by Lauren Layne
“Because you seem so happy I’m here.”
She returned to her recliner and studied him, and not for the first time he wondered why she disliked her only son so much. He’d like to think it was resentment over his father’s having knocked her up and disappeared. Getting stuck with a kid she didn’t want might turn even a nice woman a little bitter, and Helena Compton wasn’t a nice woman.
But blaming a man he’d never met seemed like a cop-out, and after a childhood of watching his mother blame every other person for her situation, Sam was big on responsibility for one’s lot in life.
Which meant his mother’s dislike of him was his failing.
But on days like today, he just couldn’t seem to care.
“So, you seeing anyone else?” she asked after several minutes of silence.
Sam sat up with a sigh, reaching out a hand to fiddle with the remote on the coffee table. Small talk. He could do this. “I was. Angela. Didn’t work out.”
“How come?”
Because a certain black-haired, blue-eyed bombshell sabotaged it by putting genital-wart pamphlets into my glove box, which Angela found when she was looking for a napkin.
“Just didn’t work out,” he snapped.
“Why?”
Really? The woman had six failed marriages under her belt, and she didn’t understand that sometimes—most of the time—relationships didn’t work.
She jabbed her cigarette in his direction. “I bet this Angela figured it out.”
Don’t bring up Riley. Don’t bring up Riley.
“Figured what out?” he asked tersely.
“That you’re hung up on that McKenna whore.”
Sam froze even though he’d been ready for it. His mother knew his one weak spot and never ever failed to exploit it. His fingers clenched hard on the TV remote he’d been fiddling with. “Don’t. Don’t you dare.”
His mother sniffed and took a sip of her drink. “Riley was a nice-enough girl once, but she writes trash, Sam. One doesn’t get that kind of sexual experience without plenty of leg spreading.”
Sam saw red. “She could be the biggest name in porn, and I wouldn’t let you talk about Riley that way.”
Helena gave a mean little smile. “Like I said. Hung up on her.”
Sam was on his feet and across the room in a second, pulling on his jacket. “I’ve told you a thousand times, I won’t discuss Riley with you.”
“Right, right, I always forget that we Comptons aren’t fit to breathe her name.”
Sam paused only briefly. “You know, Mom, for once I think we agree on something.”
He let the door slam behind him.
Chapter Three
“Men are dogs. We already knew this, Ri.”
Riley stuffed a pig in a blanket into her mouth and chewed furiously as she glared at Grace Brighton. “Says the woman dating a man who looks like Hugh Jackman.”
Hugh’s doppelgänger chose that moment to return with drink refills.
“And he brings me my Manhattans,” Riley said, eagerly accepting the cocktail. “Clearly not all men are bad, just the ones who want to set up shop up in here.” Riley gestured toward the vicinity of her lady bits.
“Super classy, Ri,” Grace said, taking a sip of her own drink.
Riley shrugged. She’d always put class in the nice-to-have category. There were some women who had it in spades. Take Grace, whose classic good looks were the kind people put on stamps and shit, all mahogany hair and perfectly even features.
But Riley? While no slouch in the looks department when she took the time to curl her hair and do the eyeliner thing, she knew she had more of the uh-oh-that-one’s-trouble look going on.
She knew the words siren and sex kitten got thrown around whenever she bothered to get dolled up, and Riley didn’t mind a bit. It was a lot easier to convince people you were a sex expert when you looked the part. A tight dress could hide a lot. Like, say, the fact that you’d gone most of your life without anyone seeing what was under the dress.
Jake, Grace’s ridiculously good-looking boyfriend, was watching Riley in amusement as she took a bracing gulp of her Manhattan. “Does your father know that you drink bourbon instead of Bushmills? Isn’t that some sort of crime against your kin?”
“I don’t advertise that little fact at family dinners, no. But for the record, my love for Basil Hayden’s would be nothing if he ever heard you say the word Bushmills to his face.”
Jake’s eyebrows went up. “Your dad doesn’t like Irish whisky?”
