She grimly watched their backs. She couldn't blame them.
The messages on the machine were mostly lawyers offering to represent her case, but also newspapers wanting to interview her and women's groups wanting her membership. Ian's was the very first message. And second, and third. His heartfelt concern over her well-being and his sweet questions on how she intended to handle the inevitable bad publicity touched her.
She called him.
"Ian, how are you?"
"My dear, I should be asking that question," he scolded. "Now. What have you done in the way of damage control? You must immediately issue a statement saying that Men's Weekly is against discrimination of any kind, and in order to prove it you'll publish only politically correct, pro-women, non-inflammatory material henceforth. Do you understand? If you don't, there will be boycotting and Men's Weekly just isn't large enough or popular enough to survive that."
Stanna's head was spinning. "Ian... I don't know. I don't think Jake would like it at all. That statement goes against his new editorial angle."
"You don't have a choice, my dear." His voice sounded almost oily in its excessive concern, and for the second time, Stanna wondered at his intervention. "Ian, why are you helping me so much? Jake let you go," she told him gently. Fired was such a brutal word, especially to someone his age.
"Gone but not forgotten," Ian quipped. Then, "I suppose a doddering old fool like me has nothing better to do than concern himself with hobbies and such. You could say that the magazine has become my hobby."
"That's very kind of you..."
"Anything for you, my dear."
She hung up the phone. Should she issue a statement? Ian had the business experience to know what he was talking about.
Plus, it was her golden chance to force Jake to return the magazine to what it was before he arrived and disrupted everything.
It was also exactly the opposite of what Jake would want.
She sighed, rubbing her temples. She needed lunch, she decided. To go for a drive, grab some food, and then think about all of it.
Down in the garage, as she swung into her beat-up wagon, she almost didn't hear the woman's voice.
"Stanna! Stanna Whitland?" A pretty redhead trotted toward her.
"Yes?"
"My name is Judy Hadley. From L.A. Ladyhawks."
"Sounds like a sports team." Tired and grouchy, Stanna retained only the barest inclination towards politeness. "If you'll excuse me, I was just on my way out to lunch. Serious blood sugar low, you know."
The woman nodded. Her professional short hair went well with her ethereally pale, sparsely made-up face. "I know you've had a lot going on. Believe me, I understand. We just wanted to be the first to offer you honorary membership in the largest women's organization in the city. Here's my card. Please call when you get the chance. I'd love to chat with you. Anytime at all." The woman passed her card through the wagon's open window with a friendly smile.
Looking at the silver-embossed card over her solitary lunch, Stanna had to smile herself.
The stylized logo featured an Amazon chieftess staring boldly out at her, black eyes glittering, her bow held before her threateningly.
Nobody greeted her return to work that afternoon. Michael even looked conspicuously away, whistling tunelessly as she passed him in the hall.
What was she going to tell Jake? She had to call him, get him in the loop on this whole mess, she realized. He'd left her a number to contact him in case of an emergency. She supposed this qualified.
To make a statement or not? "Damage control," Ian called it. And a quick fix for her own ends, she knew. A politically correct Men's Weekly would be very open to her kind of writing.
Jake had told her she was the "best man for the job." He trusted her. She couldn't betray that.
Decided, she picked up the phone to call him. A large hand reached from behind her, plucked the phone away and hung it back up.
"In my office. Now." Jake's tone made the blood freeze in her veins.
CHAPTER TEN
Numb, she followed him. He shut the door behind them and began by saying, "What the hell have you done?"
"I can explain." Just as soon as she could breath again. "What are you doing back already?"
He pounded his desk with a hard fist. "What do you think I’m doing?" He visibly strained for control of himself. She'd never seen him so furious, and it shook her. "One of our advertisers saw your little interview and kindly told me all about it. Before they pulled their twelve-month ad contract with us."
His face was grim. She strove to placate him. "Someone told CBS that I was Stan. Then CBS called, wanting an interview. I agreed in order to give the magazine good publicity, but they turned everything around. Their own agenda did this, not me. I was just now calling you to get your opinion on what to do next."
His expression wavered. He wanted to believe her, she could tell. Wanting to redeem herself, she added, "I've been told that we should issue a statement promising to avoid inflammatory, potentially offensive material."
He jumped on that, the angry expression rising again. "Who told you such a terrible idea?"
Stanna was quiet, suddenly remembering how he felt about her conversations with Ian.
Brows furrowing ominously, he approached her. "Stanna. Who?"
"Ian."
Jake felt punched. She’d been taking magazine direction from Ian. After he'd told her not to discuss business with him.
He observed the stiff way she held herself. Her gaze rested steadily on his, but the dark circles underneath betrayed the toll of the past twenty-four hours. He had to force away his natural compassion for her. She'd mishandled his business and betrayed him. She’d been communicating with Ian.
This magazine was his project, his investment, his baby, damn it. He’d invested more than just money. Therefore, her actions were not to be forgiven. It didn't matter that she looked like an exhausted angel. Like a certain other woman in his past, she was not what she appeared to be.
Just like Jolene.
Stanna looked at him as if she felt wretched with remorse. He knew better, of course.
