by Clara James
She shook her head with a shrug. “Should I?”
“His name is Richard Langley,” he responded. “He’s a lawyer for Johnsons, the-”
“Company that’s been building all along the waterfront,” Allie finished for him. “So, why would he be visiting Pelzer?”
“Ahh,” he cooed excitedly, slipping the top photograph from beneath her fingers to reveal another one. “The question is, why did he leave without that suitcase.”
Allie stared at the shot, which judging by the light was taken no more than an hour after the first. Sure enough, there was Langley leaving the building, minus the suitcase. “Maybe he just forgot it,” she said cynically, although her instincts told her that Grant was definitely onto something.
“Maybe,” he nodded, but the smile on his face told her that there was still more he hadn’t revealed. Reaching for the photograph, he swiped it away, leaving a document beneath. “Little strange that Johnsons got the all-clear to build their new complex the day after though, isn’t it?”
Her eyes growing wide, Allie stared at the photocopied permit on her lap, before turning her attention to the proud young man by her side. “Wait, wait,” she paused, forcing herself to see this from their editor’s perspective. “This is still all pretty circumstantial.”
“Not when you add this to the evidence you’ve already got, Al,” he urged, barely able to contain his excitement. “Pelzer’s dirty and we’ve got him.”
She had to admit, he was right; there was only so much material that could be brushed aside as circumstantial. Once you start getting a mountain of evidence, it couldn’t so easily be ignored. Allie sighed, glancing once more at the building permit and two photographs. “Have you shown this to Needham, yet?”
“No,” he quickly responded, as though he was shocked she’d even ask. “I mean, it’s your baby.”
Scooping up all the papers and photos, she neatly replaced them in the file, before handing it back to him. “Not anymore,” she informed him.
Grant couldn’t have looked more confused if she’d spoken in Swahili. “What are you talking about?” he blurted.
“You’ve done this on your own,” she stated calmly, smiling fondly at the young man. “You’ve got the decisive evidence. The story’s yours.”
“But Allie, you did all the work.”
She shook her head sadly. “It’s yours now, Grant,” she repeated. “I want you to run with it.”
Grant scoffed, half-expecting her to reveal that this had all been a joke on her part. “I don’t understand,” he muttered. “You were desperate to crack this and now that we have, you’re not interested anymore?”
“I never said I wasn’t interested,” she corrected him keeping her temper even. “But I’ve got other things to worry about right now, so I’m letting you take this.”
“Other things to worry about,” he echoed disbelievingly. “What the hell’s happened to you? You used to live for this stuff; you were so passionate about your work, and now what? It doesn’t matter at all?” Unable to keep his own cool, Grant shot to his feet. “I thought you’d be pleased about this, that maybe you’d come back to work.”
Slowly, she rose feeling uncomfortable with him looming agitatedly over her. “I’m proud of you,” she assured him. “And this does matter,” she added, pointing to the file he clutched firmly between his fingers. “But it’s not my fight any more.” She watched his crestfallen face closely, as he gazed at her as if she were a stranger. “Grant, there’s no point in pretending, so I might as well just tell you...” she paused, inhaling deeply. “I don’t think I’m going to be coming back to work.”
He exhaled a scoff, before gripping his lip between his teeth. “You know,” he sighed. “Maybe you’re not the woman I thought you were.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, her hairs rising.
“Do you have any idea how much I looked up to you; how much I admired what you did; what you stood for and how driven you were?” As he spoke he leaned to the couch, swiping his jacket up angrily and tossing it under his arm. “I thought that if you were passionate about something, that meant it was worth doing.”
“Look,” she said, reaching out her hand and grasping his arm.
He snatched it back like he’d been burned. “You know what,” he yelled. “It’s no big deal,” he shrugged, but the anger in his tone made it clear that it was indeed a big deal to him. “Your priorities have changed. Now you’re more focused on your love life, right?”
