by Alice Bello
I had the urge again to roll up the magazine and bop her in the nose with it. “Why the hell not?”
She sighed, leaning sleepily against the door. “I write for a print magazine, a monthly, not some web-rag. So there are no immediate retractions.”
Oh…
“And I wouldn’t do it even if I could.” She pointed lazily at the magazine in my hand. “Every word in there is the truth.”
I held it up at her again. “No, it’s not!”
She raised a sculpted eyebrow at me. “Okay, what did I write that wasn’t the truth?”
I felt my face start to burn. I swallowed hard and tried to speak in a measured, confident tone.
“I am not in love with Dante… with Mr. Saint James. And he is not in love with me.”
She let out a derisive little snort. “Really?”
I stood up straighter. “Yes. Our relationship is purely professional.”
Charlotte pursed her lips and pulled them to the side as if she was pondering something.
There was a little beep from somewhere back in her apartment.
“Oh, finally…” She turned around and padded barefoot back into her apartment.
“We’re not done here!” I yelled at her.
“Then come in, cupcake, and shut the door.”
Grudgingly, I followed her into her apartment, obediently shutting the door behind me.
Her apartment was a big loft, everything on the same floor, no walls cordoning off the space.
Charlotte Rampling was standing in a dinky little kitchenette, pouring herself some coffee into an Eeyore mug. I cringed as she drank it piping hot and black.
Her eyes brightened and she looked at me with a mixture of annoyance and surprise.
“I’m useless without my coffee.”
I could relate. I’d tried to cut caffeine out of my life a few times, but… well, I lived off the stuff.
“Where were we?” she asked, and then nodded to herself. “Oh, yes… you’re in denial.”
Denial? “What?”
“You heard me, sweet cheeks.”
“I am not in denial, and quit giving me nicknames! You used my name in your poisoned pen article, so use it!”
She did that little scoffing snort thing again.
“And quit being a full of herself…” Say it! “Bitch!”
She moved over to a cluttered glass topped kitchen table and sat down. “You are adorable when you’re riled up.”
She opened the laptop that sat on the table, and after it whirred to life she clicked on the mouse as she said, “I knew the instant I met you that you were hopelessly in love with Dante… Mr. Saint James.” She pointedly gave me a look, and then went on. “But then I started getting the feeling, from the things he was doing to me, that he was imagining someone else in my place.”
“That’s ridiculous…” My heart was beating so darn fast.
“I thought that too. He’s with me, up in that swank penthouse, wining and dining me, bending me over his desk, tying me to his bed with silk ropes—”
“I read the goddamn article!” Boy, that was louder than I was going for.
Her little grin when she looked up at me was infuriating. “And then this happened.”
She hit a button on her computer and I heard a woman and man moaning and groaning in the obvious throes of sex.
I dropped the magazine and covered my mouth with my hands. My god, she’d taped Dante and her having sex!
I was about to scream at her to turn it off—and then I was going to wring her neck—when their voices came to a crescendo, dropping off as they obviously had climaxed.
And then I heard Dante say, “Lucy…”
My hands dropped to my sides and my mouth fell open.
Charlotte Rampling slid her finger gingerly over the laptop mouse and Dante’s voice repeated, “Lucy…”
She hadn’t lied.
I was hopelessly in love with Dante Saint James. I had been since the moment I’d interviewed for the job as his personal assistant. And I’d been falling slowly but surely deeper in love with him every day since.
And he had called out my name when he was…
Oh god…
I started breathing hard, like I’d been running for my life in a slasher movie.
Oh god, oh god, ohgodohgodohgod!
“Are you alright?” Charlotte asked.
I nodded, but in truth I was starting to hyperventilate.
“Do you have asthma or something?”
I shook my head, but I was getting dizzy.
Charlotte got up and pulled me over to a second chair at her cluttered kitchen table, then she went over to a cabinet and rifled around until she found a plastic grocery bag. She handed it to me and said, “Breathe into this. You’re hyperventilating.”
I took the bag and brought it to my lips, trying to slow my breathing, but only making myself breathe even harder.
I hadn’t done this since high school… okay, two or three times in college—but not since then.
And here I was, at it again.
Charlotte leaned down and looked up into my eyes, her hand on my shoulder. “Go slow… it’s okay.”
I shrugged off her hand and closed my eyes.
This wasn’t happening. This was all a bad dream and I would wake up any second now.
Just like I did every time I dreamed I showed up to work completely naked.
I always woke up at the most embarrassing moment.
I opened my eyes.
I was still in Charlotte’s shitty apartment, breathing into a blue plastic shopping bag that smelled of bananas.
Oh hell!
I pulled the bag from my lips and glared at Charlotte. “You taped having sex with Dante?”
Her full lips curved into a wicked, shameless smile. “I have video too.”
“You bitch!”
