Hayden turned back and picked up his messenger bag that he had dropped on the ground. He gave her a confident wink, and she smiled up at him through her nerves. “I’ll see you after, gorgeous. Wish me luck.”
“You don’t need it,” she murmured.
“You’re right. I’m already the luckiest guy in the world. I have you.”
Liz bit down on her bottom lip and held in her sigh as Hayden walked down the hallway. How was she supposed to respond to that? He was too perfect. There was no way that she could ever compare.
She pulled out her tablet from her purse and started messing around on the Internet, checking emails and responding to messages about the upcoming articles she and Massey were focusing on for the paper.
About forty minutes into Hayden’s interview, when Liz was finally wrapping up her G-chat conversation with Tristan about next week, she heard footsteps coming in her direction.
Liz glanced up at the interruption and then immediately wished that she hadn’t.
Calleigh Hollingsworth walked toward Liz. Her red hair hung loose in big waves, and she looked every bit the exotically beautiful queen bee she was, with dark makeup and a skirt suit with a plum top underneath that showed off her cle**age. Liz had a visceral reaction to her appearance: she kind of wanted to claw her eyes out.
Calleigh had briefly dated her boyfriend, and acted like a Class A bitch ever since Hayden had shown an ounce of interest in Liz. But Liz was pretty sure her aversion to the other woman went deeper than that. It was the innuendo that Calleigh made about Liz and Brady at the primary that really irked her.
Why hadn’t Liz put two and two together before? Calleigh had said from the beginning that she could get Hayden a job at her paper if he wanted. Now he was here.
“Liz! I didn’t know you were going to be here today,” Calleigh said in greeting.
“Oh, Calleigh, hey. I forgot that you work here.”
“Did Hayden not tell you that I helped him get the interview?” she asked, batting her eyelashes.
No. In fact, he hadn’t. She didn’t even know that they were still talking. Of course, Hayden had made it blatantly clear that he had no interest in Calleigh, but Liz still didn’t like it.
“Oh, yeah, he did mention it. I guess we were just so lost in our own world that it slipped my mind,” Liz said with an equally pointed smile. She didn’t even care that it wasn’t true.
“I just know that he’ll be a valuable asset to the team.”
“Hayden would be a pretty valuable employee anywhere,” Liz agreed.
“I think Ted will like him.” Calleigh’s eyes flashed with mischief. “How are y’all going to do when he moves here?”
When. Not if. Liz tried not to cringe. “We’ll be fine.”
“I just . . .” Calleigh began, taking a seat next to Liz. “Well, I’m sure you already know that Hayden and I were involved.”
Liz narrowed her eyes. Where was she going with this?
“Well, the man isn’t good with distance. He just couldn’t handle me being far away. It’s why we broke up in the first place.”
Uh-huh. Not the story she had heard at all. But who was she to contradict Calleigh? It was clear what her game plan was. The fact that she was airing it like this was pretty dumb on her part. Liz wasn’t going to be scared off like the frightened sheep she had been a year ago. She had f**king brought a Senator to his knees . . . she could handle Calleigh Hollingsworth.
“Well, thanks for the advice. I guess. But we’ll be fine. You don’t have to worry about us, Calleigh,” Liz said, reaching out and patting the woman’s hand. “We have a really strong relationship. No worries.”
Anger flashed in Calleigh’s green eyes for a brief moment before it disappeared. “Oh, I’m sure you do. Of course you do. I just wish someone had warned me is all.”
“I’m sure it wouldn’t have made a difference,” Liz said offhandedly.
“What does that mean?” Calleigh snapped, rearing back.
“Things happen for a reason. You guys broke up so long ago and never got back together, so it must have been for the better. Hayden told me all about it actually,” Liz said, batting her eyelashes right back at her. “I’ll learn from your past mistakes.”
Calleigh stood abruptly. “We’ll see.”
Not until the woman stormed back down the hallway did Liz realize her mistake. While it had felt amazing to tell Calleigh off, she had just sent that loose cannon out into the world with something to prove. And if Hayden got the job here, then who would she be trying to prove it with . . . ?
Liz didn’t have much time to think about it before Hayden returned. He looked as if he was walking on cloud nine. The interview must have gone well. Not that Liz had expected anything else.
He shook Ted’s hand once more and they exchanged a few words before Hayden returned to her side. Liz stood hastily as he approached.
“Ready to go?” he asked, tossing an arm across her shoulders and directing her to the door.
“Yep. How did it go?”
“Amazing.” Hayden opened the door for her when they reached it and she walked through it. “I got a job offer!”
“That’s great,” she said softly.
“I just told you I had an amazing interview and was offered a job and you sound sad,” Hayden said, stopping her in the parking lot.
“I’m really excited for you!” she said, but the enthusiasm wasn’t there. She had been so excited and proud and nervous for him before Calleigh had gone and ruined everything.
“Yeah. Liz, you’re kind of an open book when you’re unhappy,” Hayden said. “I was only gone for an hour. What could happen in an hour?”
“Nothing. It really doesn’t matter,” she said, brushing her hand aside. “Tell me about the interview.”
Hayden took her hand and without a word walked her back to the car. Even when she probed him to talk about it he didn’t say anything. When they reached the car, she walked with him to the passenger side to let him open the door for her as usual. Instead, Hayden pushed her back against the car door and leaned forward into her.
“Wha . . .”
“I don’t know how I can make this clearer to you, Lizzie,” he said, brushing her hair off of her face. “What is going on with you matters to me. What you are feeling—happy, sad, exhausted, emotional, frustrated—it matters to me. I know you’ve been kind of out of it recently, and I know that you know that I’ve noticed. But I’ve let you have your space, because it seemed like that was what you wanted. The very last thing I want is for you to try to tell me that something you are feeling doesn’t matter, that it isn’t important. Because it’s important to me.”