Allie’s brow crinkled. “What are you talking about?”
“I saw you,” he snapped. “Three weeks ago with some guy in a bar. Then last week, you were bringing some other dude back to your apartment. “
“Have you been spying on me?” Allie blurted, her own anger now reaching boiling point.
“No,” he said defiantly. “I would never do that,” he insisted. “I just happened to be at the bar that night. And when you stopped showing up for work, I wanted to know if you were okay, so I came by and that’s when I saw you again.”
Allie fumed silently for a few seconds, sure he was telling the truth. “What I do and who I do it with is none of your business,” she eventually stated through gritted teeth.
“I know,” he shot back. “Believe me, I know.” Then, Grant began to move, striding for the door. When he reached it, he turned back. “And I’m also coming to realize that I never knew you at all,” he spat, twisting the doorknob in a hurry.
Turning to face him, Allie watched silently as he flung the door open. However, as he began to march through the open door, he stopped and began reaching for something in his back pocket.
“That reporter from the Examiner, Jack Williams, is still calling twice a day.” Fishing a card out of his jeans, he tossed it like a Frisbee into the room. It didn’t go far, only flying enough to manage to rest on the floor just inside the door. “Maybe with your readjusted priorities,” he added sarcastically, “you’ll want to get back to him now.” With that, he walked away, slamming the door behind him.
Allie stood motionless for several moments, just staring at the wooden door and wondering how that conversation had gone so badly wrong. She’d never even seen Grant’s temper before. After her shock had subsided, she wanted to drag him back and tell him that he had no right to be ‘disappointed’ in her; that she’d never asked him to stick her on some pedestal. However, the cold hard truth was that a part of her was disappointed in herself. The part that had striven to be the best, the part that had refused to let the Pelzer story die, even when Needham told her to drop it. That part of Allie McLaren was still alive, if much smaller than it had been, and it was looking scornfully on the decision to turn her back on the story and her work.
Eventually, Allie allowed her eyes to drop from the door and they inadvertently landed on the small card Grant had left in his wake. She found her body drawn to the face-down white rectangle, stooping to pick it up before flicking it the right way round. Her eyes quickly scanned the eagle emblem and the words SF Examiner and then the contact details of ‘Senior Journalist, Jack Williams’. She cast her mind back to the day she’d met him, realizing that at the time, she’d given him very little of her attention. It had been in the middle of a press conference and she was keen to get back to the office with the story.
However, she recalled what he’d looked like: reasonably tall, maybe a little short of six feet; with a tightly-shaved buzz-style cut of dark hair; she could also remember brown eyes and a hard, defined jawline. For some reason, the only other thing that really stuck in her memory was that he dressed very well, and had smelled good. She’d thought at the time that he obviously took good care of himself. He was attractive, there was no question about it, attractive enough to pique her interest now that she was no longer so preoccupied by the press conference. Moreover, he was single and interested in her.
Without second guessing herself, Allie turned and strode further into the room. She grabbed her phone from the
small end table at the far side of the couch, and began to punch in the numbers to his office line. It wasn’t until the phone started ringing that she wondered if she was doing the right thing.
“Williams,” he answered briskly.
Allie could hear the tap of a keyboard close by and assumed he’d either got her on speakerphone or hooked the receiver beneath his chin so that he could continue working. “Err, hi,” she eventually said. “This is Allie McLaren,” she introduced herself. “I work for the Chronicle.”
“I know who you are,” he chuckled, the typing suddenly ceasing. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for weeks.”
“Yeah, I know,” she mumbled, having the good grace to be embarrassed by her sudden about-face. “I’m sorry about that; things have been pretty hectic, you know?”
“Sure,” he replied, brushing it off. “So, umm,” he added, hesitating as he seemed to want to test the waters. “You know I’ve been trying to ask you out, right?” he wondered lightheartedly.
“Yes,” she responded. “That’s why I was putting you off.”
“Oh?” he muttered quizzical.
