Talk of the Town

by Sherrill Bodine

  Little flutters of euphoria and nearly letting the bottle slip through her fingers warned she was buzzed from gulping expensive champagne like it was Diet Coke.

  She slurped two tablespoons of spinach soup to get something else in her stomach.

  Not bad. Tastes yummy.

  Plus it looked pretty in her granny’s deep old bowls when Rebecca garnished the top with a minute droplet of cream, which for some reason reminded her of tiny white hearts.

  Gripping the dishes like a vise, she moved them carefully out onto the table at the short end of the L-shaped dining room. David had deserted the terrace for the living area, where he was busy studying the photos scattered all over her bookcase.

  There was such a sad look on his face she stopped to stare at him. He looks lost.

  Studying the photo of three little girls, the tiny dark-haired one in the center reminding him of Miguellia, he was lost in thoughts of Ellen’s park and the kids and what it all meant to him.

  Warmth rippling along his spine warned he wasn’t alone any longer. He glanced up to find Rebecca watching him. “The little girls in this picture must be related to Pauline Alper. That red hair is unique.”

  Slowly, Rebecca walked toward him. “Her daughters. Patty and Polly. Aren’t they adorable?”

  “Yes. Who’s the little dark-haired girl in the middle?”

  “Angelina, my ex-husband’s daughter. She’s a doll, too.”

  A hot jolt of shock hit him in the gut. “You’re still close to your ex?” he asked, strangely interested in her answer.

  “Heavens, no!” she laughed. “But Angelina and I are friends.”

  Intrigued, he gave her a long look. “Interesting. A child should never suffer because adults can’t get along.”

  “I absolutely agree.”

  She hesitated, and he knew she’d made some kind of decision about him.

  “I had a nasty divorce.” She did a mock shudder, trying to make it sound light. But he could see in her eyes there had been nothing easy about it. An ache filled his chest the way it had watching Miguellia take a swing with everything she had at an impossible pitch. He’d sensed Rebecca had courage. Now he knew he’d been right.

  “Then four years after the divorce my ex called and said he and his very young wife were taking some family relationship seminars. Their instructor insisted it was imperative that we all have closure so they could become better parents to Angelina. We were ancient history, but as you said, none of it was the child’s fault.” She shrugged. “Long story short. We met. Angelina walked in, plopped herself on my lap for the duration of the visit. Very strong like at first sight for both of us. Whenever I get extra tickets to Broadway shows coming to town, I send them to her. This picture was taken when Pauline and I took all three girls to see The Lion King.”

  Their eyes locked, and the strongest sensation of tenderness he’d felt in years flooded over him. He rammed his hands into his pockets and stepped back to put some space between them. “You surprise me, Rebecca.”

  Her blush made her brown eyes large and luminous in her beautiful face. “Well, then, I hope I keep surprising you. Starting with dinner. It’s served.”

  With the table between them it was easier for Rebecca to regain control. To try to forget the brain-chemical reaction or whatever it was between them that made her comfortable enough to tell him about Angelina. She needed to rekindle her dislike of him.

  “Delicious soup,” he complimented like a well- behaved guest. “This is from your first recipe column with a gossip note?”

  Good. Let’s get to the point of this evening. “Of course.” Settling back in her chair, she sipped champagne instead of her soup. “You wanted to talk about my column?” she asked sweetly and took another gulp.

  Mirroring her, he leaned back in his chair, sipping the Duckhorn Sauvignon Blanc Harry had read would be the perfect accompaniment to spinach soup and fowl.

  “I wanted to get to know you. Discuss the reasons I made changes at the Daily Mail. Particularly how they affect you.”

  Affect me? You pulled my world out from under me.

  It was safer to feel angry at him than drawn to him. Widening her eyes, she tried to disguise her disgust with interest. “Do tell.”

  The cool, calculating gaze from his suddenly narrowed eyes charged the air with so much tension she could have sliced it with her granny’s priceless sterling silver butter knife.

