Page 74 of Begin Again, Part 1

When Eden walked into the marketing meeting, she expected Liam to chew her out for her tardiness. But he was surprisingly...nice.

As she took what felt like the longest walk to one of the few empty seats, she wondered if he had an undiagnosed split-personality disorder. The Liam in the front of the room, with his gentle tone and soothing words, was remarkably different from the terrorist in Linda's office. It was almost as if between the time she left him outside his therapist's office and now, something in him had shifted—

"—Ms McBride?"

Eden returned her attention to the front and gaped at the man, still tormenting her thoughts. He was waiting for something from her, and she had no frigging clue what.

"Yes, Mr Anderson?" She pushed her glasses up her nose and gave him what she hoped was an earnest, focused look. She'd only been at Anderson Logistics a little over a week, but she'd sat through enough meetings to perfect the look, along with scribbling nonsense in her notebook to make it seem like she knew what she was doing, when in fact, she had no business sitting at the big boys' table.

"Your thoughts?" Liam leaned on the backrest of his chair and gave her his undivided attention.

"On?" Eden asked in a small voice, bracing herself for a proper tongue lashing for spacing out during his meeting.

Matthew, sitting a few places from her, cleared his throat and brought her up to speed. "We're looking at influencers, and we were about to check out Lydia Edwards' page when you came in."

Eden was instantly alert and lucid when she heard her friend's name. Her sense of self-preservation kicked in, hitting her hard and fast like a shot of adrenaline.

"I don't think that's a good idea!" She blurted out, immediately wishing she hadn't, when fifty-thousand faces turned to her, their eyes shining with curiosity.

"Why not?" Liam was equally intrigued.

Maybe because your son is splashed all over the blog, she wanted to shout. But she bit her lower lip instead, pushing back her panic as she forced herself to calm down.

"So?" Liam prompted. "Why can't we check out Lydia's page?"

Good grief, Eden thought frantically as she wiped the thin film of sweat lining her brow with the back of her hand. Was this a test to see how much shit she could survive in one day? And who the hell was writing the script for the straight-to-DVD disaster movie that was her life?

"Her page is down," she lied when she couldn't come up with a plausible reason. "She told me she'll be doing maintenance."

"Did she now?" Liam nodded, the tension in the room reaching fever pitch the longer he held her gaze.

Eden squirmed in her seat, wishing there was a way she could avoid this train wreck. But it seemed inevitable.

"Her page was fine just a few minutes ago," Matthew drawled, exposing her for the little liar she was.

Eden was so tempted to whack him on the head with her notebook. She threw him a dazzling smile instead to hide her annoyance. "How about I do you one better?"

"And what could that possibly be?" Lucy asked, her voice dripping with something close to sarcasm.

"Let's video call her, and you can ask her anything," Eden offered, buying herself some time. Her voice cracked slightly as she wrung her hands on her lap. "You know, get it straight from the horse's mouth. I mean, some videos on her blog are staged. Nothing beats an interview."

She was blabbering and should probably shut her mouth before digging herself into a hole. But like most terrible liars, once she started, she couldn't stop, and she had to cover up her small lie with bigger lies to make it sound convincing.

The team fell for her sales pitch, hook, line, and sinker. Everyone was all for her brilliant plan. They couldn't wait to meet Lydia or watch her fail. The latter was a real possibility. Lydia was impossible to get hold of during the day, so Eden's brilliant plan was pretty much a bust.

"The floor is all yours, Ms McBride." Liam crossed his arms over his chest.

It wasn't the time or place, but Eden gawked at his forearms, gulping at the memory of how good his hands had felt around her when he held her and kissed her in the elevator in Linda's office not too long ago.

"Ms McBride?" Gibby snapped her back to reality, the all too familiar look of disapproval on her face as she shook her head.

"I'm on it," Eden said. "I'm sending her a text to check if she's available."

Without waiting for her response—not that she needed it—Eden turned on her phone to send an SOS text. She thanked the good Lord above when she saw her friend was online.

St. Eden:Code Red. Take down the site. I repeat, take it down.

Within seconds, her phone buzzed in her hand, delivering Lydia's unimpressed response.

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