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Like a proper gentleo pulled out my chair and pushed it back in

“I have soet it over with

Before I could get another word out, his phone pinged Like a reflex, Hugo went for it, barely stopping hiaze

“Go ahead”

He took out his phone, holdingbad news Either from me, or the text Probably both It could be hard to tell with his sort of poker face

“Fuck,” he muttered

“Bad news?”

“I’ She - she’s not happy that she wasn’t the one I picked She says she’s going to expose us More specifically me, and my February tradition”

“But it’s not…it’s not like that anyht?”

“Still won’t stop her Particularly not with the speculation already going around I really hoped they would have forgotten all about me by now Most probably have, but this kind of scandal is exactly the sort of thing to get the wolves at the door”

“Ok…so we have to tell theether and very much in love The truth, or at least a version of it, is that I’ on a special project No need to go into the exact chronology”

It all went so fast Moving froh by teleportation Hugo’s Zoom account had all the needed contacts Save for one which had been intentionally excluded Within the hour, we had every other er of the printing co at us expectantly from their screens

“We are sorry to bother you all at this aard tia and I have an important announcement to o into final edits early next aged”

It took every ounce of th to sratulations, as well as exciteah on our tero’s Not that they, or indeed the media, were likely to payaround Either way, any plans to expose us had been defused