Epilogue Two #2
The rest of me is already back in that moment with Kelsie—realizing how completely I had trusted someone who had never existed.
I hate myself. The self-loathing rises fast, a bitter, acidic taste in the back of my throat.
I’m a man who assesses risk for a living, a supposed titan who prides himself on seeing through the bullshit in every boardroom across this city, and yet I’m the exact same sucker for a pretty face I always was.
I let a beautiful girl with a soft mouth spin me a fairy tale, and I bought every single word of it without checking her credentials.
The lingering heat from my memories of her writhing beneath me violently extinguishes. My spine stiffens. The mask slams back into place. I set my jaw.
“Hailey Pemberton,” I say. My voice is quiet, measured, and entirely devoid of the warmth I showed her at that hotel bar. “I must admit, it lacks the philanthropic ring of Lucy Hartford, the literacy advocate.”
She flinches. The flush on her neck vanishes, the color draining from her face. “Mr. Canning . . . I—I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t know you were interviewing to be my executive assistant?
” I walk back around my desk, deliberately putting the wide desk between us.
I need the physical barrier. I tap my index finger against the silver coffee carafe, my movements slow, precise, and clinical.
“Or you didn’t know that giving a fake name to a man you had a one-night stand with might eventually become a professional liability? ”
“Both,” she whispers. “The job . . . I interviewed exclusively with Xavier. I swear to you, if I had known who you were, I would never have played that stupid game.”
“A game.” I repeat the word, letting it drop into the pristine, climate-controlled air of my office like a stone in a well.
I sit back in my leather chair, a deliberate, controlled movement. Standing makes this an emotional confrontation. Sitting makes it an evaluation. “Is that how you view this, Ms. Pemberton? Because from my side of the desk, it looks remarkably like a calculated fraud.”
“It wasn’t calculated to hurt you,” she pleads.
She takes a half-step forward before my frozen expression stops her in her tracks.
“I was at a hotel bar. I felt completely out of my depth. I made up a persona for one night because it was easier than being myself. And I told you I didn’t want your name because I knew I was leaving the East Coast soon and nothing could come of it.
That’s all it was. A reckless night of fun. ”
I study her. The panic in her dark eyes is highly convincing.
She looks exactly like a woman whose carefully built house of cards just collapsed.
But Kelsie cured me of trusting beautiful women with trembling voices and perfectly timed desperation.
My ex-wife built an entire custody case on a foundation of convincing performances.
I don’t give the benefit of the doubt anymore. I demand proof.
“Let’s review the facts,” I say, my voice dropping another decibel.
It’s smooth, surgical, and utterly devoid of mercy.
“You approached me under a fabricated identity. You fed me a detailed, fictitious career. You shared my bed, and then you vanished before sunrise. And now, exactly six weeks later, you have successfully infiltrated the executive suite of my firm.”
I lean forward, steepling my fingers on the oak surface. “You must forgive me if I find the coincidence a bit difficult to swallow.”
“It is a coincidence!” Her voice cracks, the professional veneer snapping.
“My resume is real. My degree is real. Xavier put me through three rounds of brutal interviews, and I earned this position on my own merits. I have this thing about not googling people before I meet them. So I didn’t know Thomas Canning was the man from the bar.
If I had, I would have walked straight back into the ballroom. ”
“Xavier vetted Hailey Pemberton,” I counter coldly. “I slept with Lucy Hartford. Tell me, which one of you is currently standing in my office?”
She flinches as if I’ve struck her. The silence stretches, thick and suffocating, while the San Francisco fog presses against the floor-to-ceiling windows behind me.
I can smell the faint, citrus scent of her perfume cutting through the rich aroma of my pour-over coffee—the exact same scent that lingered on my hotel pillows for days.
My body acutely remembers the soft, desperate way she moved beneath me, and I force myself to lock it down.
“I’m Hailey,” she finally whispers. Her chin trembles before she forces it up, locking her jaw with a sudden, surprising flash of steel. “And I’m an exceptional assistant. I can prove it to you.”
I glare at her for a long, cold moment before releasing my breath.
“You have a ninety-day probationary period, Ms. Pemberton,” I state, picking up a silver pen and pulling a quarterly report toward me, effectively dismissing her.
“If you so much as misfile a paperclip, or if I detect a single, solitary lie leaving your mouth, you will be escorted from this building. Do we understand each other?”
“Yes, Mr. Canning.”
“Thomas.”
“Yes, Thomas.”
“Then I suggest you go to your desk and get to work.”