“She’s on her way back and asked that you continue to wait,” the assistant said into the quiet room.

Since the assistant hadn’t answered a phone, it was unclear how she’d talked to the judge, but fine. Gabby had been there for forty minutes. A few more didn’t matter.

Ten minutes later, Loretta walked into her office with a young man, likely her clerk, trailing behind her. She smiled at her assistant as she dropped off an armload of papers and files. She said something to her clerk that had him scurrying from the room through a door to . . . somewhere.

The judge finally turned and looked at Gabby. “I wasn’t expecting you today.”

“I apologize for bursting in and demanding to see you. It’s an emergency.”

Loretta made a humming sound. “Right. Well, I only have ten minutes, but they are yours. Melinda? Hold my calls.”

Right as Gabby stood up, her cell phone buzzed. She looked at the screen, half expecting to see another message from Kennedy that teetered between panic and fury, but this one had come from Jessa.

Call me

Gabby put that on the list of things to do right after she convinced Liam and Kennedy not to hate her and came up with the best way to hide from neighbors who, thanks to social media, now knew she’d slept with both Fielding brothers and lied about who was Kennedy’s dad.

Loretta sat down at a round table in a small conference room. She folded her hands in front of her as she waited. Gabby tried not to be obvious about glancing around for hidden cameras, but she did look.

“You seem to be a regular in the news these days,” Loretta said.

“Yeah, lucky me.” Gabby’s cell buzzed again. Another text from Jessa, which Gabby didn’t take the time to read before sitting down. “That’s part of why I’m here.”

“How can I help?”

An interesting conversation opening. Gabby jumped on it. “You can make it stop.”

Loretta’s eyebrow lifted in the same way as it had back in law school when a student gave a wrong answer. “Excuse me?”

“Feeding stories to reporters and social media sites, or news, or whatever we call them. Telling my secrets to the public on a steady drip. All of it. Stop.” Gabby didn’t beg because she didn’t want to give the judge the satisfaction of having that much power over her, even though she did.

Loretta shook her head. “I’m confused about what you think I’ve done.”

“Oh, please.” Gabby’s cell buzzed again, and she wrapped her hand tighter around it. “Liam being Kennedy’s father. The truth about Baines. The false evidence planted at Liam’s house.”

“I’m still lost, Gabby. What are you asking me?”

Gabby had to keep from screaming. “Can we skip the denial part?”

The phone buzzing came in spurts now.