Page 96 of Cole

And he did.

Hours later, I breezed through the doors of the Herald with a stupid grin on my face. I could feel it, but I couldn’t do a damn thing about it.

Alanna raised an eyebrow at me as I approached, matching my smile with one of her own.

“You’re in a good mood, and I guess I know why,” she said as I took the coffee she offered me.

“Hmm, is it that obvious?” I wondered, thinking about the couple of orgasms I’d had this morning.

“Of course, it’s obvious. If I’d been working that long at something and finally got my big break, I’d be grinning all day too.”

“For sure,” I murmured before her words registered. “Wait, what?”

Alanna chuckled as she set down her coffee and picked up her phone.

“Look at the message I sent Emmit. The piece is getting so many hits online. There’s no way he’ll be able to deny you a featured writing spot now.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what the hell is going on,” I confessed, puzzled.

Alanna rolled her eyes. “Sure, you don’t. Sending your article from outside the internal network was a nice touch. It came off as very restrained, despite having the scoop of the century.”

“What are you talking about?” I demanded, fear skittering down my spine.

Alanna blinked at me, taken aback by my serious tone.

“Your article about the Harbor Hounds. The one I ran last night without Emmit’s approval… the one that’s got everyone talking. The one you sent from your private email. You really can’t be doing that, by the way. I made an exception this time.” Alanna pulled a face. “Has Marcus spoken to you yet? He already called here this morning to get the article pulled.”

“Let me see,” I muttered numbly, pulling at the open paper on Alanna’s desk. Most of the Herald’s followers were online and over their social platforms, but we still had a few paper copies kicking around.

I flipped to the front page, and forgot how to breathe.

“Gunrunning, under our noses. The Harbor Hounds and Hade Harbor underworld: An exposé.”

Then there it was, right under that horrifying headline.

Story by Isabelle Lancaster

“No, no, no, no,” I murmured. I felt like passing out. “What is this?”

“Your article. You emailed it to the Herald just yesterday.”

“This isn’t my article. I haven’t seen it before.”

“It was from your email address,” Alanna said, clicking things on her laptop. She pulled up the email and showed it to me.

“That isn’t even my private email,” I told her, panicking now. “That’s just some random email anyone could make with my name! You didn’t verify the source?”

Alanna blanched. “Shit, are you serious? But you were working on your big break, and this article, it has insider information in it. I thought you’d finally hit on something even Emmit couldn’t deny was brilliant.”

“Does it sound like my writing?” I demanded wildly.

Alanna shrugged. “I mean, it’s not funny, and it needed a lot of editing… shit,” she trailed off. “Fuck!”

She whirled around and headed toward the IT area of the office to hunt down someone to help. “It’s coming down!”

I pulled my phone out of my pocket. There were no missed calls. Did Cole know already? Did he think I’d really written this? I couldn’t call him. I needed to see him in person to explain this.

“Is it down?” I called to Alanna, grabbing the paper copy from her desk.