The old, familiar numbness gave way to a flicker of pain in the vicinity of his heart.
"That will do for now," he dismissed her brusquely. "I'm back, so now you can tend to what you do best. Phones and the paperwork." He turned his back on her and tried not to hear her sharp intake of breath. Or her footsteps padding slowly away.
She deserved it, of course, Stanna told herself as the tears coursed down her cheeks. Despite her best intentions, she'd royally screwed things up. She hadn't meant to. At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do. And it wasn't her fault that Eva had twisted her statements around!
Applying logic to the situation and apportioning blame more broadly didn't make her feel better, but it helped her to beat down the devastating sadness by feeling angry instead. She didn't think she deserved all of his scorn. And she definitely didn't deserve that last crack about "doing what she did best." He was hitting below the belt. So to speak.
Working herself up to a good, rousing mad liberally laced with hurt, Stanna snatched her purse and barreled out the building. It was only two-thirty -- too early to go home and talk with Telly. She didn't know where she was going until she climbed into her car and saw the silver flicker on the passenger seat. The Amazon on Judy's business card. Then she knew where she was headed.
It was her third meeting with the Ladyhawks, and they’d finally begun allowing her to attend the more private, ritualistic gathering. An interesting way to spend a Saturday afternoon, Stanna thought. Telly wasn't around anyway. She'd gone out that morning to get her hair done, having no interest whatsoever in attending an all-woman meeting.
Stanna looked around at the other women. Close to her in age. Dressed in everything from jeans to pretty dresses, the ladies busily prepared a bonfire in the large backyard of one of the members.
Judy smiled at her. "I'm so glad you're here. E
very woman counts, you know." She reclined on a lawn chair next to Stanna. "Did you hear the latest about your own battlefront?" Without waiting for an answer she continued, "I've been asking around. That interview you gave has had some unsavory affects. You'd think a wonderful, clear story like yours would generate some honest outrage on behalf of women. And it has. But unfortunately it looks as if some men," she said the word like it was bitter on her tongue, "see it as a fabulous reason to check out a copy of Men's Weekly to see what the fuss is all about. The magazine's sales are up almost double, due to the controversy. Did you know that?"
Double. Stanna hadn't known. Ever since he’d returned, Jake had closed her off from everything having to do with running Men's Weekly. He even canceled their weekly meetings, saying he was too busy. She turned in her column, he rewrote it, and that was that.
"But don't worry," Judy was telling her. "We'll get the magazine owner to come around. Two dozen of us are going to march outside of some local newsstands next week in protest. I won't ask you to join us with our activism until you have a different job," Judy assured her. "But I wanted you to know that we haven't forgotten your plight."
My plight? Stanna mused thoughtfully. The other two meetings she'd gone to didn't address her plight, or anything else besides general woman-bonding and frequent man-bashing. It was kind of therapeutic, but hardly productive.
Now Judy spoke as if it were truly a battle Stanna engaged in. And she spoke of it bitterly. Now that she thought about it, whenever the subject of men came up -- which was often -- a closed, cold look came over Judy’s face. A cautious look. It reminded her of Jake. He got that look sometimes. The look of a person engaged in a battle.
She supposed it was a battle, in a way. Corrinna and Michael and the others still weren't speaking to her more than strictly necessary. Jake forged ahead with his own, man-centric editorial ideas and didn't apologize to anyone.
And he didn't talk to her.
She didn't let on to anyone, even Telly, how much it hurt her.
Jake’s voice still arrested her whenever she heard it, though it was rarely addressed to her. Memories from the small cabin haunted her. Once, she even pulled out her old sneakers to look at the caked-on mud to make sure she hadn't dreamed the whole thing.
The sight of him made her blood race through her veins, and made her ache with the hope he’d stop the silent treatment. Even an argument would be a relief. It had been weeks since the day he ordered her from his office.
Too long, she realized. That was simply too long to childishly hold a grudge the way he was! It had gone on long enough.
Distracted by her internal musings, she hadn't noticed the women bringing out piles and piles of... books?
She looked questioningly at Judy. Judy smiled broadly as she lifted pastel-covered and metallic-embossed novels from cardboard boxes. The other women either unloaded the boxes from the garage or held hands around the bonfire.
"We all pulled together and collected as many romance novels as we could," she explained to Stanna. "There isn't a better example of woman-suppression anywhere. From these covers," she flicked a contemptuous finger at a clinch pose, "to the rape scenes in each and every one of them. They’re trash, and worse: they’re poison to the ideal that we've worked so hard for. The acceptance of strong and capable women."
"So you burn them," Stanna said with horror. Some women were passing out handfuls, and one by one they tossed them into the fire. Loud cheers and clapping accompanied each toss.
Judy looked at her in surprise. "Of all people, I was sure you would approve. Look at your boss, after all. He's a living example of the Neanderthals in these books."
Stanna was lifting herself off the lounge and beginning to back away. "No. Judy, no, he's not unreasonable. Insensitive, yes. But he's not one of the really awful guys." The words out of her own mouth shocked her. She was actually defending Jake?