“Oh, he does. But we’re Catholic, which puts us solidly in the Jameson camp.” She patted his forearm reassuringly. “Don’t fret about the mistake. It was too much to ask that you be brilliant and beautiful.”
Actually, Jake Malone was both, but Grace would kill her if she pumped up his already inflated ego.
His brow furrowed. “Wait, so you’re telling me he bases his liquor preferences on—”
A hand slid up between their faces, effectively ending the conversation. “Guess what?” Grace said pleasantly. “That’s boring. Also, I want to get the scoop on Riley’s date on Friday, not hear about ancient Irish feuds and Riley’s penchant for Tennessee whisky.”
“Kentucky,” Riley corrected.
Grace pointed to her own straight face. “See this? Uninterested.” She turned her finger to point at Riley’s face. “And that? That is avoiding.”
“Steven Moore was a turd,” Riley said with a shrug. “What more is there to talk about?”
Sam. We could talk about Sam. You could help me figure out how to stop thinking about him.
“I thought you liked this Steven,” Grace said.
“I did. I totally did.” Sort of. “Right up to the point that he brought out the handcuffs before we even made it back to my place.”
Grace and Jake both had the good sense to wince.
“Right?” Riley said with a disgusted shake of her head. “I should have known when the first kiss was lame.”
“I thought you said the kiss was decent,” Grace said.
“Well, that’s every guy’s dream,” Jake said. “To be decent.”
Riley pointed at him. “See? Jake gets it. Decent was my way of saying he didn’t have halitosis, but neither did he exactly rock my world.”
“Do I rock your world?” Jake said, sliding an arm around Grace’s back and pulling her close.
Riley averted her eyes as they exchanged one of those soft, dreamy kisses that seemed so natural for them but were utterly foreign to her. Riley had mistakenly thought that Julie Greene and Mitchell Forbes—Stiletto’s other power couple—were some sort of gross anomaly of in-loveness, but Grace and Jake were giving them a run for their money on the totally smitten scale.
“I’m going to go find the crab cakes,” Riley muttered.
“I’d tell you not to eat too many, but your body literally repels fat,” Grace said, never tearing her gaze away from Jake’s.
Riley ignored her, her eyes scanning for the white shirts of the serving staff. Yeah, so she had a great metabolism. She liked to think it was the universe’s way of evening the score for depriving her of sex.
Ah. There was the crab cake lady.
Riley made her move, stacking three of the appetizers onto her cocktail napkin when best friend number two appeared at her elbow. “Don’t get aioli on your dress. Camille will have a fit.”
“No she won’t. She’ll be too busy lecturing you for being late.”
Julie blushed. “Mitchell and I—”
Riley held up a hand. “Nope. I’m officially off listening duty for all sexy-talk for the next week.”
Julie nodded. “I heard. So Steven wasn’t the one?”
“Not even close. Remind me of this next time I let some guy try to pick me up at the bank.”
And also, remind me to never let myself think of Sam Compton when I’m out with another guy.
But she’d been losing that battle since she was seventeen.
Julie mad
e a sympathetic noise as she scanned the room. “Have you seen the boss? I can’t believe how many people are here. I thought it was just Stiletto staff and plus-ones.”
“Nope, it’s the whole Ravenna gang,” Riley said, referring to the media conglomerate that owned Stiletto and a couple of dozen other magazines.
And thank God this wasn’t one of those small, intimate affairs. Riley would rather go on a kale-juicing diet than be stuck in a room with only her coworkers and their plus-ones. There was a word for that: annual Christmas party.
More commonly known as single person’s hell.
But Julie had a point—this whole affair was a little over the top, especially for a Monday night. It wasn’t even the official Stiletto fiftieth-anniversary party, it was just the announcement of the party and the corresponding issue.
But their editor in chief had gone above and beyond, as always. Camille had reserved one of the private rooms at the top of a new, swanky midtown hotel, complete with an open bar, finger foods, and a freaking champagne fountain.
And the booze was key, because there was bound to be a speech in there somewhere about the theme of the semicentennial issue.
