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Rush: A Second Chance Romance

Page 2

by Ellen Lane


  Then he’d stolen my first kiss.

  God, how had I forgotten that?

  “Well?” I was jerked back to the present by Jim’s expectant inquiry and found him looking at me as if he expected me to fall to my knees and kiss his ratty leather loafers. “Rhett Wilder.” I repeated, the name rolling off my tongue. “What about him?”

  Jim grinned. “I’m glad you asked.” He reached into the first drawer of his desk, gray eyes gleaming, to withdraw a magazine cover and slap it onto the surface between us.

  On that magazine cover, larger than life, was Rhett. I’d know his face anywhere.

  So much had changed in twelve years. The seventeen-year-old boy I’d been so smitten with grew into a man - and dear God what a man he turned out to be.

  Every time Rhett came on TV or the news, I made an excuse to leave the room or change the channel. It reminded me that I’d chosen to give him up, so he was none of my affair any longer. Unfortunately, such a thing was easier said than done - especially when Rhett was everywhere.

  Stanford had done him well - he was now one of the richest men in the country, if not in the world. The magazine atop Jim’s desk was Forbes, and it wasn’t the first time Rhett had graced its cover - or any number of other magazines, for that matter. He was known not only for his money, but for the particular brand of adventuring that got a lot of people killed. When he wasn’t in his office, he was climbing Everest, trekking through rainforests and base-jumping off skyscrapers. He was just as intrepid a daredevil as he was a businessman, and it only made him a more titillating public figure. But that wasn’t all that struck you about Rhett Wilder.

  He was, by any woman’s estimation, enough to take your breath away. The man wore tailored Armani suits like they were weapons of mass destruction, his dark blonde hair combed back carefully from a wide, handsome brow. He always sported a neatly groomed five o’clock shadow that lent him a rugged allure. That coupled with the confident gleam in deep blue eyes was enough to make anyone salivate. If you weren’t one for a man’s looks, then the fact that he was worth a cool ten or fifteen billion would do it for you. Rhett probably had every woman on the planet with a pulse after him.

  Every woman except me. I’d already had him - once, a lifetime ago.

  “We’ve been looking to do an exclusive with him for years and we finally got through. Do you have any idea what something like this will do for our ratings? I’m assigning you to the article - a series of interviews all about the mogul and his home life. I can see the headline now-”

  “I can’t.”

  The words were out before I could even think about them - but they were the stone-cold truth. “You have to get someone else, Jim. No way I can cover this.”

  My boss’ mouth snapped shut as he stared at me in genuine surprise. “It’s the story of a lifetime - you know that, right?”

  “Not for me.” I replied almost immediately. I knew how Jim operated. Unless I put my foot down - and hard - he’d try and wheedle me into doing his bidding. Well, he wasn’t going to succeed this time. “Get Paula or Sam on it. They’d both eat it up.” Despite either woman’s propensity for gossip, the column had landed square on my lap. Jim argued that I was a better writer - and he was right.

  I just didn’t want to write trash.

  He leaned back in his seat to eye me warily. “You going to tell me why you won’t take it?”

  I swallowed an aggrivated groan. It was really none of his business - or anyone’s for that matter. But I knew Jim wasn’t going to let me out of this one without a valid excuse - and I had never been a very proficient liar. “It would be…” I struggled to find the right words. “A conflict of interests. I used to date him. A long time ago.” I had to make sure to clarify that last bit lest Jim decide that he wanted to take this article in an entirely new direction. For a man, he had an ungodly talent for knowing what kind of gossip women gravitated towards.

  Surprisingly, Jim didn’t act as if my news was a revelation. Instead, he merely crossed his arms over his chest as he assessed me for a long moment.

  Please, please, just let it go. Just this once…

  “What would you say if I told you Wilder knew you were the one on the story - and that he’s perfectly fine with it.”

  I was pretty sure I hadn’t heard him right. He’d already arranged this with Rhett? What in the seven hells was that supposed to mean. “Rhett said he’s alright with me interviewing him?” My tone was about as dry and skeptical as it was humanly possible to be, but Jim was far from put off.

  “Perfectly. I’d say he seemed positively enthusiastic about the prospect.”

  Somehow, I doubted that.

  I inhaled a deep breath, prepared to absolutely refuse. “Jim, I-”

  “What about a bonus?” My boss interrupted me before I could even get started and I stuttered to a halt. “Two months’ pay upon completion of the article?”

  Goddamn it. The man was playing hard ball. I tried to tell myself I didn’t need the money. I was good with budgeting. I had plenty in savings and I was living perfectly within my means. But the moment he mentioned a bonus I was already thinking about what I could do with an extra two months’ pay.

  The possibilities were endless.

  But I’d never been an overly materialistic person. The prospect of a vacation or even a few thousand towards the car I’d been saving up for wasn’t enough to send me into the belly of the beast. It would take something else.

  Unfortunately for me, Jim knew exactly what that was.

  “And a good word with the higher ups.” The man’s dark gaze was crafty as he continued. “I hear there’s an opening upstairs with The Atlanta Gazette. Would that be something you’d be interested in?”

