“Yeah, that’s pretty much what Reed told me in some texts,” I admit. “I just wanted to hear it from you before I let myself believe it.”
“Do you mind letting me read what Reed texted you about all this?”
“Sure. It’s everything you just said.”
I pull out my phone and she reads all of Reed’s lengthy messages about the grant.
When she’s done reading, CeeCee hands my phone back to me. “I agree with almost everything Reed wrote. But, in the interest of transparency, I should tell you there are a couple places where my narrative differs from his.” She threads her manicured fingers together onto her glass desk. “First of all, Reed doesn’t know this, but I was kind of messing with him during our initial discussion about you. I was going to hire you, no matter what, Georgina. With pay, by the way, one way or another. I’d already decided that when Reed called and started asking me about you. I acted like I was on the fence when Reed brought you up, simply because he seemed so damned interested in talking about whether I was going to hire you, and then he was so adamant I should pay you. It was so out of character for him, I wanted to test the waters and see what the hell was motivating him. But the truth is, I wasn’t going to let you slip through my fingers, whether Reed had called me or not.”
“Thank you so much. That means the world to me.”
“It’s the truth. But then Reed offered to pay your salary! Ha! And I knew my hunch was right. He’d seen you at the panel discussion and had been flirting with you the whole time, just like I’d thought.”
I gasp. “You saw us flirting?”
“Darling, Reed wasn’t subtle. And neither were you.” She chuckles. “But, still, I never would have assigned you to work on the special issue—effectively serving you up on a silver platter to that horny heathen of a man—were it not for a few things. First off, when I told you about the special issue, you let it slip you’d already looked up Reed on Wikipedia. Well, that’s when I knew I’d seen things correctly at the panel. You’d been flirting with Reed, every bit as much as he’d been flirting with you. Why else would you already have looked him up at that point? And then, you expressly asked if you could sleep with an interview subject. Ha!” She snorts. “I loved that you did that, by the way. But, again, I knew at that point I wasn’t sending Little Red Riding Hood straight to the Big Bad Wolf.”
I blush.
“But there was something else that sealed the deal for me. Something that made me feel especially confident about assigning you to River Records.” She leans forward and places her forearms onto her desk. “Your father’s expensive medicine, darling. Paying for that was Reed’s idea, not mine. And that told me you’d caught the attention of more than Reed’s libido. I knew, somehow, you’d caught the attention of his generous heart.”
My heartbeat is thrumming in my ears. I can barely breathe.
“Plus, your father wasn’t the only person Reed helped that day. That generous man donated a quarter million dollars to my favorite cancer charity, even though only a fraction of that sum was needed to cover your salary and your father’s medication.”
I clutch my heart, feeling overwhelmed with love for Reed.
“And then, as if all that weren’t enough, Reed agreed to let you peel a layer of his onion. And that was the last straw for me. I knew, for certain, even if Reed didn’t realize it himself: you’d caught his attention in a way that far exceeded lust. Frankly, I don’t know how you did that from across a crowded lecture hall. That’s some special kind of magic, darling. You cast a spell on that man in a way I’d never seen anyone else do, in ten years of knowing him. Now, did I also get what I wanted out of the deal? Yes, I did. The special issue was a coup for me. And getting him to agree to a more in-depth interview than he’d given before was also a huge coup. But I did not serve you up to Reed as a sexual object. And I did not hire an intern I didn’t already desperately want to hire. And I did not pimp you out or otherwise sell you like a piece of meat.”
I bite my lower lip. “I have a confession to make. I didn’t cast my spell at the panel discussion. Reed and I ran into each other later that night at the bar where I worked. We talked and flirted quite a bit and really hit it off.”
CeeCee palms her forehead. “Now everything makes sense! I was wondering how you’d managed to knock him onto his ass from across a crowded room.”
“Well, yeah. I’m good, darling. But I’m not that good.”
We both laugh uproariously.
“I left the bar with him that night, intending to sleep with him. He drove me to his house, but we never made it inside. We got into a heated argument at his front gate, and I took off in an Uber.”
CeeCee hoots with gleeful laughter. “No wonder he was willing to move heaven and earth to get another bite at your glorious apple.” She smirks. “And if I’m not mistaken, the apple was rather desperate to get herself bitten, too?”
I blush and nod. “After I cooled down, I was pissed at myself for leaving that night.”
Again, CeeCee laughs deliriously. “Oh, my sweet Georgina. You’re endlessly entertaining.” She sighs. “I’m sorry if all of these shenanigans made you doubt yourself, and the fact that you got hired on your merits. I’m also sorry you doubted Reed. He’s actually a wonderful man.”
“Except for the fact that he messed around with Isabel when he’d promised to be exclusive with me.”
CeeCee frowns sharply. “I’m honestly shocked by that. I never would have expected that of Reed. He’s a bit of a fibber sometimes. A good salesman who’s spectacularly adept at getting what he wants. But I’ve never once thought of him as an actual liar or cheater. On the contrary, when it comes to important things—the people he cares deeply about—I’ve always known Reed’s word to be golden.”
I press my lips together at the painful thought flickering across my mind: Yeah, well, ipso facto, I guess that proves Reed never really cared deeply about me.
CeeCee juts her lower lip in sympathy with whatever she’s seeing on my face. “Aw, sweetheart, I don’t know what happened between Reed and Isabel in that garage. The only two people who will ever know for sure are Reed and Isabel, unfortunately. But whatever he’s been telling you about that, I think it’s highly likely he’s telling you the truth, the same way he told you the truth about the grant. I’d bet anything on it.”
I shrug. “Reed says he kissed her goodbye, and that it only made him realize he only wants me. But I’ve been cheated on before, CeeCee. And that’s exactly what my ex said. Plus, I know myself. I’m not going to be able to forgive and forget. I’m not the kind of person who trusts easily in the first place. So, no matter what ‘epiphanies’ Reed might have gained from kissing Isabel—or doing whatever else he might have done with her—I’m not going to be able to trust him completely, again. And that will doom us. So why hop aboard that train again, when I know it will ultimately lead to Misery Town, USA?”
She nods. “I get it.”
“If I knew for certain Reed only kissed Isabel, and that it truly made him realize he only wanted me... I think I could forgive and forget and move on. Everyone makes mistakes. We were still so new, and he was saying goodbye to someone he’d been linked to for a long time. I think I could process that. But like you said, the only two people who will ever know for sure what happened in that garage are Reed and Isabel. And I don’t want to jump back into a relationship where there’s not one hundred percent trust.”