Matthew's glowering stare seers a hole through my face. No doubt my boss had his suspicions when I called and asked to meet him before the early risers filed their way into the building. Those suspicions probably grew a great deal when he saw I came bearing coffee and gingerbread muffins.

None of the pleasantries matter.

The moment I told him I wouldn't be writing an article on Aidan Hughes, his features hardened, and have frozen this way since. He's a naturally hard-looking man, hell bent on the importance of intimidation in every aspect of his life. Most people cower from this scowl—I've seen it enough to expect it.

However, it's never been directed toward me, and that does change things.

"Josephine, you said you were trapped in his home for well over a week. Do you know how many hours that is? How many minutes? Are you telling you wasted all of that time? You were in his home base, amongst his things. I'm positive he wasn't watching you every second of every day."

"There's no worthwhile story there, sir."

"Bullshit. The man's entire family is dead. He's locked himself away. That alone is a story, one our readers would jump to read."

He judges my silence, and my clear conscious with suspicion.

"What aren't you telling me, Josephine? You've never rejected a story. You've always flown wherever I've told you, without a second thought, without questions. You always get the story. What the hell is going on?"

I look into my coffee, trying to swallow back the bad taste in my mouth while I single-handedly destroy my career.

"Sir, I have no interest in exploiting this man's troubles. What I did realize when I arrived is that he doesn't want to give us a story. He wants to be left alone."

"That is a luxury that his money, and his fame have taken from him. There are consequences to being interesting, Josephine. Our job isn't to give a shit. It's to get the truth, to get the best damn story and sell it. That's how we stay afloat."

"I know."

"I have no problem telling you that you are an asset to me, to this company. You are the best, and I know you know it, so I don't have to toot your horn. The second you start caring about their feelings is the moment this business dies. Sentimentality isn't for us."

"I understand that in many cases, Matthew, that would apply. I've done everything you've asked of me until now, you said that. Aidan Hughes is clearly bent by his tragedies, and his lips were sealed. I knew there was no getting anything out of him."

"I find that very, very hard to believe," he growls, his sparse eyebrows bending in anger. "And even if it was, we have enough to write the damn article. So, go to your desk, write it and have it to me by the end of the week, Miss Taylor. Understood?"

I inhale, attempting to steady my frantic heart. He dares me with a glare to push him further.

"Sir, I told you I'm not writing the expose on Aidan Hughes," I announce, definitively.

"Then I'll fire you!"

"You need me."

His features scrunch with disbelief, with fury, mostly because he knows it's true. "You—you—" His hand slams down on the desk, causing me to jump an inch out of my seat. I feel the scalding heat of coffee on my skin. "Damn it, Josephine! You know how much we need this!"

"Matthew, I'll do any other story. I'll go wherever you need me to go."

He presses his knuckles into his desk of papers, breathing evenly, in and out to calm himself. I wait patiently, waiting for the wrath, the blow he's preparing in his silence. He steels himself, straightening and meets my gaze with finality.

"You are so young. So young, and yet so knowledgeable. You started in this industry at an unusually young age...do you know how rare it is to achieve the amount of success you have at your age? I've never encountered anyone so dedicated, so determined to be the best. Every employee I have envies you, follows your lead. So, naturally, when the company heads came to me and asked me who I should bring in for partnership, I only had one name in my mind."

My heart sinks deep into my stomach, deep enough to make me nauseous.

"Partner. Partner at thirty. Partner at a magazine that has never had a female in a leadership position. You'd be the first, lead this company with me."

"Matthew."

"I need to know you are willing to do whatever it takes to have this. Whatever it takes. Hughes appeals to our demographic. Hughes is what is popular. Hughes is our—your—ticket up the very difficult ladder of this industry."

My fingers are trembling against the Styrofoam cup. I implore him to stop with no words at all, staring at him with disbelief. He's dangling my dream over my head, the very thing I've worked my whole life to have...the thing a few weeks ago I wouldn't have turned away for anything.

"I deserve it with or without the Hughes story...sir."

He's grown oddly calm, oddly confident in the past few minutes. His next words remind me that secrets are never hidden for long.

"I'm guessing the seclusion spurred more than a clear conscious. Maybe a bit of romance?" He dismisses it with a wave of his hand, pursing his lips. "Don't fret about it. Honestly. It's happened to most of us. However, know when to realize what is fleeting and what is substantial." He gestures around to the extravagant state-of-the-art room we're speaking in.

"It wasn't fleeting, Matthew."

"So, you are together? You are dating?" He glances arrogantly at the empty room. "Is he here?"

