“Not at all.” Hanna’s easy posture didn’t change. “I think you’ve done a fine job, given the situation.”
“Thank you.” Ava wasn’t sure she felt any less tense, but at least there was no new trickle of sweat to dampen the back of her shirt.
“How do you like working here?”
Ava looked into Hanna’s calm expression, hoping for a hint about what she was getting at, but the cool, competent expression didn’t change. And even if it had, there wasn’t really any answer she could give other than the one she decided on. “It’s a good company to work for. I’ve been here for the past three years and in that time, I’ve been promoted from junior to senior reporter. I attend the majority of film festivals and fill in as the show’s cohost when required. I’m a team player and I’ve been mentoring some of the junior reporters the past year.” She debated whether or not to add anything about her desire to become a permanent cohost.
“You don’t need to give me your résumé, Ava. I’m well aware of your accomplishments.”
The comment could have been insulting, but even with Ava’s hypersensitive feeling that Jake might have said something to color Hanna’s opinion, she couldn’t find anything but kindness in the executive producer’s voice.
“But how do you like working here? Is it a positive environment? Does the staff get along?” Hanna shifted, tenting her hands in front of her.
Was this a test? And if Ava failed, was she going to find herself marginalized until she either quit on her own or her job was declared redundant?
She considered the best way to answer. If she was too bubbly and gushing, she would come off as a kiss ass. If she was coy and avoided the question, that would give the impression that this was a toxic place to work. Plus, she was tired of games, tired of playing and being played. So she was honest.
“I like it. It can be a high-stress environment. I know we don’t report news in the traditional sense, but we deal with the same issues about time and being the first to break information to our audience. And I think we’ve got a good team. For the most part, we work well together and get along.”
Hanna absorbed the information without moving and for a moment Ava wondered if she’d failed the test. Then Hanna smiled again. It was a friendly smile. “I wouldn’t normally ask this without giving you some preparation time, but I’d like to know what your five-year plan is.”
Ava’s pulse kicked up. Had Jake said something? That she’d thought she was going to host his show and so obviously was planning to leave? The sweat was back along with its friend, dry mouth.
She pretended to smooth the length of her skirt, but was really wiping the wetness from her palms. Then she met Hanna’s calm, assessing gaze. “I’d like to continue to work my way up through the company.” Age notwithstanding.
“And where do you see yourself at the end of that?”
“I want to be cohost.” Ava didn’t see any point in hiding the truth. Hanna would be aware that hosting was the ultimate job for on-air personalities and to pretend otherwise would just be insulting.
“Good.” If Ava had thought Hanna’s smile was friendly before, it was nothing compared to the glow she had now. Seriously, if Ava could smile and get a glow like that on command she’d give up her Louboutins. Maybe even wine and chocolate. “Because I’d like to offer you the cohost position permanently.”
“You...what?” There was a pop of surprise followed by a rush of excitement. “Really?” Cohost? On this show?
“Yes, really. I’ve been watching you closely this week and you’re good. Very good.”
Ava couldn’t help but preen a little. And picture herself giving Jake a well-placed, well-deserved kick in the butt. She knew there was a reason she’d liked Hanna in spite of her Jake connection.
Danica was going to have a cow. An elegant, haughty cow, but a cow all the same. Ava wondered if she should invest in a series of scarves for her on-air wardrobe to ward off the chill she was sure to face. “So, there will be three of us?”
“No, there will only be two of you. Danica telephoned me this afternoon before the show. She’s accepted a job offer in L.A. and has tendered her resignation. I’d like you to replace her.”
This hadn’t even crossed Ava’s mind when Hanna asked to talk to her—the idea that Danica hadn’t really been ill but off interviewing somewhere else was almost inconceivable. But now? She let the images overwhelm her. Standing in front of the camera introducing stories and off-site reporters, seeing her name flash across the screen at the start of every show, updating her résumé to read Cohost.
She wanted to jump up and down, do a Snoopy dance or let out a rebel yell, but that wouldn’t be professional. She nodded at Hanna as though she was calmly considering the situation. “If I were to take the promotion, I assume there would be a raise?”
“Of course.” And though Ava wouldn’t have thought it possible, Hanna’s expression brightened another degree. “So does that mean yes?”
“Yes.” Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. And for the first time in weeks, Ava felt like going out to celebrate.
She called her mom instead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
JAKE PUT THE FINISHING touches on the meal by straightening the place mats he’d found in his sister’s linen closet and then stood back to take a critical look. The water goblets gleamed in the chandelier’s light and the pristine white plates shone against the golden mats and orange napkins. He’d discovered some serving dishes that seemed to match the plates in the back of one of the cupboards, and after putting them through the dishwasher, deemed them clean enough to eat off.
