by Nora Roberts
The tape was good. She had already taken a quick look at it while it was still being edited. Bob had captured the stylish elegance of the room and the gentle, privileged breeding of the woman. It would be a good contrast to the compact shrewdness of her father. Anna’s respect for her father came through, as well as her taste for the finer things. Liv had worked both into the interview. It was a solid piece of reporting, and it gave a glimpse of the larger-than-life world of affluent people in politics.
Liv transcribed her notes hurriedly.
“Liv, we need you for the voice-over on the tease.”
She glanced up long enough to search for Brian. The look she gave him made him sigh. He pushed away from his desk and stretched his shoulders. “All right, all right, I’ll do it. But you owe me one.”
“You’re a prince, Brian.” She went back to her typing.
Ten minutes later, Liv pulled the last sheet from her typewriter. “Carl!” she called to the director as he crossed the newsroom toward his office. “Copy for the lead story.”
“Bring it in.”
As she rose, Liv checked the clock. She had an hour before air time.
The television was on, its volume low, when she entered Carl’s office. Seated behind his desk, he checked copy and time allowances.
“Did you see the tape yet?” Liv handed him her pages.
“It’s good.” He lit a cigarette from the butt of another and gave a quick, hacking cough. “We’ll run part of this morning’s business with Dell, then lead into the interview with the daughter.”
He read Liv’s copy with a small furrow of concentration between his brows. It was a good, tidy story, giving quick bios on all top contenders for the cabinet post, and focusing in on Beaumont Dell. It gave the audience a full, open view before it brought them to Dell’s doorstep.
Liv watched smoke curl toward the ceiling and waited.
“I want to flash pictures of the rest of them while you read the bios.” He scribbled notes on her script. “We should have them on file. If not, we’ll get them from upstairs.” Upstairs was the term for CNC’s Washington bureau. “Looks like you’re going to have about three minutes to fill.”
“I want three and a half.” She waited until Carl looked up at her. “We don’t replace many secretaries of state midterm, Carl. Our next biggest story is the possibility of a partial shutdown of the Potomac River filtration system. This is worth three and a half.”
“Go argue with the time editor,” he suggested, then held up his hand as she began to speak.
Liv saw immediately what had shifted his attention. The graphics for a special bulletin flashed across the screen. She obeyed his quick hand signal to turn up the volume. Even as she did, T.C. Thorpe stared directly into her eyes. Liv hadn’t been prepared for the intensity of the look.
She felt a sexual pull—a quick, unexpected flash of desire. It left her stunned. She leaned back against Carl’s desk. She hadn’t felt anything like that in more than five years. Staring at the television image, she missed the first few words of Thorpe’s report.
“ . . . has accepted Secretary of State Larkin’s resignation as expected. Secretary Larkin resigned his cabinet post for reasons of poor health. He remains in Bethesda Naval Hospital recovering from extensive cardiac surgery performed last week. With the acceptance of Larkin’s resignation, the president has appointed Beaumont Dell to fill the vacated post. Dell officially accepted an hour ago in a meeting in the Oval Office. Press Secretary Donaldson has scheduled a press conference tomorrow at nine A.M.”
Liv felt the supports fall out from under her and leaned back heavily. She heard Thorpe recap the bulletin while she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Carl was already swearing.
Her story was dead. The guts had just been torn out of it. And he had known it. Liv straightened as the scheduled program flashed back on the screen. He’d known it at eight o’clock that morning.
“Do the rewrites,” Carl was telling her, grabbing for his phone as it rang. “And get somebody upstairs for Thorpe’s copy. We need it to fill in. The bit with the daughter is scrubbed.”
Liv grabbed her papers from Carl’s desk and marched to the door.
“They need you in makeup, Liv.”
She ignored the statement and continued out of the newsroom. Impatient, she paced back and forth in front of the elevator, waiting for it to make the descent.
He’s not going to get away with it, she fumed. He’s not going to get away with this without a scratch.
