Hudsons Crossing

by Altonya Washington

At last, Asher snapped out of his daydream and rushed around the side of his desk. He caught her just as her fingers grazed the door lever.

  Riley turned, stumbling back on the chic wedge heels peeking out beneath the flared legs of her trousers. She gasped at the full extent of his height and the breadth of his shoulders.

  “I’m sorry.” He dipped his head slightly and took a step back. “You’ve got it all wrong. You’ve got me wrong.”

  Riley leaned back against the door and hoped to slow her breathing. She watched him appearing to do the same. God, he was magnificent to look at, she thought and prayed this strange meeting would soon reach its end. Never had she experienced such an overpowering and dangerous attraction to a man. Especially not to a man whose company she’d enjoyed for less than twenty minutes.

  “The reason I called you here has everything to do with your story, but not in the way you think,” he explained.

  The mystery of the meeting had finally grown just a tad too annoying. It was effective in getting her brain to focus on more than a flawless honey-toned face, deep-set and striking light eyes, a sensuously curved mouth and that scar along the side of his cheek…She wondered what the story was on that.

  “Exactly why am I here, Mr. Hudson?”

  Smiling, as if she’d given him a reprieve, he straightened and pressed a hand to his chest. “You’re here because you have something I want very much, and I hope you won’t make it too difficult for me to get it.”

  Chapter 2

  “My source?” Riley stood an instant after they sat on the pearl-gray suede sofa and listened to him tell her what their meeting was really about.

  “Riley—”

  “Ms. Stamper to you, you arrogant jackass, sitting up here in your palace—”

  “Riley—”

  “Any fool knows that no reporter worth a damn would ever give up a source.”

  “Some have. Some would,” he quietly pointed out.

  “Go to hell,” she replied just as quietly.

  Asher kept his seat and would’ve been a picture of calm had it not been for the muscle tap-dancing along his jaw. “Would you please just sit and let me tell you—”

  “Hell no.”

  “Dammit, Riley,” he said and then stood, too. After a moment of silence, he simply waved a hand toward the sofa they’d calmly shared for all of four minutes.

  As the curiosity was still nagging at her something fierce, Riley obliged his unspoken request. The blazer was becoming a bit stifling, but she felt it more important to retain a firm demeanor with this man. The stifling blazer said firm with a capital F.

  “That story you broke in your column almost ruined the reputation of my business and—”

  “I told you I wouldn’t apologize for—”

  “I’d appreciate it if you would let me finish,” he said quietly.

  This time it was Riley’s turn to give a graceful, flourishing wave.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, running a hand across the waves of silk covering his head. “I was like a monster for weeks when I heard of it and then read it. Good work, by the way.” He smirked when he saw the surprise break through the tight expression she was trying to maintain. “Like I said, I didn’t bring you here to rake you over the coals for the story. I don’t tolerate deceit and bribery to close deals in my agency, Riley. Ms. Stamper.”

  “So what is flying me out to the desert about then?”

  Asher relaxed on the sofa and propped a loafer-shod foot on the glass table before it. “I swear I’m not trying to bribe a source out of you. I do like conducting business in person, though.” He unbuttoned the lightweight tan suit coat he wore. “I also thought it might help to look directly at you when I explain why this is so important.”

  Deciding she wanted to be a smidge cooler as the mystery unfolded, Riley followed suit and unbuttoned her blazer as well. She went the extra mile and pulled it off her shoulders, never noting that Asher lost the ability to speak as his eyes focused on the soft swell of her breasts, visible beneath a tailored white shirt.

  “Um.” He sat up and massaged the bridge of his nose and tried to put effort into focusing on something else—anything else.

  “Are you okay?” she whispered, hoping her words nudging for him continue the story were subtle enough.

  “Right, um.” He left the sofa to pour a much-needed drink. “I was so angry about your story because I could’ve prevented everything that happened.”

  “How?”

  “Six months before your story broke, one of my junior agents came to me with allegations that Forester Haines was making promises to clients that he couldn’t keep.”