He’d loaded them full of Chinese takeout, honey-garlic chicken balls, broccoli in black bean sauce, barbecued pork chow mein and egg rolls—all his sister’s favorite dishes. A small way to say thank-you for letting him crash here until he found a place of his own.
When he heard her key in the door, he hung a white dish towel over one arm and greeted her in the entry. “Dinner is served.”
Rachel blinked at him, looking a little confused through her glasses. “What the...?”
“This way, please.” He led her down the hall and into the perfectly dressed dining room. Rob was working late tonight and since Rachel’s lecture didn’t end until after six, Jake had thought she’d appreciate coming home to a hot meal that she didn’t have to prepare or clean up after.
Rachel’s eyes widened. She turned to gape at him. “You did this?”
“Yes.” And he was pretty pleased with himself. He’d borrowed the idea of fancying up the takeout from Ava’s mother and thought it had turned out brilliantly. Also, preparing dinner kept him busy between getting home from his father’s office and waiting for Rachel to turn up. He didn’t like to have a lot of free time on his hands these days. There were too many thoughts he’d rather not have floating around in his head.
“Why?” She let her bag slide off her shoulder and land with a thump on the wood floor. “I mean, not that I’m unhappy.” She plucked one of the chicken balls out of the bowl and popped it in her mouth. “But why all this? It’s kind of romantic.”
“It’s not romantic, you weirdo,” Jake said, flicking her with the dish towel and turning up the dimmer switch just to make sure. “I thought it would be nice for us to act like a couple of civilized adults for a change.”
In the month since he’d been back in Toronto, dinners at Rachel’s had consisted of pizza out of the box, hamburgers in wrappers and Thai out
of foam containers.
Rachel ate another chicken ball. “Okay. So what do you want?”
“A guy can’t make his little sister dinner just because?”
“Some brothers can. You are not one of those brothers. What’s up?”
“Nothing. I swear.” He sat at the table without waiting for her. “Just saying thanks for letting me stay here.”
She snorted and sat down across from him. “You planning on leaving soon?”
Rachel and Rob lived in a large, rambling Victorian near the heart of downtown that had plenty of room and was convenient to his father’s office building. Jake didn’t plan to stay there indefinitely, but it was a good fit for now.
“You planning on kicking me out?”
Rachel loaded her plate until the food reached the edges. “You can stay here as long as you want. You know that.”
He did know that and felt a surge of gratitude. Rachel had accepted his return with an easy shrug and treated him the way she always had, with none of the wariness he’d been afraid of.
In fact, no one had treated him with wariness. Not his mother or father. None of his old friends and colleagues. Even at his father’s company, where he’d been slotted in as VP of production, no one had seemed put out in the least. There had been no snide comments about him taking on a pivotal role in the company, no questions about why he’d left and returned just as quickly, or about the fact that his very public ex was now an anchor on the number-two station’s nightly news, wearing a huge diamond engagement ring.
Jake had watched Claudia a couple of nights ago. She’d looked as sexy and sultry as he remembered, but he’d felt nothing. Not even when the light caught the enormous rock on her left hand.
“Everything okay?” Rachel stopped eating and studied him.
“Of course.” Or close enough to okay that he wouldn’t complain. Being back was better than he ever could have thought. And if some nights it felt a little empty, he could learn to deal with it. He scooped up a forkful of chow mein.
“How are you settling in?”
“Fine.”
She twirled up some noodles. “And it’s working out okay with Dad?”
“Surprisingly, yes.” After realizing that there was nothing keeping him in Vancouver and that most of the issues he had with his father were self-made, Jake had accepted the job he’d offered. But he hadn’t come without reservations.
He’d been pleased to discover that instead of acting like the autocrat he remembered from his teen years, his father had welcomed any ideas that Jake cared to offer.
“Then you’re glad you came back?”
He nodded. “Yeah.” Or, if not glad exactly, then not unhappy, either.
He’d been doing his best not to think of Vancouver and what had happened there. But excising Ava from his thoughts wasn’t as easy as he’d hoped. He didn’t understand it. He’d been able to cut Claudia out pretty succinctly and there was no reason he couldn’t do the same with Ava. Maybe it was just that it stung more the second time around.
Rachel sipped her water. “I sense that you’re not really here. Thinking about Vancouver?”
“No.” But he should probably call a real-estate agent there tomorrow to talk about putting his place on the market. It wasn’t as though there was any reason to keep it.
“Ever going to be ready to talk about what actually happened?”
Jake felt the tension close a tight fist around his lungs and forced himself to take a slow breath. “I already told you,” he said and then took a sip from his own glass. He’d decided on the flight home that he wasn’t going to discuss Ava. His family had forgiven his naiveté the first time; it was too embarrassing to tell them that it had happened again. Too painful. “I made the pilot, but was unable to get financing. I’d already hired someone for my position at Harvey’s station, so I decided to take Dad up on his job offer. That’s it.”
