She shook her head. “It’s gossip.”
“There’s enough truth in it that they can claim it’s not gossip. They’ve done it before.”
“You know who’s behind this?”
“No. But I know who their lawyer is.”
“So call them. Tell them if they don’t stop, you’ll sue them for all they’re worth!”
“That’s not how you go about these things, Rosie,” Joey said.
Rosie stopped pacing and stared at the two of us for a long moment. She seemed to understand what she’d walked in on now, and a slow blush burned from the top of her collarbones to her face.
“I should—”
She vaguely gestured behind herself, walking quickly toward the door. It was almost comical, watching her slink out of the room
But there was nothing comical about the article on Dear Elizabeth.
“Damn! I thought they were backing off.” I climbed off the bed, kicking at the sheets where they tried to trip me up. “The lawyers said they thought the writer had gotten the message.”
“Apparently not.”
“Who the fuck is behind all this?”
Joey didn’t answer, but it really hadn’t been that kind of question. I paced the room just as Rosie had done, trying to figure out what my next step should be. Before, I’d been worried about my reputation. Then, I was worried about the impact on the foundation. But now? That bitch had called my girlfriend a slut. I was fucking mad!
I wanted to know who was behind it. Originally, I’d thought it was Frank Thomas, an old friend who stole from my company because he thought I wasn’t giving him the kudos he thought he deserved. He’d threatened me, promised to destroy me. But when I confronted him and he told me that his wife had taken their kids and left, that he was too busy dealing with the fallout of his crime to think about me, I didn’t want to believe him. However, I’d known him ten years. I knew when he was blowing hot air and when he was telling the truth. He was telling the truth.
But that left me with no other suspects.
“Do you think it was someone at the dinner? Or a reporter? Maybe the blogger is a reporter with one of the magazines or newspapers that were represented there last night.”
When Joey didn’t answer, I turned to find her climbing off the bed.
“Where are you going?”
“I have an early shift at the bar, and I need to get a couple of cakes baked before then.”
She wouldn’t look me in the eye, and she pulled a light blanket off the bed and covered herself. She never did that. She was never shy around me, especially after we’d made love. She was headed to the bathroom. I followed, grabbing her arm before she could push the door closed.
“Hey, what’s going on?”
I lifted her chin, but she still wouldn’t look me in eye. She looked everywhere but at me.
“Jo…”
“I just want to take a shower and get this day started.”
“Joey, you’re upset.”
“Of course I am! You saw what it said!”
“I did. But that doesn’t make it true.”
She rolled her eyes. “I was wearing a dress that was too tight. And I was showing my chest off to the congressman. Not on purpose, but it was sort of unavoidable.”
“Listen to me, Joey,” I said, pushing her back against the door. “You didn’t do anything wrong. These articles aren’t even about you. They’re about me. Someone’s trying to hurt me, and they know you’re my only vulnerability.”
She started to shake her head, but I grabbed her jaw and forced her to look at me.
“This is my fault. I should be protecting you—and I’m not.”
“No,” she said, finally looking at me, finally letting her eyes meet mine. “If not for me—”
“If not for you, I would still be working too many hours and going home to an empty house. If not for you, I’d be miserable, lonely, and lost. If not for you—”
She climbed up on her tiptoes and kissed me, the softest, gentlest kiss I think we’d ever shared. I pulled her close to me and sighed as the blanket slipped from her grip. Her naked body against mine and…well, we didn’t make it into the shower for several more hours.
So much for those cakes she needed to bake.
Chapter 27
Joey
Music was pulsing through my body as I dodged hands and feet, trying to make my way through a Saturday-night crowd. Beer, beer, and more beer, sloshing over my hands, splashing on the front of my t-shirt, breathed on me from over-exuberant customers. I couldn’t wait until the day I could walk away from this job. I’d never touch another beer again for the rest of my life.
I set a pitcher on a table and spun around to deliver a mug to another. Then I headed back to the bar to pick up more. It was non-stop. But at least the constant activity helped the time pass quickly. And it kept me from analyzing the article that appeared on Dear Elizabeth this morning.
I’d read the entire thing after Jason left. I read it three, four times. Over and over. I couldn’t stop. No one had ever said things like that about me before. I mean, I know the dress I was wearing was tight. But it wasn’t that bad, was it? I’d seen women wear far worse. Yet, someone jumped on it and decided that I was a slut just because I chose to wear a dress that showed off assets that other women showed off in much more obvious ways. It was like whoever was writing these blog posts knew me personally and had a reason to dislike me.
Who could that be?
I didn’t know the people in Jason’s world. I had never met a reporter; I had never spoken to a congressman before I met the one at dinner. I knew absolutely no one at these parties except for Jason. I simply didn’t understand who could hate me so much that they would say something so cruel about me. The only thing I could come up with was that it was someone who was jealous, someone who had feelings for Jason and was taking out their jealousy on me because I was an obstacle.