She started laughing as she stood back up and snagged her coffee mug. “I’m kidding. I’m a reporter, not a porn auteur…” She tapped her chipped polished fingernail against her mug—something we had in common. “Though, I really should. You should see the guys that pass through my door.”
The woman was unbelievable. “So why were you taping it?”
“I’m a reporter. That’s what we do.”
She sat down again and clicked another button. Suddenly a familiar voice started reading aloud some very familiar words. “Daniel plucked the memo pad from my hands and then grabbed my shoulders with his big, strong hands.”
Oh no… that was from my book Daniel’s Desire, the audio version read by an actress named Christie Lando, who I kept busy with my books on a full time basis.
“His cold blue eyes had warmed to the blue of a summer sky,” Christie went on before Charlotte stopped the recording.
“This is what they call circumstantial evidence,” she said, leaning in as she said, “But I think we both know it’s just the tip of the iceberg. You’ve got a pretty lucrative career built on the Billionaire Romance genre. I bet every Billionaire hottie in your books is based on Dante in one way or another.”
I stared at her, but it had no heat. I was exposed.
“Wonder who all those perky, polite little heroines are?”
I shook my head. I couldn’t wrap my mind around this.
“My only question is,” she said, walking slowly toward me, “when were you going to tell him?”
Never…
Chapter 7
Where’s Lucy…
Dante
Charity is very important to me. But the luncheon today to raise money for the pediatric oncology ward at West End University Hospital took most of my afternoon. It was a worthy cause, but I was itching to get back to work.
I blew into my building and went straight up to my office using my private elevator.
I clicked on the intercom the moment I reached my desk.
“Lucy, I’m back. What’s on my schedule?”
There was no reply.
I was about to h
it the intercom button again, but that was when my office door opened and Jenifer (with one N) appeared.
She was one of Lucy’s assistants, and she would be going with me on my upcoming trip.
“Where’s Lucy?”
Jenifer gulped.
Lucy?
“What happened?” I asked, coming around my desk and heading straight for her. “Is Lucy alright?”
The woman looked ready to faint, mutely shaking her head, holding out a magazine to me.
I took the magazine from her hands—a copy of the latest Commons Magazine. I was on the cover.
“Why are you handing me this?”
Jenifer was shaking as she said, “Lucy… she read the article… before she left.”
I looked back down at the magazine. “Why would she…”
Charlotte Rampling’s exposé.
“But why would she care?” I looked up at Jenifer. “She knew I was going to…”
This didn’t make any sense.
But it didn’t matter if it made sense or not. Lucy had left after reading it.
I had to find her.
I stopped right there.
I was way more upset than I needed to be.
But why?
“Read the last page.”
I looked up at Jenifer. “What?”
She was backing away, fumbling to open the door, her wide eyes looking at me like I was a rabid dog ready to maul her. “What upset Lucy is on… it’s on the last page of the article.” And with that she turned and ran out the door, leaving it open in her escape.
I rolled my eyes as I turned and walked toward the bank of windows in my office.
I’m not that bad, am I?
I’d have to ask Lucy when…
Lucy…
I opened the magazine and flipped to the end of that Rampling woman’s article.
While I read I walked absently toward my desk.
“And though I’ve only met Lucy Hopewell one time, I know the look of complete and total love when I see it.”
I found myself sitting at my desk, my mind utterly blown.
After a moment I read on.
“Saint Sex himself is in love with his assistant, whether he knows it or not; and she loves him right back. Now if someone would be kind enough to tell them both about it.”
I wadded the magazine up in my fists and gritted my teeth.
How could anyone do this to Lucy?
She certainly wasn’t in love with me.
That was absurd.
Is it?
Yes, it is!
I had to find Lucy. She would be absolutely devastated that something so cruel and inaccurate was printed about her.
I’m fine with gossip mongering concerning myself, but not one of my employees.
Especially Lucy.
She’s my…
Saint Sex himself is in love with his assistant…
No.
It’s just a sensational exposé written by a desperate reporter.
I’d find Lucy and make this up to her.
I’d do anything to make this right with her.
I gripped the rolled up magazine in my hand and headed for the door.
But first I had something to do.
###
I pounded on Charlotte Rampling’s apartment door.
“Who is it?” I heard her call out from behind the door.
“Dante Saint James!” I snarled.
If anything I was angrier now than I had been at the office.
I heard a muffled thump and wondered… well, I hoped the woman had fallen off her chair on her ass.
I know, it was petty of me, but she’d done Lucy wrong. I had no pity in me now.
After a few moments I beat on her door again. “I’m not leaving until we have a word.”
The door swung open and Charlotte stood there, hair a mess, makeup smudged and wearing a flimsy nightshirt and pink panties.
I marched right past her and into her apartment. “You’re a real piece of work, Ms. Rampling.”
“Why don’t you come in?” she said blandly.
