A Winning Battle

by Carla Neggers

  All that would remain would be the emptiness.

  * * *

  TWO QUESTIONS SHE’D ANSWER from him. Chris grunted in disgust as he put his feet on his library table the afternoon following his aborted dinner with Ms. Organizer. His twenty-four hours were almost up, and he’d narrowed his list down to twenty questions. How could he limit himself to just two?

  Not that it mattered. He wasn’t going to knuckle under to Page B.’s outrageous ultimatum. He was a journalist and had a responsibility to his editors, his readers, himself. He operated under a strict code of ethics that might not be immediately apparent to the targets of his wit but was to him. That code didn’t include making deals with beautiful professional organizers. He didn’t intend to climb on his moral high horse and give Page B. a host of reasons for turning her down. If for no other reason, he didn’t want her to develop a good opinion of him.

  At least, not right now. Not while he was still working on her.

  He looked out across the Public Garden. It was drizzly and blustery, but the red buds of the trees were beginning to open—just in time to be smacked by another snowstorm. Chris had opened his window a crack in hopes that the cold air would clear his head. A gust of wind had scattered a pile of receipts onto the floor. He’d get to them sometime. Right now he was thinking about Page’s ultimatum and possible ways of getting around it. Using it to advantage.

  In short, hoodwinking her.

  No, he thought, not just hoodwinking her...

  He wanted to see her again. If he really had to, he supposed he could go with what he had and write his column. Forget about seeing her office. Forget about talking to her. Just take broad swipes at her and her profession. Shouldn’t be too hard, right? How in-depth did he have to be with professional organizers?

  “Okay,” he muttered aloud, “exactly what do you have?”

  Turquoise eyes with dark lashes.

  Wears contact lenses and swims laps and has a message machine.

  And at times a sultry voice.

  Her smile can melt ice and the spines of intrepid journalists.

  Has a knack for getting people to clean up their acts.

  And very nice legs.

  He shook his head in despair as the heat of pent-up desire forced him to shift his position. “I’d like to see you print that. My man, you still don’t know what makes the woman tick.”

  That could be question one: “Page B. Harrington, what makes you tick?”

  No, too vague. Too unjournalistic. Something a potential lover might ask. As a nasty, witty syndicated columnist he had to find the answer without ever really posing the question. But which was he?

  He gave a self-deprecating chuckle. “My man, are you seriously considering making love to a woman who probably color-codes her office?”

  He was.

  A blast of cool spring air brought him to his senses, and he snatched up the phone and tapped out her number. For once she answered instead of her machine.

  “Page B.,” he said, kicking his feet back down onto the floor. Flat on the floor where, he reminded himself, they belonged. You’re a hard-bitten columnist, and professional organizers are this week’s target. ‘I’ve been rethinking your offer.”

  “Oh?”

  So smug. But he admired her self-confidence. Took him on with style, she did. “Yeah,” he said, hoping he sounded equally smug. A match for you, sweets. “I’ve got the two questions you can answer honestly and to the best of your ability, as you promised. Okay?”

  “Okay... I think.”

  “You sound suspicious.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  He could hear her sarcasm; he’d have to be an idiot not to. “Really?”

  “Don’t make me regret this.”

  But that was the whole idea. Ah, cursed plans—such as they were. He was winging it yet again. He had no idea what he wanted to ask her, just that he didn’t want the twenty-four hours to slip away, her to slip away. Column or no column, he wasn’t finished with Page B. Harrington.

  “First question,” he said, using his tough-journalist voice and feeling a surge of anticipation. By God, he loved taking on this woman. “You’re an organized person in your own right, correct?”

  “It took some work, but yes. Your second question?”

  “No, wait, dammit. That was just a preliminary to my first question—”

  “Was it or wasn’t it a question, Mr. Journalist?”

  “Look here—”

  “Your second question.”

  “All right, be like that. You didn’t answer to the best of your ability, as you promised you would. It took some work. What does that mean?”

  “It means I wasn’t always organized.”

  “You used to live in chaos?”

  Hell. He felt like the poor slob who’d just used up the genie’s three wishes without having realized it.

  “That’s your third question, but I’ll be reasonable. Yes, I did live in a sort of chaos. When I was a child, my family always seemed to be overwhelmed by life, one step away from disaster, never able to cope with the demands placed on us with the limitations we faced in terms of time, money, space and character. I find deep satisfaction in helping people make the best of what they have rather than always to be waiting for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If I just get this or do that or have more time or more space or whatever, then I can get organized, then I can live a less stressful life, then I can be happy. It’s strange how much happier people can be when they just can find a spatula when they need one. There, satisfied?”

  “No. Those weren’t the questions I wanted to ask.” Dammit, he thought, I should have known not to come at her without a plan.

  “Too bad. I’ll look forward to reading about professional organizers in your column. I’m sure we’ll survive being butchered by Chris Battle. Others certainly have.”

  A gust of wind cooled him off, but only a little. Page B. had a knack for keeping his blood boiling. “You want to leave it like this?”

  “Sure. I’ve kept my end of the deal.”

