Liar, Liar, Tabloid Writer

by Suzie Quint

  “But that will come,” Phillips continued. “In the meantime, we need to acclimate you to our way of doing things.” He glanced at Nigel. “Our celebrity desk is where we check the articles that come in from Hollywood. We’re going to start you out working part-time on that with Marge.”

  Gossip. Not something she was excited about, but it could be so much worse.

  “But most of your time, we want you working with a more experienced reporter, so you get a feel for the variety of stories we cover. Nigel believes Alec is the man for that job.” Mr. Phillips nodded his head at Nigel. “Why don’t you invite Alec to join us?”

  When Alec walked in, the energy in the room seemed to spike. She glanced at him as he sat in the chair beside her, but only because courtesy required it, then returned her attention to Nigel and Mr. Phillips as they discussed the logistics of her place in the office. Mr. Phillips was less sure than Nigel of the value of plunking her in the middle of the staff. When their conversation spiraled off into the pros and cons, she cast a sideways glance at Alec only to find him gazing openly at her legs.

  Her heart thumped once, hard against her rib cage before launching itself into her throat. Cleo couldn’t help shifting. She uncrossed her legs, re-crossing them in a more demure pose that kept her knees together, her lower legs aligned aslant.

  The shift brought his gaze up to meet hers. The look in his chocolate-brown eyes shut out everyone else in the room. Her nipples hardened unexpectedly. One corner of his lips twitched as though he knew the effect he had on her. She could have told him that he really had no clue how disgusted she was with herself for thinking, for even a moment, that he was attractive.

  She wondered if he’d researched her, then chided her momentary naiveté. Of course, he had. They all had. Research came as natural to news people as breathing. And though she used the term “news people” loosely in this instance, her new colleagues undoubtedly knew every available detail of her career and a good deal about her personal life. Certainly, they knew that, for the past year, she’d been involved with Martin Howard Prescott the third, the sole heir to a sizable publishing fortune, who had also made a name for himself as a foreign correspondent and whose father sat on The Tucson Sun’s board.

  What he probably didn’t know yet was that her inglorious affair with Marty had come to an even more inglorious end days before she accepted the job at The Inside Word.

  Not armed with that knowledge, Alec certainly didn’t know the long, steaming looks he was sending in her direction were heating her blood in a way she hadn’t experienced in what seemed like forever.

  On the film screen in her mind, Alec rose from his chair. His eyes aflame with desire, he stood behind her and slowly opened her suit jacket to reveal the lacy camisole beneath. She shivered in anticipation as his fingertip traced her collar bone. From the top, his warm hand slid inside, gliding over her skin until he reached the top of her demi-cup bra. One finger slid inside, curling around her hardened nipple, lifting it the slight distance to free it.

  It was a fairly tame fantasy. Hardly noteworthy. Yet when her fantasy Alec leaned over her shoulder to mouth her nipple, a small noise, barely even a whimper, escaped her throat.

  “Pardon me?”

  “What?” She desperately blinked her way back to the room she sat in with her bosses.

  “Do you have an objection?”

  What the hell had they been discussing?

  “No. No, I’m sure whatever you decide will be best.” She nodded to convey agreement with . . . whatever, and prayed her inattention wouldn’t come back to bite her on the ass.

  Chapter 2

  Alec had no idea what the bosses had been discussing. He’d intended to argue against Nigel’s idea that he should share his work space. Hell, Cleo Morgan had damned near won a Pulitzer. If she was that good, she shouldn’t need him to hold her hand. Let her sink or swim on her own merits.

  Except he’d gotten distracted by her legs. They were so unbelievably long. He allowed his gaze to travel up from those sexy little shoes that were more strap than shoe, appreciating her slender feet, the toenails painted blood red, the shapely calf, the long expanse of tanned thigh. ¡Qué bonita! He backed up and looked again—the loooong expanse of thigh—all that bare flesh. It gave a man expectations. He wanted to weep when, after the long, delightful journey up her leg, he encountered her skirt.

