The office is as quiet as a morgue when I step through the front door and make my way to the boardroom. I’ve got a million excuses churning through my mind, but there’s only one way to salvage my relationship with Marnie and Liz—and that’s to tell them the truth.

When I enter, they stop talking, lift their gazes and stare. I expect the disgust I find in Liz’s eyes, but the sheer disappointment on Marnie’s face is almost enough to break me. I don’t remember the last time I felt this nervous. Grade school maybe, getting busted for sneaking out my bedroom window so that my best friend and I could grab Slurpees from the 7-11 and pretend we were real bad-asses.

Dad was waiting for me when I got home, sitting on my bed in the dark while I fumbled my way back through the window. He didn’t yell—I could have handled that. Deserved it, really. Instead, he left the room quietly, leaving me to conjure up any number of consequences, and left punishment to my mother. Three weeks grounding, and loss of the coveted bedroom on the ground floor. Back then, I thought my world was ending.

Taking a deep breath, I pull out a chair and force myself to sit. My stomach roils. Liz pushes a laptop toward me without saying a word, and turns the screen to face me.

It’s me, on Page 6, hands behind my back, just before I’m being hauled off to jail. In the background is Lucas Hammer, his eyes burning with rage. A shiver crawls down my spine.

“I know how this looks,” I say. My tongue flicks across my lower lip. “And I’ll explain everything…”

“Like how you lied to us,” Liz says, coolly. “How you’ve been lying to us for weeks.”

“I couldn’t tell you—”

Marnie scoffs. “You made a choice not to,” she says, voice cracking. “I gave you so many chances to share what’s been going on, but I understand now why you didn’t want to tell us.” She’s beyond angry, furious, but it’s the hurt that strikes a chord. “I thought you’d started seeing an older man, but this…”

She cups her hands on the table and my gaze drops to her nails. I don’t remember when I last saw them without polish. The remnants of her last manicure are barely noticeable, and for some reason, that stings.

“How long have you been seeing Lucas Hammer?” Liz snaps.

My throat clogs up. “A couple weeks.” A tear trails down my cheek. “I know it was wrong to keep that from you but—”

“Wrong?” Marnie’s pitch rises. “Daylight Holdings—a company that Lucas partially owns—is bankrolling a lawsuit that’s bankrupting us. Jesus, Eden. You’re actually sleeping with the enemy.”

“You betrayed us,” Liz adds. “And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Even when you’re here, you’re not. You stroll in late, leave early. You’re like a damn zombie, and then…” She gestures to the newspaper article. “You got arrested. That’s not just out of character, Eden, but it further puts us at jeopardy. In case you’ve forgotten, our livelihoods are at stake. What the hell has gotten into you?”

I fell in love.

My chest tightens. “I know this might be hard to believe, but Lucas and I had already called things off when…” The details of that don’t matter now, but it’s important that they understand why I went to see him again, how it all ended up like this. “I thought that if I talked to him about the lawsuit, I’d get through to him, and maybe he’d…” I turn away from the screen to erase the image of Lucas’s smug face. It doesn’t help though—everything about him is imprinted in my mind. I swallow hard. “I guess I hoped that he cared enough about me to at least pull the plug on Newcastle’s support.”

“That conversation clearly went well,” Liz says, with sarcasm.

My shoulders slump. “It’s true the discussion got out of hand…” Emotion catches in my throat and I can’t finish the thought. I want to explain what led up to Lucas and I getting together, and how this fight—the one that got me arrested—isn’t at all what it looks like.

Marnie softens her voice. “Look, we know things have been hard. It’s been difficult for everyone.” She glances over at Liz, who nods. “But it’s not just the lawsuit, Eden. Your heart hasn’t been in in this place for a while.”

My knee-jerk response is to deny it, but she’s only saying aloud what’s been going on in my mind for many, many months. Even before I met Lucas, I wanted change. A chance to do the kind of journalism my parents would have been proud of, the kind of stories that are grounded in fact, not unsubstantiated gossip gleaned from less than reputable sources.

“I admit, I’ve been struggling to support the mission.” My chin lifts. “Even before the Newcastle piece, I’ve had doubts about the direction we were going and maybe if we could take a look at—”

Liz dips her head. “I think it’s time we just cut our losses.”

My pulse thrums. “Give up on Rubberneckers? You said you wanted to keep fighting. And we can’t just walk away, the lawyer said so.”

“Not all of us, Eden.” Marnie blows a sigh out through her mouth. “Liz and I have talked about this and we think it’s best if you bow out.”

My throat closes in.

“We don’t want make this any more difficult than it already is,” Liz says, softly. It’s the calmest I’ve heard her in weeks, which tells me the decision is somehow final. A stabbing pain cuts through my chest.

But how can they decide this on their own? “I own one third of this company.”

“Technically,” Liz says, “we each own 33.3 percent.” She produces paperwork and pushes it in front of me. “Which means that two partners can make decisions without input from the third. We took a vote, Eden. You’re out.”

I’m trying to read the legal jargon on the top of the page, but it’s too hard to make out the wording through the sheen of my tears.

Liz slides a pen over toward me. “Everything is laid out. You can take some time to read it over, but I assure you, we’ve thoroughly looked it over, and everything is in order. It might be easier if…” She inhales. “Just sign it, Eden. It’s really for the best.”

My heart feels like it’s free falling through my chest. I’ve never been fired before—another damn first—but this is so much worse. I helped build this company! The pen is like deadweight between my fingers. It hovers over the blank space where my signature should go for seconds, minutes. I’m sure hours have gone by. Finally, I give in. I scratch my name across the paper and push everything as far away as my hands can reach. “I’ll pack my things.”

Liz nods curtly.

Marnie’s head is bent, and her shoulders shake through her tears. God, I hate this.

I could try begging for my job back, ask for forgiveness, rip up the paperwork and act like none of this is real. But that would be foolish. Even if I could earn back their trust, the deeper issue is still there—I don’t believe in Rubberneckers anymore, haven’t for some time. This kind of journalism isn’t for me, and no matter what happens after the trial, the mandate won’t change.

Liz and Marnie thrive on this kind of thing, and I never really have.

Neither of them leave the board room while I pack my things. Everything I own fits in one box, all but the Einstein bobble-head I’ve used as a paperweight since Liz bought it for me our first day in this new office. I leave that on the center of my desk, it’s oversized head bobbing softly goodbye as I walk toward the door.

They stand in the lobby now, arms around each other, waiting for me to go. I blink away fresh tears. This is truly the end. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“We know,” Liz says, with a ghost of a smile. “Go do good things, Eden.”

There are no hugs goodbye, and my heart is heavy as I step outside the doors and into the fading sunlight. A taxi pulls up to curb and I get in, limbs numb, eyes swollen with tears. I don’t look back at the warehouse, but when my phone buzzes to signal an incoming call, I glance down, for one ridiculous second hoping that maybe it’s Liz and Marnie, begging me to come back.

But it’s just Lucas.

Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t talk to him right now. I power off my cell without answering and finally allow the tears to fall.