Maybe she’d slipped by by the skin of her teeth...
A fine sheen of perspiration broke out on her brow. James came in and she suffered through a horrendous debriefing of her performance the night before, during which he confirmed that she had indeed done her chances at the anchor job a great deal of damage. But he wouldn’t know how much until he talked with management. Meanwhile, he told her, stay the course. Pull yourself together and see what happens.
She was only too happy to put her head down and do her job, but by the end of the day, her nerves were frayed beyond repair. Neither Bart nor James had said anything, she had no idea if they knew about Taylor Johnson or not, and she could barely prevent herself from lurching to the bathroom and throwing up what little lunch she’d consumed.
She was packing up her stuff when her phone buzzed. She looked down at it. A reminder of dinner with her mother. Oh God no. She could not do that tonight. She could not. Unfortunately, her mother didn’t pick up when she called to cancel and was likely on her way to the restaurant.
Her mother had a bottle of Chianti on the table when she arrived at the elegant little Italian trattoria on Fifth Avenue that treated its Hollywood clientele with an understated attention to detail Dayla loved. Her mother gave her a long look, rose and kissed her on the cheek.
“We’re drinking.”
Izzie collapsed in the leather chair opposite her mother. “I might need more than a bottle.”
Her mother gestured for the waiter to pour her some wine. “What happened?”
The same as before...except this time she’d fallen apart in front of millions of viewers.
Her mother sighed. “Everyone has bad performances, Izzie. Pick yourself up and move on.”
“Maybe you were right that day in L.A.” She fixed her mother with a belligerent stare. “Maybe I’m just not cut out for the spotlight.”
Her mother took a sip of her wine and set it down. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know,” she returned in an antagonized tone. “I like being in front of the camera when I’m out on assignment. Anchoring...that’s a whole other story.”
Her mother sat back in her chair. “You don’t thrive in the spotlight like your sister and I do. And you don’t have the same thick skin. You thought I was being unnecessarily cruel guiding you away from acting, but I was trying to protect you, Izzie. The pressure to be always on, to always look perfect...to never be able to escape the public eye no matter how much you want to.” She shook her head. “It’s unrelenting. I may have been a terrible mother, but I never wanted you to go through that. You’re too smart. You have too much to give. Look at those stories you do out in the community. You were always one of those kids who was going to change the world.” She gave her a penetrating look. “Maybe that’s all you need.”
Izzie stared at her, stunned into silence.
“If you get that anchor job,” her mother continued, “it’s always going to be about how good you look for how long. A glorified popularity contest. A political tug-of-war that will never end. Sure you can affect change in that role, you’ll have the power, but it isn’t going to be about the story anymore. It’s going to be about your image.”
Izzie twisted her hands in her lap, wondering where this mother had been all her life. “I don’t even know if I want the job...or if it’s even a possibility anymore.”
Her mother frowned. “So why kill yourself trying to win a job that stresses you out this much?”
Because I’ve never stopped trying to win your approval. Because despite the fact that I told myself I didn’t care what you thought anymore, I’ve spent my entire career trying to prove I’m good enough for you.
She blinked back the tears that threatened. Her mother reached across the table and wrapped her fingers around hers. “Live with it for a day or two, Iz. You’ll know what the right decision is.”
Izzie stared down at her mother’s hand wrapped around hers and felt her chest constrict. “I can’t have you walking in and out of my life,” she said heavily. “It’s too hard.”
Her mother’s fingers tightened around hers. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise you that, Iz. Not anymore.”
Izzie’s phone beeped. Releasing her mother’s hand, she dug it out and saw that the message was from Alex. He had sent her another one of his quotes. Courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. Nelson Mandela. How are you?
Her mouth curved.
“Alex?” her mother asked.
“Yes.”
Her mother’s gaze sharpened on her. “You’re crazy about him.”
Her smile faded. “Yes.”
“So why don’t you look happier?”
She picked up a piece of bread and buttered it with elaborate precision. “We argued last night.”
“About?”
“His ex-girlfriend.” She abandoned any pretense of eating and laid the bread on her side plate. “His stunning ex-girlfriend he almost married who wants him back.”
Her mother gave her a long look. “Do you trust him?”
“Yes.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I don’t trust myself.” She’d proven that last night, hadn’t she? Her insecurities had cost her an anchor job and made Alex doubt her. Again.
“Maybe you should figure out why,” her mother said softly. “It’s clear you’re madly in love with him, Iz.”
She swallowed past the huge lump in her throat. “What if I’m not enough? What if he decides he’s still in love with her?”
Her mother’s mouth twisted. “Life is all about the chances we take. You can’t reap the rewards if you don’t put yourself out there.”
And hadn’t that night in London taught her that? Why was she having this huge regression? Was she determined to be a self-fulfilling prophecy? Or was her direction all wrong?
Her mother took a sip of wine and set it down. “You know how I remember you as a child? You were always the little daredevil, jumping off walls, falling off the balance beam, wild for roller coasters...” A smile lit her eyes. “Wild for trouble. You used to give us heart attacks. I swear I took you to the emergency room so many times when you were around six or seven they started to look at me funny.”