  She’d shifted in her chair, realigning her legs, and his gaze jumped to her face. He wasn’t surprised to discover she’d been watching him watch her. Her lack of embarrassment encouraged him, and he let the ghost of a smile pull at his lips. While she held his gaze, the world around them seemed to stop. Then her eyes lost focus, turning inward, and he wondered what thoughts had pulled her away from him. Her lips parted ever so slightly. Alec’s cock stiffened as his body recognized the signals.

  Then his brain caught up.

  Was she . . . ? Could she really be . . . ? But his body knew. She was fantasizing right there in front of Nigel and Mr. Phillips. About him, if he wasn’t mistaken.

  What was she imagining? The possibilities made him ache. Was she thinking about wrapping those never-ending legs around his torso? Maybe about him taking her on Phillips’s desk. Or was she sitting in that chair, her legs thrown over his shoulders while he delved deep with his tongue? Maybe she had an exhibitionist streak. Was she imagining their bosses still in the room as they went at it? Before he could decide whether that turned him on more or less, she whimpered―it was breathy and faint, but it was definitely a whimper―and caught Nigel’s attention.

  Alec couldn’t tell if Nigel had an inkling of where her mind had been. Damn Brits. When Nigel chose to keep his thoughts to himself, he was a sphinx.

  Alec’s heart sank when Mr. Phillips leaned forward to line through an item in his open day planner then tidily laid his pen beside it. If Alec hadn’t had a raging hard-on, he would have bolted for the door since, like everyone in the office, he knew Phillips was a compulsive list maker and the pen hitting the desk signaled the end of the meeting.

  His erection kept him in his seat until Nigel rose. As they moved toward the door, Nigel said, “I want to see the rough on your afterlife story. We’ll talk about it in my office, so you’re not distracted. Then you can devote yourself to Cleo.”

  He’d be happy to devote himself to Cleo if that meant she’d wrap those long legs around him.

  ~***~

  After the meeting, Nigel escorted Cleo to her cubicle and asked if she had any questions. She shook her head, afraid whatever she asked would be one of the things she’d missed in the meeting. Why couldn’t she stay focused? And why in the hell was she having sexual fantasies about Alec Ramirez? Yes, he was attractive, but he wasn’t gorgeous. He was . . . exotic. Even without the surname, she’d have guessed he was Hispanic or Italian. He had the bedroom eyes, the smoldering looks, especially when he was doing something like checking out her legs.

  “Since your first assignment is to familiarize yourself with the paper, this will do until we get the cubicle set up for you and Alec,” Nigel said.

  It was a typical gray-walled cubicle. The latest edition of The Inside Word sat on the corner of the desk.

  “I’ve got three months’ worth of back issues in my office,” Nigel said. “I’ll have my assistant bring them out to you. You don’t need to read them cover to cover, but you should peruse the lead stories closely.”

  When he’d gone, she pulled her reading glasses from her purse and picked up the current issue to look again at the cover. A black-and-white totty shot of itsy-bitsy-bikinied Tanya Hwong, the beautiful twenty-five-year-old Hawaiian hula dancer who only eighteen months ago had married billionaire octogenarian Fred Denton, was superimposed over a photo of the hospital where her husband might be dying. The headline—properly lurid—screamed, Tanya Leaves Husband’s Deathbed to Party on the Beach!!!

  She was supposed to get intimately familiar with this?

  A headache was starting behind her ri
ght eye. She sat on the swivel chair and dropped her forehead to the desktop. What horrible thing had she done in her barely twenty-six years to deserve this?

  A month ago, she’d had a great life. A job she’d worked like the devil to get, the respect of her peers, and a successful man who adored her.

  Okay, so she’d discovered the hard way the adoration was really only shallow affection combined with the kind of fun that came from jetting off to the Bahamas for the weekend. The boyfriend had been a bust, but the job and respect had been real. Now she didn’t even have those.

  “Contemplating suicide already?”

  Startled, she jumped upright, nearly tipping her chair over backward. She grabbed the desktop with both hands to keep herself from going ass over teakettle. When she was sure she was no longer in danger of showing the world the color of her underwear, she discovered that, sitting in her chair, her eyes were level with Alec’s crotch.