“Well, like I said,” she sighed. “Things have been pretty hectic.”
The tap of a few keys sounded down the phone and Allie sensed that he was losing interest. “It’s no problem,” he said, seeming to be focused on something other than the conversation.
“Anyway,” she breathed. “I was hoping that you’d still be interested in grabbing dinner sometime.”
Once more, the tapping was silenced and she had his undivided attention. “Absolutely,” he chuckled. “When are you free?”
“How about tomorrow night?” she responded without hesitation.
“Sounds good to me,” he agreed, the sound of his voice making it clear that he was grinning into the phone. “You got somewhere in mind?”
“Umm, no, actually.”
“No problem,” he quickly said. “I’ll book somewhere and get back to you later today with the details.”
“All right,” she smiled. “I look forward to it.”
“Me too,” he responded.
As Allie said goodbye and replaced the receiver, she felt the first flutters of excitement in her belly. There was something sexy about Jack Williams and, with any luck at all, she wouldn’t be plagued with any doubts or thoughts of certain ‘other men’; to be more specific, another man, on this date.
CHAPTER EIGHT
HOME SWEET HOME
Jack was exactly as Allie had hoped he’d be. He was funny, smart and interested in her work. And, more importantly, he made no attempt to hide his attraction to her. Throughout dinner, he took every opportunity to touch her, whether it was her hand, her arm and even, at one point, her ass. It was just the lightest brush, as they were getting up to leave. It could have been an accident, but Allie sensed that it was very deliberate. She certainly didn’t mind and even encouraged it by grinning broadly at him.
“So,” he sighed, guiding her out of the restaurant. “Can I take you home?”
Allie glanced up into his rich brown eyes. There was a grin on his face that suggested he had other things in mind than just dropping her at the door. She found her eyes unconsciously running down the length of his body, taking in his gray suit with light blue dress shirt. Her gaze lingered over the crotch of his pants, before moving slowly back up to his face. “It’s the twenty first century,” she shrugged. “How about I take you home?” She beamed mischievously at him and lifted a suggestive eyebrow.
He chuckled in reply. “Sounds good to me,” he added, tipping his face to hers and kissing her temple. “You’re not going to try anything though, are you?” he added, bouncing off her joke.
Her smile widened. “You’ll have to wait and see,” she said, stepping forward with a coquettish sway of her hips.
Jack quickly strode forward, nestling his hip against her as they reached the sidewalk. “You should come and work for the Examiner,” he hummed thoughtfully, as he lifted his hand at a cab parked a few feet down the street. “I think we’d have a lot of fun together.”
“Maybe,” Allie conceded, “but if we worked together, we wouldn’t be doing this.”
“Why not?” he asked, keeping his hand in the air, but twisting his head over his shoulder to look at her.
“I don’t have sex with men I work with,” she told him simply and unapologetically.
“Oh, I see,” he replied, grinning. “So, you are going to try to take advantage of me tonight?”
Allie’s focus moved to the cab that was drawing to a halt beside them. “Like I said,” she quipped saucily. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
He chuckled; a deep throaty, sexy noise. Then, finally noticing the car, he reached forward and opened the rear door. “After you,” he encouraged, wrapping his free arm around her waist and guiding her into the back of the car.
She had been about to stop him and insist that he go first, continuing their running gag. However, the feel of his strong, warm arm around her was too good to pass up. Before she bent down to slip into the car, she rose on to her tiptoes and kissed him gratefully on the cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered, gradually pulling back and lowering herself onto the back seat.
Jack inhaled sharply, breathing in the scent of her perfume, before quickly following. He was so fast, that she was still scooting across the bench seat and he watched appreciatively, as her skirt rode up her thigh. When she was settled, he climbed in and slammed the door firmly behind him. “Seventh Avenue,” he told the driver, leaning forward slightly, before reclining into the seat and turning his upper body so that he was facing Allie. “Let me ask you something,” he said, his voice suddenly low and intimate. His hand drifted forwards and he placed his fingers on her stocking-covered knee with a familiarity that would have suggested they’d been dating for months. “How come you have this reputation?”
