One-Click Buy: September Harlequin Blaze

by Jo Leigh

  “Not if our happy little independent becomes an SBN affiliate.” She bit into her sandwich again. “Which-gee, how did I not know this?-has been his ambition for years. He has big plans for his production company, apparently.”

  “Don’t tell me.” Mitch toasted her with his water bottle. “Part of the reason he gave you his support despite all odds was because he knew he was on to a good thing? A show that could get him the attention he wanted from the networks?”

  “Bingo.” A sip of the green smoothie and another bite. “You’re a lot quicker off the draw than I was. It took me a good half hour to get it. And then when I did, there was your friend Mackenzie Roussos standing there with a fistful of dollars, waving them in my face like they were supposed to get my attention.” She snorted. “I just won the lottery, for God’s sake. Money is not going to get my attention right now. A really good financial planner, maybe. Not money. I should have known something was up the minute I heard she was meeting with him before she talked to me.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t meet with him first, then. Or I’d have been suspect.”

  She shot him a glance, and he saw the sunlight flicker on her smooth skin, lighting tiny spangles of auburn in her hair. Did she have any idea that she looked like an elemental goddess, made of crimson and fire, wrapped around with flowers?

  Probably not. And he’d better stop thinking about throwing himself on that fire and breathing in the scent of crushed flowers, if he knew what was good for him.

  “Suspect?” she repeated. “No. In fact…” Her voice trailed away. “It’s weird. I have no idea why I’m blabbing all this about your competitor. There must be some sort of unfair competition law I’m breaking.”

  “I doubt it. But how many people do you know who would understand? Dan Phillips? Your friends?”

  “They would sympathize, but there’s a lot to grasp here. The risks. The consequences.”

  “Especially when some of them are going to be affected by the results, no matter what your decision is.”

  Eve nodded. “I’ve been chasing that in my head, and I’m no closer to a decision than I was when you left my office on Friday.”

  “How can that be? You said no.”

  “I did. And then I started to think. What if I said yes? What would change? Can I keep my team? What would be best for everyone?”

  “Why don’t you call a meeting and ask them?”

  She looked at him with a wry expression. “At the rate we’re going, they’ll all have resigned before I can schedule it. It’s this damned lottery.” She waved a hand, as if Atlanta were somehow responsible. “We haven’t seen the money, and we won’t until this lawsuit is settled. Despite that, everyone wants to quit and make huge life changes on the prospect of it alone. I feel like that kid with his finger in the dam. Every time I convince someone to hang in there and stay, I hear someone else is reconsidering the options.”

  “That’s got to be tough. It’s hard to make a decision that will benefit everyone if they leave. It becomes moot.”

  “See, there’s your strategy.” Another bite of the sandwich. “You can talk my team into resigning, and then you’ll only have me to convince to come to the network. Not that you’ll have any vestige of a show once that happens, of course.”

  He watched her finish her sandwich, crumple the wrapper and toss it back in the bag. “You really care about these people, don’t you? You want to make the right decision for them, not yourself.”

  She stretched out her legs and crossed her ankles, holding her smoothie loosely in her lap. “Nothing wrong with that. Without them, I wouldn’t be here talking to you. We wouldn’t have the show that we do.”

  “What does SBN propose?”

  “Oh, they have all kinds of proposals. But the one Ms. Roussos and Dan spent the most time on was the one where I pack up and move to New York.” She paused. “Like that’s going to happen.”

  “New York? You mean, even if Dan got his wish and merged into the network, he wouldn’t get to keep you? Isn’t that counterproductive, from his point of view?”

  “Maybe. Or maybe he’s dazzled at being invited to swim in the big boys’ pond. But if he gets the affiliation, he can attract some big names. Maybe even a news anchor or two. Big advertising, lots of resources. He wouldn’t need the revenue Just Between Us brings in. Everybody wins.”

  “Except you. And the team.”

  “Cole Crawford would probably lose his job,” she agreed. “But Zach and Jane and Nicole wouldn’t. Every show needs good freelance production people, and they’re already in place.”