“Right.”
“It is.”
Rachel tilted her head, her gray eyes clear and questioning. “Who was she?”
Jake ignored the thump of his heart. “What are you talking about?”
“Are we still playing this game?” She eyeballed him until he looked away. But even winning the staring contest didn’t appease her. “I’m talking about the woman who has you looking tired and worn-out. Probably crying yourself to sleep at night in your pillow.” She met his disgusted look with one of her own. “What? The walls are thin.”
“I have never cried myself to sleep at night.” And even if he had, he would never admit it.
Rachel was undeterred. “Who was she? You know Mom thinks there was someone in Vancouver, too.” She grinned when he glared at her, clearly not bothered that the heat of his stare should have set her hair on fire. “What? I can’t control what Mom thinks.”
“I wonder who put that thought into her head,” Jake grumbled. “Do you two talk about everything I do?”
“Of course. We love you and part of that means doing our best to keep you on the straight and narrow.”
“I’m not a charity case.”
“No, but your intuition about women sucks. Don’t feel bad. Dad and Rob both have limited resources in that area, too. But they have Mom and me to help.”
“Lucky them.”
“Lucky you, too.” She sent him a Cheshire-cat smile. “We’re willing to lend you a hand until you find someone lovely to settle down with. Back to my point, who was she? What happened? And is she the reason you came back?”
Jake ate another mouthful of food without tasting it and decided not to answer. There was no point. He’d learned over the years that the best way to get Rachel off a topic was to let her ramble on without interruption until she felt she’d exhausted it.
“You’re not fooling me with that whole ‘there wasn’t anyone’ thing anyway. As soon as you started calling Mom without getting a reminder from me, I knew.”
“I didn’t need your reminder—”
Rachel simply talked over him. “Then when you actually talked to her for a half hour instead of grunting and getting off the phone after about five minutes, I could only conclude that someone who knows a little something about the female psyche was advising you.”
Jake stuffed a chicken ball in his mouth, feeling his molars grind against each other as he chewed, but reminding himself that it would all be over much sooner if he could just keep his mouth shut.
“And you were chipper,” she told him. “Like ‘singing from the mountaintops, little birdies flying around your head with hearts’ chipper.”
Okay, that was too much. “I did not have hearts flying around my head and I don’t sing from mountaintops or anywhere. It wasn’t like we were in love. I’d only known her a couple of months.”
As soon as he said it, he realized his error. Hell.
But Rachel was already crowing, doing her best to deafen him. “I knew it! Why do you try to deny the power of my intuition? It never fails. I never fail.”
“I’m not sure I would go that far. Or have you forgotten about Daryl Simcox?” It was a desperate attempt to distract her, but it worked.
“I was fifteen.”
Daryl, with his oily hair and greasy Camaro, had been a source of family contention for the six months Rachel had claimed he was her one true love. She’d gotten over that the night she caught him making out with another girl at a party. She’d poured a drink over his head, Jake remembered fondly. And he’d been able to give Daryl a
good sock in the gut when he’d spread a rumor at school the breakup was because Rachel was a frigid bitch. No one was allowed to call his baby sister names except him. “My point stands. Your intuition? Not infallible.”
She snorted, loudly and with gusto. “Quit trying to change the subject. You know it isn’t going to work, so there’s no point in wasting both our time. The fact is, I knew you were hiding something—or should I say someone—and now you’ve admitted it. Spill your guts before I’m forced to sic Mom on you. She’s not as nice as me.”
Jake frowned as the little pocket of good humor that had eased the ache in his heart for a minute disappeared. For Rachel, this was just a story, an anecdote she wouldn’t remember in a month. But it wasn’t so easy for him. “I don’t want to talk about it, Rache.”
“Come on. You’ll feel better if you get it all out.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he repeated. And why would he? It was over. He and Ava were over. What was the point in belaboring it? The tines of his fork screeched across his plate as he frowned at his sister. Why had he let her goad him into mentioning it?
She did not look threatened. “So it didn’t end well.”
“No.”
“And?” There was no sound in the room. Rachel cleared her throat. “You know you won’t be able to outwait me. I’ll just keep asking. I’ll get Mom in on it, too. Think of it like a Band-Aid—just rip it off and spill.”
He looked at his little sister, embarrassment crawling up the back of his neck. “She used me, Rache. She made me think she cared and then when she found out the show was a no-go, she suddenly discovered she wasn’t that interested.” Not exactly the truth, but close enough.
“What?”
“Yeah.”
“That bitch.”
“She’s not a bitch.” Jake looked back at his plate.
That Weekend... Page 24