“Don’t get cute,” I said, my voice cracking with rage. “I’m used to writers going after me, but to go after one of my employees, and publishing false claims about her. Have you no shame at all?”
She rolled her eyes at me and then closed the door of her apartment.
“You know what I find funny about this whole thing?” she asked as she walked to me, and then past me, and then took a seat at a cluttered glass-topped kitchen table. She picked up a mug of coffee and took a long drink, and then opened the laptop in front of her.
“I don’t care what you find funny or not. I want to know why the hell you did this!”
She dismissed me with a wave of her hand. “The funny part is, you and your love-sick little assistant read my article and you both ended up darkening my doorway.”
I rounded on her. “Lucy was here?”
She made a little snorting sound. “Instead of talking to each other, the two of you both decide to come all the way across town from your big old honking glass tower and give me an earful.”
“What did you tell her? Where was she going?”
Charlotte clucked her tongue. “I don’t know where she’s going…” She tapped a few keys on her laptop. “But we talked about this.”
Suddenly I heard…
“You taped us having sex?”
She shrugged. “I was taping an interview.” She raised her hand when I took a breath to lay into her. “This is the best part.”
I heard Charlotte gasp, I heard myself cry out as I came… and then I heard myself say, “Lucy…”
Jesus…
Charlotte turned off the recording. “That’s why it was in the article, and that’s what I played for your assistant.”
This was…
I closed my eyes, trying to piece together what was happening.
Lucy was the best employee I’d ever had.
Lucy was the glue that held my company together.
She was flawless in the execution of her duties.
She was smart and funny and…
And she was the best person I knew.
She was more than my employee, she was my friend.
She cared about me and I cared about her.
The thought of her being hurt by this was so painful…
It made me angry. I wanted to hurt someone for hurting her.
And yet I’d been the one to hurt her.
She was…
She is…
I opened my eyes, looked around Charlotte Rampling’s apartment.
“I’ve got to go.”
I turned and walked out the front door.
Chapter 8
In the Closet
Lucy
I stood there, in Charlotte Rampling closet, surrounded by designer dresses and expensive jeans and silk blouses with plunging necklines.
The moment Dante had shown up at Charlotte’s door I’d panicked. I couldn’t face him. Not now.
So I’d run back into the part of the apartment that held her—jeez, is that what a king ssized bed looked like?—and threw myself into her closet.
So, since her apartment was pretty much one big open space, I heard every word they’d said to each other.
The part that confused me the most was that Dante had said absolutely nothing after he’d heard himself say my name on that tape.
Nothing…
Just, “I have to go.”
“You can come out now,” Charlotte said, “He’s gone.”
I pushed back the sliding door and walked out to Charlotte’s kitchen space.
She was clicking on her laptop again.
“Please…” I held up my hands, “No more recordings.”
She looked up at me and smiled smugly. “You heard all that?”
“Yes,” I could hardly make that one word come out. “He didn’t say anything… you know, after he heard the tape.”
That was ba
d.
Dante Saint James vented, he argued and he changed what he didn’t like in the world.
He was never silent.
“You should’ve seen his face, though.”
I looked at her as she kept typing on her laptop.
“Are you writing another piece on this?” I couldn’t believe it. “Because I’ll smash your laptop if you are!”
She laughed at me again. “Feisty… I like that. But no, this one’s on Hollywood insider dirt and the modern day casting couch.” She looked up from her typing. “It’s going to be ugly.”
I shook my head. “So what about Dante’s face?”
Her expression went thoughtful.
“I’ve never seen so many emotions cross a man’s face so fast.” She stood up, went to her refrigerator and pulled out an individually wrapped blueberry muffin the size of a grapefruit, came back over and plopped it in my hand. “Here, eat this… you’re shaking.”
She sat back down and started typing again… but then said, “It looked like he was tonguing a back molar too, if that tells you anything.”
Yes… yes it did.
Chapter 9
Thinking…
Dante
I went home.
I went straight on back to the kitchen area and sat at the table I eat breakfast at every morning.
It’s the same kitchen table from our old home in Westchester—the only thing I didn’t leave there.
I was so encapsulated in my thoughts I hadn’t realized Marjory, Mrs. Roark, wasn’t there, planning out everything needed to be done for the next day. It was her usual.
Lucy kept flashing through my mind.
I had so many memories of her. Indelible, vivid and endlessly entertaining. The things that she said, all the things she didn’t say but you could practically read from her expressions.
The way she bit her lip when she was thinking or aggravated… or excited.
How did I know more about Lucy than any of the companies I’d taken over in the last few years?
How did I know that she wrote her stories on her lunch breaks—and never realized they were about me?
How did I not know she was in love with me?
It was right there the whole time.
She was right there…
I sat at that old wooden table, my elbows planted on its surface, my hands locked in a fist.