  If looks could kill, Jim might have been six feet under. I had only been asking him for three years to put me onto real stories - but the fact of the matter was that The Burner didn’t deal too much in real news. The Atlanta Gazette, however...they’d faint at the idea of a romance column finding its way between their hallowed pages.

  Exactly the kind of publication I wanted to work for. I could finally use my wasted writing chops on something I could really sink my teeth into - but I had to do this assignment first.

  My mind was already made up. I hated that Jim knew me so well that he could all but wind me around his little finger. If it meant he’d put in a good word for me at a real news publication, there was no way I could refuse.

  I looked from my boss to the magazine cover on the desk between us. What had it been...twelve years since we last saw one another? I’d refused to watch him leave our neighborhood, telling myself that chapter of my life was over.

  This didn’t have to change that. If Rhett was alright with me on this assignment he probably didn’t even remember me. That anonymity could offer me at least a little bit of protection.

  Even if I wasn’t sure what I needed to protect against.

  “...Fine.”

  “Excellent, Cecily. You have no idea how happy you’ve made me. You’re going to be the one who turns this publication around!” I didn’t even have to look at Jim to know he was grinning triumphantly. The man had all but entrapped me for what he perceived to be the good of the magazine - as was his prerogative.

  But a promise was a promise. If I delivered what he asked, it might mean my ticket out of here. I was willing to do almost anything for my chance to rise above The Burner - even if that meant confronting my ex.

  “Will that be all, sir?” I managed to look him in the eye when I said it, the confident gleam there irking me more than a little bit. I needed to get back to my desk so I could start mentally preparing myself for this assignment - if there even was such a thing as preparing oneself to face one’s high school sweetheart after an uncertain split and a decade of distance.

  “I just need you to sign some paperwork for me.” The man pulled out a stack of forms that fairly boggled the mind. “These are nothing, really. Just an agreement that you understand the te
rms of the interviews. You’ll be staying in the guest suite at Wilder’s mansion for convenience sake and it should only take about a month to get the goods. No big deal.”

  I don’t think I actually processed the information until I had signed the papers and all but been booted out of the man’s office. By the time I returned to my own desk, however, I’d sorted everything out in my head.

  The guest suite at Rhett’s mansion!? I was going to be staying on the same premises as him? Sleeping under the same roof? Dear God, what on earth had I agreed to?

  The notion, I insisted to myself, was hardly proprietary. It wasn’t like I had any machinations on the man. I just wanted to do my job and be done with it. I couldn’t imagine what people would think when they caught wind of this though. The famous Rhett Wilder boarding a reporter at his mansion?

  Even I didn’t believe that when I heard it.

  Of course, it didn’t help that Rhett’s reputation preceded him. He was something of a womanizer - every week he was headlining with a different woman. Models, prima ballerinas, fashion icons - there was no one beyond his reach. After all that, I could only imagine that having me in his house would be rather dull. I could hardly be as exciting as an Italian opera with an award-winning soloist or skydiving over the Andes Mountains.

  I sank down in my chair, running fingers through my dark hair to loosen it from the strict ponytail I’d chosen that morning. I was starting to get a headache. The less stress on my scalp, the better.

  A quick glance at the clock told me that all of half an hour had passed since I got up. That confirmed it. Today was officially crap.

  A quick roll of my finger across my mouse cleared the screensaver from my computer and I found that I had two new e-mails. One of them was a coupon for a sale at a nearby mall, and the other was from Jim.

  How the hell had he read my article that fast? It was humanly impossible. I opened the email to find that he’s requested that I cut the article by two hundred words and had to take a few deep breaths to keep from internally combusting.

  Positive. Think Positive.

  Jim had given me an assignment that had the power to put me on the career path that I actually wanted. This was the opportunity of a lifetime. With any luck, I’d only have to deal with him for another couple of weeks.

  That was what would have to keep me going. I wouldn’t think about Rhett or our past history - only the future.

  “You little bitch.” I nearly leapt out of my seat when my coworker, Anita’s hands came down firmly on my shoulders to squeeze almost painfully. She spun me around to face her and I found her exotic, tanned features gazing at me with a mixture of longing and jealousy. “Rhett Wilder? How the hell did you manage that?”

  Shit. How’d she find out? I only just found out. “I didn’t. Honestly, Jim just mentioned-”

  “Cece, you sly little dog!” Beth popped her head into my cubicle before I could even begin to defend myself. It was just my luck that the biggest gossip in the office overheard my conversation. “Rhett Wilder all to yourself? I’m jealous enough to keel over on the spot.”

  And she wasn’t the only one. Word traveled around the office fast and within the hour, every female on the floor was crowding my cubicle, demanding how I’d pulled off an assignment with one of the most eligible bachelors on the planet.

  It was a butt-ton of attention that I didn’t need. After all, I had an article to edit (again) and a decade’s worth of mental preparation before me. In the middle of all the interrogation, the prospect sunk in - really sunk in. I was going to see Rhett for the first time in over ten years.

  And I was fucking terrified.

  Chapter Two

  ~ Rhett

  “No.”

