Campaigning for Love novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: In Front of Everyone

The reporter's phone was still held up in the cold, and a heavy silence hung over the sidewalk.

I could have said no comment.

Constance would have wanted it, and Hallie would have understood.

But the picture was true.

It was going to be on every channel by noon, and I was tired of being a rumor in a blazer.

"Yes," I said. "That's me."

The cameras all moved at once.

"I left suite 1112 at the Ingersoll Hotel at 6:05 that morning."

"Whose room was it?" the woman in the red coat asked.

"Nelson Kittredge's."

A noise went through the crowd.

"I didn't know who he was," I said. "Neither of us had a drink."

Someone laughed in disbelief.

I kept going, because if I stopped I would never start again.

"We're both adults, and we both went upstairs on purpose."

Pens scratched, and the red-coat reporter lowered her phone an inch.

"Who signs your timesheet?" she asked.

"I don't have one. I'm unpaid. Hallie Latham assigns my shifts, and she's behind me, glaring at you."

Every camera swung toward the door, where Hallie raised her thermos.

"I came to this job on my own, and I wasn't going to be run out of it for having been to a hotel."

The glass door opened behind me.

I felt Nelson before I saw him.

He stepped up beside me in his grey suit and stood close enough that our arms touched.

"Nelson," said four reporters at once.

"Let her finish," he said.

"She's finished," I said. "He's next."

Another ripple of laughter ran through the crowd.

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