Speaking slowly, discovering it in the telling, she said, "He's open to the idea of strong women. He just doesn't want to kill his magazine by treating his audience as if they’re women. They’re not, and it's not that kind of magazine." She laughed, relieved at the discovery that she could forgive him. Now that she saw what he was about.
She wasn't sure what she was going to do about it yet. But she realized one thing: she had more proving to do with Jake. If he distrusted women even half as much as these Ladyhawks distrusted men, she was going to have to redeem herself in his eyes in a fairly spectacular way.
She wanted to. More than anything, she wanted the frustrating man to trust her, to… to care for her. As much as he cared for his magazine.
She turned her gaze on Judy. "You're the intolerant ones if you burn those books. Have you ever read a romance?"
"Well... no. Of course not. But they’re not good literature."
"That's what I thought." Stanna gathered up her purse. "I can't participate in this. But I've enjoyed the other meetings. Thanks for inviting me."
She walked away, feeling lighter than she had in weeks. Time to listen to her heart.
Her heart was giving her very detailed instructions on what to do next.
"Jake."
He looked up, his jewel-toned eyes gleaming with animal life even under the florescent lights. His glance took in her short skirt and form-fitting top, such a change from her usual more modest attire. His eyes darkened. When she stepped through, agile on her high heels, shutting his door, his expression wore the dreaded cruel and predatory scowl she knew so well.
She wasn't afraid. She knew he had every right to be angry. Now it was up to her to soothe the savage beast.
The thought made her smile.
"What do you want?" His growled demand was anything but welcoming.
She chased the mirth from her face. "I'm sorry for interrupting, but there's a bit of an emergency."
"Well? What is it?" he asked, when she didn't volunteer the information immediately.
"You need to see it. I could explain, but it would take too long. It's in the parking garage. It's your Jeep."
Without waiting for any further explanation Jake leaped out of his chair and brushed by her without so much as a thank you, she thought in impatience. He was going to be a tough one.
She was up to the challenge.
Smiling again, she quickly followed him in time to catch the same elevator down.
The doors opened to admit the garage scent of oil, rubber, and gasoline. She followed as he strode purposefully to his reserved space. He eyed his Jeep, checking underneath it and walking around it.
"Nothing seems to be wrong," he told her. There wasn't suspicion in his voice yet, as he turned to her inquiringly. Putting on her best innocent face, she commented, "You may want to roll up your windows. I'll tell you what I saw while you do."
"Explain," he demanded. He opened the passenger side door and pumped his powerful arm up and down to roll up the window.
"Well, I saw a man. He was wearing a white button-up shirt and these brown slacks. I couldn't help but notice him because of his incredibly fit body. He had muscles that--"
"What was he doing with my car?" Jake interrupted, scowling. He didn't notice she'd just described his own white button-up shirt and brown slacks.
"Let me show you," she told him softly. She walked to the door, opening it and bending over the high bench seats provocatively. She knew his eyes would be on her uncharacteristically short skirt. "Right here…" she ran her hands over the fabric, then straightened, slowly taking off her jacket. "It's hot down here, isn't it?"
She nearly laughed, looking at the way his gaze was predictably drawn to her tight shirt unspoiled by any bra lines. He was trying to be angry but her tactic was working.
Before he could berate her any more, she crooked her finger at him. "There's something I'd like to show you," she said, looking steadily into his eyes. She reached out, took his hand and pulled him toward her, toward the seat. She held his hand palm-down and rubbed it over the seat cloth fabric slowly, mak
ing him feel the nubs and roughness. The muscles in his forearm felt tense and hard, but he didn't pull away.
A sardonic twist to his lips warned her he was about to say something cutting. But she spoke first, in a velvet voice she didn’t know she possessed.
"This is where I'm going to sit, while you drive me back to your place, where I'm going to make love to you. Please. I haven't been able to get you out of my mind, Jake." She raised his hand from the seat and slowly, tantalizingly let it graze her chest. She knew the contrast of the rough fabric and her smooth warm curves affected him because his eyes narrowed into a look of pain as if he were burned. His breath became harsh.
"I want you," she told him, realizing how acutely true it was as the feel of his warm palm on her nipples broadcast spikes of pleasure to her brain. He moved closer to her, his body pressing her back to the side of the seat and she gasped as she felt his hard arms, chest, and all the glorious rest of him fully against her. His warmth made her tingle. His hardness made her arms snake around him and pull him more tightly to her. They both moaned softly in pleasure. But he still hadn't said a word.
She tugged at his arm, questioning. He smiled, just barely, his face ascetic in its passion. He nodded though, circling his Jeep and stepping into the driver's seat.
She gave him a very sly and wicked smile as she climbed into the passenger seat. Her fingers traced the inseam of his brown slacks, and she marveled at her own audacity. He stepped on the accelerator.
Even with senses reeling from the exquisite anticipation of her next few hours, Stanna noticed the house. As he wheeled his Jeep into the driveway, she took in the mature trees and artful landscaping that graced the large front yard. The house sat well back from the road, nearly concealed. For a home right near the beach, it was surprisingly cozy. Not one of those gated monstrosities that tourists gape at, but not a converted shanty either. A rare jewel: a pretty, private house in an ideal Southern California location. She adored it on sight.
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