  He didn’t hear even a note of tentativeness in her voice. Had he mistaken a desire to get rid of him for a desire—at least the beginnings of one—to go to bed with him? Was he that big of an egotist?

  “Aren’t you even a tiny bit curious as to what my real two questions were?”

  “Curiosity is a waste of time,” she said in that pompous-ass voice he now could recognize as fake—a cover for what she was really feeling and didn’t want to admit to. Hearing it reassured him she wasn’t sure after all that she wanted to be finished with him. “Anything else?”

  “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “That’s question four, and I’m just not that generous. Too bad, isn’t it? Goodbye, Mr. Battle. Perhaps I’ll bump into you in the Garden someday. Um, good luck with your piece. I’m sure it will be as annoying as you can make it.”

  She hung up, having the last word yet again.

  Chris would have thrown something out his window toward hers if it might have had any chance of hitting, but with his present luck, it’d just bonk off some tourist’s head and he’d get arrested. He was doomed. He’d taken on a woman in every way a match for him. She’d answered his “two questions.” She’d even given him some material he could use in his column.

  But she’d also further intrigued him. It was no longer professional curiosity and instinct that motivated him. Other stuff had come into it days ago—the turquoise eyes, the long legs—but that was just physical attraction, although there seemed no “just” about it. But he hadn’t expected to find Page B. witty and gutsy in addition to sexy, and now she was proving to be, in her own way, sympathetic and even interesting.

  He hadn’t expected a professional organizer to be interesting. A woman who helped people organize their lives and put their spatulas where they could find them when they wanted to flip a pancake. I find deep satisfaction in helping people make the best of what they have... What
did she mean, specifically? How did she do that, specifically?

  “Who are you, Page B.?”

  He had to know. And even if journalistic curiosity and instinct had little to do with his motives, he was determined he would find out.

  * * *

  That night a nor’easter blew in first with rain, then sleet, then snow. Page was awakened by the howling of the wind and made herself a cup of cocoa, which she drank in her living room while looking out across the Public Garden toward Beacon Hill. She could see a light in Chris’s attic window. Had he simply forgotten to turn it off? Invited a woman friend over? Or, like her, couldn’t sleep? He was even more unpredictable than New England weather—and he could be just as treacherous.

  But more than likely he was burning the midnight oil because he had to meet a deadline and hadn’t paced himself properly. He was a man who responded to pressure. He needed a tough deadline to rub up against to get his adrenaline flowing. Life with such an individual would have to be impossible.

  No wonder the ex-wives.

  Possibly he was pulling an all-nighter to finish his piece on professional organizers. Well, she thought, let him. She wasn’t going to further involve herself with a man with his peculiarities. She couldn’t. Physical attraction just wasn’t enough, and she was determined to resist it. She had so far, hadn’t she?

  She knew she was driving herself crazy. For the first time in months she was actually distracted from her work. It was frustrating. Dangerous. But the fact remained that although curiosity was a waste of time and Chris Battle a threat to her stability, she was damned if she didn’t want to know what his two questions were. She was convinced he hadn’t reneged on his decision not to take her up on her offer and that somehow his two questions were designed to stick it to her—only she’d been onto his scheme yet again. “Deals” just weren’t his style. She hadn’t expected him to have any sense of what she would call honor—anything for a story, a fact, a quote, seemed more his modus operandi. Had she misjudged him?

  No. He had called with two questions, hadn’t he? Just because she didn’t for a second believe they were two legitimate questions didn’t make what he’d done more honorable. He was using her ultimatum to get around her ultimatum ... which did, she suppose, have a certain odd logic.

  Only it hadn’t worked. Instead of his sticking it to her, she’d stuck it to him.

  It was a small and surprisingly hollow victory. She’d left him with no recourse and might, in fact, never see him again and—

  The column! That could be his recourse.

  Her gaze drifted toward the window and the light in the attic on Beacon Street, and she shuddered, wondering if perhaps she was being slightly premature in feeling sorry for Christopher O. Battle.

  Chapter Five

  “I’ve been found out.”

  William sounded worried and a little angry over the telephone. Chris was reheating a mess of Chinese food for lunch after a disastrous morning of work. He couldn’t get a handle on his latest column. Every lead he wrote sounded so namby-pamby. Sickening. But he was almost getting used to rotten mornings. In the two weeks since Page B. Harrington had had the ‘last” word with her two-question ultimatum, he’d stayed away from her. No more calls, no more sneaking into her building, no more bright ideas on how to get past her unequivocal desire to have nothing whatsoever to do with him. The woman didn’t like him. Ordinarily that would have been a damn good reason to keep at her. More likely than not, her distaste would lead to better material for his column. But it wasn’t that simple: she didn’t like him, but she did want to go to bed with him. And he with her. And that, curse his soul, complicated everything. It meant no column, and it meant no being a bastard. He wasn’t going to foist himself upon a woman who wanted him but didn’t like him.

  Yet apparently he wasn’t going to forget about her, either. It was a dilemma, and he didn’t know what the hell to do. Obviously she knew: she was staying out of his life. He didn’t like to admit how disappointed he was.