Izzie smiled. “My right elbow still aches on rainy days.”
“The monkey bar break.” Her mother looked down at her wineglass and twisted the crystal stem between her fingers. “I remember talking to your father after I left, checking in on you guys. He told me Ella was her usual ‘I don’t care about anything’ self, and that you were fine, doing great at school and raking in a bunch of athletic awards. But he knew you were hurting.” She looked up at her daughter. “Then he said something that made me very sad.”
Izzie felt her composure slipping, the memory of those awful first months trying to keep it all together, ones she never let herself revisit. Her mother’s eyes grew suspiciously bright. “He said he’d been talking to your swimming coach about your progress and your coach had said it was a shame you didn’t take risks anymore because you were good, but you could have been great.”
Izzie drew in a breath, feeling as if she’d just been socked in the stomach. She dropped her gaze and found herself staring at her mother’s shaking hands. Please not now. She couldn’t do this now.
“What happened between your father and me was complex, Izzie.” Her mother’s voice held a lifetime of regret. “I know you think I destroyed him, but it’s not that simple. Life isn’t that simple. And not everyone’s going to walk out on you. I promise you that. Take a chance on Alex. He seems like he’s worth it.”
Izzie thought about herself as that daredevil little girl. How that part of her had come out that night in London. And wondered if she could channel it again. Because her mother was right. Alex was worth it. And she was madly, head-over-heels in love with him.
* * *
Alex leaned back against the elevator wall, his mouth curving. It seemed like forever ago he’d got
ten stuck in that elevator with the whirling dervish who’d transformed his life, but in reality it had only been six weeks. Six weeks to him finding his penthouse empty without her. Six weeks to the man who never entertained the concept of long-term doing it on a regular basis.
He’d had plenty of time to think on his whirlwind twenty-four-hour trip to Seattle. And he’d come to the realization that Izzie had been right about Jess. He’d been so busy being self-righteous, he hadn’t stopped to think how he would have felt if it had been her out to dinner with an ex she’d once been crazy about. No, he’d never given her any reason to doubt him, and she should trust him. But his ex did want him back. And that was different. He needed to tell Jess to find someone else to support her. He couldn’t be that person. Not anymore.
He watched the skyline of Manhattan fly by as the glass-walled elevator slid upward. His need to prove himself to his father was the root cause of his biggest failures. The question was, could he alter that pattern for the future? Could he avoid being a chip off the old block in all the ways that mattered?
The doors opened on the fiftieth floor. He was so lost in thought it took him three tries to punch in the security code that bypassed the receptionist’s desk through the back doors. There wasn’t one minute since he’d met Isabel Peters that he hadn’t known she was different. She made him a little insane—yes. But he was also starting to think she might be the one. That he might be in love with her.
His hand froze on the handle of the double glass doors that led to the executive offices. He’d sworn he’d never utter those words again after Jess had left. Did he have it in him to be the man who stayed when Izzie seemed to want to run every time things got tough?
He thought, perhaps, yes.
Head spinning, he pushed through the doors and headed toward Grace to grab his messages. Tonight, according to the heads-up James Curry had given him, Frank Messer’s accusations were going to die a slow death in front of America. Sophoros would finally be rid of him with the generous settlement Alex had put together to make Messer disappear forever this time, and things would be back to normal. Then he would deal with Izzie.
Mark was sitting on Grace’s desk, which wasn’t an unusual sight per se, but the dark look on his face was. “Alex,” Grace greeted him, getting jerkily to her feet. “You’re back.”
His PA’s face was pale, her hands flailing uselessly at her sides. His smile faded. “What’s wrong?”
Grace’s gaze darted to Mark, then back to him. “Izzie’s been trying to reach you.”
He fished his phone out of his pocket. It was still on airplane mode. He’d missed five calls from Izzie?
An uneasy feeling snaked up his spine. “Is she okay?”
“Yes, I think so—she—” His assistant darted another glance at Mark. “I told her you were on your way. She’s coming over.”
His gaze narrowed. “What is going on, you two?”
“NYC-TV just ran the preview of your story,” Mark said quietly.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “Curry told me the story sided with Sophoros...”
“I think they went in a dif—”
His name blared from the television. A picture of him in a New York Crusaders uniform flashed across the screen. A headline ran in the ticker beneath it. Painkiller Addiction Destroyed Football Hero’s Career.
Blood whooshed in his ears. His legs went weak. He clutched the side of Grace’s desk and stared at the screen. This couldn’t be happening. Izzie had buried that information.
A clip of his old teammate Taylor Johnson flashed up on the screen. The host previewed an exclusive interview with him that evening: an athlete from the inside on how drugs were destroying professional sports. His blood ran cold. How could Johnson know? He hadn’t been in the locker room that night. Xavier had been the only one with him, telling him not to do it.
A mad feeling of unreality enveloped him. This was impossible.