  Riley sat straighter, recognizing the name of the agent featured in her column. Her research and a tip about corruption and bribes had pointed to Forester Haines. When she made the connection to Asher’s up-and-coming organization, she recognized it all as one of those stories begging to be plucked, explored and shared.

  “Anyway, I didn’t listen. Figured the guy was just heated over losing out on closing deals while Forester was closing ’em left and right. The things he said…crap he told me Forester had pulled…It was so outrageous.” Asher came back to the sofa and passed Riley a rum and Coke. “I wound up firing him. He begged me…stood right there.” Asher pointed to the deep armchairs before his desk. “Talked about how much respect he had for the integrity of the profession. He said it soured something inside him to see someone turning it to shit.”

  Riley swallowed down the drink with effort. Calvin Onsteen had said almost those exact words to her when he dropped the tip in her lap.

  Asher turned the stout, beaded glass in his hand. “He told me that one day I’d see, and he hoped it wouldn’t be too late. In spite of it all, he still considered me one of the good guys.” He laughed then and drank deeply of the hard drink. “I’m firing the son of a bitch, and he’s saying he still considers me one of the good guys.”

  “Asher—”

  He set the glass on the table and took one of her hands in his. “Listen to me. If Calvin Onsteen is your source, I only want him to know that I’m sorry. I don’t have a way to contact him…I’d like to help him if I can. I understand if he doesn’t want to come back here to work, though he’s got a job here if he ever wants one.”

  Riley’s mouth was dry even as she swigged the drink. The hurt and regret came through in Asher’s expression and words. He was nothing like what she’d expected. Nothing like the corrupt individual she thought she was helping to bring down when that story broke. Calvin Onsteen had told her Asher was one of the good guys. She’d cast off his musings as the silly, blind adoration men held for their idols.

  Asher was standing before the floor-to-ceiling windows lining his gorgeous office. “He doesn’t have family, so I don’t know what his finances look like or if he’s found work….” He trailed away, looked down in his glass for a while and then finished off whatever was left in it.

  When silence enveloped them for the better part of two minutes, Riley figured everything had been said and stood from the sofa once more.

  “I’ll have a car take you back to the hotel.”

  “Thanks.” She tugged the purse strap across her shoulder.

  “Riley?”

  Her hand was on the door lever.

  “Have dinner with me tonight?”

  The weak hand fell off the lever. “I, um, I’ve got a plane to catch.”

  He smiled and turned away from the windows. “Tonight?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “That’s not tonight.” He studied the invisible designs his index finger carved on the desk.

  “Asher, I—”

  “It’s only dinner, Riley.”

  He was right, and she was being completely silly. “What time?”

  “Seven. There’s a good restaurant down the street from your hotel. We can eat there.”

  She managed a nod upon realizing she’d been gawking at him for two full minutes. “Right. So…I’ll see you then
.” She made a quick turn for the door.

  “Riley?”

  She bowed her head.

  “Thanks for coming.”

  “Uh-huh…” She raced out of the office as if the devil was at her back.

  Riley celebrated the fact that she’d packed for three days instead of one. Sadly, she hadn’t packed anything else nearly as severe as the black pantsuit she’d felt so confident in while going toe-to-toe with Asher Hudson.

  Gone toe-to-toe? Had she really done that? She pondered the strength of that statement while studying the airy wisp of a dress that would be her attire for the evening. Asher Hudson was far more than she’d expected from a physical standpoint. There was more, of course—lots more—and the strength of that statement was what had her behaving completely unlike herself.

  The knocker sounded at the door to the suite, and Riley surveyed herself once more in the full-length mirror adorning the closet door. The dress was not appropriate in any way for dinner with a man who’d made her tingle, oh, so scandalously during a simple phone call. There was no time to debate on that now, and there was certainly nothing else for her to change into.

