Champagne Cravings (7 page)

I loved when Mike had a fascinating case. His excitement was
contagious and I felt his enthusiasm to the core of my being. “Do tell.”

Setting aside his wine, he went back to work on his dinner.
In between bites, he told me, “Turns out the guy’s live-in housekeeper is the
former personal assistant to Jackson Portman.”

“
The
Jackson Portman? Oil tycoon who discovered half
his artwork collection had been pilfered during a huge campaign party he’d
thrown for a Texas senator?”

“One and the same,” Mike said. “How someone managed to rip
off more than a dozen paintings while nearly a thousand people were at his
estate for the fundraiser is beyond me. The art was never recovered and no
arrests were made.”

“Hmm,” I ventured as I reached for my own glass of wine. “I
bet the housekeeper might have a clue or two about how it was pulled off.”

“Given the coincidence that she was recently on-staff when a
painting worth more than forty million dollars went missing, I’d say she might
be a well-connected infiltrator who knows when and where to strike.”

“How’d you determine who she was?”

“Took some digging. She goes by a different name now and has
altered her appearance. But,” Mike said before he took another sip of wine, “I
did a background check on the key house staff and not all of her information
jived. I picked it apart until I figured out who she was.”

“Clever.” There was nothing sexier than a gorgeous man with
bright blue eyes and a brain.

He set aside the Mongolian beef and opened the box of egg
rolls, fried wontons and crab puffs while I went for the steamed rice. Mike
wasn’t into rice. He liked the deep-fried stuff, though you’d never guess it by
his hotter-than-hell body. At thirty-two, he still had the ass of a
twenty-year-old.

As he removed the lids from the sweet and sour sauce and
then the spicy mustard, he asked, “How’d your day go?”

I nearly choked on my rice. I put the box on the coffee
table and washed down the chunks in my throat with the wine. My eyes burned as
Mike stared at me, his brow crooked.

“Uh, it was interesting as well.” I had to force visions of
Biel and Piper from my mind. On the way home from Elan, I’d pondered what it
was about the supermodel that got me all spun up.

At the Montlimiere, I’d thought it was the similarity of
experiencing a professional mishap that had the potential to end a career. I’d
suffered a huge blow to my investigative reporting stint simply by doing what
the job entailed—investigating and reporting. Biel had almost suffered the same
fate in her profession. Yet she’d bounced back. She’d literally taken the bull
by the horns this morning and had said to the world, “I’m not giving up. Take
me as I am, faults and all, and I’ll keep rocking your world.”

What a statement to make.

And precisely the point where our professional similarities
ended.

To Mike, I said, “Biel McKinley is indestructible. At
twenty-one. I should hate her because I’m so envious of her, but I don’t. I
like her. She’s got…what’s it called? Chutzpah.”

“Showed her face at work, did she?”

“The girl wasn’t cowering in any corners, I can tell you
that much.” Quite the opposite. She’d been large and in charge today. Wide open
in more ways than one. Ready to take on the world and whatever her lover or agent
doled out. She clearly wasn’t one to turn tail and run in any capacity. “Unlike
yours truly,” I muttered.

He knew exactly what I was thinking, because he knew me so
well. “Hey,” he said as he set aside his food and glass. He turned to me on the
sofa. “You’re comparing apples to oranges, babe. I saw the footage of what
happened at the Montlimiere on the Internet. Pretty traumatic for Biel, I’m
sure. But she was just innocently caught up in a cosmetics launch gone awry.
Yes, I validate that millions of dollars were spent on the campaign, but the
scandal might actually produce results even more amazing than originally
predicted, because the incident garnered global attention. What happened to
you, on the other hand…”

I sipped more wine. “Yeah, whereas with me… I let the wife
of a network bigwig get away with embezzling nearly seventy-five thousand
dollars from a women’s shelter. A
women’s
shelter. Think of all the
abused and violated women—and their children—who were turned away because there
weren’t enough funds to provide them safe harbor.”

I could have screamed—or cried—over the injustice. And my
failure to expose it.

