The question was, would Jillian?
She’d never been much good at meditating. Oh, sure, she had all the yoga poses down, but as she eased into the triangle, standing on her living-room carpet, Jillian’s thoughts coalesced like bits of mercury, flowing together in fits and starts.
Until she was thinking of Gil Reynolds once again.
He worked for the Gazette, the paper that had driven Robbie away. Maybe he hadn’t written the articles himself, but as editor he might as well have. And the worst part about it was that he’d lied to her. Lied to her. Blazon Media her ass. He’d only said it because he’d known who she was, and known she’d go off on him if he told her the truth.
Instead, she’d kissed him. She’d stood in the parking lot and glommed onto him like a limpet. And made it totally clear she’d liked it. Forget like, she’d loved it, and he’d known. She remembered the feel of his mouth curving against hers and she suddenly had a new appreciation for the phrase seeing red because she swore she could see the ruddy haze of anger like a fine mist over everything in her view.
A dozen flavors of fury, humiliation, betrayal layered over one another, and underneath, deep underneath lurked a dark, sneaky disappointment. It had felt so right. This was the one that she’d thought was actually going to work, the one that was going to happen the way it did for everyone else, meeting a guy, going out and, who knew, maybe getting involved, maybe even, God forbid, having sex for once in her life. It wasn’t too much to ask for, was it? Was it?
Instead, she’d gotten Gil Reynolds playing his tricky game and probably laughing at her the entire time.
Relax, Jillian reminded herself, taking a deep breath as she changed sides and sank back into the pose. Exercise was supposed to soothe, not give her a chance to get more agitated.
The worst part was that she’d liked him, really liked him. He’d seemed genuinely interested, as though he’d been attracted to her, wanted her. What if he hadn’t been?
What if he’d only been trying to pump her for a story?
And at that thought, all possibility of relaxation flew out the window. Forget yoga, she needed to learn something more violent. Kickboxing, maybe, something where she could hit and kick and…
Release, she reminded herself. Let it go.
The phone burbled. Jillian struggled out of her pose and made it over to the handset. As a social worker, answering the phone was never optional for her.
“Hello?”
“Jillian? Gil Reynolds.”
Let it go? Not likely. “Why, Gil,” she said silkily, “what a coincidence. I was just thinking about you.”
“Great minds,” he said. “Having a good week?”
“All right. How about you?”
“Ah, keeping busy.”
“Oh, I just bet you are,” she said.
He stopped a moment. “Yeah. Well.” He cleared his throat. “I was wondering if you still wanted to get together. How about dinner tomorrow night? I was hoping we could talk.”
“We can talk now.”
“Face-to-face is a lot more fun,” he said. “Come on, let me buy you dinner.”
“How about lunch?” she countered. He was right, face-to-face was a lot more fun, and she couldn’t wait to see his when she dropped the bombshell. “Let’s go somewhere downtown,” she added.
“All right. How about noon at Conroy’s?”
“Great. I’ll meet you there.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” he said.
Not nearly as much as she was, Jillian thought grimly as she hung up the phone.
“Reynolds. My office, five minutes.” Russell Gleason, the Gazette’s publisher, barked the words through Gil’s open door.
“I’ve got—” Gil began but he was already gone. Gil bit back a curse. He was supposed to be leaving for lunch with Jillian, not sitting in a meeting all afternoon. And with Russ, you never knew. The discussion could last five minutes. It could just as easily last an hour and forty-five, depending on how many tangents he wandered off on.
The topic was sales and circulation. Or, more to the point, what Gleason thought they ought to do to editorial to provide him with better sales and circ.
Like controversy.
“I’m just saying, we need stories that sell.”
“Stories that sell?” Gil stared at Gleason. “We’ve just lit a big enough fire under Nash and his cronies that the state’s threatening an audit. What more do you want?”
The publisher tapped his fingers on the black slab of his desk, dissatisfaction coming off him in waves. “That’s politics. That doesn’t sell papers in this day and age. We need something juicier.”
“Politics doesn’t sell papers? This is Portland we’re talking about. People here live and breathe politics. Take a look at your reader surveys.”
“All I know is when you broke the story about that football player’s kid, our newsstand numbers went through the roof.”
Gil bristled. “First of all, I didn’t break that story. I was on vacation when it hit. And if you remember, we had to print a retraction on parts of it. Sloppy researching, sloppy editing and it was just your pure damned good luck that Lisa Sanders didn’t take legal action.” And that he hadn’t lost one of his closest friends over it, Gil added silently.
“There wasn’t anything actionable,” Gleason scoffed, but his eyes flickered.
“Look, Russ, you take care of the business end and let me deal with editorial. Separation of church and state, right?”
“I’m just saying we’ve got stuff going on around here. What about that Logan thing?”
“I’ve got Mark Fetzer on it.”
“So why haven’t I seen any more stories?”
“They have to do something before we can write about it,” Gil reminded him wearily.
“Look at that Weekly Messenger. They run a Logan story on the front page just about every issue.”
