by Stacy Eaton
“Not that I’m not enjoying this little moment, but it’s been a long day, and I’m beat. What is it that you wanted to talk to me about?”
“Ugh, reality,” I grunted as I sat upright. “I know you said that I shouldn’t talk about what I saw, but is there any way around that?”
“Around what?”
“Around not talking about it?”
He shifted so that he was looking at me a little easier. “What is it that you want to talk about, Maggie?”
“The whole thing.”
“I told you, discussing it with people could influence their memories of the events. It’s best not to talk about it.”
“I don’t want to discuss it; I wanted to write about it.”
“You mean for the paper?”
“Yes.”
He shook his head. “No, bad idea. I know it would probably be great for your job, but if you do that, Mags, you’re going to screw up prosecution. This town is too small for someone in the media to be giving details.”
“Why?”
“Because if and when this goes to trial, it will be harder for them to find twelve people to serve on a jury that hasn’t already formed an opinion of guilt.”
“But they are guilty.”
“I know that, and you know that, but you and I are not the justice system.”
“Not that I need to debate this with you, but what about the freedom of speech and the press?”
“Yes, you have the freedom of speech, but you have to remember that anything that you say about that incident and make public won’t be used in the trial, and the case could get thrown out without all the evidence. The defense only needs a shadow of a doubt to get the charges dropped. Do you want those men out on the street?”
“No.”
“Then I think you’d be better off not saying anything. Why are you asking anyway?”
“Because my boss is an ass.”
Greg’s eyes darkened. “What did he do?”
“He pretty much told me that if I don’t write an article about what happened inside, that he will make sure I stayed writing fluff pieces and romance columns. He said I had until midnight to write my account of what happened, and if I did, he would make sure it was front and center. If I got that space, I’d have my break, Greg, and they’d have to consider me for the news desk.”
“That really means a lot to you?”
“Yes, it does. I love my job, but I want to report real stories, not this crap about how to know a man loves you and is worth dealing with his crap. It’s all bullshit because we all know that men are jerks.”
Greg started laughing. “Not all men, but yeah, most of them.”
I grinned at him. “I know.”
His cellphone vibrated, and he shifted on the bench to pull it out of his pocket. I turned away as he read a message and then chuckled.
“What’s so funny?”
“Alice, our receptionist. She picked my boss up from the airport and took him home. He was pretty trashed, and she was letting me know that she left him alive.”
“Is there a reason he got drunk on the way home?”
“The politicians that we were working with scrapped a detail that we were supposed to do to save a few bucks, but they are going to regret it.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, Jake was pretty furious, especially since we came up with the plan to get over a million dollars’ worth of medical supplies safely into an area in Africa, and they have our plans, but don’t want us to run it. They want their civilian employees to do it.”
“But aren’t you a civilian employee? I mean, you’re not in the military.”
“Yeah, technically, I’m considered a civilian contractor, but because we all have higher-level tactical training and military experience in wartime situations, we’re expensive. They wanted to cut costs.”
“So, they stole your plans, and now they are going to use people who aren’t trained as well to do the delivery?”
“Yep, that’s it in a nutshell.”
“Is this public knowledge? I mean the medical supplies.”
“It’s not top secret or anything.”
I tossed that around in my mind for a little while. “Greg, do you think your boss would mind if I wrote a story on that?”
“What?”
“Well, wouldn’t your plan be proprietary information? I mean, if your company came up with it, then others shouldn’t be able to implement it without your permission, right? They should be called out on that.”
He stared at me for a minute and then began to smile. “Jake might go for that idea. He was pretty pissed today, and he is never afraid to make waves. Let me speak to him about it in the morning.”
“Alright, you let me know. If I can’t give my editor something that he wants, maybe I can give him something that he doesn’t know he wants. God knows the media loves to bash politicians.”
Greg got off the swing. “Mind if I hit your head before I leave?”
I must have looked totally stunned by his words because he barked out a laugh and grabbed my hand, pulling me off the swing.
“I meant, can I use your bathroom?”
“Why didn’t you say that the first time?”
“I did.”
“Yeah, okay. I think you said something about knocking my head around, not using my bathroom.”
“Hit the head means go to the bathroom.”
I stared at him with a duh look on my face. “I know that now, and yes, you may go hit my head.”
I followed Greg into the house, enjoying the sound of his laughter, and watched him disappear toward the powder room before I took our beer bottles to the kitchen. I was about to rinse his bottle out when I paused and lifted it to my lips, running the smooth glass over my bottom lip for a moment.
I frowned at myself and jerked it away; what the hell was I doing? Greg was back a few moments later and paused at the edge of the counter. “Thanks for dinner. I appreciate it, Maggie.”
“You’re welcome. Maybe sometime you can join us while it’s fresh.”
“That would be nice.”
“Would it?”
Greg stared at me thoughtfully. “Yeah, Maggie, it would be nice. I enjoy talking to you.”
I stepped toward him, watching his shoulders roll back and tense as I grew closer. “I have enjoyed talking to you too, Greg.”
