After the commercial break, he put on his on-air persona, which wasn’t very different from his everyday self, except maybe his on-air persona wasn’t a coward. He should have at least left Elle a message. Or answered one of the messages he was sure she’d left. But the mistrustful part of him convinced that Elle was doing him wrong didn’t even want to talk to her voice mail.
Then she walked into the sound booth.
Elle looked wounded when she saw him, eyes widening in surprise then flinching closed with pain. She actually stopped in the doorway of the sound booth, the skirt of her mint-green dress sweeping back with a force of momentum like wings sweeping up to whisk her out of the room. Then she seemed to force herself to move forward and settle into the chair across from him. She plucked up the headphones but didn’t put them on. They were on a commercial break.
“What happened?” she asked, a frown wrinkling her normally smooth brow and making him feel guilty. “I waited at the coffee shop but you never showed. Obviously.”
The smile he gave her was dismissive. He knew that but couldn’t help himself. “It’s complicated,” he said, watching the clock count down to when they would go back on the air. “We can talk about it once we’re done here.”
The frown deepened. He was going to be on the air much longer than her follow-up spot.
“Okay.” She drew out the word, her face practically covered in question marks.
Guilt squeezed Ahmed’s chest again. The clock quickly counted down. He signaled for her to put on the headset.
“All right, ATL. I’m sure you all remember where we left off with Romance Perfected a couple of weeks ago.” He paused dramatically, flicking his glance only briefly Elle’s way. “My date with Elle Marshall.” The lights on the studio phone flashed. “Yup, already some of you nosy bastards are calling in to get the 411, but before that, don’t forget the reason we’re doing this. Valentine’s Day. The day women get chocolate and the men get laid, am I right, Elle?”
Even though she’d been watching him, Elle looked surprised that he asked her the question. “Um…not exactly, Ahmed.”
“If not exactly, Princess Elle, then tell us what this day is supposed to be about.”
Just then the studio door opened and Clive walked in. He sat in one of the chairs in the sound booth and put on a headset, obviously getting ready to be on the air. He looked very pleased with himself, which made Ahmed worry about what the man had in store for him and Elle.
Worried or not, he couldn’t keep the man from going on air at his own radio station. He breathed out a quiet sigh of resignation.
“Listeners, we have a surprise guest this morning,” he said into the microphone. “The station general manager just came into the studio to join us. I get the feeling he’s up to something.”
Clive turned on his mic. “That’s right.” His voice was loud and aggressively cheerful, the complete opposite to Elle’s purring but prickly tone. “I’m here to ask the question our audience members are dying to know.”
Ahmed groaned dramatically. It wasn’t entirely faked. “Come on, Clive. We just got here.”
“Yeah, and you haven’t cut to the chase yet,” Clive said. “None of us are getting any younger and since you ditched the reporters on Saturday afternoon—very clever, by the way—you have to tell us if those on-air sparks between you and Elle turned into something even more interesting during the date.” Clive looked from Ahmed to Elle with naked curiosity. “I think I’m speaking for our entire listening audience here when I say, tell me everything.”
A few more red lights on the phone lit up. More people hungry for a piece of what he and Elle had shared.
Tension spiked down Ahmed’s back, but he kept his expression neutral. “The date went fine. We ate, we talked, we didn’t kill each other. The end.”
“Nope!” Clive laughed with easy dismissal. “This is exactly why I wanted to get everything on film. I knew we couldn’t count on you to give us the full details.” He turned to Elle. “What about you, Ms. Marshall? Anything you have to whet our appetite for more of AhmElle?”
Elle had been watching them in silence, questions still blazing in her eyes, but at this cue from Clive, she cleared her throat and leaned toward the mic. “It was…it was actually a pretty nice date. Very unexpected.” The smallest of smiles touched her lips, and her gaze sought Ahmed’s, a clear invitation to savor their shared memory of the afternoon they’d spent together.
But he avoided looking her way. Instead, he steeled himself to hear a dismissive and touristy travelogue of Valerian packaged just for the radio. Hurt cut across Elle’s features.
Clive ignored their byplay and pushed on with his own agenda. “So your own company, Romance Perfected, surprised you with a curated date experience that you loved?”
Despite his annoyance at the GM, Ahmed was glad Clive had taken over the impromptu interview because he had nothing. With Elle sitting in front of him, he couldn’t stop thinking about last night’s conversation with Sam. Was she running a game on him? His gut wanted him to dismiss the question as stupid. But stupid was what he’d been with Christine all those years ago, choosing to believe what she told him instead of the things his accountant, lawyer and the security-camera video said she’d done.
Elle answered Clive’s question. “The package my business partner put together is one of our top-of-the-line…”
With her seductive voice, she conjured the image of an evening at a local French restaurant that sounded nice enough but was obviously not what they did. She talked about the restaurant and its food, admitting she hadn’t gone there but guaranteed it would be a spectacular time spent for any couple.
“That sounds like a date anyone, man or woman, would be lucky to get for Valentine’s Day,” Clive said, barely avoiding sounding smarmy. “Romance Perfected sounds like a sure thing if you don’t want to leave the quality of your special moments to chance.”