  “They could go to New York with you, in that case.”

  “I don’t think so. They have people they love, and their plans might not include a big move like that. And that’s as it should be.”

  “And what about you?” he asked. “How would you like New York?”

  “I’d hate it,” she said flatly.

  That pretty much answered that. The bright, fragile hope he’d had burned out.

  9

  ON WEDNESDAY, Mackenzie Roussos arrived for her seven-thirty meeting with Eve in a towering temper, brought on by the fact that a scout from CBS was waiting in the lobby for his eight o’clock.

  “I thought we were scheduled to chat for an hour,” she said, her mouth stretching in a smile that Eve could tell was an effort for her.

  “We were, and I’m sorry,” Eve told her. “My assistant is doing the best he can to accommodate everyone.”

  “It feels like six-thirty New York time,” the other woman said.

  “I’m glad there’s fresh coffee in the kitchen for you, then.”

  And Mac the Knife was forced to be satisfied with only twenty-five minutes in which to try to convince Eve to go along with what both the network and Dan Phillips wanted.

  The rep from CBS, at least, had a sense of humor and a nice delivery of the same proposal. He’d already met with Dan for dinner the night before.

  There seemed to be a pattern developing here, and Eve didn’t like it much. In fact, the more network people who turned up in the lobby, the more she wanted to collar Mitchell Hayes and run away to the country with him. They could find a pretty inn and spend a week straight doing something about her lack of focus-or rather, her inability to focus on much else besides his mouth and his hands-and what he might be able to do with both.

  When Dylan again suggested that a walk in the park might clear her head, she fled the station gratefully, and the sight of Mitch relaxing on the bench was like a glass of cold lemonade on a hot day.

  “Hey, beautiful,” he greeted her, and slid over to make room. She toed off her sandals and, with a sigh, let her feet rest in the cool grass.

  He handed her a wrapped sandwich and a smoothie. “Your guy at Scarlett’s says the watermelon is an experiment. If you like it, he’s going to call it ‘Eve-ning in Paradise.’”

  Eve groaned at the pun and took a sip. “Hey, this is good. It ain’t lime, but it’s good.” She glanced at him. “Is there a bug on my feet? Why are you looking at them?”

  He settled back on the bench and unwrapped his sandwich. “I have this theory about you and plant life.”

  Turkey and cranberry with cream cheese spread. Eve sighed with satisfaction. “I think you need to get out more.”

  He ignored her. “You just look good in the great outdoors. As if you belong there. Plants seem to like you.”

  “I don’t have my Nana’s green thumb-you should have seen our place in Florida-but I’m most comfortable in the garden. It relaxes me. Plus I can see direct results of what I do. Sometimes in television that’s hard to estimate.”

  “Nielsen ratings not good enough for you?”

  “We don’t get those. We’re an independent. Fan mail is a better indicator anyway. Some of it’s good, some bad. By the way, both SBN and CBS are here now.”

  “I knew it was only a matter of tim
e. I’d keep a close watch on your boss, Dan Phillips. Those scouts are players, and they represent serious money. It’s going to be hard for him to stay out of the decision-making process. Harder still for him to resist putting pressure on you.”

  “He knows how I feel. Besides, my career and where I go aren’t his decision, no matter what he thinks.” She savored the tart flavor of cranberry on her tongue and mentally waved the thought of Dan away. “I don’t want to talk about work anymore. Tell me about your life in New York.”

  He exhaled sharply in place of a chuckle. “What life? I jet around the country scouting shows. The baristas in the Starbucks at JFK have more interesting stories to tell.”

  “So are you happy doing what you do?”

  He met her gaze and shrugged. “I get my joy in other ways, like Music on the Street. And lately, seeing you.”

  “Charmer.”

  “I meant it, Eve. I’m developing this amazing capacity for fooling myself. I have an ultimatum from my boss about getting your signature by close of business today, and I don’t even care. In fact, I’ve convinced my conscience that seeing you has nothing to do with work. That it’s a pleasure I savor every day with no ethical relation to the whole reason I’m here.”

