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The smile that spread across her face was so fake, so incredulous, that it must have looked real to Papazyan because he smiled back at her.
“A byline. You’re offering me a byline.”
“Now you’re beginning to see. Ms. Crestley, this is the only way our arrangement works for both of us.”
She balled her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. “No. You’re the one who doesn’t see. You don’t see anything.”
“On the contrary. I—”
“You’re awful. You’re an awful, awful man, and I’m done with this. I don’t care if it ruins me.” With a little shock, Katie realized that it was true. “I don’t,” she said, half to him, half to herself. “I’ve been ruined before, and I survived. This is a big world.” This was going slightly off the rails. Focus. Focus.
“Ms. Crestley—”
“No.” She stood up, hooking her purse over her shoulder, and stared him down. “I am done making a career from gossiping about people. That’s all this is. That’s all your pathetic little news outlet does. It prints weaponized, politicized gossip, and it’s meant to be cruel to people who—” Katie’s chest ached at the thought of how hard Armin had worked to repair the orphanage from the ground up. He had wanted so badly to do it without taking any of the credit, just because it was the right thing to do.
He was so honorable.
And she had been the farthest thing from honorable.
“What you’re doing is not real journalism. It never was real journalism. And I would be mortified for my name to be in one of your bylines.”
There was that smirk again. No matter what she said, no matter what she did, she couldn’t wipe it from his face.
“If that’s the way you want to play it, Ms. Crestley. But if that’s what you’re choosing to do—”
“I’ve already chosen it.” She gathered her will to turn her back on him.
“Then I recommend that you vacate the city before the story runs in forty-eight hours.” He laughed out loud at what he seemed to think was an excellent joke. “I’ll give you a head start.”
“You’re here.”
Her voice was half-shock, half-resignation.
Armin stood in front of the desk in Katie’s rooms, where he had been standing for the last fifteen minutes, waiting for her to appear. Now she had—walking quickly through the door like she meant to sneak past him and back out of his life before he noticed.
“Yes,” he replied, his own breath cold in his throat. “I am. I’ve been waiting for you to return from whatever errand you’ve been out on.”
Katie lifted her chin, her dark amber eyes determined. “I didn’t know you’d be here.”
“Well, I am, even if you don’t think I should be,” he said. “But that’s not my concern at the moment. My concern is this.”
He brandished the collection of Katie’s notes, the notepad full of details in her neat writing.
/> “You went through my desk.” It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even an accusation—instead, Katie only sounded tired. “Those are my notes.”
“The question is…” He flipped the pad around so he could read the words again, though he didn’t need to. They were burned into his brain. Every stroke of her pen, there forever. “Who are these notes for? Because I can’t imagine why you would need to keep track of how I felt about all these meetings or the fact that I wake up in the middle of most nights.” The betrayal was deep and stinging, and Armin forced down the wild hope that she would have some perfectly reasonable explanation for all of this.
But the only reasonable explanation was that she was a spy.
Katie stepped farther into the room and looked away, down into her purse. She pulled a paper from the depths and approached him. The air buzzed with her presence, the space between them humming—and Armin hated it. He hated the way his body felt lighter and freer at the sight of her, despite what she had done.
“I can’t justify anything but I can, at least, explain everything. You deserve to know. In fact…” She held the folded paper out to him with a steady hand. “I’ve written it out. So…” Katie straightened up and began to turn away, toward the suite’s bedroom. “I thought you could read it while I pack my things.”
There it was, then. The final confirmation that she was a spy. Katie hadn’t even bothered to deny that the notes were innocent.
He opened the letter, but he couldn’t force himself to read beyond the first two lines.
“Where are you going?” he thundered, and Katie froze, then turned slowly back to face him. Armin tossed the letter onto the surface of the desk. “I don’t want some written confession. If you’re going to plant yourself in my household and spy on me, I want to hear it from you.”
