Crossing one leg over the other, I take a drink of my coffee and wait. He’s looking at me, an amused sparkle in his eye. He looks like he’s practically ready to burst.
“And why are you looking like the cat that ate the canary this morning?” I ask.
“I take it you haven’t seen the news?”
“I have. I read the paper this morning,” I reply. “I just didn’t read anything that would lead me to be as chipper as you.”
His grin widens. “Clearly you didn’t read the right news.”
He tosses the paper over to me, and I see right away it’s the Borough Ledger – one of the trashier tabloids in the city. If not the state. Or country. There is no story too salacious for this rag. It doesn’t even necessarily need to be true. In fact, based on my own experience with the Ledger, they prefer stories that are based in fiction.
I pick it up and arch an eyebrow at Rider. “Are you kidding me? The Ledger?”
“Don’t judge too quickly,” he continues to grin.
“When did you start reading this shit?”
Rider chuckles. “When it started to get interesting.”
I sigh and unfold the paper. My eyes are immediately drawn to the large photo that takes up most of the front page. It’s me and Berlin climbing out of the back of my Range Rover and getting ourselves together after our lunchtime rendezvous a couple weeks back. I groan when I read the headline – which is displayed, of course, in massive black block letters: Afternoon Delight for Sawyer West and Mystery Woman.
“Jesus Christ,” I grumble. “What the fuck is this?”
“Looks like the way I wish I spent my lunch hours,” he cracks.
“Oh, shut up,” I laugh.
I skim through the article – which is not surprisingly, very light on facts. Instead, it’s filled with the most suggestive gossip and innuendo possible. But most of the article seems to speculate on who the ‘mystery woman’ is. The writer seems to obsess on it, actually.
“So, let me guess,” Rider starts, “this isn’t what it looks like?”
I grin. “No, it’s exactly what it looks like,” I tell him. “We banged in the back of my car. What I can’t figure out is how they got these pictures.”
“With a camera, I’d guess.”
I throw the paper back and laugh. “Fuck off.”
As I scan my memory of that day, my mind lands on the van that sat at the far end of the parking lot. Had the paparazzi been tailing me? Where had they picked me up? And why?
“I guess it was a slow news day in tabloid land,” I muse.
“I disagree,” Rider objects. “As they say, sex sells. And quite obviously –”
“Okay, okay,” I hold up my hand and cut him off. “Points for creativity.”
I run a hand through my hair and take a drink of my coffee. This is all amusing as hell and all, but it’s irritating as shit at the same time. I’ve had to deal with the paparazzi my whole life, and my hatred of them has only grown stronger through the years. This is but one more example of why.
It’s then the thought that should have been among the first enters my mind. I look at the paper splayed out on the couch beside Rider and groan. I slip my phone out of my pocket and take a look at it. No texts, no missed calls. Yet.
“I don’t know if she’s seen it, is pissed and isn’t calling,” I wonder out loud, “or hasn’t seen it yet.”
“Which means that you should probably think about getting your ass over there and getting to her before she sees it,” Rider finishes for me.
I nod. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
* * *
“I guess I should just get you an office of your own,” she says. “I mean since you seem to be here so often.”
I lean against the door jamb with my hands in my pockets and give her a small shrug. “No need. Your office works just fine.”
“Well you certainly seem to be making yourself at home here.”
“I don’t see you calling building security on me,” I note.
She laughs softly. “You know me; I hate to cause a scene.”
I look at her and smile. Even doing nothing but sitting behind her desk in a dark business suit and green blouse that hugs all her curves just right, she’s breathtaking. A thought flashes through my mind of taking her out to have some fun.
But then, that would just make this situation worse, wouldn’t it?
“Come in, come in,” she tells me. “I can’t have you hovering in the hallway like a creeper.”
I laugh and step in, closing the door behind me. I cross her small office in two steps and drop down into the seat across from her. I know she hasn’t seen the pictures yet, otherwise she would be tearing me a new one right now. Berlin is a private woman. She’s going to be pissed once I tell her. Hopefully she places her anger where it belongs – at the feet of the paparazzi – instead of me.
“I’m telling you now that I can’t take a long lunch today,” she says. “I have to take a deposition in half an hour, and then I have a pre-trial hearing after that.”
I chuckle and hold up my hands. “Okay, okay. I get it. No lunch date today.”
“I wouldn’t mind it, but, well – I can’t be irresponsible every day.”
I laugh. “Fair enough. But it’s funny you should mention a lunch date.”
“And no, I can’t go out to your car for a quickie,” she grins. “Just to head that off before it takes root in that head of yours.”
“Wow, it seems like you have me pegged.”
“I know how your mind works,” she laughs.
I clear my throat, suddenly feeling distinctly uncomfortable. “Yeah, about that.”
As if
