Just when Kennedy thought she’d be able to leave the wretchedness of the day behind her, her office phone rang. Not a call transferred to her by Jonathan or Mina, but someone who had her direct line. Apart from her clients, not many people did. And her family and friends called her on her cell phone.

  Crossing the office to her desk, she reluctantly answered. One more and then she was leaving. The car would be there in ten minutes, and she hated having the poor guy wait.

  “Hello, Kennedy Mitchell speaking.”

  “Hi, Miss Mitchell, this is Jeremy Friedman from Times Square Chronicle. If you don’t mind, I have a few questions to ask regarding your time at Columbia.”

  “I’m sorry—what?” My time at Columbia? His question threw her off so much, she didn’t have enough wits about her to issue her standard no comment comment and hang up.

  “I’m sorry,” he said in an amiable voice. “Let me explain. Everyone wants to know more about the woman at the center of the emails and I’ve been calling around trying to fill in your background. I’m sure our readers will be interested in your journey from—” he paused “—North Carolina to Columbia to owning your own PR agency. I just got off the phone with a source at the university and I was told that you were a scholarship recipient, but I’m having problems pinpointing the source of the scholarship. It appears to have come from an anonymous donor and the university refuses to reveal their name.”

  Kennedy sat down hard in her guest chair, bewilderment morphing into embarrassment and then seesawing back. How did he know she’d been a scholarship recipient and why did that matter? And an anonymous donor? That made no sense.

  “I’m sorry, but I have no idea what you’re talking about. And I can assure you, my life is not that interesting.” So what if she’d attended a top university on scholarship? She and thousands of others. It was nothing to be ashamed of. That said, what was he hoping to find?

  “Are you kidding? You’re the subject of some pretty horrible comments. Everyone wants to put a face to a name, and you have a great story. I think readers will love the small-town girl from North Carolina moving to the big city, excelling in college, and eventually opening her own business. It’s a real pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps story, and readers love them.”

  The sad thing about the reporter’s pitch was that he thought it was a compliment.

  “Mr. Friedman, I hate to burst your bubble, but Raleigh isn’t exactly a small town. Second, both my parents are college educated and I grew up in a middle-class home. As you’ve also discovered, I was fortunate to have the grades to get into an excellent university and studied like hell to be able to graduate in the top five percent of my class. I don’t believe that fits the customary up by the bootstraps story.” Sure, life wasn’t fair, and as a Black person, she’d lived it firsthand. But she’d realized early on that she was more fortunate than most, and she refused to be depicted as a character of woe. More people than she cared to admit had it a lot worse.

  As if sensing he’d well and truly put his foot in it, Mr. Friedman cleared his throat—an uncomfortable scratchy sound—and said, “All success stories are inspiring. As for the matter of the anonymous donor—”

  “There was no anonymous donor,” Kennedy stated firmly, cutting him off. “Whoever gave you that information was mistaken. The scholarship for gifted students I received was offered by the university.”

  “Through the university,” the reporter corrected. “The funding, however, came from an anonymous donor, and that’s the part of the story I find intriguing. And since it sounds as if you’re only finding out about it now, wouldn’t you like to know who helped fund your education? I know I would, if it were me.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Friedman, but I really have to go. Goodbye.”

  Kennedy hung up before he could say another word, and then picked up her cell phone and purse before locking up the empty office. The car Nate had sent was waiting when she emerged from the building. She flashed the driver a tight-lipped smile when he opened the door for her. Inside the dark gray interior, she thought a lot about what the reporter had claimed, sounding supremely confident in his facts.

  Anonymous donor, though? That couldn’t be right. Whoever his source was inside the university had to be mistaken.

  Yet the more she thought about it, the more she questioned what she’d always believed to be the truth. Her recollection of the days she sat filling out application after application, both for college and financial aid, was mostly a blur of mental exhaustion and frustration. There’d been so many of them. Most she’d been able to fill out online, but some she’d had to complete by hand and return via snail mail. Kennedy had welcomed any and all help and had been grateful to Aurora for finding the scholarship. She hadn’t thought twice about having missed it herself. At the time, she’d qualified for two small grants but would need a lot more tuition assistance in order to be able to afford a university like Columbia.

  Three weeks after she’d applied, she received notification that she’d gotten the scholarship, which would pay roughly 85 percent of her tuition and housing costs. She would never forget the overwhelming sense of relief she’d felt in knowing she’d be able to put herself through school. She would have to take out a loan, but it wouldn’t be an amount that would bankrupt her after she finished. Her parents were already in debt paying off the student loans they’d taken out to help her older brother and sister. She refused to add her educational burden to their already full financial plate and had been determined to do it on her own.

  And she had.

  At least, she thought she had.

  * * *

  Dinner was ready. Nate had made it himself, and done a good job of it, if he could say so himself. His abilities in the kitchen weren’t exceptional, but he could read and follow simple instructions and hadn’t attempted anything beyond his mediocre cooking skills. The baked salmon in a seasoned, brown sugar, oil, and soy sauce was an easy layup. Baked potatoes and sautéed vegetables were another can’t-miss. Now all he needed was his girlfriend to arrive and she could taste with her tongue what else he brought to the table in their relationship.

