Panic jabs at my wrecked insides and I want to crawl under one of the tables.

My heart beats so fast I can hear it in my ears, my throat, my mouth.

It’s over. Everything is over. Cade, my dreams, my plans, my future at KHOT . . .

I only have one choice left.

I have to get out of here.

Cade

MARV IS A giant dick.

With his squirrely face preening, he announces Savannah scored the anchor job, and someone produces a bottle of champagne. He beams in satisfaction as he pops the cork and raises a glass, doing an off-the-cuff toast about what a perfect fit she is for the weekend position.

I focus in on Stone, wishing I was closer to her, but I can’t get through the crowd. Fuck! This isn’t how I’d wanted her to find out.

She appears frozen as she surveys the room with wide eyes. Her gaze careens from Savannah to Marv to Vicky and then me. She rubs her neck with a hand that trembles, the motion calling attention to the pulse beating rapidly in her throat.

Get to her, Cade.

She takes a step back and darts out the break room door.

“Stone!” I call but she doesn’t acknowledge me, her legs eating up the distance between us as she stalks down the hall, headed in the direction of her cubicle.

I push past the reporters at the door and jog to catch up with her.

“Stone, wait a minute—”

“Get away from me.” She never stops her stride, and her voice is low and shaky.

She cuts the corner and enters her space, her gaze everywhere but on me as she picks around at the items on her desk. She mutters under her breath as she shuffles papers aimlessly then picks up a scraggly-looking cactus plant and clutches it. About a foot tall, it’s green and spikey with branches that resemble arms.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

She ignores me as she jerks up her blazer and tosses it over her arm. Her gaze scans the rest of the desk, deciding what to take with her.

“Are you quitting?” My voice is incredulous. I won’t stand for it.

“How astute of you.” Her voice is cold, her face a shuttered mask as she teeters on her heels for a moment then reaches up to the shelf above her computer to jerk down pictures she’d pinned to a bulletin board.

There’s one of her and Kevin outside the courthouse during the Giovanni trial last year, one of her and Vicky smiling at an office party, and one of her and the other reporters accepting an award at the Broadcast News Association convention in New York last year—all of them had been taken before I’d arrived at the station. It hammers home the fact that Stone has worked at this station longer than my own NFL career. She can’t just toss it away.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Look, don’t let Marv win. This Savannah thing, it came out of nowhere for a lot of people. Marv is way too determined to put her in your spot. It’s weird as fuck, and I promise I’ll get to the bottom of it—”

“Don’t bother,” she snaps. With the cactus in one hand, she shoves the photos in her bag, pivots back around, and brushes past me to get back out in the hall.

There are a few stragglers from the break room wandering around, holding plates of cake and wearing smiles. Kevin looks as if he is going to say something when he sees Stone but stops when I shake my head at him.

This isn’t the time, buddy.

They give her a wide berth as she powers through them, heading for the door.

I grab her elbow and flashing green eyes fly up and meet mine. “Don’t touch me, Cade Hill. Don’t you even dare—not after what you did.”

My mouth flattens. “You can’t believe what he said in there. I had absolutely nothing to do with Savannah getting the anchor job.”

“It doesn’t matter. My time at KHOT is over. No one wants me here.” Her breath catches, and her chest rises and falls rapidly.

Without giving her a chance to say no, I take her arm again and steer her in the direction of the sports den. “You aren’t storming out of here without talking to me.”

She struggles to get her arm back, but with her hands full she’s having a hard time. I take advantage of it and usher her into my office where I shut the double doors and turn to face her.

Stiff as a board, she stares at me, anger flitting across her face.

I swallow and heave out an exhale.

God, I wish I’d told her.

“I should have told you,” I say softly as I approach.

Her gaze is hard as flint as she straightens her back even more. “Why don’t you tell me now? Tell me how you helped Marv choose Savannah and how you knew the entire time and didn’t say a damn word to me about it. I told you how much I wanted that job. I told you everything!” She dips her head. “God. I was so fucking gullible. Just when I thought you were . . .” Her voice stops and trails off.

My chest freezes. “What?”

She shakes her head furiously. “Nothing. It’s not important.” Her posture goes limp, as if all her bones have dissolved away, leaving only her skin. “Not anymore.”

My heart beats double time. “I had nothing to do with Savannah.”

“But you were there at the board meeting.”

“I’m on your side, Stone.” My hands clench, remembering the hurried meeting on Monday. Marv had gone in with a tight plan, using the consultants’ logic and then the viewers’ complaints about Stone’s monkey pawing episode. I’d asked him for the proof of the complaints, because I doubted they were as widespread as he’d claimed, but it had fallen on deaf ears. I’d brought up how Savannah was too immature to handle the pressure, and obviously I’d chimed in about her apparent lack of knowledge when it came to basic geography. But, he’d been adamant about Savannah being the new, young fresh face of Houston, and nothing I said had helped.

“I was against it, but Marv managed to push it through. He had sound reasoning and on paper, Savannah has everything—”

“She’s been here less than a year and has somehow managed to take everything!” Her face crumbles and she looks away from me.

“You deserve that job over anyone else,” I say gently.

“Words, just words, Cade. Tell me this: did you know last night—when we were fucking—that I was going to come in here and get blindsided?”

I bury my hands in my hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think he would announce it so soon. I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“And you didn’t think today would hurt?” She grimaces, the cactus wobbles, and I’m waiting for it to crash to the floor. She manages to secure it.

Her face is red as she glares at me. “I fell right into your lap, knowing it was dangerous to get involved with a co-worker, but in the end, it didn’t even matter. Because it wasn’t you that screwed me up, it was me, believing for half a second that Marv and you and Vicky would look at me and my record. It was me believing that I deserved that job, but obviously my brain isn’t pea-sized enough. I’m not young enough . . .” She sucks in a shuddering breath and looks blindly around the room. “I hate this place.”

“Marv made a mistake. Let me—”

She slices into the air with her hand. “You are not going to do anything. Whatever we had”—she motions between the two of us—“is over and done. I trusted you.”

I deserve that, but her words cut like a sharp knife.

“Don’t go,” I say and take a step toward her.