For her, something deeper and meaningful had grown out of that. Derrick was so much harder to read.
And he wasn’t the only one. She entered the coffee shop and slipped through the long line of people waiting to order. Noah sat at a table across the room, head down and not talking to or looking at anyone. He wore a baseball cap pulled low, like every other twenty-year-old in DC, and studied his phone.
Derrick told her he’d talked with Noah but hadn’t been able to break through. Seeing her brother spin and knowing he would be in very big trouble without Derrick’s interference was the kind of thing that kept her up at night.
She made it the whole way to the table without him looking up. Nothing new there. Eye contact was not one of his strengths.
She pulled out a chair and sat across from him. “Why did you want to meet here?”
She’d given him her new house address. The temporary one with Derrick. Suggested he come over and they talk in private. Noah had said no to all of it.
He kept tapping buttons on his phone, only sparing a glance or two in her direction. “To avoid Derrick.”
“Are you afraid of him now?” When she didn’t get an immediate answer, she put a hand over the screen and lowered the phone to the table. “Well?”
“Let’s say I know he’ll do almost anything to get his way.”
“You might want to lay off the videos because you now talk in shortcuts. It’s annoying.”
“Then how about this.” Noah leaned forward, his elbows on the table. “He’s cheating on you.”
The word bounced through her. A wave of nausea followed right behind it. “What?”
“There’s a woman at work.”
The accusation didn’t make sense. “No way.”
“I’m serious, Ellie.”
If Derrick had a girlfriend, then why wasn’t she visiting his house? Why wasn’t he using this other woman as his fake girlfriend?
How could he sleep with her but be with someone else?
Ellie couldn’t imagine any woman going along with that type of ruse and all the lies. Not if she cared about Derrick and vice versa. It was too dangerous and so disrespectful. Which brought her full circle. Derrick had a lot of flaws. She could spend an hour listing them, but being crappy to women wasn’t one of them. Not that she’d seen.
Too many people would have to be quiet. She’d overheard the whispers at his office and none of them were about another woman. Someone at the Insider would know the truth and report it.
As soon as she reasoned it out, the choking sensation in her throat eased. So did the need to pound things.
She inhaled, trying to stay focused. If she let her mind wander, she’d be on the phone or in Derrick’s office demanding an explanation and she didn’t want to do that. He’d been accused of enough. “You’re saying you know this because you worked there?”
“I never met her. This Abby. Apparently something happened with her months ago.”
That barely sounded like a thing. A bit more of her anxiety disappeared. “Noah, you’re talking about rumors and not facts.”
Noah spun an empty coffee cup around between his palms. The edges clicked against the table. “I’m trying to make you see that he’s not worth it.”
“Why?”
He closed his fist over the cup with enough force to collapse the sides with a loud crunch. “What?”
“Why is it so important to you that I think that?” That part never made sense to her. It was one thing if he thought he was falsely accused and wanted revenge. But he seemed so determined for her to think everything about Derrick was awful. That he wasn’t only a bad boss or a mean one, but a terrible cheating human being, as well.
The whole thing struck her as overkill. Like hurt feelings and crushed emotions.
“I know what it’s like to be taken in by him.” Noah continued to stare at his smashed cup.
“He hired you without any experience. Gave you a job and a place to go.”
Noah’s head shot up. “He abandoned me as soon as he needed a scapegoat.”
The conversation pinged around. Noah seemed to move from one perceived Derrick sin to another. All of them seemed to come from the same place—somewhere personal. For the first time she realized this was about way more than work or a paycheck.
She slid her hand across the table, not quite touching Noah’s. “Meet with him. I’ll be there and we’ll talk this out.”
“We’ve talked. He tried to convince me I was wrong when the two of us met at your apartment.”
“Try again.”
“Can’t you just believe me?” His voice grew louder until a few people sitting nearby glanced over at them.