“Thank you, Clive. I like to think so.” Elle didn’t sound as if she liked anything very much in that moment although the overbright smile would have fooled Ahmed a few days ago. Close on the heels of that thought was the realization he was the reason her smile was fake.
He shifted in his chair. Then resorted to what he often did when he was uncomfortable. He went on the attack.
“That might be a nice package,” he said, putting emphasis on the last word. “But that’s not where we went, is it?”
He didn’t allow her to answer the question. “We actually went somewhere I arranged. And don’t you agree it was much better than anything your floundering business could’ve put together?”
The expression on Elle’s face would’ve killed him dead if he’d allowed himself to feel its venom. “My business is not failing,” she hissed.
“Of course it’s not failing now,” he said, working hard to inject an impersonal sneer into his voice. “You being on this show gave Romance Perfected a lot of publicity. But it wasn’t doing well before, right?”
Elle stared at him, her eyes burning coals of hurt and confusion. Then anger flickered to life, a flame Ahmed swore he saw ignite just before she opened her mouth to speak.
“If you know anything at all about advertising, you should at least be aware that its purpose is to expose one’s services to a potential client base,” Elle said with a lashing whip in her voice. “And advertising is the reason I’m on this radio show and it’s a service that I’m paying for.” She drew herself up stiffly in her chair, her chin high. “You act like I should be shocked and ashamed that I’m getting what I paid for.”
The studio was whisper quiet. Ahmed could feel Sam watching him. Kiara, the intern, on the other side of the glass stared into the sound booth at them, her mouth hanging open and her gum in danger of falling out.
For God’s sake…
Before Ahmed could respond to Elle, Clive jumped in. “What the hell is going on here? I thought you two had a good time on that date.”
“That date didn’t matter, Cli
ve. She was just using me.”
“Using you for what?” Clive asked, his earlier good mood completely gone. “You have a radio show. She has a business. That’s it. There was no so-called using.”
“Remember when she said she didn’t know anything about me? She was lying.”
“Why would I lie to you about something like that?” Then her eyes narrowed. “Is this about last night? Did something happen after I left?”
Clive twisted back and forth in his chair to keep both Ahmed and Elle in his line of sight. “Last night?”
“This has nothing to do with last night,” Ahmed said quickly. “This is about your honesty. Or your dishonesty.”
“Other than your presumption that I knew about you before the radio show, which I might have because you’re a little bit famous, how have I lied to you?”
“According to public record, your business is close to failing. And on your Facebook page—”
“My Facebook right now? How old are you?” She pushed away from the desk, her eyes glittering with fury and what Ahmed suspected, with a rush of regret, were tears. “You know what? Never mind. This whole thing has been one giant mistake.”
With one more scathing look at him, Elle ripped the headphones off and threw them on the desk, where they skidded to the floor, taking a couple of pens and a stack of loose papers with them. She grabbed her purse and practically ran out. The sound of the door slamming behind her reverberated throughout the room. And probably over the airwaves, too.
Dammit.
Ahmed sat frozen in his seat, his heart thudding, a voice inside his head shouting at him to run after her. He didn’t move. He couldn’t.
What the hell did he just do?
“Is this an indication of how well your date with her went?” Clive looked at him with a raised eyebrow. Despite his pithy question, he looked concerned.
Ahmed didn’t have time to entertain him.
He’d spent years on the basketball court improvising, so he did it again, putting himself on automatic pilot to finish out the show. Much later, he wouldn’t be able to recall what he said, only that he managed to keep his listeners entertained until the next scheduled commercial break. He kept a smile on his face despite the anger and uncertainty churning beneath his surface. He couldn’t look at Clive. He couldn’t look at Elle’s empty chair. And he sure as hell couldn’t answer any of the calls now lighting up the station’s phones like the Fourth of July.
Sam stood against the wall, silent and unmoving, but his cousin’s eyes had followed Elle when she left the room. Was that doubt in Sam’s face? Ahmed squeezed the bridge of his nose but kept going, kept talking. He had a job to do.
When he reluctantly opened the phone lines for the first caller, the floodgates opened.
“Did you just say all those terrible things to that girl then let her walk away?”
“Why were you so mean to her?”
“Are you just super paranoid?”
“What did she do to you?”
“Did you sleep with her and then basically just curse her out on the radio?”
“Ahmed, you’re messing up, man.”
The questions and comments just kept coming, one after the other until he finally had to stop taking calls and spend the rest of the show talking politics and current affairs.
When the show finally ended, he quickly gave up his chair to the host of the next show and left the sound booth, Sam moving quickly to catch up with him.
Ahmed didn’t get very far. His legs took him just as far as the reception area before giving out. He dropped into one of the couches, emotionally drained. Sam, who’d been his silent sentry against the wall during the entire show, took a seat beside him.
“I think I messed up,” Sam said, looking almost as miserable as Ahmed felt.
But Ahmed wouldn’t let his cousin take the blame for his own actions. Ahmed was the one who knew Elle, had shared things with her that he shared with no one else, had made love to her in the bed that no other woman had been in. And, even after all that, he was the one who’d publicly eviscerated her with unproven suspicions. That was all on him.
He sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face, squeezing his eyes shut. “We should go home.”
The door to the station’s lounge banged open. “Good. Your worthless ass is still here.” Elle’s business partner, Shaye, blocked the door. Her pretty face was all angles today, her normally full lips tight with obvious rage.
“Your big bodyguard wouldn’t be able to stop me from punching you in the face right now.” The shell-pink suit she wore might as well have been a suit of armor, the cell phone she clenched in one hand a sword.
Sam immediately went on the alert, standing up and pushing Ahmed behind him. “Step away, miss,” he growled.
But Ahmed could see Shaye was no threat, at least not a physical one.
A door opened behind them, footsteps rushed toward them from a nearby office. Within moments, four then six people had poured from other offices and stood at the edges of the reception area to watch the drama unfold. Face hot, Ahmed clenched his teeth. He hated airing dirty laundry in public.
Shaye didn’t back down when faced with Sam’s threatening bulk. If anything, she looked even more determined to say what was on her mind. Hands on her hips, she walked toward him, her eyes snapping and high heels stabbing the tile like she wished it was some part of Ahmed’s body. She looked nothing like Elle, didn’t act like her either, but there was something about the way she confronted Ahmed and Sam that was very Elle-like, an unexpected and effectively vicious attack in a pretty package.
“What you did was real low,” she said, her narrowed eyes spitting fire. “Elle is the best woman you’ve ever had come into your life. And this is how you treat her?” She stabbed a finger at him. “You don’t deserve her. You don’t deserve anything good. And to think I actually liked you and encouraged her to give you a chance.” Shaye shook head, apparently in mourning for her past stupidity. “Right now, I’m so damn sorry I pushed her to go on your stupid show. This is as much my fault as it is yours.”
Although every word she spoke stabbed him where it would hurt the most, Ahmed let Shaye say her piece. It was what he deserved. Sam, though, kept giving the woman concerned looks like he was worried she’d leap across the five feet of tiled flooring separating them and gouge out Ahmed’s throat with her high heel.
“At least you showed your true colors now instead of later, when it would hurt Elle more,” Shaye finished. Then with one last disgusted look at Ahmed then Sam, she turned and walked back out the door, her mission apparently accomplished.
Chapter 12
She wasn’t going to cry. It wasn’t worth it.
Elle clattered into Romance Perfected, her entire body hot with humiliation and her day blasted to hell. Exactly what had changed for Ahmed between last night and this morning?
He acted like he hated her.
Like the passion they’d shared in his bed and the connection they had before meant less than nothing.
Elle felt like an idiot. Within just a few hours, her heart had gone from soaring higher than it ever had before to being battered and bruised, just about destroyed from the abrupt drop to solid ground.
No. This was not heartbreak. Just a betrayal.
The sound of low classical music, a soft piano, played over the speakers in the main reception area of the office. Normally the music soothed her but not today. Instead, it reminded her even more of the reason she needed soothing. Ahmed Clark. Her morning at the radio station. Her stupidity in trusting him.
Elle rushed to her office, quickly closing the door behind her and muffling the music. She needed the distraction of work.
At her desk, she glanced through the office calendar and saw that, without talking to her, Shaye had switched all the day’s appointments to her own calendar, leaving Elle to do all the behind-the-scenes work that didn’t need her to see anybody. She should have been upset, and normally she would be irritat
ed that Shaye was coddling her and treating her like some fragile thing. But now she was just grateful.
Her office phone rang.
“Romance Perfected. Elle speaking.”
“Good.” The voice on the other end of the line made her wince. “You’re just the woman I want to talk to.”
Elle didn’t want to talk to Clive. His voice was too much of a reminder of what she’d just been through with Ahmed. Then she winced.
This is business. Get a grip.
Romance Perfected needed her to keep her head on straight. And Shaye would kill her if she burned this bridge.
“This must be your lucky day then,” she said. Trying to inject a smile into her voice and through the phone even though it was a near impossibility. “What can I do for you, Clive?”
“Well, actually, it’s what I can do for you.” Clive paused as if waiting for Elle to say something, but when she stayed silent, he continued. “We’ve had a lot of interest in you and Ahmed, as you already know. And since Valentine’s Day is coming up and this interest generated is good for both of us, I thought it would be good if you came back on the show and talked again about your business. This time, Ahmed won’t be part of the equation.”
Her stomach dipped with anxiety at just the thought of going back to the radio station, but she gritted her teeth. “What do you mean?”
“You can come on the nine o’clock show, an hour earlier than Ahmed’s,” Clive said. “DJ Don Juan will make an ad spot for you.”
The refusal hovered on the tip of Elle’s tongue. She didn’t want to take the chance of seeing Ahmed again, even if it was to help the business.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, because as nice as Clive had been, a businessman like him didn’t do things this expensive for free.
“I already told you, this would benefit both of us. Your business and mine. Plus—” the sound of shifting papers and hushed voices came clearly through the phone “—I feel bad about what happened today. And I know Ahmed does, too.”
On-Air Passion Page 14