  Damn it. Now he knows I’m angry.

  He leaned forward. Instinctively, she pressed back into her hardwood chair.

  “Let’s lay our cards on the table, Rebecca. I chose Shannon over you because I’m taking the newspaper in a new direction. Reality journalism. I want Shannon out at parties all night. Climbing over people to get the pictures and interviews with local and national celebrities playing in Chicago. If someone famous is dancing topless on a bar, I want Shannon there to share the sexy excitement with the reader. It isn’t a job I believe you can do.”

  Of course I don’t want that job! Oddly unsure what to say or do next, she jumped to her feet. “I smell something burning in the kitchen. Excuse me.” She grabbed their bowls and escaped.

  There was no need to deliberately slop food around the kitchen to make it look real. She took out her frustration by slapping the Baja Chicken and rice onto dinner plates. She was furious at him for taking the paper in a direction she believed wrong, but she was even more angry at herself for being so confused about him. Tonight she’d glimpsed someone in him she might actually like.

  When sauce splattered on her apron, she stopped to look down. In despair, she tried to wash off the huge red spot. When she failed, she took the apron off and hung it over a kitchen stool to dry.

  Sorry, Harry. About everything. I am going to be myself, but David will not be enchanted. He may be handsome and he may have noble tendencies, and I might feel an odd kind of connection to him, but he turned my world upside down for all the wrong reasons and I’m going to tell him so.

  David stood when she returned to the table to set the full plate in front of him. He glanced at the deep vee neckline of her Dolce & Gabbana dress, with the little smile that dimpled his cheek. “This must be the infamous Baja Chicken.”

  “The only chicken breasts are on our plates,” she snapped.

  A red flush, which started at his pale blue starched collar and worked its way up over his cheekbones, caused his sapphire eyes to flash and his smile to deepen. “I never doubted it.”

  She felt herself flush, too. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.” She sat down across from him and crossed her arms over her chest, which had the unfortunate effect of swelling her cleavage. “I hope everything is to your taste.”

  “It is,” he answered over a forkful of chicken breast. All the while, his cool eyes appraised her.

  I’m so tense and a little drunk. If I eat one morsel of food I’ll throw up. She clenched her hands in her lap. She needed to get the evening back on track. “David, since you’ve been so honest with me, I feel I should reciprocate.” She tried to smile but couldn’t. This was so important to her. “I violently disagree with you on your vision for the paper. What you call reality journalism is what I call yellow journalism.”

  “The world has changed since journalism school, Rebecca.” He lifted the bottle of Duckhorn from the ice bucket to pour himself another glass. “Reality programming is the wave of the future.”

  “Then God help us all! The main impact reality TV has had on the world is that now everybody believes they can be famous. Once fame was earned by working hard to enhance a talent to act, sing, dance, paint, write, heal, invent. Add something to the world. Ten years from now, an entire generation of kids reared on reality programming are going to be visiting therapists daily because they didn’t become famous for eating enough bugs. That’s my personal Fear Factor.”

  Leaning back, calmly drinking his wine, David didn’t appear moved by her passionate outburst. “Do you watch Project Runway or Dancing with the Stars?
”

  Again she felt a hot flush of embarrassment rush up from her chest to burn her cheeks. “Those young designers create something. The others learn a skill.”

  “Those programs are fresh and innovative examples of good reality programs. The type of product I plan to use to revive WBS-TV, which I picked up in this deal. The same way I’m reinventing the newspaper.”

  “With topless babes, instead of reporting on Chicago’s philanthropists at play in black tie?”

  He shrugged. “Outdated reporting. Inquiring minds want to know everything. The good. The bad. The ugly.”

  She was grateful his attitude was making her furious enough to ignore the excitement pulsing between them. She glared across the table. “When did we start believing we have the right to know every dirty little secret about one another and enjoy watching while people make fools of themselves?”