The host moved on to preview the weather. Alex stared at the screen, hands clenched at his sides, fighting the urge to tear the television from the wall. The clatter of high heels tapping across the tile floor brought his head around. Izzie half ran the last few steps down the hallway. He took one look at her panicked expression and pointed at his office. “Go.”
She put her head down and did as she was told. He sucked in a lungful of air, walked into his office and slammed the door. She jumped, her hand flying to her mouth.
“What the hell,” he bit out, “was that? Xavier and I were the only ones in the locker room that night.”
“Taylor said he saw you take the drugs.” Her voice was low but steady. “He knew the dealer. Had an issue himself.”
His insides felt as though they were on fire. “Who told Bart about this?”
The color drained from her face. “I didn’t mean to, Alex. I gave him some notes and—”
“I don’t care how,” he roared. “Did you or did you not give Bart Forsyth the information about the illegal painkillers?”
“Yes,” she choked out. “But I didn’t mean to. I—”
“Stop,” he thundered. “Stop.”
He stood there, legs spread apart, her answer tearing him to pieces. He’d been dying, begging for her to say no, she hadn’t done it. But she had.
“That’s all I need to know.” His voice was so low, hollow-sounding, he didn’t even recognize it as his own. “Get out.”
“Alex, please, you have to listen to me.”
He shook his head. “That’s been my stupidity all along, Iz. I did listen to you. I believed in you. And you were just playing me for a fool.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “What do they say, ‘fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.’”
“Alex, no. I—”
He threw up a hand and stalked to the door, twisted the handle, and threw it open before he said or did something unforgivable. “Get out of my life, Izzie.”
She didn’t move. Just stood there staring at him, her face paper-white. She was a really good actress, he decided. How had he not figured that out?
“I’m so sorry,” she said finally, as if she knew nothing she said could make it better. “I swear I never meant to hurt you.”
He hardened his heart against the tears shimmering in those beautiful eyes of hers. “The cameras aren’t running, Iz. You can turn off the waterworks.”
Grace gasped behind her. He waited until Izzie had walked out, then slammed the door. If he never saw Isabel Peters again, it would be too soon.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IZZIE OPERATED LIKE a robot for days. She forced herself out of bed, into the shower, onto the subway and to work, but she was functioning at half capacity, if that. She ate when she remembered to, which wasn’t often, she slept through an entire weekend and didn’t bother to work out. Not even her girlfriends’ attempts to get her out for a drink were successful. She felt like wallowing in her misery, so that’s exactly what she did.
Her first day back to work after Alex’s story aired, James called her into his office. He had been acting as though he hadn’t known about the drugs, he’d said, so he and Bart could get the story to air without her tipping off Alex and his lawyers. But it didn’t mean he wasn’t furious. She’d never seen him so angry. He could hardly speak to her. So he banished her to her desk, told her to keep her head down, and he’d figure out her punishment. Which may or may not include firing her. The execs still hadn’t made up their minds about an anchor and he wasn’t sure he could support her even if they chose her.
She was happy to put her head down and focus on her job, because it allowed her not to think about the mess she’d made of her relationship with the man she loved and gave her a chance to think about the future. To think about what she really wanted. Because she’d spent too much time with her eye on a prize she wasn’t sure was even for her.
Her mother came over one night with two bottles of wine, and they drank one each. It was, it seemed, the only part of her life that was going in
the right direction.
A couple of weeks into her exile, James called her into his office. It was the first time he’d spoken to her one-on-one since that conversation about her future. She walked in, palms sweaty, heart hammering in her chest. Please, God. Don’t fire me.
He looked up from his schedule and waved her into the chair opposite him. “You remember the story Bart did on the River City Collegiate Warriors—the high school football team that’d been pegged for the state finals this year until they lost their coach in the big accident on the turnpike?”
She nodded. It was a hard story to forget.
“They’ve been struggling, but they still have a chance at state. I want you to go out and do a follow-up story on them. Put together a nice rah-rah piece that makes everyone feel good.”
She sat up. “James—”
His mouth hardened. “I’m giving you a second chance, Iz. Get out of my office and prove to me you’re the professional I know you are.”
She got jerkily to her feet. He wasn’t going to fire her. She was going to keep her job. The fog that had enveloped her brain these past few weeks lifted as she made her way to her desk. She had a chance to turn this around. So football was Alex. So it might break her heart to do this. She needed to put her feelings aside and act like a professional. James was right. She might not know if she wanted that anchor job, but she did love her current one. And she was going to knock this story out of the park.
She went to the River City practice that afternoon. It was impossible not to watch the tough young quarterback trying to rally a team that had lost its heart and not think of Alex. Of how terrifying it must have been for him to walk out onto that field that night knowing his career was hanging in the balance. How she, who’d wanted to be the one to prove to him he could trust again, had been the one to destroy him.
The ball of hurt that had permanently lodged itself in her chest expanded, making it hard to breathe. If she learned nothing else from this heartbreak, she needed to learn she was enough. Because that was all she had.
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