Was that it? Was someone who was secretly in love with Jason doing this to me? To us? But these articles were hurting Jason, too. They were hurting his reputation and his ability to conduct business. Most of the clients at JB Graphics were family-oriented companies. They didn’t want to work with someone with less than a stellar reputation. And the foundation was built on the family reputation, on their ability to convince people of all moral compasses to give up a little of their money. He needed to maintain a certain public persona. These articles were hurting him, too.
It was confusing. But it was also worrisome.
My parents called this afternoon.
“Someone mentioned this blog,” my mom began, and my heart immediately sank. They were worried about me. They hinted that maybe I should come home. Home was in Dallas, hundreds of miles north of here, hundreds of miles from Jason.
The thing was, if not for Jason and the fact that Rosie would never leave Jackson, I might consider going home. I wasn’t going to find a good job here, not with these blog posts following me around. Paying for the townhouse was taking a huge chunk out of my budget, leaving very little to pay off my student loans. Another month or two and things were going to get very complicated with my finances.
I didn’t know what to do.
“You look like you could use a drink,” the bartender said, as he filled my tray with yet more beer.
“I could use a very stiff drink.”
“How about some vodka?”
He set a shot glass in front of me and winked. I glanced around, making sure the boss wasn’t watching, and quickly swallowed the drink.
“Thanks.”
I turned to deliver the contents of my tray and almost ran straight into Rahul.
“Hey! What are you doing here?”
“Stopped in for a drink,” he said, his eyes moving slowly over me. “When are you off?”
“I don’t know. What time is it?”
“About ten.”
“Oh, well, I’m supposed to be off at ten. But I don’t see Cindy.”
“
Come find me when they let you go.”
I nodded as someone called to me, yelling for another beer. I was so ready to sit down and kick my boots off by the time my relief, Cindy, finally came running out onto the floor. She was a part-timer who’d only worked at the bar for a couple of weeks. I actually trained her, so she was apologetic for being late.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, touching her shoulder lightly.
But I was relieved when I settled into a chair across from Rahul. He pushed a bottle of beer in my direction, but I ignored it. The only thing I hated more than the smell of beer was the taste.
“What are you doing here?” I asked again.
“I wanted to talk to you away from Rosie.”
My eyebrows rose. Rahul is Rosie’s work partner, friend, bodyguard, and half a dozen other things. He goes with her when she delivers singing telegrams. He was with me the night I climbed into a cake in Jason’s entryway, but he had to leave me alone because it was a different sort of situation. There was no party. It was just a simple surprise. His presence would have tipped the recipient—Jason—off. If he’d stuck around, I probably wouldn’t have fallen asleep. But I also wouldn’t have spent the night with Jason, so I guess it was a double-edged sword.
“Is something wrong with Rosie?” I asked.
“No.” He leaned forward, reaching over to touch the back of my arm. “I just…I saw the article about you on that blog.”
I groaned. “Yeah, it seems like all of Houston has seen it. Even my parents saw it in Dallas.”
A pained expression crossed his face. I wanted to smooth it away; I wanted to tell him not to worry about me so much. But I also didn’t want to encourage this crush he seemed to have on me.
“It’s not that big of a deal,” I said, trying to downplay the whole thing. “Jason’s getting his lawyers on it, trying to stop whoever’s behind the whole thing.”
“Is he having much luck?”
I shrugged. “It’s complicated.”
Rahul squeezed my arm, then sat up and took a long swallow from his beer. He looked around the bar a moment, watching the rowdy patrons getting a little rowdier as a popular song came on the jukebox. I settled back and crossed my legs, rubbing my ankles through the thick leather of my boots. I always tried to remind myself that I should be happy that I didn’t have to wear heels to deliver drinks, but that didn’t make the pain any less real at the end of a long shift.
My cellphone buzzed in my back pocket. I pulled it out, but Rahul reached over and lay his hand over it.
“I need to tell you something,” he said, his voice deep and heavy with something that felt like guilt.
“What’s going on, Rahul?”
“You remember last month, when those blog posts first started appearing?”
I shrugged. “About the time I started seeing Jason.”
“Yeah.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Someone called my cellphone one day, wanted to know about you.”
“What?”
“They said they were doing a story about you because of that fancy party you went to. That fundraiser.”
“That was right before the posts started.”
“Yeah.” He took another swallow from his beer bottle. He set it down slowly, thoughtfully. “I didn’t put it together, at first. They called, and I told them I wasn’t the right person to tell them anything. But they kept calling. And when I saw you walk out with him and then…”
“What did you do?”
“I gave them information. Told them about the cake you were supposed to jump out of, but how you fell asleep, and about your job at JB Graphics and your job here. I told them everything they wanted to know.”
There was guilt in his eyes and a need for my understanding. I didn’t understand.
“Why would you do that?”
“I don’t know. I thought it was just a curious reporter. And I was a little annoyed—”
“Annoyed? Annoyed about what?”
“About you and that…that guy!”
“Jason?”
“The reporter said that they were doing a story on Jason Brooks and they wanted to know everything they could about the people in his life. I just told them where you worked.”