Shudder.
Riley loved Stiletto—she loved the team, the readers, the very pages of the magazine itself.
But for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out how this anniversary issue was supposed to be any different. According to Camille, every issue was “revolutionary,” but as far as Riley was concerned, every issue was simply more of the same.
Unless they were going to have this anniversary issue spit out condoms or chocolate, she couldn’t imagine how they were going to make it stand out.
“Where’s Mitchell?” Riley asked, belatedly noticing that Julie’s fiancé wasn’t affixed to her side as usual.
“Talking to Alex,” Julie said with a wave. “I heard the word soccer and bailed.”
“Ah, well, if Alex is here, Emma must be—”
“Drinking heavily at the bar,” came the husky drawl from behind them.
They turned and greeted the fourth member of their little Love and Relationships club. As always, Emma Sinclair looked impeccable. Both she and Grace had that cool, perfect thing going on, but whereas Grace was more of an East Coast prep princess, Emma was all southern drawl perfection. Although not in the clichéd, made-for-TV-movie kind of way. There was no big hair or constant talk of fried chicken. And there wasn’t a bless-your-heart to be heard from Emma. But the tidy, smooth layers of her light brown hair, the never-clumped mascara and endless supply of pristine white button-downs weren’t just for show. That sort of groomed perfection was ingrained in Emma right down to her bones.
Riley had done a Pilates class with the woman and had the occasional impromptu slumber party after an enthusiastic happy hour, and she could vouch that Emma always looked like that.
She doubted Emma Sinclair had ever had so much as a pimple.
“What’s wrong, sugar?” Riley said, linking arms with the shorter woman. “Don’t want to have a tête-à-tête with your ex-fee-ance-say?”
Emma’s brow furrowed just slightly. “Not a sober one. And I thought we agreed never to speak of that.”
“Nope,” Julie said happily, taking a sip of her red wine. “You instructed us never to speak of that. We all nodded and crossed our fingers behind our backs.”
Emma was the newest member of the Love and Relationships group and had done a damn fine job of hiding the fact that she’d once been engaged to the very luscious, very sexy editor in chief of Stiletto’s brother magazine.
Oxford was to men as Stiletto was to women, and with Alex Cassidy recently taking over the reins, the magazine’s readership had exploded.
Had it not been for the fact that Mitchell Forbes did a lot more listening than talking (a bonus, considering he was planning to marry Julie), they’d never have learned that the oh-so-perfect Emma had a not-so-perfect past. But thanks to Mitchell’s unintentional espionage, they’d recently learned that Emma’s closet wasn’t without skeletons.
However, despite a failed engagement being the ultimate in girl-talk fodder, they’d had a heck of a time getting Emma to discuss it.
But they would. Because it’s water under the bridge did not count as an answer.
Not when it came to friends.
Or the deliciousness that was Alex Cassidy.
There was an awkward tapping of the microphone, and after exchanging a look of resignation, the three women slowly turned to face the front of the room, where their boss had climbed onto some sort of box and was teetering dangerously.
“Here we go,” Grace said, appearing at their side and completing their foursome. “What do you think we’re dealing with here? Do you think she’s going to have the entire issue printed on gold-leaf paper? Or maybe every headline will contain the word fifty. ‘The Fifty Best Beauty Products of All Time.’ ‘Fifty Things to Do Before You’re Fifty.’ ‘Fifty Shoes That Will Never Go Out of Style’ …”
“ ‘Fifty Sexy Positions You’ve Never Heard Of,’ ” Riley supplied.
Grace paused. “Fifty? Really?”
Riley gave her a knowing glance. The one that said, I know things about sex that mortals can’t even fathom. It was a look she’d perfected early on in her career at Stiletto when she was trying to brand herself in a way that would make her indispensable to the magazine.
She’d succeeded.
