Conflict of Interest - By Allyson Lindt Page 0,62

sharp pang dug into Kenzie’s chest and tears pricked her eyelids. “I don’t have a choice.”

Riley shrugged and turned away. “I don’t see a gun to your head.” She left, closing the door behind her, the latch clicking shut and echoing like a shot in Kenzie’s head.

Another layer of guilt sank over Kenzie. She’d known Riley wouldn’t understand. She never did. It had to be this way. There weren’t any other options. Her stomach clenched with despair, and her eyes burned.

As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t just lay around forever. She pushed herself out of bed, shuffled the few short feet to her desk, and dropped into the mesh chair. Riley’s words taunted her as she started her laptop.

Why was she even dwelling? That was what had gotten her in trouble in the first place—believing that life would be better if she learned how to let loose. A tiny part of her reminded her she probably wouldn’t have gotten to know Scott the way she had if it hadn’t been for that impulse.

She mentally scolded herself. Then she wouldn’t have fallen for him, wouldn’t have lost him, and wouldn’t be aching now.

She opened a web browser in autopilot. A blank search-engine screen stared back at her. What was she doing? She started typing in the search box, and the predictive results scrolled link after link to car dealerships.

She clicked down to Scott Evans, Jr. She lost track of time as she jumped from one site to the next. A newspaper article about him entering rehab at sixteen for alcoholism. Junior high yearbook photos from a very private, very expensive finishing school. High school photos of a quarterback who led his school’s team to their worst record in decades, obliterating the way the school had worshiped his father’s football career.

And blurb after blurb from gossip and society sections of local papers, older ones mentioning the well-behaved pre-teen sliding into quiet, sullen, and then the son who had disowned his own father.

She didn’t know where to focus her thoughts first. He knew it all—everything she’d been trying to teach him about how to dress, behave, socialize, draw positive media attention, he already knew it. She traced her fingers over a black-and-white photograph of Scott in high school. He looked so very miserable.

Then again, how happy could a person be having a lifestyle they didn’t enjoy shoved down their throat on a daily basis? She dropped her head into her arms. No wonder he’d been so resistant. He’d even tried to tell her, and she hadn’t listened.

It was true, her job had been to make him look good in front of the cameras, but had she gone too far trying to change how he appeared instead of doing the right thing and making them appreciate what he already was?

Damn it.

* * * *

Scott grabbed his phone the moment it rang, hope and nausea churning inside. “Grant, how are you?”

“Better than you, my boy.” The usual underlying chuckle was gone from Grant’s voice. “You really screwed things up. Not just for you, but for that young lady.”

The statement gnawed on another layer of his mood. He wanted to believe she had used him as much as he had enjoyed her, but she’d made it clear that most of their relationship was in his head.

Scott pushed the thoughts back before they could become the jumbled mess they had every time they’d surfaced over the last twenty-four hours. “I know. I need information.”

Grant would know what he was talking about. “I can’t give you specifics, I can only tell you the board is split down the middle. You’ve made a lot of influential men—people who expect everyone to take them seriously—believe you think their word is meaningless.”

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit. He bit back the curse. If they voted to fire him, he’d lose the second most important thing in his life.

Wait. First. Right?

Right. Because Kenzie wasn’t in his life anymore. He sandbagged the flood of thoughts again. Not that he cared. Only intensely and painfully.

“I warned you about selling your soul.” Grant’s warm sympathy interrupted the rambling thoughts.

Scott snapped back to the conversation. “I know. But what was I going to do?”

“Buy it back.”

That was the fail-safe. The loophole. Scott knew that, but he was still concerned. “Buying out and firing Cartee isn’t going to convince the rest of the board I’m worthy of keeping my job.”

Grant sighed. “You’d have to convince them Hank was the only real risk.”

Scott’s eyes grew wide at the thought. He’d found