Page 115 of Point of Contention

Finally, he turned around, a tortured look in his eyes that wrapped an icy fist around my lungs.

“Cabot,” I whispered, reaching for him without even realizing I’d lifted my hand.

His shoulders rose and fell on a deep breath, then he walked around his desk and kneeled before me, folding his arms over my knees as he looked up into my eyes. “Everything is fucked.”

I bit my lip, waiting. I didn’t know whateverythingmeant, what it encompassed. Surely noteverything, in the true sense of the word.

When he didn’t explain right away, I asked, “Did something happen with your meeting this morning? Your phone call with the different time zone?”

His eyes widened. “Fuck.” Shaking his head, he rose quickly to his feet and grabbed his phone, then his fingers moved rapidly over the screen for a few moments as he muttered softly to himself.

Eventually, he hung his head. “I forgot about the meeting.”

I grimaced. “Okay, then what is it?”

He sat down into his desk chair with a thump, resting his head back against the head rest and staring at the ceiling above me.

“We’re good, right?” he asked.

That sense of dread in my belly twisted into a tight ball. “Cabot.”

“Answer me.”

“We’re good.” I tried to swallow the thickness building in my throat.

“You won’t run away from me again?”

I blinked. He thought I might run? Break up with him again? What did that mean for what he was about to tell me? “No.”

Was Stella pregnant or something?

Oh god.Bile burned the base of my throat. Sweat coated my palms, so I dragged them over the fabric on my thighs.

He breathed deeply, then leveled me with his gaze. “Stella didn’t leak those photos of us.”

I exhaled as relief coursed through me—she wasn’t pregnant!—then ran my tongue over my teeth. “She told you that?”

“Yes.”

I narrowed my eyes. “And you believe her?”

“I do.”

I chewed on the skin around my thumbnail, considering. The man was a good judge of character, I knew that, but he’d made mistakes with Stella. He’d even made mistakes with me. Cabot Reed wasn’t infallible, even as intelligent and cunning as he was. “She could be lying.”

“She could be; you’re right. But she’s not.”

I sighed. “Okay. So… assuming I believe her”—I did not—“who did it?”

His lips tightened into a fine line, then he finally said, “Gage Magnusson.”

I sucked in a breath of air. “No way.”

Cabot’s eyes closed on a long blink. “It gets worse.”

How could it possibly? I leaned forward, waiting on bated breath.

“Rombauer,” he said, looking at me for confirmation, so I nodded. “His son, Roderick, we’ve always hated each other, always had an innocent rivalry, but…” He sighed and I waited patiently. “He paid Stella, and she introduced him to Gage, then the two men formulated the plan and carried it out.”

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