  His rich, deep laughter filled the room, whipping her into a deeper frenzy.

  “What? What’s so funny?”

  “You.” Still chuckling, he leaned so close they nearly touched. “Have you forgotten the blind item that started all this? The senator and the babe? You’ve done your share of exposing dirty little secrets.”

  Stung by the truth of his outrageous claim, she rose to tower over him on four inches of steel stiletto. “It’s not the same. I always change the names to protect the dirty little secrets of the guilty. The innocent don’t need protecting. I give them credit for their good deeds. Or I should say I did before you fired me.”

  He stood, his hands rammed into his trouser pockets. His eyes were mesmerizing in their intensity. “I’m glad you chose to stay. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known who you really are. I like who I see.”

  A second ago she wanted to strangle him. Now she had a warm, glowing, nearly overpowering urge to sit back down and let nature take its course. She’d been handling men for years. Obviously this one had a slightly different effect on her.

  I need to regroup.

  “It’s been such an . . . interesting . . . and informative evening. I’m sorry, but I’m suddenly exhausted.” She marched to the condo door and held it open. At her pointed look he had no choice but to cross the L-shaped room to her side.

  Ignoring her obvious desire to be rid of him, David lingered in the open doorway. “May I ask you a personal question?”

  Anything to get you out of here. “Yes, if you must.”

  “If rumor is true, you only date much younger men. Why?”

  You hypocrite. “Why do you date much younger women?” she threw back at him, holding on to the part of her that still wanted to strangle him.

  The mischievous grin that crossed his face sent a tidal wave of tiny shivers down her spine. “For the excitement and lack of commitment.”

  “At last. We have something in common,” she purred before closing the door on him.

  Breathing deeply, she fell back against the wall. David was hypnotically sexy even at his most insufferable. He wasn’t her type, but she could almost understand why some women would want him.

  She stared at her flushed face in the mirrored foyer. “Who are you kidding? You’re the hypocrite. You wanted him the first moment you laid eyes on him and again tonight.”

  The stress of this confusion needed to be fed. She stalked back to the kitchen, yanked open the refrigerator, and pulled out the bowl of fresh strawberries and whipped cream. She ate standing up, plunging strawberries into whipped cream before slowly licking and eating them.

  Finally she faced the awful truth. Okay. All right. I want him even though he’s the enemy. The one I must defeat, or charm, or reason into giving me back my job.

  Now what should she do about that, not to mention his horrible plans for the paper?

  A deep sadness drove her to fall into a kitchen chair, carrying the strawberries and whipped cream with her. Was she truly outdated? Was there no place for her in this unbrave new reality world?

  She played the evening in her mind, like watching the scenes in Groundhog Day repeated over and over. How could she have changed it for a better outcome? The intangible connection she felt for David had deepened tonight. She knew he had depth and compassion from the way he conducted his life after his wife died and the glimpses of it she saw tonight. He was a man of strong character. If she appealed to that, perhaps she could change his mind about the direction he planned to take the paper.

  Finally having a plan, she warmed to the idea, deciding it would strengthen David’s moral fiber if he opened his mind to new possibilities instead of the current rage for shock journalism. Plus she’d be doing a good deed for all her writing colleagues who couldn’t get work because no scripts were required for reality shows.

  But what should be her first move? Every womanly instinct told her she challenged and intrigued him. There was power in that for her. Unfortunately, he intrigued her, which gave him power. Plus he was her boss. Unfair advantage in this battle of wills.

  Smiling, she licked another strawberry while visions of sparring with David for his own good, and hers, danced through her head.

  Chapter 11

  Rebecca was so accustomed to her usual Monday morning disasters she felt mildly let down when she arrived at the Daily Mail and no one waited to sabotage her in the lobby. Where was David? Thoughts of how to put her plan in motion had kept her awake most of the night. If David was intrigued with her, then he would be more likely to actually listen to her about the future of the paper.

