She saw the flare of gratification in his eyes, but he quickly banked it. “Terms?”
“Yes. I need to know you’ll give me access to information soon and won’t renege on me.” Now that she’d let herself entertain his offer, she wasn’t going to be shy about the particulars.
He arched a brow. “Suspicious, aren’t you?”
“There has to be a time limit,” she said firmly.
“Make your best offer,” he countered.
She assessed him, then took a moment to ponder. No doubt he was a shrewd bargainer—after all, he’d just engineered the takeover of one of Boston’s leading tech firms by Whittaker Enterprises. “Two weeks.”
He shook his head. “Six.”
“Three.” Nearly a month was fair.
“Five,” he said. “These things take time.”
“Let’s split the difference,” she countered. “Four. It shouldn’t take long to repair the damage.”
“A pleasure doing business with you.” He closed the space between them and held out his hand.
Relief, followed by panic, washed through her. What have I just done? She took his hand, felt her own engulfed in his, and experienced a surge of sensation.
Judging by the look in his eye, he felt it, too.
She started to draw away, but he pulled her closer.
He lifted her chin with his free hand and she had just a moment to lower her eyelids before he brushed her lips with his.
The kiss was over in the space of a few heartbeats, but its impression—powerful and disturbing—lingered for her.
He drew back and gazed down at her, his expression inscrutable. “Just checking,” he murmured.
“What?” She looked at him, eyes wide, as she strove to clear her brain.
He smiled wryly. “You didn’t need to worry about whether your acting abilities were up to the challenge.” At her displeased expression, he laughed. “I know, I know. I’m diabolical.”
Kayla was grateful he couldn’t read her mind—for while diabolical should have been the first word that popped into her head, disturbingly, instead, it had been delicious.
How does one dress for dinner with a couple of computer geeks from Silicon Valley? Kayla wondered.
The day after the press conference, Noah had phoned her to announce that, if she was going to be shadowing him for purposes of her article, she should attend a business dinner that he had scheduled on Friday night with a couple of young hotshots from the West Coast.
He’d also let her know that, in the meantime, he’d done as promised and called Sybil to say his supposed relationship with Ms. Rumor-Has-It had been a hoax that he’d perpetuated to get even. Ironically, Sybil had been reluctant to believe there wasn’t a relationship. Perhaps hedging her bets, however, her headline in the next morning’s paper had read: Noah Denies Relationship with Ms. Rumor-Has-It.
Kayla figured she’d take what she could get and Sybil’s headline was better than nothing. Eventually, the story about her and Noah would fade away.
And the good news was she’d been able to convince Ed to do what Noah had suggested. Ed had been pleased Noah had agreed to cooperate on an in-depth profile of Whittaker Enterprises. More importantly, he’d also grudgingly agreed to give her sometime assistant, Jody Donaldson, who was just a year out of college, a greater role in the writing of the Ms. Rumor-Has-It column, including writing anything newsworthy about Noah Whittaker.
So far, Kayla admitted to herself, everything was going according to plan—if she could figure out what to wear to this dinner tonight.
She began looking through her closet again from one end to the other. She tossed aside the leather miniskirt that she’d recently worn to the Avalon, one of Boston’s well-known nightclubs.
Dress down, Noah had said. Though tonight technically counted as business, Noah had advised her that the term business had a whole different meaning among the under-thirty-five, newly rich and geeky set created by the information-technology boom, particularly in Silicon Valley.
She didn’t doubt what he had told her. Sure, she herself had been part of the business-casual-attire revolution that had swept corporate offices across the United States in the past ten years. But, as a society columnist, she knew the requirements for her were different from those for some of her contemporaries: she was more high fashion and less grunge fashion. She was expected to blend with the social set she covered and, since she didn’t have a trust fund or even a salary that was anything to brag about, she spent a good deal of time haunting outlet stores and consignment shops.
This all, of course, left her lost as far as what tonight required. Exasperated, she kept moving through the hangers in her closet, fretfully passing on her Levi’s 501 blue jeans. I have nothing to wear! she silently wailed in frustration.
The phone rang and she felt a stab of relief at the unexpected distraction, despite the fact that she had only about an hour left before Noah would pick her up.
“Hello,” she said absently, her eyes skimming the disarrayed pile of clothes on her bed.
“You sound as perky as usual,” a voice said dryly.
“Samantha?”
Despite being seven years apart, Kayla and her sister shared a close bond, perhaps because they had no other siblings. Technically, they were half siblings, though she never thought of the two of them that way. When Kayla was five, her mother had remarried, and Greg Jones had adopted Kayla. She had been happy to have a father in her life and even happier when, two years later, a baby sister had arrived. From the beginning, Samantha had followed in Kayla’s footsteps, right up to enrolling at Tufts University, Kayla’s alma mater.
The pile of clothes forgotten, she asked, “Is something wrong? Did something happen?”
Samantha laughed. “Relax. You sound as bad as Mom. Maybe I just called to say hello.”
“Not if you’re twenty and a college junior and it’s a Friday night,” she countered.
“Welcome to my lackluster social life. I’m hoping things will turn around soon,” her sister responded.
“Why am I not surprised you’re at home tonight?”
“Actually, I need to leave in an hour.”
“Oh?” Her sister’s tone brightened. “Hot date?”
“Not really.”
“Come on, spill the goods. Who’s the guy?”
Kayla hesitated for a second, then resigned herself to the inevitable. “Noah Whittaker.”
Silence reigned on the other end of the phone line.