“And then someone wrote a blog post about how Jason was forcing me to sleep with him by threatening my job!” I wanted to reach over and slap him. Instead I just took a deep breath. “It didn’t occur to you that one might have something to do with the other?”
“By the time I figured it out, the stories were starting to lose steam.”
“But they’re back now.”
“I didn’t tell them anything else. I wasn’t even around last night.”
I shook my head. “But you helped get this whole thing started.” I stood, needing to get out of there. “Thanks for the friendship, Rahul. It’s really appreciated.”
“Joey, I never wanted to hurt you. Not really.”
“But you did.”
I walked out of the bar, wondering how many of my other friends and family this person had contacted. Why Rahul? It’s not as if we go out together. It’s not as if a lot of people even know we’re friends. He hangs out at my apartment, but that’s my apartment, my private space. Someone would have to watch me come and go to know what goes on there. The only time Rahul and I go out in public together is when I fill in for Rosie at her singing telegram job. And the last time was the night Jason and I…was someone watching us that night? Was it the security guard at the front gate of Jason’s housing complex? Or a neighbor?
Did they call Rosie? What did Rosie tell them?
My phone buzzed again.
Two messages: Are you off? Come by the house. And then: Joanne? Everything okay?
I wanted to scream. And then I wanted to go home and hide under my covers. And then…I just wanted to fall into Jason’s arms and pretend this whole day hadn’t happened.
And that’s what I did.
Chapter 28
Jason
I was waiting at the front door, watching as the taxi pulled into my circle drive and let Joanne out of the backseat. She looked exhausted, dark circles under her perfect brown eyes, as she approached me. I tugged her against me, offering a gentle kiss.
“Hi. Long night?”
“Long life.”
It would have been funny if she didn’t look so absolutely miserable. I took her hand and led the way inside, leading her to the couch. I encouraged her to sit, then poured her glass of wine—a white Moscato. She sighed as she took a long sip of the sweet wine. I sat on the edge of the coffee table and lifted her feet into my lap, carefully removing her boots and then rubbing them, trying to wipe away the ache that I knew always settled in her arches after a long shift.
She pulled them away. “My feet are nasty. Sweaty.”
“They’re fine,” I said, tugging one back up onto my lap. “I want to.”
She watched my hands work, a sigh slipping from her lips as she settled back and sipped more of the wine. I kept rubbing, just wanting to make the day disappear for her. I knew she’d been working too hard since that woman fired her from her job at my company. I’d tried to get her to come back, to take a better position with the company now that I’d revamp the executive-level jobs. But she refused, afraid it would look like favoritism. But she wouldn’t take money from me, either. Proud woman. It was one of the things I liked about her.
“I talked to my lawyers,” I said, but she waved me off with a single gesture.
“I’m done talking about that today. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded. “I just want to forget for a little while. Can we do that?”
“We can do that.”
I dropped her foot and slid onto the couch behind her, wrapping my arms around her ribs and cradling her against my chest. We just sat there for a little bit, sharing her glass of wine and not really talking. It sounds boring, but it was actually quite nice. You know when you’ve found t
he right person when sitting in silence isn’t frightening.
“I smell like a bar,” she said after a while.
“You smell like you.”
She chuckled. “Then I must smell pretty bad all the time.”
She started to climb off the couch, but I grabbed her arm and pulled her back down onto the couch with me. I wasn’t ready to let her go just yet.
“I’m nasty,” she said, as I nuzzled against her throat. “Sweaty and covered in spilled beer.”
“Yeah, but I haven’t seen you in hours.”
She giggled a little—even as I pulled her closer against me. We kissed for a long moment, our tongues playing together, the taste of the wine like an aphrodisiac that neither of us could get enough of. I was so excited just to touch her, just to feel her skin against mine. I slid my hands under her shirt, sliding them up along the valley that covered her spine. She pulled back just a little, just enough to draw my bottom lip into her mouth, suckling at it softly before she nibbled on it. The sensation rushed through me, grabbing me deep in my balls. If it was up to me, I would have stripped her right there and made love to her on the same couch where my parents sat the first time they came to visit me in this house. But she had other ideas.
“Do you want to take a shower?” she asked, as she nibbled at the tender flesh of my earlobe.
“With you?”
“Yeah.”
“For the rest of my life.”
A sound that was kind of a mixture of a laugh and a moan slipped from between her lips. I pushed her off my lap and stood, holding out a hand to lift her to her feet. But just as we turned toward the stairs, my cellphone rang with a ringtone I knew only too well.
We had company.
I cursed under my breath, as I pulled my cellphone from my back pocket.
“What?” she asked.
“It’s the front gate.” I studied the screen on my phone. “Sara.”
“Is she not aware that it’s midnight?”
“I don’t know what Sara knows half the time.”
It wasn’t as if this was the first time she’d stopped by late at night. She used to do it all the time. But she hadn’t done it since she was advanced in her pregnancy.
SEAN: A Mafia Romance (The Callahans Book 3) Page 67