  Just as he was placing the food in the warmer, his phone pinged with a message from his driver, letting him know he’d just dropped Kennedy off in front of his building. It was touches like that that made the service stand out from its competitors.

  Nate expected a knock on the door in the time it took her to take the elevator up to the top floor. But the minutes came and went until ten had passed. Worried, he opened the door, intending to stick his head out before calling her to find out what was taking her so long. Startled, he reflexively jerked back at the sight of her standing at his doorstep, head down, arms at her sides.

  “Hey, what are you doing out there? I thought you’d gotten lost.”

  Then she lifted her gaze to his and he knew something was wrong.

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” He gently tugged her inside and closed the door. He hoped to hell it wasn’t another fucking email full of racist stereotypes and sexist garbage. Seriously, the whole thing was enough to make him lose his shit.

  “Wrong? I’m not sure,” she replied, her voice flat.

  “Something must be if I don’t even get a kiss,” he said, trying to coax something from her. Anything.

  Kennedy stared at him, her eyes unblinking and her expression opaque. “If I ask you something, do you promise to be honest with me?”

  Oh shit. That was like asking him if he’d rather die in the electric chair or by firing squad.

  “Yes, of course. But why don’t we sit down first?” He had a feeling he was going to need the support.

  “No, I’m good right here.”

  He sent a pointed look at her heels and dove-gray pantsuit. The first thing she usually did when she got to his apartment straight from work was kick off her shoes and change into something comfortable. She kept a few pairs of yoga pants and T-shirts in a spare drawer in his bedroom.

  Something was definitely wrong and getting worse by the second. He’d never dealt with Kennedy when she was like this. Cold. Unyielding. Emotionless. What the hell was going on?

  “Did you pay for me to go to Columbia?” Her voice was calm, her tone measured.

  Frozen in place from shock, Nate didn’t blink or breathe. Of all the things he might have expected her to ask, her question hadn’t even registered on his radar.

  Are you seeing someone else? Did you marry someone when you were in France? Did you get someone pregnant? He’d been prepared for something along those lines, to which the answer would have been a resounding no. Easy stuff.

  This wasn’t going to be easy.

  “You shouldn’t have to think about it. It’s either yes or no,” she prompted coolly. “Although, judging by your reaction, I think I know the answer.”

  Nate swallowed hard. “Yes. I did.”

  She gave a sharp nod. “I thought so.”

  “How did you find out? Who told you?” He’d been promised that no one would ever be able to discover the source of the funds, much less trace it back to him. His identity had been thoroughly masked, they’d assured him a number of times over the years. So much for fucking anonymity. Heads were going to roll for this breach.

  “A reporter called. He mentioned the scholarship and asked if I knew who the anonymous donor was. His source at the university apparently wasn’t privy to the information. I guess he thought who better to ask than the lucky recipient herself and thought his readers would love an up by the bootstraps story starring yours truly.” She dipped low in a mock curtsy. “And can you imagine his glee when he discovered I didn’t even know there was a donor, anonymous or otherwise? And that my college education had been funded by a wealthy donor who chose not to have his generosity known. And so the plot thickens.” She shivered dramatically, her eyes ice-cold. “Wouldn’t this make a great feel-good story for a news feature? Bringing together the lucky hard-luck scholarship recipient with her anonymous donor so I can thank you in person? The public would eat it up.”

  Nate winced. “You know it’s not like that.”

  “Then tell me what’s it like, Nate. Tell me why you would go behind my back and do something like this. What is it? Do you have a white-knight complex? Or was it guilt?”

  She froze him off when he tried to touch her, this time moving beyond his reach. He wisely withdrew his hand at the risk of sending her bolting.

  “Kennedy, when you and Aurora were accepted at Columbia, I wanted to give you both what you wanted, and I did what I needed to do to make that happen.”

  “Oh, don’t give me that. You were giving me what you wanted. Do you know how I know? Because you knew that if you simply offered me the money, I would have said no. So instead, you devised this phony scholarship for the academically gifted. You needed me to believe that I’d earned it on my own, when the only criterion was that I was your sister’s best friend who couldn’t afford an Ivy League school education. Let’s face it—you felt sorry for me.”

  “You were academically gifted,” Nate rebutted forcefully. “And I didn’t feel sorry for you. I wanted to help you get what you deserved.”

  “Who said I deserved it, Nate, you?”

  At the slight catch in her voice, he instinctively reached out to her, only to stop himself when she automatically took another step back, her entire posture screaming stay away.

  “I was just trying to help.” Nate had never felt so utterly helpless in his life. More than a little disconcerted, he ran a weary hand through his hair and gazed at her, his eyes imploring. “Look, I’m sorry I went behind your back. And you’re right—I knew you wouldn’t let me just give you the money or pay for it outright, which is why I didn’t cover everything. I thought it might make you suspicious. But I never wanted to hurt you or make you feel bad about yourself or your abilities. My money may have helped fund your education, but you were the one who did the work. You’re the one who got the grades and graduated at the top of your class.”

