Chapter One

      “Hey, Riley! You going to the ball?”

      “Come on, Brad,” Derek said. “Riley thinks a ball has to say ‘Wilson’ on it to be any good.”

      Jack Riley looked up from a Zenlike contemplation of his aged high-top sneakers, which he had propped on a stack of files on his desk. The world’s smallest Christmas tree, hung with decorations made by kids at the shelter, perched atop his computer monitor.

      For all Jack cared, the cluttered newsroom, the ringing phones, the glaring fluorescent lights and the two yammering preppies could vanish in a puff of smoke.

      “Look at the boy, Brad. Like, old Riley’s got nothing to wear.” Derek Crenshaw took nauseating pride in his cashmere sweaters from Brooks Brothers—supplied by overindulgent parents.

      “Gimme a break,” Riley said, scratching his gray CUNY sweatshirt. “I got a clean set of sweats in my gym bag.”

      Guffaws burst from his companions. The preppies, playing at being ace reporters, were so easily amused, Jack thought, folding his long legs under his desk and snatching a pencil from behind his ear. He pushed his thick-lensed glasses up on his nose. For a moment, his gaze rested on the engraved invitation that lay atop the rubble on his desk. Somewhere, a mile under, lay a brand-new ink blotter purchased with scraped-together pennies by a grateful young boy he had once helped.

      Jack squinted through his horn-rims at the cream stock card. “Miss Madeleine Langston requests the pleasure of your company…. Nine o’clock … at the Dakota … Black tie only …”

      “Black tie,” Jack muttered, lowering the bill of his Yankees cap. Miss Madeleine Langston was no doubt praying Mr. Jack Riley would drop off the face of the earth. Why the hell had she invited him, anyway? Pity? Guilt? Or did the young heiress have a yen for slumming with nobodies from Brooklyn?

      “Hey, Riley!” Derek said, advancing on him with a Sharpie marker. “Maybe I could, like, you know, draw a black tie on the front of your shirt.”

      “Hey, Derek,” Jack said, effortlessly mimicking his co-worker’s southern California accent. “Maybe I could, like, break your kneecaps and toss you in a shallow grave.”

      Brad and a few of the mailroom boys again burst into laughter.

      “Working hard, gentlemen?” The blade-sharp question knifed through the merriment.

      Jack looked across the newsroom, and there she was.

      The ice maiden. The crystal goddess. The bane of his existence.

      His publisher.

      “Er, Jack was just finishing up,” Derek said hastily, capping the marker and dropping a manila legal file on the danger zone of Jack’s desk.

      Madeleine Langston effortlessly negotiated a path through the maze of desks. She moved as if the layout of the bright glass-walled newsroom was imprinted on her brain like circuits on a computer chip.

      After her father’s death six months before, she had inherited the Courier. Everyone had expected her to retire gracefully to the Hamptons and let the income roll in. For a while, she had. Then, just three weeks ago, she had fired the inept managing editor and appointed herself publisher. Apparently she was having trouble finding someone to reflect her standards of perfection, so for the time being, and to the dismay of all the staff, she had taken on the duties herself.

      Until last week, she had stayed off the city-room turf, preferring her sterile corner office one floor up. This was only the second time Jack had seen her up close. She was terrifyingly gorgeous. He liked her much better as a brittle voice on the telephone.

      Because he knew it would annoy her, he put his feet back up on his desk, crossed his ankles and linked his fingers behind his head. He peered at her from beneath the brim of his cap.

      Madeleine Langston advanced like a guided missile. She was, Jack decided, the only woman in Manhattan who could wear an ivory wool suit all day and not get a single wrinkle in it. Probably because she had no body heat. None at all.

      What she did have was looks, brains and money. In deadly excess. She made him want to cross his fingers to ward off evil. Worse, she made him want to make love to her until she cried out for mercy—or for more.

      She stopped in front of his desk. He had a perfect view of her face: dainty cheekbones and a nose that was probably used as a model at plastic-surgery conventions; eyes as blue as the bottom of a swimming pool; pale blond hair done