The Love Experiment (Stubborn Hearts 1)

Berkelow was about the same age he’d been when he started in the newsroom, back when print was indisputably king. “Are you trying to make me feel old?” She laughed, but didn’t issue a correction. “Be careful what you wish for.” He’d never wished ill for Henri Costa, but it was looking increasingly like the man was in trouble.

By the time he got home, the notion that he’d encouraged Henri to put his livelihood if not his life at risk and Madden’s uncharacteristic lack of support had ground down on him. The pizzeria messed up his order, a road closure with a police blockade meant he had to walk the long way home and he had a shouting match on the phone standing on the street outside his apartment.

Madden said, “I had a call from Bob Bix’s lawyer today. Told me he’d sue for reputation damage if you didn’t stop sniffing around.”

“And you told him we don’t take our instruction from third parties.”

“We’re running the mismanagement angle.”

“Bix is a shark and you’re going to let him get away with it.”

“You’re going to let him get away with it, Jack. You’re so sure Bix is crooked, prove it.”

“I need more time.”

“It runs Friday.”

Madden disconnected, leaving Jack to shout obscenities to dead air. By the time he got inside the apartment, the pizza was cold and his temper was boiling. Months of work, endangering Henri, and the best he’d been able to achieve was a story about an internal company screwup that would be buried in the business pages and probably still get them sued for reputational damage.

“Oh, pizza. What did you get?” Derelie got off the couch and relieved him of the box.

“Does it matter?” Martha wouldn’t stop circling him, making a racket. “You couldn’t fucking feed her?” He scooped Martha up and carried her into the kitchen. Her bowl was empty. He dropped the cat to the floor, picked up the bowl and dumped a tin of ocean fish fillet into it. Martha sniffed the bowl and then lay down beside it.

“She’s not hungry.”

“I can see that.” At least

she’d shut up.

“That would be because I fed her. What happened?”

What could he say? Derelie kicked ass today and he’d failed. “It’s all falling apart. Madden just called to say Keepsafe threatened to sue. Bix is going to get away with defrauding millions of policyholders.”

“Your big story is dead?”

“That’ll leave plenty of room for your clickbait.”

Derelie sucked in a breath. He looked at her properly for the first time. She was still wearing her work clothing, but barefoot, her hair coming undone. She’d been slogging long hours under considerable pressure and it showed on her face. He was pissed off with Madden, with Henri, with himself and he’d taken it out on her. Fuck.

“You need church.”

He put his hands to the back of his neck, tension stored there making it rigid.

“Seriously, Jack, call Barney. Do whatever it is you do when you want to burn the world down, but don’t take it out on me.”

He took a step toward her and stopped. He wasn’t fit to be in the same room with her. “I’ll go.” Barney would set him up. A fistfight was exactly what he needed.

She moved aside and he went to grab his gym bag. When he came back she was standing uncertainly in the living room, tracking his movements in a way that made him want to claw his eyes out. “You should go home.”

He got out the door without Martha realizing he was leaving. He got to the bottom of the stairs before he understood he didn’t want to get smacked around and what he did want he’d need a miracle for: more time, a new lead on Keepsafe, Derelie’s forgiveness. There was a lesson he hadn’t learned as a child; he was learning it again as an adult. If you wanted people to stick around you needed to be easy to get along with.

She was waiting for him when he eased back inside the apartment. Still barefoot, still rumpled from the day, still on edge. She wouldn’t have wanted to run into him on the stairs or waiting for a cab. She was beautiful and clever and generous and he felt the loss of her already in the drag on his spine and the weight of his head.

He kept his back to the door, kept half the room between them. “I don’t want to fight. I’ll stay out of your way.”

“I’m glad you came back.”

“I don’t want you to go.” The words were out even as he knew they were redundant. She would go because he’d finally shown her the side of him that was ugly, the side he’d tried to hide by avoiding the experiment and then cheating it. The part of him that was too hard to love.