“Two summers ago, he would have just been running for Congress. He was your first reporting job. I was with you. He’s our politician,” he said, the hurt seeping deeper and deeper into every syllable. “Tell me it’s not him, Lizzie. Tell me it’s not him.”

Liz just stood there. What could she say? She couldn’t corroborate the story, and she couldn’t lie anymore.

“Brady Maxwell,” Hayden said as if he still couldn’t believe it. “You hated him. You disagreed with everything that he said. You wrote some brilliant articles practically calling for his job and still you fucked him?”

“Hayden . . .”

“Tell me how this happened,” Hayden said. “I just don’t see how you could go from interviewing him, writing those articles, to ending up in his bed.”

Liz bit her lip and glanced away. “I met him at the club we went to after his press conference.”

“You met him, fucked him, and then wrote those articles?” he asked in disbelief.

“No, no, no. I went back with you that night. But after that, I kept running into him while he was on campaign that summer. We just kind of tumbled into it.”

“You did this all summer and no one caught you?”

“His press secretary and attorney caught us, but otherwise no. I went by a fake name, Sandy Carmichael, so it wouldn’t be traced back to me,” she whispered. When she said it like that it sounded so much worse than what it had been in reality.

“A fake name? Do you realize how insane that sounds?” Hayden spat. “Christ, isn’t he like thirty? You weren’t even legal to drink when you were together.” He fisted his hand into his hair.

“Twenty-seven,” she whispered. “He was twenty-seven.”

“Don’t fucking defend him!” Hayden cried. “The guy manipulated a twenty-year-old college student who wrote a bad article about him to get her on his fucking side.”

“He didn’t manipulate me,” she said, unable to stop herself.

“You’re so deep in that you didn’t even see it. A dick with a little bit of power sees a young girl with a little bit of backbone and takes that away from her in a few easy fucks.” He shook his head. “He used you.”

Liz fisted her hands at her sides. She couldn’t even think that. No. That wasn’t what happened. Brady had loved her . . . at one point. He hadn’t used her. She had to remind herself of that. Things had been different. It was easy to see it from an outsider’s perspective, to break their relationship down into one line and show her as the victim. But she had never felt like a victim with Brady. Not once.

“No,” she breathed.

“Then explain to me what happened in October. He tried to fuck you, you said no, and then you agreed not to see each other again, which I assume means he told you to fuck off. Sounds like he came for what he wanted, but didn’t get it.”

“Hayden, stop.”

“I see it for what it is,” Hayden said, grasping her shoulders and forcing her to look at him again. His grip tightened and she winced.

“Hayden, let go,” she whimpered.

“Is that why we couldn’t be together before the election? Is that why you resisted me for so long? Fuck, is that why we didn’t even have sex for months?”

She tried to wiggle out of his grasp, but he held her tightly.

“Answer me. You owe me that. Is that the reason? Was it because of Brady?”

Liz cringed at the words. She’d hoped that he would never come to that conclusion. “Hayden, you’re hurting me!”

He pushed away from her and paced the room. He rested his hand on the nightstand and reached down. Liz swallowed hard. She wanted to say something, anything to make it better, but there was nothing to say.

“What is this?” Hayden asked. And then Liz saw what he was holding, the necklace she had left there when Victoria had called for her earlier this afternoon. “These aren’t my charms.”

“I know,” she managed to get out.

Hayden turned back to face her brandishing the necklace as an accusation. “Is this his too? Is this why you wore it up until the election and I never saw it again?”

Liz bit her lip and refused to answer, but her non-answer was enough. Hayden threw the necklace across the room where it hit the wall and fell to the carpet. Liz gasped and covered her mouth.

“All of this time I just thought you weren’t ready for a relationship and then you weren’t ready to be physical. But you were just holding on to him.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. There was nothing else for her to say. She had hurt him, crushed him. There was no coming back from that.

“What are you sorry for? Kissing him? Cheating with him? What about emotionally cheating on me for our entire relationship?”

“Yes. I don’t know,” she stammered. She wasn’t sorry for Brady and yet she hated hurting Hayden. “All of it.”

He turned back to her, grasped her chin firmly in his hand, and stared down into her glassy blue eyes. “You know what. I see it. I see what he did to you. And . . . I forgive you.”

“What?” Her mouth hung open in surprise at the words.

“It’s not your fault for what he did to you.”

“He didn’t do anything to me.”

Hayden continued speaking as if she hadn’t. “He’s a skilled manipulator. He made you see what he wanted you to see.”

He sighed heavily, as if the weight was off of his chest, and she just stood there, ramrod still. Hayden thought that Brady had manipulated her. But he hadn’t. She had never once thought about it like that. She knew what she was getting into from the start, right? He had set the terms in that diner, and she had agreed. That wasn’t manipulative. Right?

She felt all fucked up from what Hayden was saying. On some level she understood the manipulation, but her heart was saying it wasn’t. And that made her feel even guiltier.

“Lizzie, I love you,” Hayden said, pushing her hair off of her face. “I hate that this happened to you. I hate that you cheated on me with someone who was only using you . . . that you cheated on me at all.”

“I’m sorry,” Liz cried. “I didn’t mean to cheat on you. I just got so angry and stupid. I’m never going to be like that again.”

At her words, his lips crashed down on hers. She let him have her. What else could she do? She had lost her fight. And she deserved much worse than a hard kiss. She deserved his fury, and him leaving her.

But he wasn’t leaving her. He was kissing her passionately, feverishly. His fingers were tangled in her long hair, pulling the life out of her. One of his hands found the zipper on her dress, and when he pulled it down, the material dropped to the ground in front of him. He snapped the clasp on her bra and she was left standing before him in nothing but her black thong.

“You’re mine,” he growled against her lips. “All of you. Every inch. Make it like he never touched you.”

Liz whimpered as he bit down on her bottom lip and sucked it back through his teeth. His hands were everywhere at once. Caressing, fondling, claiming, owning her body. She hardly even moved as he raked his hands down her skin. He had every right to his anger.

“Turn around,” he ordered, directing her until she was facing her bed.

She didn’t dare move. She had never seen Hayden like this. A part of her was crazy turned on by it, and another part knew that she should stop it. She shouldn’t let him do it. But she couldn’t. She deserved it.

Liz heard the zipper of his pants and the swish as they dropped to his feet. Her heart rate skyrocketed in the seconds that she waited for him to act. She could feel her body tingling in anticipation and fear, wondering what was coming next, what he would do to her.

Hayden bent Liz forward roughly at the waist, and she braced herself on her mattress.

“Hayden,” she whispered. “Please . . .”

He didn’t respond, just knelt behind her before dragging her thong down her lean legs. She trembled at the feel of his hands along her thighs. He helped her step out of the clothing, and then roughly spread her legs apart before him.