  He apparently found uncoordinated women a turn on, because he either had a hard-on that would choke a giraffe or he stuffed his pants with rolled-up socks. Given their environment, her money was on the socks.

  She forced her gaze up and found herself staring into his dark eyes. He looked as if he halfway expected her to reach into her handbag, pull out a gun, and shoot herself in the head. “No, I’m not suicidal. Not yet anyway.”

  “Good.”

  He was her tour guide in this waking nightmare. Her own personal Welcome Wagon. She wasn’t dumb enough she couldn’t guess they were all speculating about why she’d leave a respectable paper for this . . . this hellhole. It would be easy for them to resent her. And if Alec resented her, it would be a walk in the park for him to torpedo her chances here.

  She couldn’t imagine what it would take to get fired from a place that ran alien abduction stories and Elvis sightings as though they were news, but if there was one thing more embarrassing than working at a tabloid, it would be getting fired from a tabloid. She hated it, but the simple fact was she needed Alec to like her. She needed someone on her side, so she forced herself to sound chipper. “Are you ready to start?”

  He took his time answering. About the time she started feeling like a butterfly mounted for display, he said, “I’ve got to run this”—he held up a sheaf of papers—“into Nigel’s office. As soon as he’s done telling me what crap it is, I’m all yours.” Around them, phones rang, keyboards clattered, and a voice asked a buddy to check his copy, but Alec merely stood there, his last three words hanging in the air between them like a promise.

  Before it could get too weird, she cleared her throat and said, “Great.”

  “Great,” he echoed. “Well . . . I’ll be back.”

  "Promises, promises," she muttered as he walked away. The partition walls were short enough she could easily see over them if she stood. Maybe the air wasn’t really rotting her brain. She slid her glasses down her nose and looked over the top of them to get a clearer view.

  He had a nice, tight ass. Great shoulders, too. Broad. Solid. At six-foot-two, or maybe three, he was tall enough even a tall girl, say five-ten, could wear heels and still feel girly.

  Suddenly realizing anyone who looked her way could see her staring after him, she dropped into her chair. Hoping no one had noticed, she threw her glasses onto the desktop and covered her face with her hands.

  What’s wrong with me? My life is spinning out of control, and I’m checking out the ass of some guy I just met.

  But it was such a nice ass.

  And why did the voice of her inner devil have to sound so much like her mother?

  It was time to get a grip. She was a competent person, wasn’t she? A functional adult who had come within heartbreaking distance of a Pulitzer. So her life was on a downhill slide. There had to be a way to get it back on track. She just had to survive this first.

  Someone cleared their throat.

  Please God, no.

  She opened her hands like they were church doors and peered out. The pretty, petite brunette in the stylish black dress who sat outside Nigel’s office stood in her cubicle’s doorway, her arms full of back issues of The Word.

  “Nigel said to give you these. Where do you want them?”

  Cleo rolled her chair back to make space. “There’s fine.”

  The tabloids hit her desk with a whomp.

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m Linny, by the way. If you need anything, you come see me.”

  “Thanks. I’ll do that.” Was she really so pathetic a simple kindness offered in a nonjudgmental tone felt as if she’d been thrown a lifesaver as she was going down for the third time?

  “Nigel wants you to have the sales figures by issue as well, so you can see what sells best. I’ll dig those out for you.” Linny smiled encouragingly. “They’re going to haze you, you know. Just grit your teeth and smile, and you’ll come through okay.”

  Cleo took a deep breath. “Thanks.” Linny’s kindness pumped a shot of courage into her veins. Yup, she really was that pathetic.

  After Linny left, Cleo faced the stack of papers on her desk. Leafing through the top one, her momentary optimism faded. Cancer Cure Suppressed!!! was printed so large she could have read it twenty feet away.

  Her headache got a little worse. She shoved The Word aside, crossed her arms on her desktop, and laid her head down.

  Gotta get a grip. Gotta get a grip. She repeated it like a mantra. I’d like to get a grip on Alec’s ass, she thought in her mother’s voice. Stop it!