  There was none of his usual teasing in his eyes. In fact, his gaze on her was intense to the point of sheer eroticism. Words failed her, and she licked her lips.

  “You make it sound like a bad thing.”

  “It isn’t. And just so you know, there’s no one waiting at home. Like you, the care and feeding of a relationship is too much for me under normal circumstances. But I’m beginning to wonder exactly what ‘normal’ is. And whether I want to tolerate it anymore.”

  What was he saying? Was he leading up to something? And more important, how did she feel about it?

  It was one thing to have a few sexy interludes with an attractive man. To banter and touch, to enjoy the longing and hint at something more. Like a game-one that kept the attraction simmering on the surface because it helped to balance the stresses of a decision that was creeping up on her faster than she wanted. But what if he made her dip below the surface? To start something bigger?

  Could she handle that? Did she want more than-let’s face it-a hot fling with a man who would fly out of her life in a few days?

  Or was that even what he was talking about? Eve’s everyday honesty faltered-and that in itself should tell her something.

  She had to think about this properly. Somewhere where he wasn’t sitting within touching distance, looking scrumptious and casual in an off-duty linen shirt and khakis.

  A glance at her watch told her she was saved. She crumpled her paper and drained her smoothie. “Let’s put a bookmark there and talk more about this later, okay? I have to get back.”

  “Sure.” He looked easy and relaxed, but if it had been her waiting for an answer and getting none, Eve wasn’t sure she’d handle it so well. Especially if she had the ultimatum he did. “Give me a call.”

  Back at the station, Nicole slipped into Eve’s office with a doomsday look on her face. Once again, Eve put her wayward thoughts in their compartment in her brain and smiled in a way she hoped was encouraging. “What’s up, girlfriend?”

  “I finally managed to get Dr. Birdsall to commit to Friday.” Nicole sounded out of breath, as if she’d run down the hall as soon as she’d hung up the phone. “But we can’t do Friday because that’s the town-hall show. And we still have a hole for tomorrow. Cole needs to run a teaser during the six o’clock news and I don’t know what to do.”

  Eve thought for a few seconds. “How about this? We’ll switch and have the town-hall show tomorrow, so run the usual teaser tonight. Instead of having the audience react to her talking about how men and women hide their motivations when they deal with the opposite sex, why don’t we tape segments of people telling their stories, and Dr. Birdsall can analyze what’s really going on when she comes on Friday.”

  “Brilliant,” Nicole breathed.

  “Bill it as a two-parter, a before-and-after, whatever you want. We’re good at making something out of nothing. You can handle it.”

  “Thanks, Eve.” She vanished into her office, leaving Eve with her thoughts until she had to go into makeup.

  Part of her admitted that it was crazy to talk to Mitch the way she did during these stolen hours. He was on the same side as the dark forces, i.e. the networks. But on the other hand, she was sure she’d go around the bend without his calm views on what amounted to a crisis situation.

  Who else understood what she was going through? Who else seemed to know exactly what it took to change her perspective or set her heart at ease when her mind was blasting away at a hundred miles an hour?

  She knew it was foolish and couldn’t last, but she put Mitch the Scout into a compartment labeled Business and put Mitch the Sexy Confidant into one labeled Friend. Okay, so it had a little subheading called Possible Lover in very tiny font below that. But anyway, there she’d keep the two of them until she was forced to combine them.

  In the meantime, she was going to take his advice. The script that had been so troublesome on the weekend went off better than she expected. When she got back from taping, she sent out a scheduler message to the computers and PDAs of all her staff. She had just enough time to work up a business case before everyone gathered in the conference room for what they thought was the production meeting. She was going to tack another item onto the agenda and find out once and for all if her team was going to melt away on her, or stay just that-a team.