His eyes flicked back and forth between mine for a moment, and I swear he started to lean forward, but suddenly jerked back and looked away. “Mags, don’t.”
I stepped closer to him, and he was now back up against the counter. “Don’t what, Greg? Don’t get close to you? Why? Are you afraid you might feel something for me? Don’t you want to know if there is still a spark there from all those years ago? I do, why are you trying to avoid it?”
He stared down at me, his jaw tense. “It doesn’t matter if there is a spark there, Maggie. It will never be anything. I can’t give you what you want.”
I snorted. “What I want? You have no idea what I want, Greg! Right now, the only thing I want is to see if kissing you is all I remember it being. Maybe all those nights I dreamed about it made me build it into some bullshit fantasy. I want to know if it is or not. I deserve that!”
I barely got the last word out of my mouth before Greg speared his hand into my hair and cupped the back of my head, bringing our mouths together. My fantasy was instantly blown to smithereens—every inch of my body burned as if a fuse had been lit on my lips and traveled right through my entire body.
His arm banded around my waist, and I clung to him. My body moved, but I couldn’t focus on anything other than the way his lips and tongue were making me feel. He pressed me back against something cool—the fridge—but I didn’t care as he pushed his body against mine, and I whimpered. One of his hands was on my face, holding mine to his as he ran his other hand down my side, brushing his thumb over my hardened nipple because he squeezed my breast, and my knees went weak.
“Oh!” a voice spok
e from the other side of the room, and Greg and I jumped apart. He spun, putting his back to me as my mother laughed. “Did you kids forget that I was home? You shouldn’t be doing that in the kitchen. Maggie’s father might come home and see you, and he just won’t understand.”
Chapter Thirteen
Gregory
Are you afraid you might feel something for me? The words echoed through my mind, bouncing from one side to the other until my head was a jumbled mess.
“It doesn’t matter if there is a spark there, Maggie. It will never be anything. I can’t give you what you want.”
She snorted. “What I want? You have no idea what I want, Greg!” The anger exploded from her. The frustration she had buried all those years ago, mixed with the stress of yesterday and the need to know, tumbled out in her words. She was right. I wanted to know too; I was dying to know.
Since the moment I had seen her yesterday, the thought had been like a hammer banging in my mind. I’d forced myself not to consider what it would be like—it wouldn’t be fair. But she brought it up; Maggie was pushing the issue, and damn if that didn’t turn me the hell on.
I consumed her. I pulled her breath into my lungs to sustain me. Tasted her lips to feed my soul. Memorized the feel of her body against mine in those few brief moments so I wouldn’t ever forget. Something in my chest cracked—was it the ice around my heart? No, it couldn’t be.
When we were interrupted, my common sense crashed back over me. So hard that I almost stumbled as I moved away from her. I put her behind me to protect her from whatever threat had just walked upon us.
But it wasn’t a threat; it was only her mother. The real danger to Maggie was me—it would always be me.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Valor; I was just saying goodbye to Maggie and got a little carried away.” I stepped further away from Maggie, turning slightly to speak over my shoulder. “I’ll talk to you later; thanks again for dinner, Mags.”
Maggie didn’t say anything as I began to leave, and at the last second, I glanced back and found her staring at me, her lips swollen, her hair sexily mussed, her eyes wide in astonishment. It took every ounce of trained restraint to pick up my foot and take that next step forward—away from her—and then the next. By the time I got out to my truck, I was ready to hyperventilate.
I started the truck and pulled out of the driveway, changing direction quickly like the hounds of hell were nipping at my heels. That wasn’t a fucking spark. That was a damn atomic bomb, and that woman had just blown up my entire nervous system. “Fuck!” I slammed my hand on the steering wheel as my hard-on ached like a mother.
I drove home, nixing the idea to go back a dozen times. Why had I done that? Why had I allowed her to get under my skin? Jesus, I’d need an exorcism to get her back out. When I parked at my house, I retrieved the mail and went inside, tossing it to the table without even looking at it and made a beeline for the fridge.
I cracked open a beer, guzzled half of it, and then slammed the bottle on the counter and went to my room, stripping my clothes off as I went. Two minutes later, I was under the stream of my shower; my hand wrapped tightly around my cock as I leaned back against the shower wall and recalled every fucking second of that kiss. The eruption was almost painful, and my knees shook as I finished. I bounced my head off the tile wall for a moment and then washed off. Maybe that would get her out of my system—or perhaps I would never get her out now—fuck!
I was at my desk the next day after lunch when Jake yelled into the main office section that we were having a meeting in the conference room in five. I leaned back and glanced at Trevor, who was seated at his desk, his fingers floating over his keyboard as he’d stopped typing and lifted his head.
“Think that is about that crap from yesterday?” Trevor asked.
“Probably. What else could it be?”
“Maybe another contract came through,” Mike added as he paused by our cubicles. Mike was our technology consultant, a fucking whiz when it came to technology of any kind, but a bit twisted when it came to matters of the heart.
Trevor frowned. “I didn’t know that we had another contract getting close to execution. Maybe we have a new potential client.”