Mike’s teeth ground together for a moment before he said,
“That’s not exactly what happened, Lace. You were about to go live and they
shut you down. Not much you can do when they fade to black.”

I didn’t agree with him, though I appreciated him siding
with me. The truth was, I’d been railroaded because the network exec had been
from
my
network. I’d gotten wind of some wrongdoings on his wife’s part,
had snooped around long and hard until I’d unearthed the evidence I’d needed
and had, literally, caught her red-handed. I’d had the exclusive. My newscast
would have blown the story wide open and sent my investigative reporting career
soaring—and helped to recover the funds missing from an organization that
almost melted into oblivion because of lack of resources.

Instead, I’d been yanked from my highly coveted prime-time
slot and relegated to morning weekend anchor, where the hardest-hitting stories
ran along the lines of the circus being in town and live cooking demonstrations
from local chefs. Successively, I’d been shuffled about on a weekly basis, my
desk getting closer and closer to the front door while the studio execs did
damage control. The embezzlement story had eventually leaked and justice had
prevailed, but it hadn’t been because of me.

“You know,” I said before draining my glass. “I didn’t take
a stand for myself. I didn’t fight back, the way Biel did.” There was more to
it than that. The network had killed the story. They’d erased my hard drive.
They’d put the fear of God—i.e. lost jobs and ruined careers—into the few
people I’d enlisted to help air the story, and no one had uttered a word after
that. Including me.

It had taken way too long for someone to stand up for those
women and children who’d sought refuge at the shelter that almost closed. That
was the true travesty, not my professional demise. It was also the source of my
never-ending guilt and remorse, because I’d actually let
The Powers That Be
execute a gag order
and
chase me out of town.

“Lace,” Mike said as he settled back against the pile of
pillows in the corner of the L-shaped sofa. He lifted my legs and draped them
over his as I propped a shoulder against my own cushions and stared at him. “No
one’s going to hold Biel McKinley responsible for someone switching her makeup.
She really doesn’t have that much at stake.”

“I beg to differ. Her reaction could have been scrutinized
and considered detrimental to her career. I’m just saying I admire the way she
bounced back.”

He smiled softly as his large hand moved up my calf to my
knee, his fingers teasing the sensitive underside, making me squirm on the seat
at the intimate and arousing touch, despite the long pants I wore.

“You didn’t cower in a corner either. You found a different
way to fight the good fight. You got certified in fraud and abuse and hung out
a different kind of investigative services shingle. Now you solve crimes and
force restitution by revealing dirty deeds in corporate America. You could have
taken a safer route, becoming a waitress or joining the secretary pool, leaving
your instincts and desire to uncover seedy doings behind. But you were too
strong to simply walk away from your calling.”

His hand inched higher, sweeping over my thigh. I needed a
life preserver to keep from drowning in his ocean-blue eyes, and my body
tingled from head to toe, even though he only touched my leg. The man had the
ability to do crazy-wicked things to my insides on a physical level, but he
also stirred my emotions. He was in-tune with everything swirling around inside
me, knowing the demons that tormented me. And knowing how to help me cage said
demons, even though I was still, five years after the fact, incapable of
slaying them for good.

“Thanks for getting me,” I told him. “And for being so
supportive.”

“At the end of the day, we’re friends, right?”

I nodded, a lump of emotion in my throat. He was saying and
doing all the right things to make me believe in what was quickly transpiring
between us, this new level of personal involvement being built upon a solid
foundation we’d enjoyed for three years. Just as he’d said he’d hoped to do
last night. I took it all very seriously, because he deserved that from me. I
only wished I was a bit more stable psychologically when it came to
relationships to kick the fears I had.

Composing myself, I said, “I appreciate your viewpoint.”

He grinned sexily at me. “Time to swap boxes?”

“Yeah.” I handed over the cashew chicken and reached for his
Mongolian beef. This part of our association was comfortable and synchronized.
It wasn’t the frenzied chaos we’d experienced last night in my dressing room. I
liked both scenarios, truth be told.

But there was something tickling the back of my brain that,
after we’d polished off the food, made me say, “I think I could learn a thing
or two from Biel. About not being so closed off and…I don’t know. Afraid of any
sort of unexpected turmoil or controversy. I really admire her. She’s
like…Teflon.”