  Asher considered himself quite fortunate that Riley Stamper was a journalist and not an agent. His career would’ve bit the dust long ago had he been forced to sit across from her at a negotiating table.

  What had him so infatuated, and so quickly, with her? Of course, she was exquisite, with a face and body to keep a man coming back for more regardless of how much or how little of herself she was willing to give.

  The thing that hooked him most about Riley was her fierce streak of loyalty and stubbornness. He could scarcely recall his own name today when she sat across from him and defended the integrity of her story and her profession. In his world, reporters were nowhere near as upstanding. He’d been dumbstruck, pure and simple.

  And yet as attracted as he was to her mind, it was her beauty that left him speechless.

  Riley must have noticed the dazed look in his gaze, because she grasped his forearm, bared by the cobalt-blue crew-neck shirt he wore. “Are you okay?” she whispered and then swallowed when he towered over her. “Asher?” Her eyes raked the wicked scar before snapping to his eyes.

  He knew how hungry he appeared. He wanted her to see it and do something to diminish the appeal that she radiated toward him.

  Riley tried to move away, but as she was crowded between a god and her hotel-room door, she was quite simply…trapped.

  “Maybe we should go?” She was almost afraid to breathe. The dress she was wearing flared about her legs, and the sleeves about her wrists, but the bodice was snug and scooped. With too much breathing and in such close proximity, her bosom was sandwiched against his arm.

  Asher closed his eyes and nodded. “Do you have something to, um…” He waved toward her exposed skin.

  “Oh.” Riley tugged her wrap and bag from the coatrack. “Ready.” She blinked rapidly and looked anywhere but at the intense expression still evident on his handsome face.

  Gallantly, he stepped back from the door and urged her to precede him. Ever so lightly, his hand pressed the small of her back, guiding her toward the elevators. Riley was so in tune to his touch, she believed she could feel each individual fingertip massaging her spine.

  When the elevator doors opened, a long breath of relief whooshed from her lungs. The car held three other passengers. There would be no steamy encounters in the elevator’s cramped confines. But when the elevator car hit its next stop and two others joined them, the only place for Riley to stand was smack-dab against Asher Hudson.

  “All right?” he whispered, barely managing a smile as she barely managed a nod. He recalled that earlier that day, he’d wondered how her lithe, curvaceous form would feel against him.

  Now he knew. The sight of her in that dress was nothing compared to the way her body felt next to his. Her thick hair was drawn away from her face and left to tumble across her shoulders in a wealth of curls. When she cleared her throat and shifted her stance, the fragrance drifting from her hair and body reminded him of green apples. Biting his lip on an oath, Asher prayed the lobby was near.

  “This way,” he said once the torturous ride had ended and the passengers had exited the elevator car. His heart thudded like an adolescent’s when she linked her fingers through his while they crossed the crowded main floor. Going a step further, Asher tugged her hand through the crook of his arm and drew her even closer.

  “So was starting your firm just the obvious choice when you left the league?” Riley reached for her Scotch and soda while awaiting his answer.

  “It was one choice.” Asher silently commended the maître d’. The seating was perfect. Secluded but not completely remote, it gave them a chance for real conversation. “At first I was ready to say goodbye to it all together.”

  Riley smiled and broke a tortilla chip in half. “Was basketball your first love?”

  “More like fifty-first.” He joined in when Riley laughed. “I enjoy it more as a spectator.” He shrugged. “I had a talent for it, though, and my dad was so proud.”

  “Ah, men and their fathers,” Riley drawled in a playful yet understanding tone.

  Asher wondered if his detection of her unease was accurate. Something in the way she said “fathers” had him more than a little curious.

  “So then the robbery?” she prompted when the silence grew a little too charged. She saw Asher grimace and lean back from the table.

  “Then the robbery.” He spoke the words and appeared to be looking out over the scene from his past. “After that, I just wanted a change of jobs and scenery, you know?”

  “And then…Phoenix,” Riley said, with laughter, to lighten whatever mood had taken hold of him.