Riley hadn’t always been the “sex girl.” Once she’d simply been just another “go-to” girl, filling in wherever needed. “Understanding SPF,” “Dealing with Catty Coworkers,” “Mastering Hot Yoga” …
And then Robyn Kessler’s husband had gotten a job in Houston, and there was a very crucial spot open in the Relationships department. By then Julie and Riley had become fast friends, and since Julie worked the sex/love beat, Riley had gotten first dibs on the vacant article slot: “Ten Things He’s Really Thinking in Bed.”
It had been easier than she imagined.
Having two brothers close in age had given Riley easy access to a data pool, and she’d supplemented her own network of men with flirty interviews with strangers in bars.
She’d been a hit in more ways than one.
Whereas Robyn’s sex-related articles had been matter-of-fact and borderline clinical, Riley had infused a candid woman-to-woman element that resonated with readers. So she’d gotten another sex assignment. Then another.
And when everyone assumed her candor was the result of an unabashed sex life, she sure as heck hadn’t corrected them.
In this case, the lie was a hell of a lot easier than the truth.
Within three months, Riley went from floater to a regular Love and Relationships columnist along with Julie. Grace joined the department soon after, and within a year, they’d not only become the golden girls of the magazine, they’d become the It girls of the city.
Since then, Riley’s reputation as the “sexy” one of the group had expanded. Alas, her actual experience had not.
Up until now, being a fraud hadn’t bothered her. Much. But something had been shifting in recent months. Part of it was due to Julie and Grace having recently laid themselves bare for the sake of a story—and for the sake of love.
But the other part was a bit more … physical. Riley’s sex drive seemed to be shaking off the cobwebs of disuse. And it was demanding some attention now.
As if it wasn’t enough that her loins were betraying her, she was also starting to feel guilty about the whole thing. Guilty about misleading her readers, certainly, although she didn’t owe them anything other than good sex advice, and that’s what they got.
But far worse, she was guilty of lying to her friends, and Riley was fresh out of ways to justify that.
She jolted a little as everyone around her clapped, and she gave a polite little clap of her own to hide the fact that she’d been daydreaming and had missed most of Camille’s speech thus far.
Riley forced herself to tune in to her boss’s rambli
ngs.
“… Now as I’m sure most of you know,” Camille continued, “the past year has been an interesting one for Stiletto journalists. First, we had Julie Greene, whose public declaration of falling in love with Mitchell made for our bestselling issue ever …”
The crowd burst into delighted applause while Julie blushed prettily, and Mitchell’s arm slid around her waist even though a part of him looked ready to run. Riley joined in the clapping, letting out a whoop as Julie’s fingers found the lapel of Mitchell’s suit and pulled him down for a smacking kiss.
Riley had had a front-row seat to Julie and Mitchell’s epic love story, and it never failed to make her feel warm and mushy. Julie had rather famously set out to use Mitchell for a story (Riley’s idea), just as Mitchell set out to use Julie to win a bet. It could have been the makings of a trashy talk-show episode, but because they’d been unexpectedly perfect for each other, it had skipped tawdry and gone straight to sweet.
At the front of the room, Camille forged on, turning attention to her other celebrity couple. “… and more recently, we’ve enjoyed the sheer spectacle that was Jake and Grace’s love story with the whole world watching. Their very public battle of the sexes—”
“—Which I won,” Jake hollered, ignoring the elbow jab from Grace.
Camille smiled and continued. “Their very public battle turned from what should have been a routine five-issue series into a spontaneous HeSaidSheSaid blog, which, in turn, became our most successful digital program to date.”
Jake, Oxford magazine’s best-known male columnist, always up for playing to a crowd, very purposefully pinched Grace’s butt, earning a sharp squeal, which he stifled with a kiss.
The antics were clearly all for show, but the private look they exchanged was not. Their romance may have started as a good-natured competition over which sex had a better read on the other, but like Julie and Mitchell, Grace and Jake were the real deal.
Riley felt the old familiar tightening in her chest as she read Jake’s lips where they pressed against Grace’s ear. I love you.
“I never know whether to hug them or punch them,” Emma muttered quietly at Riley’s side.