“Guess we’ll find out,” Alex said as he joined us from his office beside my cubicle. “Hey, Blaire, you want to go grab us coffee real quick?”
“Kiss my ass, Miller. You can get your own coffee from now on.”
Alex lowered his voice, glancing down the hall. “Alice ordered a different coffeemaker yesterday. Should be here tomorrow.”
“Thank god!” Mike commented as Harvey walked past and chuckled.
“You guys and your caffeine addictions.”
I stood, staring after Harvey. “Hey, watch it, Harv. You’re a little outnumbered here.”
“I’ll take my green drink any day.”
Trevor gagged. “That shit is nasty. He made me one once on a bet. I almost barfed after the first sip, but he made me drink the whole damn thing. I felt sick for hours.”
We all laughed as we gathered our notebooks and made our way to the conference room. Inside, we got seated around the table as we debated the merits of coffee versus green juice. There was no way Harv was going to win this one.
I heard Alice speaking to someone in the lobby, and then Jake passed the door. A few minutes later, Jake stepped in, Alice behind him, and trailing the group was Maggie.
I froze as Trevor and Alex both chuckled in my direction. What the hell was Maggie doing here? Maggie glanced over the group, her gaze barely skimming mine, but pausing with both Alex and Trevor as she smiled at them.
“Guys, this is Maggie Valor. She’s a reporter with The Rising Sun. I know you know Greg, and I think you met Trevor Vaughn and Alex Miller the other day. The other two guys are Harvey Melton and Mike Johnson, and you just met Alice.”
Maggie acknowledged everyone, and only then let her focus fall on me. Her face was devoid of all emotion, and I had no clue what was going on in her mind. What the hell was she doing here? And why was she giving me the cold shoulder?
“Maggie reached out to me late last night and said she was aware of the situation with the Med Scan clients and wanted to know if she could help.” Jake directed his next words to me. “Thanks for that, by the way.”
Was he serious or joking?
“How is Ms. Valor going to be able to help with that mess?” Alex asked.
“Maggie. Please call me, Maggie, Alex. I want to write an article on the trouble you are having. I’ve already done a little research on this, and I am aware that your proposal is proprietary information. If they were to implement any, or all, of your plan as it is laid out in your one hundred and eleven-page proposal, they would violate the original contract. They could be held responsible for punitive damages. I’m pretty sure that they could not do at least seventy-five percent of the delivery without using your proposal.”
Alex turned to me, and I raised my brow. How the hell had she figured that out?
“What I want to do is write an article about how they are using your proposal to facilitate their project while hiring people who are not equipped to handle such a situation to save money and line their own pockets. The public would be outraged to know that they are willing to take a chance on losing all those medical supplies.”
Harvey frowned as he spoke. “You’re going to print that?”
“I’m going to draft the article, and then I am going to send it to the politicians that just nixed your contract and request a comment before publication. I already have the company here in the US ready to give me an interview about how much these supplies are needed.”
“What do you hope to get out of this?” Trevor asked.
“What I hope to get is your company running the operation. I have a feeling once they see that you could sue them and that you have quite a backing on this, they might reconsider their decision to use the civilian contractors that they were telling you about. I don’t think they will want the bad press
, not with a humanitarian cause. I also hope to get exclusive rights to publish the story on how the medical supplies are transported and received.”
“No,” I said as Jake also responded.
“That would require you to travel with the shipment, Maggie.”
She glanced my way, ignored me, and turned to Jake. “Yes, that is exactly what it would require.”
“That would be dangerous for someone who isn’t trained.”
“What, trained to use a firearm? I am. I also have a carry permit and a loaded nine-millimeter in my bag. I am not a stranger to weapons, and I do not scare easily. I work well under pressure and think that I could be helpful to your company over there.”
My brain was going to explode. There was no way she was going to travel with the shipment. No. Fucking. Way.
“Would you be willing to run through some safety training classes?”
“Absolutely,” she said to Jake.
“Jake, can I speak to you—alone,” I growled, and Maggie turned her chair slowly toward me. Behind that emotionless face was a smile waiting to explode out. What the hell was she doing?
Jake laughed slightly. “Sure, let’s entertain your erratic thoughts in the hallway, shall we?”
I pushed out of my chair, glaring at Maggie the whole time I walked toward the door. She held my stare, never once showing emotion. Damn her, and damn, her poker face was better than ever.
I went straight to the lobby so we wouldn’t be overheard as easily. “You can’t let Maggie do that.”
“Give me one damn reason.”
“Because she’s not trained, Jake. She’ll get hurt or get someone else hurt.”
“Are you worried about her getting hurt because she’s a woman or because she’s Maggie Valor?”
“What difference does it make?”
“It makes a lot of difference, Greg. Last night, you said nothing was going on with you two. At almost midnight, she calls me and wakes my drunk ass up, telling me that you told her about the project. How the fuck did she know about that?” He held a hand up. “Oh, wait, you went to see her the minute you got off the fucking plane—that’s how.”