His head tilts when I don't answer him.

"You know better than this. He probably pulled you in so you would do this! Josephine, god, think! You are a smart woman!"

"I am aware of how this looks, from the outside."

"I don't care how it 'looks', Josephine. I don't care what happened. I've told you what you need to do to succeed here! So, what are you going to do?"

Years leading to this moment. Years of putting myself in danger, years of planes and bad hotel rooms. Years of foreign countries and diplomats.

Years of putting my life on hold.

And this is what I get from it? An ultimatum?

Destroy a man and get everything you've ever wanted? Spare him and suffer the consequences.

The person I used to be would be able to sort herself out quick. The person to consider is me. This is my life, my world, and no one else has a say to what I do with it. My career is at the top of my list, and to depart from the plan, to deny the offer in front of me is to betray my inner being.

And yet, to betray Aidan, to betray him would ruin me.

I have no choice.

"Give the partnership to someone else," I say.

Matthew's eyes bulge out of their sockets, disbelievingly. "Get the hell out of my office."

I stand immediately and turn on my heels, dropping my mask of coolness only when I'm free of his office. I slam the full cup of coffee into the trash passing by, fuming, my heels driving holes into the ground as I skirt around the cubicles and desks to get to my office.

I shut the door with a slam, glad no one is in yet to watch me go through the anxiety attack.

Partner. Goddamn partner.

I shove the lamp that's in my way and it topples over. I growl at the release of tension. I want to break things. I want to because I may have just lost everything I give a shit about for a man who will never speak to me again. A man who I spent a week with.

I drop onto the leather loveseat, massaging my face with my hands, trying to catch my breath, trying to stop myself from loathing my situation.

The image, a flash of a moment in my brain, stuns me at first, reminding me of the feel of his bed...of the way the carpets felt under my feet...how his hair smelt when he'd been sitting by the fire. At first it angers me. It angers me because he's not here, because I'm at a loss without those things.

But within seconds, my nose is allowing me to breathe, and my head isn't throbbing so badly anymore. Within seconds, I've become a realist again, a person capable of understanding why I'm alone, and also, why I couldn't betray him.

I'm walking out of the office when Samantha is walking in. She is all smiles at first, excited to see me, bounding down the hallway out of breath. Her excitement slips when she notices I'm not prepared to stop.

"Jo?"

"I'm going to see my mother," I tell her, passing by, not ready to divulge to her anything about my holiday in Leavenworth...not yet.

                                                ***

My eyes have been on my mother for over an hour now.

Hers are glued to the television, immersed in the soap opera on the screen. A man has just murdered his uncle and fucked the maid, but she's immersed.

I might as well be a nurse, an orderly sent in to watch her. These walls of the home I grew up in seem so confining with her like this. This doesn't feel like home anymore. She's having a bad day, which isn't a surprise to me, considering how my own day is going.

I hoped I could come here and apologize for missing Christmas, but I doubt she even noticed I wasn't there. I said the apology to her, and she nodded, smiling, like she didn't understand a word I was saying. I hoped I could come here and ask her for her advice, hear someone praise me for choosing emotions over sense for once.

But today is not that day. Maybe tomorrow will be.

My eyes flicker to the nurse who is starting to prepare the items for her bath, and I lift myself off the couch.

"I'll come by again tomorrow, mama," I murmur softly to her, not wishing to disturb her too much. She nods, and looks at me. Her smile is so different.

"Bye, Jo," she says back. Instantly, I'm overcome. I kiss her cheek, and back away, needing to escape.

                                                ***

Samantha watches me approach the desk with wary eyes, blinking as I walk past her into my office. Judging by the stares I received walking in, Matthew has informed the office in the meeting of my failures.

I'm removing my coat when she bravely steps into the threshold, grimacing.

"I don't want to talk about it," I whisper, hanging the jacket on the coat rack.

"Well, that's too bad."

I walk to the desk, taking a seat. "I really need to work."

"On what? You've given up your story."

"There's got to be something else worthwhile in the world other than Aidan fucking Hughes, Samantha."

Her brows soar at my foul mood, and instantly, I regret my harshness, apologizing under my breath. She comes around the desk, plopping down on the edge.

"What the hell happened, babe?"

I hold my head between my hands, trying to cope.

"More than I could ever tell you."

"Well, what can you tell me?" she asks, tilting my chin up to her gently with her index finger. I stare at her, finding that most words have deserted me. "Hm?" she presses when my mouth doesn't open.

I let go of the pain I've created in my chest trying to hold it in, confessing to her my worst misgiving.

"I think I love him."