She continued to pace back and forth inside the elevator on her way to the fourth floor. It had been years—she could count the years—since anything or anyone had made her this angry. She was bursting with the need to let out her temper. And there was only one man who deserved the full force of it.
“Thorpe,” she demanded curtly when she entered the fourth-floor newsroom.
A reporter glanced up and cupped her hand over the mouthpiece of her phone. “In his office.”
This time Liv took the stairs. She darted up them, forgetting her carefully constructed poise and control.
“Ms. Carmichael.” The receptionist outside the fifth-floor offices rose as Liv dashed through. “Ms. Carmichael!” she repeated to Liv’s retreating back. “Whom did you want to see? Ms. Carmichael!”
Liv burst into Thorpe’s office without a knock. “You louse.”
Thorpe stopped typing and turned toward the door. He watched, more intrigued than annoyed, as the unannounced visitor crossed the room. “Olivia.” He leaned back, but didn’t rise. “What a nice surprise.” He noted the receptionist hovering in the doorway and shook his head slightly to send her away. “Have a seat,” he invited with a gesture of his hand. “I don’t believe you’ve graced my office in over a year.”
“You killed my story.” Liv, her copy still in her hand, remained standing and leaned over his desk.
He noted the high color in her normally pale face, the dark fury in her normally calm eyes. Her hair was mussed from her mad scramble up the steps and she was breathing hard. Thorpe was fascinated. How far, he wondered, could he push before she really let loose? He decided to find out.
“What story?”
“You know damn well.” She put her palms down on the desk and leaned over farther. “You did it deliberately.”
“I do most things deliberately,” he agreed easily. “If you’re talking about the Dell story, Liv,” he continued, sweeping his eyes back to hers, “it wasn’t your story. It was mine. It is mine.”
“You broke it forty-five minutes before my broadcast.” Her voice was raised in fury, something he had never witnessed before. To his knowledge, Olivia Carmichael never spoke above her carefully modulated pitch. Her anger was usually ice, not fire.
“So?” He laced his fingers together and watched her over them. “You’ve got a complaint about my timing?”
“You’ve left me holding nothing.” She held out her copy, then crumpled it and let it drop. “I’ve worked for two weeks putting this together, since Larkin had the heart attack. You killed it in two minutes.”
“I’m not responsible for protecting your story, Carmichael; you are. Better luck next time.”
“Oh!” Enraged, Liv struck both fists on the mahogany desk. “You’re contemptible. I poured hours into this story, hundreds of phone calls, miles of legwork. It’s because of you that I have an obstacle course to run in the first place.” Her eyes narrowed, and he noted that a faint New England accent was slipping through. “Do I scare you that much, Thorpe? Are you so insecure about your sanctified piece of turf and the mundane quality of your reporting?”
“Insecure?” He was up, leaning on the desk until they were nose to nose. “Worrying about you inching onto my ground doesn’t keep me up at night, Carmichael. I don’t concern myself with junior reporters who try to scramble up the ladder three rungs at a time. Come back when you’ve paid your dues.”
Liv made a low sound of fury. “Don’t talk to me about paying due
s, Thorpe. I started paying mine eight years ago.”
“Eight years ago I was in Lebanon dodging bullets while you were at Harvard dodging football players.”
“I never dodged football players,” Liv retorted furiously. “And that’s totally irrelevant. You knew this morning; you knew what was going down.”
“And what if I did?”
“You knew I’d be spinning my wheels. Don’t you feel any loyalty to the local station?”
“No.”
His answer was so matter-of-fact, it threw her for a moment. “You started there.”
“Would you call WTRL in Jersey and give them your exclusive because you read the weather there?” he countered. “Drop the alma mater routine, Liv; it doesn’t cut it.”
“You’re despicable.” Her voice had dropped to a dangerous level. “All you had to do was tell me you were going to break the story.”
“And you’d have politely folded your hands and let me break it first?” She watched the ironical lift of his brow. “You’d have slit my throat to put that story on the air.”
“Gladly.”