“When they’re not writing about Elvis sightings. Russ, for Christ’s sake, the Messenger is a tabloid. They don’t need facts, they print tripe. We’re Portland’s primary newspaper. We’ve got a responsibility.”
“Yeah, to our advertisers and shareholders. I want Logans,” Gleason said obstinately. “That family sells newspapers. Besides, it’s a public service. With all the fiascos that clinic has had, it should be shut down.”
“Funny, the state and federal regulators don’t agree with you.”
“Yeah, well, our state senator does.”
“Showboating.” Gil dismissed it. “Look, it’s not our role. Our role is to support the news.”
“Our role is to support our shareholders,” Gleason countered.
“Circulation was just fine the last time I checked. And ad sales. In fact, I seem to remember cutting a story last week because the ad count ran over. You do what you do well, Russ, and leave me to what I do well. Look—” Gil checked his watch “—can we get back on this in the afternoon? I’ve got a lunch meeting.”
“Skip your lunch meeting. Go ask Nash what he thinks about a babynapper running a day care center. Better yet, go interview a Logan.”
Gil snorted and rose. “Yeah, sure, Russ. I’ll get right on that.”
She had to give it to him, he’d chosen well. It was a quiet little restaurant in the Pearl District. Once, the area had been home to light industry, auto-repair garages and the like. No, it had become fashionable, the welding shops and upholstery businesses supplanted by galleries and expensive boutiques, hair salons and intimate restaurants whose tabs rose in indirect proportion to the number of tables.
Gil hadn’t chosen one of the chichi ones, though, but a modest little pub that might well have been there the whole time. It was quiet and only half full. Privacy, Jillian thought as she glanced at her watch. They’d be able to have their conversation without having to shout to be heard. Which was fine with her. Scenes had never been her thing. She wanted answers. She wanted to know why the Gazette had gone after Robbie. She wanted to know why Gil had lied. And
she’d find out.
Provided he ever bothered to show up.
Stifling impatience, she took a sip of water and set the glass precisely back in its damp ring. She’d arrived her habitual five minutes early. Now fifteen more had gone by and she itched to check voice mail, to drag out her PDA, do something productive with the time. But she didn’t. She had a personal rule about waving electronics around in restaurants. Then again, if Gil didn’t show up soon, she might just break that rule.
Or walk out entirely.
When she glanced over to the door again, though, he was there. And for a moment, her thoughts scattered. For a moment, she was back in the church at the head of the aisle and he was watching her every step. Except this time around, she was the one watching. The man had presence, she’d give him that. There was something absolutely riveting about him. She wasn’t the only one who thought so; she saw a waitress turn to stare in his wake.
Jillian just gazed, unmoving, until he was standing beside the table, looking down at her.
“Hello,” he said. She hated the fact that her pulse stuttered. He hesitated a moment, long enough that, for a breathless instant, she wondered if he was going to lean down and kiss her.
But he didn’t. Instead, he sat. “Sorry I’m late. My boss called me in just as I was leaving.”
“Trouble?”
His grin flashed, quick and white. “No more than usual.”
Just looking at him made her remember the feel of his mouth on hers, the taste of him, the intimacy of that dark, male flavor. And the man knew how to kiss, knew how to use that clever, clever mouth to turn a woman to mush.
Not her, not anymore, she reminded herself grimly.
“So how was the rest of your weekend? Breakfast with your brother, right?”
“Good memory,” she said.
“Where’d you go?”
“His house. His wife’s pregnant and on bed rest, so I brought the breakfast. We mostly just sat outside, drank coffee. And read the paper,” she added, watching him closely. “After all, it wouldn’t be Sunday without the paper, would it?”
“No, indeed. Are you a big newspaper fan?” he asked, just a touch of care in his words.
“Oh, about like average. I like to know what’s going on in town. Of course, I like it from a reputable paper, not a scandal rag.”
“Don’t like reading about Brangelina and space aliens?” He looked amused.
“Don’t like seeing people’s reputations trashed. Some of these reporters, they’re like snipers taking potshots from deep cover. They stay nice and safe while they destroy innocent people’s lives. And the editors just let them do it.”
“Not everybody who winds up in the paper is innocent.”
“And not every story written is accurate. Of course, the problem is that the jazzy stories show up on page one and the retractions show up on the bottom corner of page thirty-eight.”
“News sells.”
“Wrecking people’s lives sells,” she countered.
Gil leaned forward. “So did Woodward and Bernstein destroy lives or uncover corruption in government?”
“Not every reporter out there is working for the greater good. Or every newspaper.”
“It’s not all heroes and villains, you know.”
“On either side. The world’s not black-and-white. Trust me, I know that.” She gave a short laugh. “But I think I got us off on a tangent here. Enough of that. Tell me how life’s going at Blazon Media,” she said casually. “Or should I say the Portland Gazette? That is where you work, right? The Portland Gazette?”
Nailed, Gil thought. When he’d been a kid, he’d been at a pet shop one time when the owner put a mouse in the snake tank for a rattler to eat. He remembered watching the mouse edge around in the corner, knowing that something was up but not knowing quite what, only knowing that things didn’t feel right. And then quick as lightning, the snake had struck.
