She was about to fall into step with Terry, when Jason linked his arm through hers and pulled her alongside him.
“You know why you’re so cranky, don’t you?” he inquired with a lazy drawl, pitched for her ears only.
She had noticed before that he lapsed into something bordering on a Southern accent whenever it suited him. “Where are you from?” she asked, hoping to divert his attention. She’d guessed from his comment that whatever was on his mind was likely to set her teeth on edge.
“Virginia,” he said. “Trying to change the subject?”
“You bet.”
“I don’t blame you. Acknowledging that you’re sexually frustrated must be embarrassing.”
Callie stopped in her tracks, causing Terry and Neil to come up short or run right over her. Hands on hips, she scowled up at Jason.
“How dare you!”
“Actually, I dare quite a lot,” he said. “Come on. You’re blocking traffic.”
She dug in her heels. “I wouldn’t go anywhere with you if you had the key to a buried treasure worth millions,” she declared flatly.
Terry groaned. Neil sighed heavily.
“Well, I wouldn’t,” she insisted. “I’m going home.”
Jason shook his head. “See what I mean? She’s frustrated.”
Terry regarded the pair of them worriedly. “Jason, could I give you just the teeniest bit of advice? Pointing out that Callie is sexually frustrated may not be the most diplomatic, gentlemanly thing to do.”
“No, it’s not,” Callie concurred. “Especially since it’s his fault.”
The last slipped out before she realized the implication. “Oh, jeez,” she murmured, covering her face with her hands as Terry murmured, “My, my, Mr. Kane. I gave you more credit than that.”
It was Neil who took pity on her. He tucked an arm around her waist and urged her forward. “Pay no attention to the two of them. They’re in television, you know. No class. No manners.”
“You’re telling me,” she retorted, scowling at her two tormentors.
Neil continued to soothe her with his sympathetically derisive analysis of their companions. Before she realized it, he had guided her down the street and straight to a table at a sidewalk café near Lincoln Center. Terry and Jason, apparently content to let Neil smooth over the troubled waters they’d stirred up, slid up to the table as quietly as the pair of snakes they were.
When Jason hitched his chair a little too close to hers, Callie shot him a venomous look. He rested his arm across the back of her seat, then tugged her menu over so he could share it. There was a cozy sort of intimacy to his behavior that truly irked her under the circumstances.
“Do you have any idea how furious I am with you?” she inquired curiously.
“About?”
“That little remark you made back there.”
“Just telling the truth.”
“Don’t you think the topic called for a little discretion?”
“What’s wrong? We’re among friends.”
“My friends,” she pointed out. “Why would you say something like that in front of anyone?”
He looked vaguely unsettled by her continued irritation. “Actually, it was a diversionary tactic.”
She stared at him blankly. “Diversionary? I don’t get it.”
“You will,” he said grimly.
“When?”
He glanced at the clusters of people seated around them, until he apparently found what he was seeking. “Now,” he said. “Over there.”
Callie followed the direction of his gaze and gasped as she saw a picture of the two of them kissing plastered across the front page of the Sunday edition of one of New York’s tabloids. The headline trumpeted the question Has Network Romeo Found His Juliet?
“Oh, my God,” she murmured, thunderstruck. That would certainly secure her a lot of respect the next time she went job hunting.
“It’s a really good picture,” Terry ventured.
Callie stared at him. “You’ve seen it?”
“I ran out and bought a copy as soon as Jason called this morning.”
“So this was a setup,” she said, glaring at the whole traitorous lot of them. She waved a finger under Jason’s nose. “You didn’t just bump into them into the hallway. You invited them along to protect you, didn’t you?”
“Actually, I was thinking more in terms of moral support for you,” he said.
“I’ll bet.”
“It’s true,” Terry said. “He thought it would be better for you to see it surrounded by your best friends, just in case you turned out not to be a publicity hound like most of the people in television.”
“We’re supposed to help you get over the shock,” Neil said, shooting a condemning look at Jason that made it clear whose fault he thought it was that she was in shock at all.
“It’s not so bad, really,” Terry tried to reassure her. “It’ll be forgotten by tomorrow. Remember that time the soap opera magazine reported I was having a steamy affair with my leading lady? No one even remembered her name a few weeks later.”
“That’s because you angled to have her fired for planting the rumor in the first place,” Callie reminded him.
Terry shrugged unrepentantly. “She couldn’t act worth beans, anyway.”
“What am I supposed to do?” Callie asked. “Send a letter to all the TGN stockholders and enclose a copy of the front page of the paper and suggest Jason be voted out of office?”
“An intriguing form of retribution,” Jason agreed, not looking the least bit panicked, probably because he owned a very large chunk of that stock himself. “Of course, I’ve long since convinced them that any time my name is mentioned, the network’s call letters are, as well. It’s good PR.”
“Sounds a little self-serving to me,” Callie contended. “It protects your butt since you seem like the kind of man who gets caught with his pants down relatively frequently.” She paused, then added, “Pun absolutely intended.”
“Maybe we should be thinking about a way to capitalize on this,” Jason suggested with just the faintest hint of caution in his voice as he watched Callie closely.
“I don’t think I like the sound of that,” she said.
“There’s bound to be a lot of fascination now that people have gotten a look at