He laughed then. “You’re honest when you’re mad, Liv—and gorgeous.” He took some papers from his desk and held them out to her. “You’ll need my notes to revise your lead. You’ve less than thirty minutes until air.”
“I know what time it is.” She ignored the outstretched papers. She had an almost irresistible urge to hurl something through the plate glass window at his back. “We’re going to settle this, Thorpe—if not now, soon. I’m tired of having to crawl over your back for every one of my stories.” She snatched the notes, hating to accept anything from him, but knowing she was boxed in.
“Fine.” He watched her retrieve her own crumpled copy. “Meet me for drinks tonight.”
“Not on your life.” She turned and headed for the door.
“Afraid?”
The one softly taunting word stopped her. Liv turned and glared at him. “O’Riley’s, eight o’clock.”
“You’re on.” Thorpe grinned as she slammed the door behind her.
So, he thought when he settled back in his chair. There is flesh and blood under the silk. He’d begun to have his doubts. It appears I’ve made my first move. He laughed a little as he swiveled to stare out at his view of the city.
Damn but she’d made him mad. All for the best, he decided; otherwise he’d still be biding his time. One of the most important qualities a reporter had to have was patience. Thorpe had been patient for more than a year. Sixteen months, he thought, to be exact.
Since the first night he’d watched her broadcast. He remembered the low, calm voice, the cool, clean beauty. His attraction had been immediate and absolute. The moment he had met her, felt that aloof gaze on him, he had wanted her. Instinct had told him to hold off, keep a distance. There was more to Olivia Carmichael than met the eye.
He could have checked her background thoroughly. He had the talent, the contacts. Yet something had curbed his reporter’s drive to know. He had fallen back on patience. Having spent time cooling his heels staking out politicians, Thorpe knew all about patience. He sat back and lit a cigarette. It looked as though it were about to pay off.
At eight o’clock, Liv pulled into a parking space beside O’Riley’s. For an instant she rested her brow against the steering wheel. All too clearly, she could picture herself storming through the newsrooms and into Thorpe’s office. With perfect clarity, she heard herself shouting at him.
She detested losing her temper, detested more losing it in front of Thorpe. From the first time she had met him face to face, Liv had recognized a man she would need to keep at a distance. He was too strong, too charismatic. He fell into the “dangerous” category. Headed it, in fact.
She had wanted to keep an impersonal distance, and formality was necessary for that. A few hours before, Liv had dropped all formality. You couldn’t be formal with someone when you were pressed nose to nose and shouting.
“I’m not cool and unruffled,” she murmured, “no matter how hard I try to be.” And, she realized with a sigh, Thorpe knew it.
When she was a child, she had been the misfit. In a family of sedate, well-mannered people, she had asked too many questions, cried too many tears, laughed too lustily. Unlike her sister, she hadn’t been interested in party dresses and ribbons. She had wanted a dog to run with, not the quiet little poodle her mother had babied. She had wanted a tree house, not the tidy pristine playhouse her father had hired an architect to build. She had wanted to race, and had been constantly told to walk.
Liv had escaped from the strict rules and expectations of being a Carmichael. There had been freedom in college . . . and more. Liv had thought she had found everything she could ever want. Then, she had lost it. For the last six years, she had been dealing with a new phase in her growth. The final phase, she had determined. She had only herself to think about, and her career. She hadn’t lost the thirst for freedom, but she had learned caution.
Liv straightened and shook her head. This wasn’t the time to think of her past. Her present—and her future—demanded her attention. I won’t lose my temper again, she promised herself as she climbed from the car. I won’t give him the satisfaction.
She walked into O’Riley’s to meet Thorpe.
He saw her enter. He’d been watching for her. She’s slipped the veil back on, he noted. Her face was composed, her eyes serene as they scanned the room in search of him. Standing in the noise and smoke, she looked like marble—cool and smooth and exquisite. Thorpe wanted to touch her, feel her skin, watch her eyes heat. Anger wasn’t the only passion he wanted to bring out in her. The desire he had banked down for months was beginning to crowd him.
