A California Christmas (Silver Springs #7) - Brenda Novak Page 0,84

never received any disciplinary action. I worked hard and did everything I could to be a great anchor—and our ratings were better than ever.”

“It just wasn’t working between you and Ethan anymore. Besides, it wasn’t just my decision. There was general agreement around here.”

She sounded as though she was trying to convince herself of that. “I don’t believe it happened the way you’re trying to portray it, Heidi. I believe you’ve wanted to date Ethan for a long time and got jealous when we started seeing each other. Then he posted that video, and you saw it as your chance to get rid of me for good. But even if Ethan was interested in you, why would you ever want him? You’ve seen what he did to me. If you think you can trust a man like that, you’re mistaken.”

“I don’t want to date Ethan,” she said.

Emery knew better. She could not have mistaken the dirty looks she’d received once she and Ethan got together, nor the adoring looks Heidi had lavished on him. “Even Ethan knows how you feel about him. And he uses that to his advantage and laughs about it behind your back. I hate to be unkind—I know it can’t feel good to hear that—but it’s true.”

Silence.

“Aren’t you happy you decided to hire a guy like that back?” Emery asked.

“Just drop the suit,” Heidi snapped, and disconnected.

Emery was shaking when she let the hand holding her phone drop from her ear. It was difficult to believe she could win a suit against her former employer. They had so much more money and power and access to good lawyers. From what she could tell, slapping them with a lawsuit had acted like a whack to a beehive. The internal buzzing that it had started was probably quickly escalating into a deafening roar as they closed ranks and gathered all their firepower for the fight ahead.

Before this thing was over, they’d make her doubt her ability as a news anchor; just what Heidi had said on the phone made her face sting as though she’d been slapped. And with so many people pointing a self-righteous finger at her, she was afraid shame would get the better of her, too. Maybe, in the end, the judge would side with the chorus of people who’d called her a slut online and told her she’d gotten exactly what she deserved.

She let her breath go in a long exhale as she checked the time. She hadn’t specifically told Susan she was taking her lunch break, and she’d left her soup inside. But she hoped Susan would assume she’d started her thirty minutes off the clock, because she couldn’t make herself go back in right away.

She kicked a rock across the alley. Had she made a mistake picking this fight? Would she regret it?

She pulled up Dallas’s number and sent him a text.

I just heard from the station.

He hadn’t contacted her, as she’d hoped, but she was so drawn to him she couldn’t help contacting him. It felt as though she was caught in some kind of tractor beam—one she didn’t even want to escape. When she’d held him as he slept last night, she’d stayed awake for quite some time just reveling in the sensation of having him there in her arms. She found it deeply satisfying, which was bizarre. She couldn’t remember ever lying awake with Ethan for any reason other than concerns about her parents or planning what she was going to do for a particular story at work.

She tried to tell herself she wasn’t falling in love—it couldn’t happen that fast. But she’d dated a lot of men and never felt quite as she did now...

What did they say?

She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw his response. She’d been afraid, after last night, that he might try to push her away simply because he struggled with intimacy, and he felt he’d let her get a little too close. She knew what’d happened last night—the time she’d spent in his bed, comforting him—wasn’t the type of thing he allowed just anyone.

They’re trying to spin it a different way, change their reason for firing me.

Don’t let them scare you. That they called you tells you they’re worried.

Heidi had tried to convince her that she didn’t have grounds for the suit...

They wouldn’t have bothered if they weren’t.

His reasoning made sense. It was probably Heidi who’d initiated her firing, as Emery had always suspected—lobbied all those in upper management who had