  It worked, and his laughter was hearty and easily contagious. The heavy mood was effectively lifted when the server returned with their orders of enchiladas, seasoned rice and cheesy beans.

  Riley was already digging in when she noticed Asher had yet to begin.

  “Does Mexican sit well with you? I didn’t bother to ask before.”

  “It sits very well. Don’t worry.”

  Asher was still hesitant. This time for a different reason. Clearly, the statuesque journalist wasn’t shy about eating, he thought and watched her dine with gusto. The restaurant was one of his favorites, but not a place he’d generally take a date. Especially not a first date. He supposed the lovely Ms. Stamper relaxed him more than he’d realized.

  “So how difficult is it to score your very own column?” he asked after they’d gotten halfway through the meal.

  “Not nearly as easy as folks think. I was a classified ad rep for the New Chronicle right after college.” She rolled her eyes. “I’m no salesperson, but it was a foot in the door…did that for about three years. Then, one night, I happened to be on hand at a popular nightspot when an altercation broke out between two jocks.”

  Asher brought a hand to his forehead. “Please don’t tell me they were basketball players.”

  She slapped her hand against his wrist. “Even better. They were football players—huge ones. Rookies to the league and all. They made a mess of the place. My table was the last one they crashed into—with me sitting there!”

  “God.” Asher was riveted by the story and held a chip poised over the salsa as he waited for more.

  “I was fine, but they didn’t know that. I’m ashamed to admit that I wasn’t always such an upstanding journalist.”

  Asher felt his mouth twitch with a smile. “You don’t say.”

  Completely out of character, Riley giggled as the memory reclaimed her. “They were both very sorry, called, wanted to make it up to me.”

  “And you wanted a story.”

  “And I got one.”

  Asher dipped his chip. “I guess a lot of people wanted to know what started that scuffle.”

  “I guess they did, but that wasn’t the story I wanted.”

  Asher’s interest in her story suddenly int
ensified and his sleek eyebrows rose.

  “I got them to really open up to me about rookies in the league and how much pressure there is to stand out when you’ve stood out your entire life.”

  “Good angle,” he acknowledged, more impressed than he realized.

  Riley shrugged and savored the last of her enchilada. “The editors thought so. They published it, and then I wrote an editorial on college athletics, cowrote a piece with one of the senior writers before getting my own staff writing position.”

  “Impressive.”

  “I did that for about four years. When they lost a column to syndication, I got the nod.”

  Asher tilted his Heineken bottle in her direction. “And now you’re the Riley Stamper.”

  She shook her head but smiled just the same. “Not yet. Nowhere near yet.”

  Asher finished his bottle of beer and signaled the waiter for another. “You shouldn’t be so modest. You’ve got no idea how many people pick up that paper. How do you think I found out about that story?”

  Riley debated a moment. “May I tell you something?”

  “Anything.”

  “Being in this business—” she pushed away her plate and smirked “—you start to become a bit cynical.”

  “No.”

  She laughed. “It’s true. People rarely surprise me anymore.”

  Asher thanked the server for the fresh bottle, then nodded for Riley to continue.

  “What you said today…I wasn’t expecting that.”

  “What? I don’t strike you as a man who could ever be wrong about anything?”

  Again, Riley burst into laughter. “Don’t even try it. Seriously, Asher, I…I never would’ve expected an agent to have that sort of integrity. You’re really committed to doing things the right way.”

  “I was sure you’d think I was full of shit.” His mood sobered. “I meant every word of it, by the way.”

  “I believe you.”

  Asher sipped from the frosted bottle and wondered if she’d believe him if he said he’d never enjoyed a dinner conversation more. Hell, did he even believe that? What the devil was going on here? Women were passing fancies that he’d had his fair share of, but this one seated across from him…He was hesitant to say she was different. But wasn’t she? He was hanging on to her every word like some schoolboy. Whenever she stopped talking to enjoy her food, he entertained himself by envisioning them in bed together. He expelled a loud sigh.