Hannah let a disappointed sigh loose once she’d pushed Madison et al. toward the back door. It seemed that Giselle, who was now standing in front of her, looking extremely satisfied with herself, had dodged a bullet by not booking this job.
“I met your boyfriend.”
Just freaking great. She’d probably already told him that Hannah had just been using him to earn brownie points with Annalise. So, in addition to losing out on a promotion, she was going to lose the only guy she’d let herself care about in years. That hurt even more than the prospect of losing oral sex with Jack, which was saying a lot about her feelings for the guy.
Giselle stood there, waiting for her to ask the question, which she did. “Did you tell him?”
That bitch had the audacity to look innocent. Hannah had never slapped a woman, but she had a nearly insatiable desire to go Dynasty on Giselle’s ass right now. “Tell him what?”
“About the reason I started dating him?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Just to be a bitch. Like, you got here tonight, and you hadn’t been bitchy enough during the course of your day until this opportunity presented itself.” Hannah quite enjoyed the way Giselle started every time she called her a bitch.
“I think you have a distorted view of how I spend my time.” She laid her left hand across her chest, showing off the iceberg on her finger. “To think, I came over here to tell you something important. To protect you.”
Hannah didn’t bother trying not to roll her eyes. “What are you trying to protect me from?”
“From the fact that your boyfriend”—she said that word with an amount of sarcasm that Hannah did not appreciate—“the man you’ve been dating—has been using you for a news story.”
“What?” None of this was computing. Had he been investigating Senator Chapin? That would have been inefficient. And kind of outside of his lane.
Giselle was ready to drive the point home, though. “Yes, Jack’s been writing a story about how to lose a girl. That’s the only reason he ever dated you at all.”
If Hannah hadn’t felt like she’d been punched in the gut, she for sure would have slapped Giselle then. Just because she was so gleeful while being so bitchy.
“When I saw you together at the Halloween party, I was wondering what my sister’s ex-boyfriend was doing dating you.” She said it as though Hannah was an actual dog. As though Jack had been dating human women and then just decided that he preferred something . . . less.
All this time, she’d thought that Jack had actually liked her. And she’d started to believe that she’d made a mistake giving up on love. She’d started to believe that she was the kind of girl someone lovely like Jack would want to marry someday.
But she’d been wrong. She was the girl he’d used for a fucking news story.
Jack had been ready to humiliate her for his job. She had very little moral ground to stand on, because she’d done virtually the same thing to him. But she had a few pebbles to cling to, because she hadn’t been ready to humiliate him in public.
Suddenly, it all made sense—the way he’d morphed from Mr. Perfect into a regular asshole, doing asshole things. How uncomfortable he’d seemed while doing those asshole things. Introducing her to his mother on their second date, and the rest of his family on their fourth. The mansplaining and the dick pic.
He probably wasn’t even saving it for marriage—that complete and utter asshole! He probably thought it was all okay because he didn’t get his dick wet.
Oh God, was his family in on the joke? Because that’s what he’d done. He’d made a joke out of her. She felt nauseous, the hors d’oeuvres and gin cocktail roiling in her stomach. She’d toasted having a future with him less than thirty minutes ago. And he’d looked her in the eye.
Her office nemesis faded out of her vision. Even though the party had devolved into chaos once the press had peppered the senator with questions, everyone in the room seemed to disappear except for Jack, who was standing next to the ice sculpture with a short, paunchy guy Hannah didn’t recognize.
Luckily, people were still crowded on the dance floor, looking at the stage because Senator Chapin had disappeared in that direction. No one was paying attention to what Jack was doing. Good. Maybe she could murder him in plain sight and get away with it. Doubtful, but a girl could dream.
For his part, Jack likely knew what he was in for the moment he saw her. No doubt the fury flowing off of her was tangible. He moved around the man he’d been talking to and approached her.
She grabbed another gin cocktail off of a server’s tray and took a long drink before coming face-to-face with him.
“Hannah, I—”
“Did you try the signature cocktail?”
He shook his head slowly, obviously confused at the turn in the conversation. She moved quickly, dousing his face in the drink. He wiped his face and licked the gin off his lips. She would have enjoyed it because it was a sexy movement. But then she remembered that everything between them had been a lie. “Delicious.”
She gave him the finger. “Sit on it and rotate, Jack.”
“Can you let me explain?” Of course he’d want to explain. Because no guy dumping her had ever wanted to be seen as the bad guy. And Jack was very invested in everyone around him thinking he was a good guy. Hell, he’d even fooled her into thinking that he was good—if inept.
“No, you don’t get to explain why you used me for a story.”
She flagged down a server with a full tray of signature drinks and pointed to the table next to them. She picked up one of the whisky drinks and hit Jack with it just as he opened his mouth.
“Can you just be reasonable?”
“I think I’m being very reasonable.” He took a step toward her and she took a step back, grabbing two more drinks to wield as weapons. “You’re still alive, so that means that I’m being reasonable.”
“Can’t we just discuss this like adults?”
No hesitation, just another gin drink to his face. “No. I don’t want to discuss how you used me to get ahead in your career.” Adding another whisky drink to his ensemble—this time staining his white shirt—she said, “I don’t want to discuss how you made me come a bunch of times, even though you were using me for a fucking listicle. So generous of you.”
He held up his hands as she grabbed another gin drink from the tray. “It wasn’t a listicle, I swear.”
“So you were going to go into detail about how you used me to prove a point?” Her throat was getting hoarse from the yelling, and Annalise was floating over, so she knew her tantrum wouldn’t go unnoticed.