  IF JENNA HAMILTON had been ten years younger, she’d have been running after Dylan Moore before he knew what was up. But since Kevin Wade had been haunting her dreams for the last couple of weeks, she was content to give Dylan an appreciative smile as he ushered her out of the lobby and past the studios.

  “Everyone named in the suit is in the conference room already,” he told her. “Eve asked me to convey her appreciation for fitting the meeting into your schedule.”

  “No problem,” she murmured. “You’d be surprised how much the case is on my mind anyway.”

  When she entered the room, Eve stood to greet her. “Jenna, I’m so glad you could come. You remember everyone, right?”

  In a single sweep, Jenna catalogued the people whose names had become as familiar to her as her own. Cole Crawford, the producer who’d been with Just Between Us since its inception. Twenty-four-year-old Zach Haas, the camera operator. California girl and story segment producer Nicole Reavis, whom she’d already met, and Jane Kurtz, who did makeup-maybe not the flashiest job, but Jenna had a feeling that Eve Best depended on her for a lot more than that.

  Cole tilted his chair back and crossed his arms comfortably over his chest as Jenna sat opposite him in an empty chair. “Gee, boss, I wonder what this could be about?”

  Eve gave him a winning smile. “Very funny. You’ve seen the reps from three networks around here. You’ve seen the show’s ratings, not to mention the press we’re getting. I figured we could use a powwow to catch everyone up and strategize a bit.”

  “And for this we need a lawyer?” Nicole glanced at Jenna. “Not that I’m not glad to see you, Jenna.”

  Jenna smiled at her. “Thanks. As CATL-TV’s corporate counsel, I’m only here to give y’all information and advice if you need it. We’re all playing on the same team, so your concerns are my concerns.”

  “So, let me tell you what I know, and then you can tell me-” Eve paused “-whatever you know. Or want to know. Or anything else you have on your minds.” She glanced around the table. “Let’s talk about the networks first. As you know, Mitchell Hayes from CWB came to see me last Friday. We’ve met a couple of times since then.”

  “Does that mean they’re the front runners?” Jane asked. “You haven’t met more than once with the others, right?”

  A flush that wasn’t the result of Jane’s makeup tinged Eve’s chee
ks. What was that about? Jenna wondered.

  “Only because they haven’t been in Atlanta as long. Mackenzie Roussos from SBN got here Monday, and then Chad Everard from CBS showed up this morning. I’ve heard what they have to say and had Dan’s input, as well.” She passed out a sheet of paper with four columns of bullet points. “What I don’t have is your input, and no decision gets made around here without it.”

  Jenna took her sheet. It listed all three networks’ proposed deal points, boiled down to their essence, as well as groupings of pros and cons. “Very nice.”

  Eve shrugged. “We can’t talk about the future unless we all have the facts. So. I’ll go straight to the bottom line. We have three options. One, we say no to everybody and stay in Atlanta at CATL-TV as we have been. We enjoy what we’ve achieved and build on it. Two, we accept the offer of either SBN or CBS, and pack up and go to New York.”

  Zach, Jenna noted, lifted his head like a puppy scenting the great outdoors. Jane frowned, Cole’s arms crossed more tightly, and Nicole looked mildly interested. Hmm.

  “Or three,” Eve went on, “we accept CWB’s offer, which is substantially lower than SBN’s, and stay here as one of their affiliates. They’re a young network, still growing, so they don’t have the advertising weight the bigger ones do. But we will have national coverage in the small and medium-sized markets, though it’ll take a while to penetrate the big ones.”

  Jenna broke the silence as six people considered the sheet of paper. “In case any of you are factoring the lottery win into this-which I’m sure you are-” She hesitated for a second. “Don’t. Ms. Skinner has informed me through her attorney that she’s not prepared to settle for anything less than an equal share of the prize money. That means we will be taking the case to court. Please consider the networks’ offers independently of any funds you might or might not receive from Lot’O’Bucks.”

  Zach groaned, and Cole uncrossed both arms with such force he smacked the arms of his chair. Nicole jumped, and Eve frowned.