Like Jillian.
“Okay.” He exhaled. “You’re probably pretty ticked right now and I don’t blame you. Yes, I work for the Gazette, which is owned by Blazon. And yes, I’m the city editor.”
“The city editor. The one responsible for all the Portland stories on the front page. Like the stories on my brother.” She’d clasped her hands together calmly, setting them on the table before her. Only, he could see that her knuckles were white.
Gil let out a breath slowly. “I know how this looks,” he began. “I brought you here so that I could te—”
“Why did you lie to me last weekend?” she interrupted.
He closed his eyes briefly. “For the same reason we’re having this conversation now. The focus was supposed to be on the bride and groom. It wasn’t about you and me and the issues you might have with my newspaper. It was their day, not ours. And they wanted us both there.”
She opened her mouth and closed it. “You could have told me the other night, over the phone.”
“I didn’t want to do it over the phone. That’s why I called and asked you out, I wanted to do it face-to-face. I wanted to get it right.”
She snorted. “Why start now? Accuracy hasn’t exactly been your hallmark the past three months while you’ve been dragging my brother’s name through the mud.”
“We’ve been covering a story,” he corrected tightly. “And I insist on rigorous fact-checking.”
“Oh, is that what you call it? Like the way you did with Lisa’s story? I can’t believe she’d even have you in her wedding.”
Gil’s jaw tightened. “The story about Lisa happened off my watch and I fixed it when I got home. As to your brother, it’s all been accurate. We’re a newspaper, Jillian. It’s our job to cover the news.”
“And if you can sell a few more papers with a flashy headline, so much the better.”
He ruthlessly tamped down the frustration. She was upset and she was striking out. “Look, I’m sorry your family’s been hurt and I’m sorry for any problems Robbie has faced but I still think the public has a right to know.”
“A right to know?” she echoed incredulously.
Now it was his turn to be irritated. “That a babynapper’s running a day care center? Yeah, I do.”
Her eyes flashed. “You don’t know anything about it. You never bothered to find out, never called us for a comment.”
“The reporter tried twice. I saw the phone logs. There was no comment. We had to run the story.”
“Along with a few quotes from politicians looking to make headlines.”
“And quotes from the state regulatory groups when they decided the situation was fine as it was,” he reminded her.
“Oh, sure, on page thirty-eight.”
“No, page three, actually.”
“Do you think that changed anything?” she demanded. “Nobody noticed, nobody remembered. The tabloids already had their meat by then.”
He raised his hands in frustration. “All I can control is what’s in my pages. I can’t control what the tabloids do.”
“No, you just throw out the juicy bone and stand back and watch them tear at it like a pack of hounds. That doesn’t make you less of a scavenger.” Two spots of color burned high on her cheeks.
“It’s not personal, Jillian, don’t you understand? What the paper does is never personal, it can’t be.” But he saw the betrayal in her eyes. Gil took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Let’s not do this, okay? We had something at the wedding, before this came up. Back when we were just people, something clicked.”
“And it was a lie.”
“No. I’m still me, you’re still you, whatever’s going on around us. And I don’t want to lose this without trying.”
“Do you honestly think I would in a million years be involved with you after what you’ve done?” she asked incredulously. “Do you think I want anything to do with you, at all?”
“Jillian, it’s not about us.”
“Of course it’s about us, Gil,” she retorted. “It’s all about us. You can’t break
life up into neat little compartments. This is my family you’re talking about, my job, a clinic that saved my brother and me. And I don’t care if you and your paper aren’t writing the stories now, you’re responsible for it.”
“So, what, all the sins of the media are laid at my feet?”
“When you deserve them, yes.”
“No. This isn’t over. I’m not walking away from this.”
“Fine,” she snapped. “Then I’ll do it.” And she rose.
Jillian strode down the sidewalk, fuming. How could he be so clueless as to think it didn’t matter? To sit there and tell her it was his job to dog Robbie with old mistakes, to trot out the traumas he’d suffered and make him live them over and over? To try to tell her—tell everyone—that he was broken and would never be right again?
She sucked in a breath of air because it was either that or scream. It was so unfair, so incredibly unfair. To have him sit there and try to justify it all to her just made her crazy. And to have him tell her that he’d felt something for her was bitter, indeed.
Because she’d felt something for him.
But it was a lie, all of it, a lie she had to forget.
Just as she had to forget him. Forget how it had been to spar with him at the rehearsal dinner, forget walking down the aisle, forget dancing in his arms, staring into those eyes.
And forget the kiss above all, the promise, the passion, that sense that she’d been standing on the edge of something she’d never before experienced in her life.
She was done with him. Not only did he work for the Gazette, he’d lied to her about it. No matter how he’d tried to justify it, he’d lied and taken advantage of her belief. So he was gone? She was glad of it. She wasn’t just letting him go, she was walking away. And she was going to keep walking. Mark Gil Reynolds D for done. It was over and she was happy about it.
Always A Bridesmaid (Logan's Legacy Revisited) Page 5