  Today, Pauline, busy taking calls at the switchboard, merely waved at her. On the landing, Rebecca glanced down the short executive hall. Maybella was totally engrossed with work and didn’t bother to throw Rebecca her usual morning scowl.

  She arrived at her desk and sat down. Where is everyone? I’m ready for action. It feels like being all dressed up with nowhere to go.

  She heard David’s voice and then Kate’s, growing louder. As they came around the corner from the newsroom, David’s eyes locked with Rebecca’s. The air around them crackled with sexual tension.

  We’re still intrigued.

  She smiled in relief, then caught herself, making her face go blank.

  “Good morning, Rebecca.” Kate appeared flustered, running her fingers through her very short white hair, causing it to spike on top.

  It’s a great look for her. I must tell her.

  There was a look of fondness in Kate’s eyes as she gazed at her inadequate cubicle. “David is planning to update my work space.”

  Coolly assessing Kate’s cramped alcove, David’s gaze fell on Rebecca’s desk. “How is your work area, Rebecca?”

  She arched, rubbing her lower back. “My chiropractor was recently able to buy a second home.”

  His lips curled in amusement, just as she had hoped. “I’ll see what I can do about that.” He strolled away, his confident walk somewhere between a swagger and just plain sexy. Rebecca could hear him joking with Joe in Sports as he worked his way through the newsroom.

  “David is taking me to dinner tonight at RL’s to discuss business,” Kate said quietly.

  “Our business? Home and Food?” No need to fake being solemn now. Kate’s flushed face was worrying her.

  “Something else. I can’t talk about it just yet. I must look a mess.” Kate dropped her hand from worrying her hair.

  “Actually, it’s a great look for you. Cultivate it.”

  For the first time, Kate smiled. “You’re good for me, Rebecca. I wish you could be there tonight.”

  “I will be . . . kind of. I agreed to have dinner with George at RL’s tonight. But I don’t want to make you and David uncomfortable. Maybe we should change restaurants.”

  “Please don’t. If I need help, you’ll be within shouting distance.”

  Really worried now, Rebecca decided to pry. “Do you have any idea what David wants to talk about?”

  “I’m afraid I do.” With that cryptic remark, Kate disappeared into her tiny cavelike office.

  Really, really worried,
Rebecca followed her to make sure the bottle of Prozac Kate always kept on her desk next to her Pulitzer was still there.

  Her poker face back on, Kate peered up at her. “I’m fine. You don’t need to mother me the way you do Pauline.”

  Relieved that everything appeared normal, Rebecca pretended to be indignant. “Mother Pauline? Have you seen what a disciplinarian she is with Patty and Polly? I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  Kate’s slow smile took away any sting. “I appreciate that you care about all of us. If I need you, I’ll let you know tonight.”

  That night, ready if she was needed, Rebecca sat tensely on the edge of one of the prized corner banquettes at RL’s. She had a perfect view of the wide door leading from the wood-paneled bar into the dark green wainscoted dining room full of paintings and brass. Totally Ralph Lauren lifestyle setting.

  “Looking for someone?” George asked, giving her his trademark squinty-eyed smile.

  “I am. The new owner of the paper, David Sumner, and my editor, Kate Carmichael. They’re having dinner here tonight.”

  “You’re not going to ask them to join us, are you?” He asked with such a little boy pout she almost laughed.

  “No. They’re having a business dinner.”

  “Good.” He reached across the table with his palms up.

  Not wanting to be rude, Rebecca placed her hands on his. As she knew he would, he began to play with her fingers.

  “It’s been too long since I’ve had you to myself, Rebecca.”

  Tonight his playfulness was tickling her. Resisting the urge to wiggle away, she clasped his hands together to stop him. “George, you are tenacious.”

  “Always. When I want something,” he uttered, staring intently into her eyes.

  You are so good-looking and so young. “George, you do know I’m actually more than ten years older than you?”