Page 52 of How to Play the Player

The headline on my phone blazes across the screen, accompanied by intimate details that make my stomach drop.

“Knight Industries CEO’s secret office romance: Insider reveals how Jonathan Knight seduced his secretary.”

My blood runs cold as I stare at the words. Time seems to slow, each heartbeat a thunderous drum in my ears. I start to feel nauseated. Panicked, I scroll through the article. I need to see how bad the damage is before I let terror set in. My fingers tremble against the screen. The more I read, the more horrified I am. It contains private details about the couple’s relationship—details that only someone in their inner circle would know. Details which are worded exactly as I was told.

A wave of dread washes over me—not just professional concern for my clients, but a sickening realization of what this means for the fragile connection Nathan and I had just begun to rebuild. Whatever tenderness had been in his touch moments ago, whatever understanding we’d been approaching, I can feel them slipping away like sand through my fingers.

My chest tightens painfully as I slowly look up from my phone. I already know what I’ll see. I can almost see the thoughts racing behind Nathan’s eyes, connecting the dots and then drawing the same devastating conclusion as I did—the same one he’d drawn for me a year ago.

Chapter Seventeen

Nathan

“Nathan,” Quinn whispers, her voice catching. “This wasn’t me.”

The words hang in the air between us. I stare at her, fury building like a gathering storm as I take in her flushed face, tousled hair, and the panic blooming in her eyes. Just minutes ago, I’d been worshipping her body, losing myself in her taste, her scent. And all along, she’d known this bombshell was about to drop. The rage rises in me like bile, bitter and burning.

My phone buzzes again in my hand. Jonathan’s name flashes on the screen. He’s called three times now.

I look back at Quinn, still naked on her desk, the evidence of what we’d been doing clear on her swollen lips and marked skin. The contrast between the intimacy we’d just shared and the betrayal spelled out on my screen makes my stomach turn.

“You had access to all of it,” I say, my voice calm despite my anger. “Every detail in this article: the proposal, their history, the exact wording. All of it.”

“It wasn’t me,” she repeats, more forcefully this time as she scrambles off the desk, grabbing her clothes which are cascaded all over the floor. “We’ve been here before, Nathan. You accused me without proof then. Don’t do it again now.”

I laugh harshly, the sound escaping my lips bitter and cutting. “You’re right, we have been here before.” I run a hand through my disheveled hair, my movements sharp with barely contained fury. “Different leak, same situation. Interesting how these things keep happening around you.”

I watch her beautiful face crumple, then harden with anger. Good. Let her feel a fraction of the betrayal that’s going through me. I’ve played the fool once before with her, opened myself up only to be blindsided. I won’t make that mistake again. Not with my family’s reputation hanging in the balance.

“Are you serious right now?” Her voice rises with indignation. “After everything—after what just happened between us—you still refuse to consider that I might be innocent?”

I force steel into my voice. “What happened between us was a mistake.”

The words taste like ash in my mouth, but I let them out anyway. Because it’s safer this way. Because the alternative—believing her, trusting her, only to be betrayed again—would destroy what little is left of me.

“You can’t possibly believe I would do this twice,” she says, fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. “Not when I’ve been working so hard to establish myself, to build a reputation after what happened last time. Not when I’ve been working beside you. Why would I jeopardize everything?”

“I don’t fucking know, Quinn.” I button my shirt back up with precise movements, focusing on the task to avoid looking at her. “Money? Recognition? Some twisted revenge?”

“I didn’t do it either time!” Her voice cracks with emotion. “An article like this requires interviews well before publication. I’ve been with you and your family all week. How could I possibly have leaked this?”

Her point registers somewhere in my mind. She had been with me the entire time. But I push the thought away quickly. “You didn’t need to make it personal,” I counter. “A scheduled email, a timed release. Shit, an accomplice. You’re smart, it’s not that hard to do.”

“That’s not how media leaks work, and you know it,” she fires back. “Stories this big require days to put together, not the hour we’ve been in my office.”

My phone buzzes again. I can’t ignore Jonathan any longer.

“I have to go. My brother needs me.”

“And what about us?” she asks softly, her voice small and unsure but steady.

The question sparks a new surge of anger. Us. She just betrayed me, and she wants to know if there’s an us?

“There is no us, Quinn.” The words come out cold and precise. “There never really was. Just a PR consultant who got close enough to steal information and fuck over her ex in the process. Congratulations on your performance, by the way. You almost had me convinced this time too. Truly an Oscar-worthy performance.”

The cruelty of my words is deliberate. I want them to hurt her as much as her betrayal is hurting me. Because there was an us once—one that mattered enough for me to buy a ring, to imagine a future, to open myself to her in ways I never had before. And she destroyed it all.

Something flashes in her eyes—hurt, sadness, resignation. “Fine,” she says, lifting her chin. “Go help your brother. That’s what matters right now anyway.”

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