  She could do this. She just couldn’t do it all at once. Start small. Pick one thing, one little corner of your life, and get it under control.

  The rest would have to wait. One thing at a time was the best she could do. The headache receded and she took it as a sign she was on the right path.

  Her time at The Tucson Sun had inured her to the noises around her. The phones, keyboards, and voices were the sounds of a newsroom breathing. Cleo forced her mind to go blank and listened to all the things she normally filtered out. Surprised, she realized that, if she ignored Jackson telling someone how to spot an alien, they were the same sounds that filled the bullpen at The Sun.

  Maybe it would be all right after all. No place that produced those reassuring noises could be so bad, could it?

  When she felt eyes on her, she feared Alec had returned and caught her deep in her pity party. Slowly, she lifted her head and looked up.

  “Hi!”

  It wasn’t Alec, she was grateful to see. “Hi,” she said back to the woman who stood in the doorway of her cubicle.

  “I’m Marge.” The woman held out a square, serviceable hand.

  Cleo stood and smoothed her skirt—what little of it there was—in an attempt to recover some dignity, and shook Marge’s hand. “I’m Cleo.”

  “I know. The guys have been talking about you coming for the last week.” Marge held onto Cleo’s hand while she checked her out. Cleo peered back much more discreetly.

  Marge looked close to thirty and was about five-foot-six but built out of rectangles without a feminine curve anywhere to be seen. Her hair was cut short but was unstyled as though fussing with it was too much trouble. Makeup, too, apparently was something she didn’t have an inclination for. She wore a t-shirt tucked into belted jeans.

  “Hey!”—Jackson’s voice intruded from another cubicle—“I just heard from that woman who thinks her husband’s been taken over by pod people.”

  “Did you tell her to call the FBI?” someone asked.

  “Are you kidding?” Jackson said. “They’re not getting my story.”

  “Grrreat suit!” Marge said, pulling Cleo’s attention back. Her eyes were scanning Cleo’s form-fitting suit jacket, short skirt, and her open heels with the ankle straps that Cleo loved.

  That settled it. She was burning the suit as soon as she got home.

  Marge grinned. “I’ll bet you’re having to fight the boys off already.”

  Jackson’s voice intruded again. “She thinks her daughter’s
one of them now, too, and the mother’s afraid they’re planning to roast and eat her for their alien version of Christmas.”

  Cleo pulled her attention back to Marge, but it was a struggle. “Uhm . . . Does an offer to set me up to have an alien baby count?”

  Marge tittered.

  Cleo blinked hard and looked again. Marge didn’t seem like the type to titter. Cleo decided she was going to have to take the initiative to get her hand back. Marge let it go without a fight.

  “Did she call to invite you to dinner?” someone asked Jackson. “Maybe she’s hoping they’ll think you look tastier.”

  “Har-har!” Jackson said.

  The surreal sensation that she was surrounded by a pod-people newsroom swept over her. It was like a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from.

  “That would have to be Jackson,” Marge said.

  Cleo looked at her blankly, so distracted by the nightmare around her she’d lost the thread of the conversation.

  Marge seemed to recognize the look. “The alien baby thing. That’s Jackson’s idea of a come-on. You want to be careful of him. He’s a hound dog. If you’ve ever even brushed up against a skirt, he can smell it. He’s got no discernment.”

  Cleo pulled herself together enough to say, “Somehow I’m not surprised.”

  Marge crossed her arms on top of the partition and rested her chin on her wrist. On a feminine girl, the move might have come across as coy or flirty. “Oh, I hope you didn’t take that wrong.” Her eyes flicked down Cleo’s body before resting again on her face. “You could be considered as evidence he actually has standards.”

  Marge’s voice left no doubt that talking about Jackson put a bad taste in her mouth. Cleo wondered if he’d ever hit on her. If he had, it had obviously ended badly—and quickly, she would bet. Jackson seemed like the type who’d chew off an arm to get away from an unattractive woman after the testosterone poisoning faded.

  “Since he’s not my type”—he was so far beyond her type, a pod-person version could only be an improvement—“I’m not too worried about his standards.”