How long will it take to peel away those protective layers? he mused. He was willing to take his time, enjoy the challenge, because he intended to win. Thorpe wasn’t accustomed to losing. He waited until her eyes settled on him. He smiled and inclined his head, but didn’t rise to lead her to the table. He liked the way she walked—smooth, fluid, with undercurrents of sensuality.
“Hello, Olivia.”
“Thorpe.” Liv slid into the booth opposite him.
“What’ll you have?”
“Wine.” She glanced up at the waiter, who was already at her elbow. “White wine, Lou.”
“Sure, Ms. Carmichael. Another round, Mr. Thorpe?”
“No, thanks.” He lifted his scotch. He had noted the quick smile she had given the young waiter. It had warmed her face for a brief moment. Then her eyes were back on his, and the warmth was gone.
“All right, Thorpe; if we’re going to clear the air, I suggest we get to it.”
“Are you always all business, Liv?” He lit a cigarette, watching her face. One of his greatest assets was his ability to study directly, endlessly. More than one high-powered politician had squirmed under his dark, patient gaze.
She didn’t like the quiet power, or its effect on her. “We met here to discuss—”
“Haven’t you ever heard of pleasantries?” he countered. “How are you? Nice weather we’re having?”
“I don’t care how you are,” she returned evenly. He wasn’t going to get the best of her. “And the weather’s terrible.”
“Such a sweet voice, such a nasty tongue.” He observed the flare, quickly controlled, which leaped into her eyes. “You have the most perfect face I’ve ever seen.”
Liv stiffened—back, shoulders, arms. Thorpe noted the involuntary movement and sipped his scotch. “I didn’t come here to discuss my looks.”
“No, but then looks are part of the job, aren’t they?” The waiter set the wine in front of her. Liv slipped her fingers around the stem, but didn’t lift the glass. “Viewers would rather invite attractive people into their living rooms. It makes the news easier to swallow. You add a little class as well; it’s a nice touch.”
“My looks have nothing to do with the quality of my reporting.” Her voice was cold and unemotional, but her eyes were beg
inning to heat.
“No, but they do score you points in broadcasting.” He leaned back, still studying her. “You’re a damned good broadcaster, Liv, and you’re picking up speed as a reporter.”
She frowned at him. Was he trying to unbalance her by tossing out a compliment?
“And,” he added without changing rhythm, “you’re a very cautious woman.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If I asked you out to dinner, what would you say?”
“No.”
He acknowledged this with a quick, unoffended grin. “Why?”
Deliberately, she took a sip of wine. “Because I don’t like you. I don’t have dinner with men I don’t like.”
“Which implies that you do have dinner with men you like.” Thorpe took a last, thoughtful drag, then crushed out his cigarette. “But you don’t go out with anyone, do you?”
“That’s none of your business.” Infuriated, Liv started to rise, but his hands came down firmly on hers.
“You tend to jump and run when the button’s pushed. I’m curious about you, Olivia.” He was speaking quietly, below the laughter and raised voices around them.
“I don’t want you to be interested in me in any way. I don’t like you,” she repeated, and controlled the urge to fight against his hold. His palms were hard and unexpectedly rough. It was an odd sensation on her skin. “I don’t like your understated machismo or your overstated arrogance.”
“Understated machismo?” He grinned, enjoying himself. “I think that’s a compliment.”
The grin was appealing, and she steeled herself against it. She knew she had been right to term him dangerous.
“I like your style, Liv—and your face. Iced sex,” he continued, then saw that he had hit a nerve, a raw one. Her hands jumped convulsively under his. Her eyes went from angry to hurt to carefully blank.
“Let go of my hands.”
He had wanted to annoy her, prod her, but not to hurt her. “I’m sorry.”
The apology was simple, sincere and unexpected. It killed her urge to spring up and leave. When his hands left hers, she reached for her wine again. “If we’re finished with the pleasantries now, Thorpe, perhaps we can get down to business.”