He shook his head. “You’re beating yourself up over something that happened when you were still wet behind the ears?”
“It’s hard not to when nothing you’ve ever done lives up to your mother’s expectations.”
He frowned. “Why do you care so much about what she thinks? You could spend your whole life looking for parental approval and never get it.”
He should know. She retrieved her hand from his. “I’m doing this for myself. I need to prove I can do this.”
He looked at her for a long moment, then nodded and held out his hand. “Come here.”
The dark glitter in his eyes made her pulse quicken. “I have a flight to catch.”
“Stay. Fly back on Monday with me.”
She shook her head. “I need to get back to New York and talk to James.”
“One day isn’t going to make a difference. Call him. Tell him I’m being difficult.”
“You are difficult.”
“Then it’s the perfect excuse, isn’t it?” He rolled her beneath him, his muscular thighs pinning her to the mattress. And then she didn’t care about James, her flight or anything but the hedonistic side of her that seemed to have taken over.
Hedonism seemed less than a solid choice on Tuesday morning as Izzie stood in front of her boss in his office, her romantic, off-the-charts-hot weekend with Alex a distant memory in the frantic buzz of the newsroom.
“Tell me you have an update for me,” he prompted impatiently, from behind his paper-cup-strewn desk.
Her stomach rolled as though she was on the high seas. “I need you to give the Constantinou story to someone else.”
He screwed up his face. “Sorry?”
She picked a spot on the wall several centimeters to the right of his face and kept her eyes glued there. “I need you to give the story to someone else.”
He sat up straight. “Why?”
She swallowed hard. “Because Alex and I are involved.”
“Define involved.”
“Involved.”
“You’re sleeping with him?”
She nodded.
He raked his hands through his hair and threw her a disbelieving look. “Since when? Was this going on that night at the Met?”
“No.” Which was the truth. Technically. She gave him an imploring look. “We confronted our feelings this weekend and I—”
“Dammit, Iz.” He slammed his hand on his desk so hard brownish liquid from an old coffee sloshed over a pile of papers. He cursed and shoved them out of the way. “You were screwing him while you were supposed to be getting the story?”
She felt the blood drain from her face. “That is not what happened. I didn’t intend on having anything to do with him and then things—things just happened.”
“While you’re working on the most important story of your career?” he roared. “How could you be so stupid? You of all people, Iz. You’ve always put your career first—been clear on your priorities.”
Apparently not anymore. She pushed her hair out of her face with a shaky hand. “We have something, James.”
Her boss snorted. “He’s a man. A goddamned shark. You think you’re going to be any different than any of the other woman in this town he’s gone through?”
Her chest tightened. “It’s done. I can’t take it back.”
He pressed his hands to his temples and pushed out of his chair, pacing to the other side of the room. “You’ve been off ever since you came back from Italy. Did you actually get concussed in that elevator? What is wrong with you?”
She wasn’t actually sure.
“My God, Izzie.” He looked at her disbelievingly. “This story would have given you exactly what you needed to win this anchor job.”
She bit her lip. “I’ll have to prove myself in the audition.”
“That would be the understatement of the year.” He let out a long breath. “Did you at least get anything good out of him?”
“Not much,” she lied, her insides twisting. “The man is a closed book.”
His mouth tightened. “I could make a crude remark right about now but I’m going to abstain.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. “Would you rather I’d kept my mouth shut?”
“I’d prefer it if I had my smart, rational reporter back.”
Bile climbed the back of her throat. “James—”
He waved her out of his office with a dismissive hand. “I need to figure this out. Go out there and do your job. If you can.”
Humiliation and confusion mixed to form a potent cocktail as she left, tail between her legs. She went out, shot her story on a heroic mutt who’d saved an elderly lady from having her purse snatched, filed it on autopilot and escaped home before James could give her one more pained look, as though she was his deviant teenager.
Alex had flown her home this morning, then left immediately on business to Toronto, which left her alone in her cozy little apartment with only her mad actions to keep her company. She poured herself a glass of the emergency chardonnay she kept in the fridge for girlfriend visits, stepped over her still-unpacked suitcase and collapsed on the sofa. She’d done the right thing. She knew she had. She was just going to have to put her head down, knock this audition out of the park, and everything would work out.
Wouldn’t it?
Alex Constantinou is a shark. She flinched at James’s depiction of the man she’d just thrown a piece of her career away for. Was she was a total idiot? Had her near miss in that elevator spurred deviant behavior rather than the courageous sort she was aiming for? Because right now the shark was out wining and dining a client who could be a six-foot amazon for all she knew. And could she really compete with that?
She groaned and covered her face with a pillow. Those two days in Malibu had made her feel things she’d never even knew existed—mad, unexplainable feelings for a man who was as interesting and smart as he was sexy and gorgeous. When they hadn’t been in bed together, they’d spent the day on the beach, gone out to dinner and barbecued on the housekeeper’s night off. Their discussions, ranging from politics to classic literature to the science of a good run had proved that their natural chemistry together was just as strong out of bed as in it. But even if they had that, was it enough that she should think she was any different? Or was James right and she was risking everything she’d ever wanted for a man who would move on when the wind turned?
An image of her mother walking out the front door of their little bungalow flashed through her head. She’d stood there crying, certain she was leaving for good this time, her father’s blank face as he’d tried to fight back tears forever imprinted on her mind.
Her throat ached; her eyes burned at the memory. After that had come the seemingly endless amount of tears her father hadn’t been able to hide. His complete and utter dissolution. Her and Ella’s attempts to make everything right when nothing was.
She reached for her wine and took a big gulp. A blank slate. No expiration dates. No rules. Alex hadn’t promised her anything. So where was she getting her carte blanche to throw her master plan away? Her “take care of yourself at all costs” plan that had been suiting her just fine. Depend on nothing. Then no one could hurt you.
She clenched her jaw. Told herself she needed to refocus and refocus fast on what was going to sustain her. Her career. Alex might be in her life, but that didn’t mean abandoning all common sense. And now was the perfect time to reset the speedometer—when Mr. Testosterone was out of town.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
IZZIE SAT IN the chair in the makeup room of the studios a week later, her stomach rolling like a ride on the deadliest of roller coasters. Where the week had gone leading up to her anchor appearance, she didn’t know. She just knew she didn’t feel ready. Didn’t know if she’d ever feel ready.
Her gaze flicked to the clock on the wall. Thirty minutes. Actually, to be accurate, twenty-nine minutes, thirty-two seconds, before the fate of her career was decided. Her hand shook as she took a sip of water. No pressure there...
“I’m going light on this, Iz,” Macy, NYC-TV’s makeup artist, said, sweeping powder over Izzie’s nose and forehead. “That mother of yours gave you some perfect skin.”
Izzie wished her mother had passed along some of her arrogant self-confidence, too. She could have used some of that right about now. Sixty minutes, she told herself. It was like one measly yoga class. Surely she could do that?
Macy twirled a fluffy brush into some rose-colored powder and ran it along Izzie’s cheekbone. She drew back, added some more color to the brush, and eyed her subject. “You look different. Alive...you got a new man or something?”
“Of course it’s a man,” James grumbled, striding into the makeup room, a bouquet of flowers in his hands. “What else would fry her brain into giving up the story of the year?”
Izzie made a face at him. “Are those from you?”
“Nope. Was on my way over here and said I’d bring them.”
She looked up at him. After his initial fury, he’d moved on and put all his energy into prepping her for tonight. She was lucky to have him.
“Thank you for all your support the past few weeks.”