She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and whispered into his ear. “I’m so sorry, Jack. I only meant to remind you of the happy times you shared with Zoey. Don’t distance yourself from those memories.”
Jack drew her closer. Her attempts to remind him had worked. But those happy times only made him miss his daughter more. How could he ever forgive himself for failing his little girl?
Monday morning, Darius propped his hip on the corner of Opal Gutierrez’s desk and waited for her to arrive at work. His pulse beat a maddening tattoo in his temple. He gripped Saturday’s newspaper in his fist, covering the article about Simon and the half-page color photo that accompanied it. He’d waited two days to confront the reporter over the story she’d written about his father. Instead of defusing his temper, the delay had increased it tenfold.
“This is a sexy surprise.” Opal’s voice preceded her into the cubicle. She stopped less than an arm’s length from Darius and lowered her voice. “It would’ve been even better if this were your bedroom.”
Darius ignored her suggestion. “I read your article on my father’s petition.”
Opal turned her back to him, bending low to store her purse in her desk’s bottom drawer. Her raven hair swung forward. Its straight strands masked her thin, tan features. “No need to thank me. Take me to dinner and we’ll call it even.”
“I’m not thanking you. I’m not taking you to dinner, either.”
She straightened, facing him as she shrugged out of her navy blazer. Her coal black eyes sent him a sizzling look. “You may change your mind once you see what’s on the menu.”
Darius wasn’t interested in her games. “Why did you let my father take credit for things you know he didn’t do?”
Opal stilled. “What?”
Darius lifted the newspaper in his hand to help jog her memory. He wanted an answer, damn it. “When you interviewed him Friday, you let my father take credit for other people’s work.”
He tracked her as she maneuvered herself farther into her cubicle.
“Hey, I was taking notes. He was the one making the claims.” Opal took her seat behind her Formica desk and crossed her long legs. Her short navy skirt rose midway up her thigh.
“And you didn’t think to question him on anything he said?” Darius struggled with his irritation.
“It’s not my job to vet his answers.”
“Yes, it is.”
Indignation snapped in Opal’s eyes. “How?”
“You’re supposed to interview the subject. You’re a newspaper reporter, not a Dictaphone.”
“Did you talk to Daddy about his lies?”
“Yes, I did. Now I’m talking to you.”
Opal leaned forward on her chair. She aimed a finger at his face. “You’re pretty high and mighty, lover. If you’re God’s gift to journalism, why are you here at the Monitor, instead of at The New York Times?”
“Why are you?”
She threw herself back against her chair. “Back off, Knight. Liu already read me the riot act.”
Opal sounded as though she expected Darius to feel sorry for her. He didn’t.
“Liu spoke with you?” Darius mentally crossed Loretta Liu, the Monitor’s managing editor, off his hit list.
“She woke me Saturday morning, then spent fifteen minutes screeching at me and threatening my job. She put me and the entire weekend copydesk on permanent detention.”
“Good.” Darius was satisfied his editor would keep a closer watch over Opal’s work. He straightened from the other reporter’s desk.
Opal caught his wrist. “Why are you so upset about the story?”
Darius shook off her hand. “It’s not accurate.”
“Give me a break, Darius. Do you have some sort of hero worship for Doreen Fever?”