He laughed softly as he moved from the sofa and scooped up
empty containers to take to the trashcan in my kitchen. He asked, “Should I be
jealous?”

“Well, apparently, she does prefer women.” He shot a stunned
look over his broad shoulder. I laughed. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“So I have competition?” he quipped. “Fucking great. I
finally make a serious move on you that you respond to and some international
supermodel swoops in to steal you away.”

“Hardly.” As I cleared away the remainder of trash, I told
him, “I’m having a drink with her tomorrow night at Velage in Chelsea and I
will be ridiculously out of style and so very uncool.”

He whistled under his breath. “Trendy hotspot.”

“Yeah, I have no idea what to wear. Or how to not feel like
I’m the oldest person in the room.”

“You might be,” he admitted. “So don’t try to keep up with
the hip and fabulous. Rock it old school.”

I stared at him, dumbfounded. “I’m sorry.
What?
”

He chuckled. Turning back to me, he said, “Go retro. That’s
always in style. Wear simple black—maybe that black pinstriped suit you have
that’s tight and sexy. You know the one?”

“Sure.”

“And don’t do the
Sex and the City
cosmopolitan
thing. Too cliché and a typical fallback.” Apparently, I’d made him watch too
many episodes on DVD. “Order a Gibson instead.”

“A what?”

He shook his head at me and made a tsking noise. “Come on,
you’re a classy babe. It’s a gin and vermouth martini garnished with a pearl
onion, usually pickled. Classic all the way.”

“Huh.” I stared at him a moment, thinking he might be on to
something, because I sure as hell didn’t have anything hanging in my closet
with bold splashes of color and geometric hems suitable for a get-together with
a New York City Fashion Week favorite. This, however, might be its own
trendsetting approach. “I like it,” I told him.

After washing his hands and drying them with the towel, he
crossed the kitchen to where I stood and put his hands on my waist. His head
dipped and he kissed me again, making me forget all about my impending meeting
with Biel. Yeah, I was straight all the way.

When Mike broke the kiss, I was breathless, but somehow
managed to say, “That is not the way to kiss a girl who hasn’t had sex in three
years.”

“I can’t help it,” he murmured as his lips grazed my jaw and
trailed down to my neck. “I’ve wanted this for a very long time.”

“Well, you know what
I
want…”

His head lifted. “I want to be with you tonight, Lace. Make
no mistake. But I’m not rushing this part with you.”

My fingers curled around the soft fabric covering his pecs,
keeping him close to me. “Then you probably shouldn’t kiss me anymore this
evening. I’m practically drowning in lust. I’d hate to go against both our
convictions and beg you to fuck me.”

He groaned as he released me. “You wouldn’t have to beg.” He
took my hand and led me back to the sofa. “How about a movie?”

We settled in with
The Fighter
, my concession for
clearly forcing too many chick-flicks on him. When the credits finally rolled,
he asked me, “So how’d you find out Biel McKinley’s into women?”

I was cozied up in the corner with my feet tucked under me
and my head on Mike’s shoulder. He’d draped his arm around me and the way he
drew abstract patterns on my bare arm with his fingertips made my skin tingle.

I admitted, “I walked in on her perched on the edge of a
coffee table while her makeup artist used a dildo to get her off.”

“Whoa, that’s a visual.”

“Yeah.” I was quiet a few moments, letting him digest or
fantasize or whatever. Then I said, “I imagine the only reason she hasn’t gone
public with her sexual orientation is because it’d kill the image
people—particularly men—have of her. Probably not good for the career, you
know? Yet, despite the fact she hasn’t publicly come out of the closet, she’s
never tied to any men, famous or not.”

“So, you think in some sense, she’s true to herself and is
in control of her environment?”

“She sure seems in control. Not just of her environment, but
also her sexuality. She doesn’t flaunt it or go for shock value…she’s just
naturally a sexual person, I think.”

“Ah,” Mike said with a hint of amusement in his voice. “You
really are envious.”