Page 41 of Spin Control

“Hello, Todd,” Elizabeth says.

The man’s eyes go wide and his hand drops like a weight. “Lizzy.”

What the hell? A man named Todd gets to call her Lizzy,?

She crosses her arms, and sizes him up. “I always knew you weren’t good enough for my sister.”

I register that bit of information right as I clock the gold wedding band on his finger. This guy isn’t hers—he’s her sister’s.

But also: holy shit.

“This isn’t what you think,” he says easily. “Lizzy, meet Bianca. She’s a colleague of mine at NASA.”

My eyebrows shoot up. Todd the brother-in-law just casually works at NASA?

“Oh wow, you’re Lizzy!” Bianca says, her voice high-pitched and breathy—sounding exactly like someone who was just caught flirting with a married man by his sister-in-law and is panicking.

Elizabeth ignores Bianca entirely. “To be honest, I’m not even surprised. Men like you always think you’re untouchable and that you won’t have to suffer the consequences. But the thing is, Todd, the reason my job exists is because of men like you. You think you can get away with absolutely anything. And I’m here to tell you that you can’t.”

“Lizzy, you’ve got this all wrong,” he says patiently, smiling at her as if he truly is innocent. “Bianca and I were just discussing the panels we went to today. I can see how you’d be confused—it probably didn’t look great. It was loud, so I leaned in to hear her better. A person bumped into me, so I grabbed Bianca’s elbow to steady myself.”

“I watched the whole thing,” Elizabeth says, her voice laced with contempt. “No one bumped into you.”

Bianca mutters something about finding the restroom and flees.

“So then you know nothing untoward is happening here,” Todd says, still smiling. Even I want to punch the guy.

“You can’t gaslight me, Todd,” Elizabeth says. “I see you for what you are.”

“All right, Lizzy,” he says in an exasperated tone, as if she’s a toddler throwing a tantrum. “Think whatever you want. But I know the truth. And who do you think Jane is going to believe?”

Elizabeth pulls out her phone. “Let’s find out, shall we?”

There’s a quick flash of panic in Todd’s eyes. But then he checks his watch and grins in a way that has all of my senses on high alert.

He knows something Elizabeth doesn’t.

I start to move from my eavesdropping spot to cause a distraction that helps Elizabeth—but her phone is already at her ear. It remains there for several breaths, until her eyebrows pinch together and she puts her arm down.

“My turn,” Todd says, a pompous viciousness in his tone. He takes his phone out of his pocket, and holds it in front of his face. Just a couple of seconds later there’s a “Todd?” and he says, “Hi, honey. You’ll never guess who I just ran into at this conference!” He shifts his phone so that Elizabeth is in view, and the woman says, “Lizzy! Oh my God, I didn’t realize you were going to the same conference as Todd!”

For one tense moment, I think Elizabeth is going to tell her sister what she witnessed. But then she blinks and smiles, playing the hand she’s been dealt with remarkable skill. The call ends shortly after when the woman—Jane—says something about bedtime, and Todd emerges triumphant. “You can think what you want about me. But your sister is my wife. She’ll choose me every time.”

Jesus Christ, the balls on this man. Is it possible he has no idea what Elizabeth is capable of? Or does he just genuinely think she can’t beat him?

Even if he was telling the truth about him and Bianca being nothing more than colleagues, I saw them too—and my assumption was that nothing collegial was happening there. Elizabeth had good reason to be suspicious as hell. She had every right to call him out.

I glance at Elizabeth and the look on her face is one I’ve never seen before. I expected her to be giving him her Sphinx-like stare before delivering a withering one-liner. But instead, she looks crushed.

And that is unacceptable.

I know what I have to do.

After moving from my spot and circling the room, I walk up to Elizabeth and Todd as if I’ve just found them. “There you are, Jacobs! I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

She barely moves, but Todd glances at me—and his eyebrows jump up his forehead. “Are you…wait, this all makes sense now. You’re Wes Grant.”

“Guilty as charged.”