Desire

“It’s a grey area,” Julian says. “Spyware can be illegal to install, but simple mirroring isn’t. What he did was certainlyunethical, but likely not illegal. I’d have to take a look at what specific steps he took.”

“We’re going to monitor and make sure it doesn’t pop up anywhere else,” Julian adds. “That editor of yours doesn’t seem very trustworthy. She still has the story in her possession.”

“For now,” Asher adds. “Our legal team’s working to get all traces of it destroyed, and they’ll be successful in that soon. For now we have the publisher on our side and that’s enough. Knowing that the information was stolen from your computer will go a long way towards making that happen. We should be able to get rid of it completely.”

I want to collapse in relief. “That’s such amazing news.”

Logan’s gone quiet. I sneak a glance at him. His expression’s softening but not by much. I hate that I’ve hurt him, and all of them.

“I’m really sorry that I didn’t tell you I was writing that story,” I say again. “I got caught up in everything.”

“I get that, I guess.” He shrugs. “Are you still going to work for them?”

I haven’t even thought that far ahead. “No. Even if they wanted to hire me after all of this, I never would.”

I squeeze my eyes closed for a moment. All of this was for nothing. I risked their company and our relationship and now I won’t even have a chance to work at City Scan.

“I’m so glad that the story’s going away,” I say as I stand up to leave. “And I can’t say it enough. I’m really, really sorry I screwed up your night and everything else.”

“Where are you going?” Logan asks me.

“Well, it’s late. I should go home.”

He shakes his head. “Don’t you want to stay?”

I blink at him. “Stay here? With you?”

“Yes, of course,” Asher says. “Why wouldn’t you?”

“Are you breaking up with us?” Logan asks.

My heart constricts. “Me? After the huge mess I made and all the damage I did, I didn’t think you’d want me in your lives any more. I mean, I wasn’t even sure you’d want to see me again to let me apologize.”

Logan shakes his head. “I didn’t, at first. Everything was in a bad state, and it could’ve gotten a whole lot worse. Is there anything else you haven’t told us that we need to know, Elena?”

“Nothing.” I twist my fingers together. “I promise you. I’m a waitress who has aspirations to become a journalist. Or I used to. I’m going to have to rethink my future career plans now.”

“Why?” Julian asks.

“I wanted to work in investigative journalism to inform people and make the world a better place. While I was trying to do that, my own ethics got twisted around. I never wanted to do any harm damage to worthwhile endeavours. I can’t risk it happening again.”

“It wasn’t just you,” Asher says. “Your ex had a hand it in and he’s a real piece of work.”

“You shouldn’t leave your dreams behind because of one bad experience,” Julian says. “Just be more careful next time. Test out all the options and make sure you get the right result.”

“The scientific approach.” The glint in Logan’s eyes betrays his serious expression. “Works every time.”

“Even if I wanted to, I won’t be able to work for City Scan or any of the company’s other publications. Going above Zan’s head is career suicide.” I rub at my eyes miserably. “Word travels fast.” I flinch when I picture Zan talking about me. No one crosses her, especially not someone who’s as new to the industry as I am. The realization hits me with full force. My chances at being a journalist anywhere are destroyed. “I won’t be able to get hired anywhere else either.”

“You can figure that out later,” Logan says. “There’s no reason to leave now. We want you to stay tonight. Maybe even longer than that.”

My heart swells up. I glance over at Asher. “We know you didn’t set out to deceive us,” he says. “Everyone makes mistakes.”

“That’s right,” Julian adds. “It would take a very long time to tell you all the different versions of our research we’ve gone through to get to where we are today. If we’d given up at any stage, there wouldn’t be a company to write about.”

“We’re not breaking up with you, if that’s what you thought,” Logan says.

“Of course I thought that. I screwed everything up so hard. I can’t believe you can’t even look at me now.”

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