Chloe sat up straight, spilling her salad in the process. "What things? What story?"
"The story on Rex Hamilton. I've got to say, I never saw this coming. You've got balls the likes of which I've never seen … and I've seen plenty." The woman sounded giddy. Giddy.
Panic made a shrill sound when it traveled at the speed of light. "Beth, I'm not kidding. What the hell are you talking about?"
"Don't act like you don't know. Olander got a call after you left. The memo came through the door, and he shot out of his chair as though he was being chased. Left us all sitting there, wondering when the last time was he'd let anything interrupt a meeting. While I was waiting for him to return, I found your story in my email."
Chloe's story. Beth had Chloe's story? "Beth, you have to tell me how you got that file."
"In my inbox, like I get the rest of them. What's going on?"
"Who sent it to you?" Chloe's pulse thundered in her ears.
"You did." Beth sounded puzzled, not that Chloe could blame her.
"Can you double check that?"
"Yes, hang on." The sound of clacking keys drifted through the phone line. "You've got me worried. Is this info legit?"
"Yes, it's legit. Beth, listen to me. You cannot run that story."
"Not a chance. Olander's already seen it."
Chloe's heart sank. Beth was right. There was no way in hell Olander would drop a story that guaranteed national exposure. "How did he see it?" she whispered.
"Direct email. The time stamp is 12:46 this afternoon, and it was sent to me with a copy to Olander. I'm assuming that's why he hightailed it out of the meeting, then came flying back the same way. He was moving so fast, hollerin' the whole while ‘stop the presses,' that he lost his toupee in the corridor. I've been here over ten years, and I've never seen anyone do that. I didn't know people actually said that."
This isn't happening. "Is it running tomorrow?"
"If he can verify it, it will. Olander is practically humping the printing press to get it out there, but he's smart enough to fact-check first. He's got a whole team of people on it, not one of whom knows what's going on with the rest, but he's not going to sit on it. He doesn't want anything to leak ahead of time."
Oh, God. Chloe sank lower in her seat. She'd had no intention of ever submitting that story. She'd written it for Knox-so he could be the first to see the truth. Chloe had gotten to it before any other reporter because she had an insider advantage, but she'd known the story would come out eventually. Rex hadn't hidden his trail as well as he thought he had-especially in light of that last affair, which connected one too many dots. She'd known the truth would destroy Knox, and she hadn't wanted to be the one to break the story.
She couldn't do that to him.
And then the truth hit her. He'd done it to himself.
"Chloe?"
"The memo Olander got during the meeting … do you know what it said?"
"Everyone in the meeting knows. He left it on the conference table when he flew out of there."
Chloe gritted her teeth. "What did it say?"
"Don't quote me, but it was something like ‘Knox Hamilton is offering an exclusive. Holding on line two.'"
She took a deep, unsettled breath. He really had done it to himself. But why? "Look, I've got to go. If the press date changes, let me know." She ended the call over Beth's protests and stared through the windshield, picking absently at the spilled contents of her salad. Knox was going to kill her, but she knew what she had to do next. Before she lost her nerve, she scrolled through the contacts in her cell until she found the one she needed. She tapped the screen. The phone rang only once before the call was answered.
"Toby, it's Chloe. We need to talk."
…
Katherine Hamilton's expression was absolutely unreadable. It had been that way the whole time Knox told her about her husband's latest misdeeds, and when he got to the part about the story breaking, the only shift in her countenance was the slight lift of one of her eyebrows.
Knox pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand and reached for his coffee with the other. Five in the morning was mighty damn early-especially for this kind of news-but his mother had been off at some charity thing the night before and hadn't returned his call … not that it mattered. He wouldn't have told her this over the phone.
Your husband is a bigger cheat than anyone knew. Oh, and he's also a felon. Environmentalism was all the rage. The fact that Rex's cash influence would have led to pollution of an environmentally sensitive area was just the icing on the fucking cake.
Knox had told her everything.
Almost.
"There's one more thing."
"There's more?" His mother looked as tired as he'd ever seen her. He didn't doubt she'd be fine in an hour-she had that way about her-and for the first time, the thought pissed him off. Why couldn't she be real? Maybe if she hadn't perfected the art of pretending the bad stuff didn't exist, she'd have had a chance at being happy. He thought of Chloe and wished his mother would take a page from her book. Maybe if she'd just once threatened to rip Rex's balls off and fucking meant it, he'd have thought twice about what he'd done. Knox didn't blame his mother one bit, but dammit, why did she have to take it?
Chloe wouldn't. She'd never know his mother's unhappiness, because she'd have his nuts in a sling before she let him do that to her.
He drained his coffee cup, buying time before he answered. "Chloe broke the story."
His mother didn't flinch. She simply stood and turned toward the window, through which reflected the shimmering blue of the brightly lit swimming pool. Knox had grown up with that view beyond his mother's breakfast table. Funny how it hadn't changed in so many years, even as it seemed everything else had.
"Chloe broke it," he repeated. "But she didn't send it to the paper. I did."
She spun, and for the first time in his life he saw a break in that famous façade. "You? You destroyed our family?"
"No, Mother. Not me, and not Chloe. Rex did that."
"You could have warned us," she fired back. "Given us some time for damage control-"
"No. You don't get it, do you? He broke the law."
"I don't know where you got your morals, growing up under your father's example as you have, but people who do everything by the letter of the law seldom get anywhere."
"Those may be your rules, Mother, but they're not mine."
She shook her head. "Don't be so sure. The higher the stakes, the more loosely people tend to hold their ideals." She paused, raising an eyebrow. "Take Chloe, for example."
"What about her?"
"I'm not stupid, Knox. The timing of your marriage was suspect, at best. I saw the poll results."
A dark, cold knot formed in Knox's chest. The polls hadn't changed how he felt about Chloe … just what he'd done about it. "I didn't choose her because of the election," he said firmly.
"I hope that's true," his mother said, her voice softening. "Because when you hit send on that story, you did more than ruin what was left of your father's legacy. You cost yourself the race."
That was when it hit him. He didn't care.
Love isn't worth it. Not for anyone, Chloe. Not even you.
He'd been wrong. So wrong. He'd thought his career was what mattered, but he'd hit send on that damned email knowing full well what the consequences to his campaign were.
He'd done it for her.
He could walk away from the election. Hell, he could walk away from his career. But he couldn't walk away from Chloe.
He just had to find her and let her know.
Chapter Twenty-One
Chloe had seriously underestimated what the hell she was doing. Her initial plan had seemed simple enough: arrange a small press conference, tell the world how Knox Hamilton was honest to a fault, and escape before she had a chance to put her foot in her mouth. She'd hoped by speaking early on the day the news broke, the buzz would be so intently focused on her story that the press would fail to notice her speaking engagement, but she hadn't counted on how quickly word would spread.
She should have known.
Instead of a small handful of reporters she more or less knew, she found herself in front of a crowd predominately filled with strangers. And for all she worried over how she would start her little speech, she hadn't considered she wouldn't be given a chance to start anything in the barrage of questions flying her way. She couldn't think, and she sure as hell couldn't tell one question from the next. They hadn't even given her a chance to say anything, and she had no idea how she was going to string two words together to form a thought in the face of all that yelling.
How did Knox deal with this all the time?
He had an obligation to be polite. She didn't. Screw 'em. She put her fingers in her mouth and released a shrill wolf whistle directly into the microphone.