  “Found out about what?” he asked, smelling the spicy chicken with orange sauce. Since meeting Page he’d taken to hot, spicy foods. Gave him a similar sort of rush that being with her did, but it wasn’t the same. Spicy food didn’t make him burn in quite the same places as she did. “Have you been embezzling funds or stealing pencils? What?”

  “Page.”

  Chris didn’t say a word, just stood very straight as the microwave dinged. Page...

  “Page Harrington. You remember.”

  His heart pounded. Yes, he remembered. But he said lightly, “Barracuda Harrington?”

  “Chris, for God’s sake, this is serious. She called me about five minutes ago and said she’d put two and two together and come up with the snake-in-the-grass client who’d finked on her to you. Said I was a Judas. She’s... she’s on her way over. I think she might be bringing hot tar and feathers.”

  Why did Chris want to laugh? Why did he want to jump up and clap his hands? Was he nuts?

  No, just reenergized. Page B. Harrington hadn’t dismissed the goings-on of a couple of weeks back as an “unfortunate incident”—her kind of phrasing—but had pursued the person who’d betrayed her. Not something a self-disciplined, organized, never-do-anything-without-a-purpose woman would do. What did she hope to accomplish by tracking down William? Revenge? Not her style. A waste of time. No way. There was no logical reason for her to drag William out on the carpet. It was an illogical act.

  An act of a woman who hadn’t been able to get one nasty ol’ journalist off her mind. Considering said mind, that was something, indeed.

  And now she’d as much as invited herself back into his life.

  “You want me to come over?” he asked.

  “No! Stay the hell out, will you? I just called to let you know the Celtics tickets weren’t worth it. I couldn’t enjoy the game because I felt like such a sneak, and I didn’t have anybody interesting to go with and keep my mind off what I’d done—and the Celts lost.”

  “William, William, you told me about Page Harrington all in good faith, remember? You didn’t sell her out for tickets. That wasn’t until after she and I had met.”

  “Thanks a lot,” William said, sarcastic and dispirited. “Next time I need a shoulder to cry on, I’ll remember who not to call.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Don’t—”

  “Trust me, William. Page’d be disappointed if I didn’t show.”

  “Do not come by here. I mean it—”

  “Bruins tickets. Tonight’s game against the Canadiens. Seats are behind the penalty box.”

  “Chris, how could you?”

  “Come on, William.”

  “I haven’t seen a hockey game in...”

  “I’ll bring the tickets with me,” Chris said, and hung up.

  With a little hoot of victory he stabbed a chunk of chicken with a fork. It tasted great. Hot, spicy, tangy. But he left the plate in the microwave and headed out.

  Page B. was a match for Chinese orange chicken any day.

  * * *

  William Norton’s office was on upper Newbury Street near the venerable Ritz and easy walking distance from Page’s condominium, where she’d returned after meeting with clients on the waterfront that morning. She’d taken the subway home. It was a beautiful spring day—the six inches of snow from the last nor’easter had long since melted—and all over town Boston’s famous magnolias were budding. Before long they’d be in full bloom. They had a dangerous effect on her. Brought on the strange restlessness and full, emotional feelings of spring fever. Made her think of things better not thought of, like Chris Battle.

  She’d had to shove aside yet another vivid image of him in his skimpy bathing trunks as she’d climbed onto a Green Line car. All she’d wanted to do was get back to her office and dive into a planned afternoon of paperwork.

  But during the short ride to Boylston Street Station, she’d again tackled the issue of who had ratted on h
er. Who had given Chris Battle her name in the first place? Who had provided him with a perfect replica of her memo stationery? Who would be that sneaky, that duplicitous, that much under Battle’s influence? Who would owe Battle more than he or she owed Get It Together Inc.?

  The traitor had to be a former client, she’d reasoned. But she prided herself on the loyalty of her clients. Many were her friends. How—

  The name William Norton had jumped out at her on the subway, and she couldn’t say why it had then and not before.

  Of course.

  He was a recent client, a creative advertising genius who knew everybody. She’d helped organize the drawer where for years he’d been tossing scraps of paper with phone numbers jotted on them, business cards, torn tops of stationery, old address books, envelopes, memos. That he knew Chris Battle would be no surprise to her. That he’d kept an old memo of hers, despite his reformed habits, would also be no surprise to her.

  That he’d ratted on her, the fink, was a surprise, but she did know how persuasive Battle could be.

  After she’d done it, she didn’t understand why she’d called William and screamed at him and said she was on her way over. What was the point? She couldn’t undo what was done. And what was done was in fact done: Christopher O. Battle had made his exit from her life. Why dredge him up?

  Because you can’t help yourself.

  Since his two-question telephone call, she’d tried to restore her life to its pre-Battle sense of order and purpose. But little things refused to revert to normal. She’d started to read his column during her first cup of coffee instead of her second—and sometimes before she’d even gotten the paper inside. She checked her message machine with a certain breathlessness and emerged from her laps in the hotel pool with her myopic eyes squinting, just in case. She even lingered as she passed security guards, half expecting them to tell her they’d tossed the louse again. She was preoccupied with Chris Battle. Obsessed. Yet her practical nature told her she ought to be proud of herself for getting him to withdraw from her life, and it told her that was exactly what he had done and she should forget him.