And what was going on with Grandma Adele?
Emery winced every time she remembered her last visit to Boston. When she’d first walked into the room, her grandmother had said, “And who’s this beautiful young woman?”
Add to that the indignity of what Ethan had done and the loss of her job, and it was just too much.
How could he have recorded her? He must’ve set up a camera in his room, one he didn’t tell her about, and now her most private moments were being devoured, judged, ridiculed and shared by total strangers. She couldn’t stand the humiliation or the betrayal, not only by Ethan but by Heidi. Although she and her producer had never been the best of friends, she’d believed they respected each other on a professional basis. She’d never dreamed Heidi would allow Ethan to destroy her career—especially after he’d already destroyed her on such a personal level by posting that video.
Leslie Simone, a friend of hers and part of the camera crew at the station, had texted her to say she’d heard upper management talking about the situation. Losing both anchors at once had caused their ratings to drop. They needed to stop the bleeding, said that viewers were “attached” to the people they’d been seeing every day for so long. Leslie had gotten the impression they were going to take a step back from what they’d done.
Except...she hadn’t received a call. They hadn’t changed their minds about her.
It would be the ultimate irony if Ethan got to go on with his life as if nothing had happened. Of course it would be the man who was quickly forgiven, even though he was the one who’d pursued her despite the agreement they’d both signed when they were hired. He was also the one who’d insisted it didn’t matter what they did as long as it didn’t affect their work. And he was the one who’d become unbearably controlling, and jealous of anyone who had any contact with her—even her girlfriends. That was why she’d broken it off with him.
Was he heading over to the station right now?
A burst of anger gave her the power to kick off the covers and climb out of bed. It had been only three hours since she’d stopped watching episode after episode of Dateline and gone to bed. But she couldn’t miss KQLA’s morning show. She was dying to see if the station had hired a permanent replacement for her, or if they were still using that amateur Cindy Plank, who’d been after her job for years, as a temporary substitute.
More than that, she wanted to see if Ethan had been given his job back and was there, sitting next to Cindy.
Her hands curled into fists and her muscles tensed. She wasn’t sure what she’d do if she saw him on the screen. She was afraid she’d head to Los Angeles and drive her car into the side of the building that housed the station. The possibility made her that furious; she’d never felt such intense emotion.
Taking only enough time to pull on her yoga pants, which she’d peeled off before falling into bed, she hurried down the stairs.
As soon as she turned on the TV, she lowered the volume to where she could barely hear it; she didn’t want to wake anyone before they had to get up.
Ethan had better not be there...
They’d both broken the rules by dating, and they’d both been in the video that had caused such an uproar among their viewers. The more religious viewers had written in to complain about her poor character. The less religious viewers had made joke after joke at her expense.
Both reactions had been equally painful.
Her heart thumped in a crazy cadence, almost making her light-headed as she waited for the news to start. Was he in the studio, putting on his mic?
Calm down. He’s not there. The station would never hire him back. If they were going to change their minds, they’d hire me. I was better at the job than he was.
That was what she told herself until the news came on, anyway.
But then, there he was.
“You motherfucker!” she yelled.
“Is everything okay, dear?”
The first blast of the TV, before she’d turned it down, must’ve awakened Aiyana. Or Emery’s alarm going off in her room had been louder than she’d thought. The older woman was standing behind the couch in her nightgown and robe, but Emery hadn’t heard her coming. She’d been too highly focused, too engrossed in the questions swimming around in her mind and her own torment at the possible answers to those questions.
“He’s back!” She pointed at the screen. “He’s sitting right there, reading the news as if nothing ever happened. After what he did to me. He...he can’t get away with it. He’s destroyed my life. My dignity. My...my sense of worth and decency!”
Before she knew it, she wasn’t just telling Aiyana these things, she was screaming them, and yelling about what a bastard Ethan was and she couldn’t believe Heidi would let him get away with ruining her life.
A little voice in her head told her she needed to calm down. She never acted this way. It wasn’t right to do this to Aiyana, who’d been kind enough to take her in.
But once she let go of the monster inside her, there was no way to cage it again. She got so upset that she was afraid she might start throwing things or punching the wall, so she pivoted abruptly to leave the room—and knocked into a lamp.
It crashed to the floor, pelting her legs with glass, but she could scarcely feel it. Mortified that she’d