  What he was going through now? This was why he’d abandoned the idea of buying her a place in the city after receiving her pushback. A lot of women would have accepted the offer the second it was issued. Not Kennedy, though. She was simply too proud to accept a gift that extravagant. And as frustrating as that could sometimes be, he fucking adored that about her.

  Kennedy stared at him, slowly shaking her head. “How can I expect you to know how I feel? You can’t. And I guess that’s the crux of the matter. I don’t want or need a white knight to save me. And believe me, a few Black ones have tried.” She briefly averted her gaze and swallowed before continuing. “You have no idea how proud I was of what I was able to accomplish. I didn’t ask my parents for a dime and managed to earn an undergraduate and master’s degree on my own. And all that time it was you carrying me on your shoulders. Making everything I have now possible.”

  “No, you earned it,” Nate insisted, panic rising inside him like a tide. He was losing her. He could feel her slipping away in a vortex of doubt, despair, and anger.

  Suddenly, she narrowed her eyes at him, her expression turning fierce. “Jack knows, doesn’t he? That’s why he made all those snide comments about how well I’d done for myself.”

  Nate was taken aback by the vehemence in her voice. “What are you talking about? Jack doesn’t know anything about this. I didn’t tell anyone what I was doing. And when did he ever make snide comments to you?” he asked, feeling a tiny stab of annoyance. So now she was going to find another reason to cry foul. Find something else to blame him for by casting Jack as the enemy, when, ironically, it was the asshole she’d trusted who had been the one talking shit about her behind her back.

  Chin jutted, she said, “I wasn’t imagining things, Nate. Maybe you didn’t pick up on his attitude, but I did.”

  Man, she was on a tear and not letting things like facts get in her way.

  “Please don’t do that.” His irritation came through in the terseness of his tone.

  “Do what?”

  “This tit-for-tat shit. Just because I was right about your asshole of an ex-client, don’t go looking for things to accuse Jack of.”

  “Looking for things? Are you kidding me?” she asked, her voice rising in disbelief. “You’re so blinded by your friendship with him you refuse to see what’s right in front of your face. He was belittling me and you didn’t do or say anything to defend me.”

  “You’re mad at me. I get it. But to accuse me of sitting by while my friend insults you really shows how highly you must think of me.” He couldn’t deny that it hurt.

  With a frustrated huff, Kennedy furiously flicked her hair over her shoulder. “See, this is why I didn’t say anything when it happened. I was afraid this was the way you’d react, and lo and behold, I was right.”

  “Dammit, Kennedy, not everyone is out to get you. Stop looking for enemies in every corner.” The second the words were out of his mouth, he knew he’d crossed a line. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Kennedy stood motionless, the air around them palpably thick with tension. This was probably what it felt like in the seconds leading up to the explosion of a bomb. But when she spoke, her voice was eerily calm and very much in control. “I will when you pull your head out of the sand and see that one of the reasons your company is being sued has been standing right in front of you the whole time. Unfortunately—or fortunately, I guess, depending on your circumstances—I don’t have the luxury of turning a blind eye to injustices simply because the perpetrator is a friend.”

  It took a second for Nate to grasp what she was saying. What she’d just accused him of, and the roiling implications. The woman was deadly, managing to gut him without drawing actual blood. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.

  Mute and somewhat shell-shocked, Nate watched as she turned and jerkily opened the door.

  “I’m leaving. And don’t worry. I’ll find my own way home.” The words sailed over her shoulder as she exited his apartment.

  Moving to the doorway, Nate stared at her retreating form as she disappeared from view with only one thought in his mind. What the hell just happened?

  24

  Kennedy’s life was imploding in such magnificent fashion, it came as no surprise to her the next day when a client wanted to put a pause on their contracts, requesting they push out the start date of their services. Another called to say they wouldn’t be requiring the five people they’d previously requested. They hadn’t offered an explanation, but she knew why. Right now, her agency was toxic when it came to those services, and who could blame them for staying away? Whether they intended to use any of Token’s services in the future was up in the air. Kennedy had her doubts.

  So not only had she and Aurora been maligned, but what she feared was coming to pass. The resulting attention was costing the agency business. And the day had only begun.

  Normally, she wouldn’t be working on three hours’ sleep, but these weren’t normal times. She’d come home from Nate’s last night utterly spent, nearly numb. Too upset to cry and too angry to call and rail to her sister, her stalwart sounding board, she’d spent most of the early morning lying in bed staring at the ceiling, a multitude of thoughts going through her mind.

  Knowing what Nate did changed things; she just didn’t know exactly how. She owed him, but she didn’t know what. What she did know was she hated being in anyone’s debt, and that included the man she was in love with. Especially him.

  Had Aurora known Nate was behind the scholarship? That was the other question that haunted her. Kennedy didn’t want to think so. But how could she not have known? She’d been the one who “found” it and urged her to apply. And one of the things friends didn’t do was secretly help their billionaire brother pay for your Ivy League education and keep it from you. With her best friend still nursing a broken heart, Kennedy wasn’t eager to confront her about it. Thankfully, she had time, since Aurora wasn’t expected back to work until tomorrow.