  It was a simple word - monosyllabic and perfectly clear, in my opinion. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at the expressions of the men sitting around the table I headed. They had just laid out the terms for a business deal that was blatantly unfavorable to my firm and they had to be out of their goddamned minds if they thought I was touching it with a ten-foot pole.

  Mr. An, from Vietnam, was the first person to try and ingratiate himself. Considering I’d been sitting in this meeting for damn near three hours, I wasn’t really in the mood to entertain him.

  “Mr. Wilder, if I may, there are several aspects of this projection that I think we’re overlooking-”

  “You’ve been over the projection no less than four times in the last two hours,” I cut him off blandly, “I think I have a pretty thorough understanding of it.”

  “Then you understand that the budget cuts to certain departments would only be temporary.” Now it was Leon’s turn to chime in. Being my Southwestern division manager, you’d think he might have known better.

  “I don’t consider five years temporary - not when people’s jobs and livelihoods are on the line,” I returned brusquely, looking to each man in turn before addressing the table in its entirety. “Does anyone else have any valid arguments they’d like to make?”

  The other three at the table were suitably silent - a boon for them, considering that I was just pissed enough to snap if someone unearthed another pathetic attempt to push this plan past me. “I thought not. My answer is final - it’s a no.” I slid the manila folder across the table in disgust. “I’d like to meet back in a week with an applicable projection. I expect preliminary figures on my desk by Thursday morning.”

  A murmur of agreement made its way through all assembled a moment before my tone softened somewhat. “Come on, guys. We can do better than this. I have faith in you.” With that, I rose from the table to shake hands with each and every man. I wasn’t lying. I did have faith in them. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have hired them.

  That wasn’t to say I wasn’t disappointed that they’d try to take a shortcut with the next five years budget projections. Of course I wanted growth, but not at the expense of letting fifty thousand employees go.

  I headed back to the top floor with an ache starting to form between my shoulders. It was barely noon and I was already exhausted. There was nothing I’d like more than to shirk off my duties for the rest of the day and take off.

  But I knew better.

  When I stepped onto the top floor, everyone stood up a little straighter. Not that there were many people on my office level - a secretary, an assistant, and the few clients I had meetings with that afternoon. One of them was a drop dead gorgeous blonde by the name of Melinda Craft - she’d brought a sheaf of paperwork for a deal I needed to look over...though I wouldn’t mind looking her over as well.

  Her sultry gaze caught my own for the briefest moment and I had to force myself back to the matter at hand.

  “Any messages for me, Cynthia?” After a long line of distracting assistants, I’d hired Cynthia. She was almost old enough to be my mother and, I found, far more absorbed in making sure I got to all my appointments on time than sending sexy glances my way whenever I left my office. As such, my productivity over the past few months had increased dramatically.

  “Mr. Takamoto from Japan called. He wants to go over the purchase his company made last week. The mayor wants to know if you’re still attending the ribbon cutting next week for that new hospital downtown and the tour company for your spelunking trip in Mexico called to confirm your reservation. Also, there’s a message from a Miss Felicia Burns. She says she left something important during her last visit.”

  Another reason I loved Cynthia: she didn’t stop to pass judgement or give me the evil eye when I got calls from women on the job. I was a little too old to be reprimanded for who I spent my time with, and luckily enough, she understood that.

  It was a good thing too, seeing as how the important thing Felicia left at my place was a sex swing.

  I took the papers from Cynthia and made me way into my office. She knew to give me a good twenty minutes to compose myself before calling in the first appointment, and I took the time to appreciate the view over Atlanta.

  Really appreciate it
.

  It seemed like just yesterday I had come home with a hundred dollars in my pocket, wondering if I was crazy, a visionary, or some weird mix of both. I had already started to make my fortune in California before deciding that Atlanta was the place I really wanted to be. The Southeast hadn’t yet been saturated with alternative energy firms, and it turned out that my ideas were just what the doctor ordered.

  Seven years later, here I was - on top of the world.

  The city had changed so much it was almost unrecognizable. Two new shopping malls popped up in the neighborhood where I was born and raised, and the metropolis was fast becoming a haven for up and coming businessmen and entertainers. I built my skyscraper smack dab in the middle of the city after I made my first billion, and things had only gone up from there - literally and figuratively.

  Now Atlanta was spread out before me - a peach ripe for the plucking. Despite the fact that I’d been all over the world and seen things that most people only dreamed of, this city was still my home - even if I didn’t necessarily understand my attachment to it.

  I glanced at the clock on the wall and frowned when I realized I only had about five minutes before Cynthia sent the first appointment in. I’d have to send Felicia a text about her missing item, confirm the Mexico trip and get back to Mr. Takamoto in short order.

  I was pulling out my phone to call him when it buzzed in my hand. I’d gotten a text message from a Jim Thompson - editor in chief at The Burner. What was I doing corresponding with the head of Atlanta’s number one gossip rag?

  Let’s just say I had my reasons.

  The message was short and sweet: Everything settled with Cecily.

  The words were enough to make me swallow thickly as apprehension rose in my gut. I set my phone down, opening up my laptop to take a look at the last page I’d been perusing - an employee list for The Burner. I’d typed Cecily’s name into a search engine on a whim, garnering my surprise when I actually found her.

 

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