On the Record (Record #2)(79)

They reached her office, and Savannah nodded her farewell. Liz stepped inside and shut the door. She wanted peace and quiet and the feel of being in control of something. She booted up her computer and plopped down in her chair.

As the screen came to life in front of her, her phone started vibrating. Liz fished it out of her pocket and stared down at the screen. The New York Times.

“Hello?” Liz asked. Normally when Nancy called, it was from her personal line. Liz had programmed the main line of the New York Times into her phone along with several other numbers Nancy had given her at the start of last semester, but Nancy had never used them.

It made her jittery with excitement.

“Liz, it’s Nancy. How are you?” she said in her thick northern accent.

“I’m doing well, and yourself?”

“Really well up here. When do I see you again?”

Liz furrowed her brow and tried to recall when she was next scheduled to be in New York. She knew for sure the first weekend of her spring break, and that was only a couple weeks away. She told Nancy as much.

“Perfect. That’s perfect timing.”

“For what?”

“Liz, I’m really very pleased to have worked with you so far this year, and I’d like to extend a job offer to you working as a political journalist here at the New York Times starting post-graduation.”

“Oh my God,” Liz breathed softly.

She had been waiting to hear about her job applications. She had heard back two noes already, but they hadn’t been a surprise. And now she had a job offer on the table. Her head told her that she should take some time to think about it and weigh her options, but her gut told her just to take the damn deal.

It would get her out of Chapel Hill. She could start over, move to New York, get a crappy place for way too much money, and just live out her dream. It sounded too good to be true.

“Yes,” she said without another thought. “Yes, I want to take the job.”

No way was she getting a better offer than that, and even if she did, she couldn’t imagine having as good a boss as Nancy. She was ecstatic.

“Wonderful. I can’t wait for you to start. We’ll be in touch with further details.”

“Thank you so much,” Liz murmured before hanging up her phone.

She sat in her chair in shock. She had just accepted an offer to work as a reporter in New York City. Holy shit! Her hands were shaking. She didn’t even know what to do. It was as if everything was finally falling into place. She couldn’t believe it.

The first thing she did was press the button to dial Hayden’s number. It was automatic. She had to let him know. He would be excited for her. This was what they had always talked about.

It rang three times before going to voice mail.

“Hey, Hayden, I have some exciting news! Call me back!”

Liz hung up the phone and tossed it down on her cluttered desk. Job offer at the New York Times. She had to keep reminding herself it was real. When she had gotten the internship there, she had been freaking ecstatic, but that paled in comparison to what she was feeling right now. She didn’t even know what to do or who to tell first.

She opened her email and started sorting through them, hoping that Hayden would call her back soon. She had been so out of it lately that the emails were piling up quickly. She was finding it hard to focus with all the adrenaline pumping through her, but since Massey had taken over, Liz knew she had a lot to do. She would tell Victoria when she got home and they would celebrate with some Patrón, if Liz knew Victoria. Hayden would get there shortly after and then it would all be as it was supposed to be.

Liz stopped on an email that she had from the Charlotte Times. She had become a junkie of that paper’s ever since Hayden had started working there. She subscribed to his byline, which allowed her to read all of the articles that had his name on them. Not that many did, but she wanted to know when they were there.

The email opened up and Liz froze. Her stomach dropped out, and she was pretty sure that she saw stars. This couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t.

The headline read, “Congressman Brady Maxwell’s Alleged Affair with University of North Carolina Student.”

Liz’s vision dipped and she had to clutch on to the desk to hold herself steady. Oh no. No, no, no. This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t possibly be happening.

She needed to read the rest. She needed to see what he had written. Her hands shook as she scrolled down the page. She covered her mouth with her hand as she looked at a picture of Brady under the headline. She had been avoiding him at all costs, and seeing his picture now just made her whole body want to curl up into a ball and die. What had she done?

They had given up their entire relationship, everything, so that he could have his career. Now he was going to be faced with their relationship in the papers anyway! And he had just announced his run for reelection. This could f**k up everything.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t even focus enough to comprehend what she was seeing in front of her. All she saw was Brady and how horribly she had f**ked everything up.

Her fingers curled around the desk, and she forced herself to read the article. It was all in there. Everything she had told Hayden and every twisted way he had interpreted her relationship with Brady. How she and Brady had met, their sexual relationship, the age difference, the pseudonym Sandy Carmichael, even the fact that Heather and Elliott were aware of the relationship. The only thing that wasn’t in the article was Liz’s actual name. She was the anonymous source to her own nightmare.