Allie’s eyes watched his long, strong, masculine fingers drawing lazy patterns on her leg and causing the alluring scratch of flesh on nylon to fill the otherwise quiet car. “What reputation?” she managed to ask, her focus remaining on the soft, hypnotic action of his hand.
“Well,” he hesitated, choosing his words with great care. “When I first told a couple of my colleagues that I’d met you and was trying to get you to come out for dinner, they told me not to bother.”
“They said, I’m only interested in work?” she offered. “That I’m a man-hating bitch?”
“No,” he quickly insisted, but the smile on his face told her that she had come close to what he’d heard about her. “But, yeah, they thought you were very work-orientated and that not much else mattered to you.”
She turned to face him, careful to move gradually, so she wouldn’t disrupt his fingers. However, he did slide them back. Allie bent her right leg, tucking the ankle beneath her butt, mirroring his body, and nestling her knee against his. “Appearances can be deceiving,” she told him, her hand resting on his thigh and slowly working its way up. Deliberately, she allowed just the backs of her fingers to lightly brush his groin, before stroking her way back down to his knee. “That’s something people in our line of work learn quickly, isn’t it?” she asked, propping her free elbow on the back of the seat and leaning her head on her palm.
Jack kept his eyes on her face, appearing as though he was unaware of what her left hand was doing on his leg, as it gradually moved back up once more. “That’s very true,” he stated calmly, the corners of his mouth twitching upward.
“So, is that why you were so persistent?” she queried, this time allowing her fingertips to go all the way to his belt and looping momentarily inside it.
“What do you mean?” he countered, his brain still remaining focused on the conversation.
“Was it the challenge?” she clarified. “Everybody said I was the untouchable ice queen, so you wanted to achieve something no other man had?”
His smile widened and he swiftly covered her hand with his own. “No,” he whispe
red, as he removed her fingers from his belt and placed her palm directly over his groin, pushing her firmly against his manhood. “I was persistent, because you turn me on.”
“Really?” she asked, slowly rolling the heel of her hand over his penis and finding it only partially hard.
“Yes,” he nodded, increasing the pressure of his fingers over hers and coaxing it into a stroking action. “The real question, Ms. McLaren,” he continued, staring deep into her eyes. “Is why you suddenly changed your mind?”
Allie felt him beginning to swell and lengthen beneath her touch. She glanced furtively to her left, noting the driver’s eyes in the rear view mirror and wondering just how much of what they were doing could be seen. However, the concern wasn’t great enough for her to pull away from Jack. In fact, she realized the cab driver watching was enhancing her excitement. Smiling, her head snapped back to the man by her side. “I suppose I just found time for you,” she breathed.
“Well, I’m very glad you did,” he chuckled, using his other hand to tuck a strand of her chestnut hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered there, caressing her cheek, before leisurely stroking down her neck. When he got to her collarbone, he traced the ridge with his index finger. “Can I kiss you?” he asked quietly.
Allie was slight taken aback. It was not a question she’d ever been asked, and while she’d always assumed hearing the request spoken aloud would seem cheesy and gauche, the way in which Jack said it, as though it was something he’d been longing to do all night, was bizarrely gentlemanly given where her hand was. And, at the same time, it sent a flood of arousal between her legs. “Please,” she begged, breathlessly.
The old leather seat of the cab squeaked as he shuffled forward, wrapping his fingers around the back of her neck and pulling her to him, as he leaned into her. She was transfixed by his lips as they drew inexorably, but unbearably slowly, towards her face. They were a soft pink, almost like a woman’s lips. However, the five o’clock shadow above and beneath them was unmistakably masculine. When he was no more than a breath from her, Allie allowed her eyes to slip closed.
