Moonstruck In Manhattan. Cara Summers
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have met, I take it?”
“Not formally,” Chelsea said. “We sort of ran into each other in a bar this morning.”
“Oh?” Esme said.
“I was on my way here to sign my contract when he… Mr. McDaniels interrupted a conversation I was having with my…roommates. It was about… Well, I suppose that’s neither here nor there, but we didn’t know we would be meeting again. We didn’t exchange names…or anything else.” Like phone numbers. Chelsea made herself stop and take a breath. She was babbling. Nerves made her do that, and they’d invaded her stomach the moment that she’d recognized Zach McDaniels. The dive-bombing butterflies she could deal with. It was the simple rush of pleasure that disturbed her. She could still feel it tingling through her right down to her toes.
Hadn’t she told herself that she never wanted to see him again? By the time she’d arrived at the McDaniels Building, she’d almost convinced herself. In the past two hours she hadn’t thought about him more than four or five times, tops. Okay maybe six times at the very most. She certainly hadn’t regretted not giving him her phone number, not even for a second.
“Won’t you sit down?” Zach gestured to one of the chairs in front of his desk.
Chelsea moved to it and carefully settled herself on the edge of the seat before she steeled herself to glance up at him. The eyes were just as intense as she’d recalled. Once again she felt just as aware of him as she had in the bar that morning. What she needed was one of those protective shields, she decided. The kind that always protected spaceships from attack in the movies—invisible, soundless and impermeable.
Esme cleared her throat. “Do you want me to tell Ms. Brockway about the problem we were discussing?”
Chelsea dragged her gaze away from Zach’s. “Problem?”
“I’ll tell her,” Zach said. “If you would just give us a moment, Ms. Sinclair?”
“I’ll wait outside.”
For a moment after Esme left the room, neither of them spoke. But the word problem began to repeat itself like a little drumbeat in Chelsea’s mind. It was keeping perfect pace with Zach’s fingers, which were tapping on his desk. The fingers were long and lean and Chelsea found herself recalling just how they’d felt pressed against the inside of her upper arm when he’d grasped it to lead her out of the bar. She should have had her invisible protective shield up then, too.
Deliberately sliding her gaze away from his hands, she raised it to his face. He was frowning at her.
“What?” she asked.
“I understand that you signed a contract with Ms. Sinclair for three articles.”
She frowned right back at him. “Is there a problem with the contract?”
“When Ms. Sinclair negotiated it, she wasn’t aware that I was taking over as editor-in-chief of the magazine and she had no way of knowing that I intend to make rather sweeping changes. What I want to propose to you is that I—”
The intercom on his desk buzzed and he leaned toward it to press a button. “Ms. Parker, I’d like you to see that I’m not—”
The last word of his sentence was drowned out by an angry voice that poured into the room. “…that idiot that I want to see him right now and I don’t care who’s in his office! Never mind, I’ll tell him myself.”
The door sprung open and a tall man with gray hair and a thickening waist strode into the room and tossed a letter in Zach’s direction. It bounced off his shoulder and fell to the surface of the desk.
“That’s my resignation,” the man said, his face growing more flushed by the moment. “I’m sure it’s what you wanted.”
“I’m sorry you feel the need to resign,” Zach said.
“Sorry? Oh, you’re going to be even sorrier when you get the rest of the resignation letters in the interoffice mail. But I wanted to do more than drop you a letter. I wanted to tell you a few things to your face.”
“Go right ahead,” Zach said, keeping his tone very even. “Perhaps you’d let me know why you feel you have to leave the magazine.”
“Why? You know damn well why. Don’t try to deny it. I’ve covered New York sports teams for the past twenty years and you made it quite clear at that meeting that you won’t be needing my expertise anymore.” He snorted. “Or anyone else’s either.”
“I never said that.”
“Not in so many words. But what exactly am I supposed to do when you start ‘spotlighting’ other cities? Sit around and twiddle my thumbs?” Pausing, he waved a hand. “But that’s not the real reason I’m walking out. You want to know what it is?”
“Yes,” Zach said.
“Because running this magazine is just a game to you. When your big plans fail, you’ll just shut the whole thing down and go on to another career. I said as much to your aunt, but she wouldn’t listen.”
“From now on, I’d appreciate it if you’d bring your complaints directly to me. Leave my aunt out of it.”
The man’s chin jutted out. “Fine. I’ll tell you just what I told her. If your father had wanted you to run this magazine, he would have left it to you outright. I told her she was a fool to turn it over to you.”
Zach circled around the edge of his desk. “I don’t take kindly to anyone who calls my aunt a fool.”
“I call ’em like I see ’em.”
Springing up from her chair, Chelsea stepped into the older man’s path just as he was about to stride forward. “You don’t want to do this.”
“The hell I…” Stopping short, he glanced down at her. “Who are you?”
“Chelsea Brockway.” She extended her hand.
Frowning, he studied her for a moment, his eyes moving from her head to her feet, then slowly back up again. Finally, he took the hand she offered.
“And you’re…?” she asked.
“Bill Anderson. Former sports editor.” His eyes narrowed. “Brockway. You wrote that article on ‘What Makes a Man a…’ what was it again?”
“A hottie,” Chelsea said as she tried to extricate her hand, but Bill held onto it.
“That’s right. A hottie. My wife and daughter read it.” For the first time since he stormed into the room, his expression lightened. “They had to explain to me what a hottie was.”
“Did they like the article?” Chelsea asked.
Bill nodded. “Told me I should read it and pick up some tips.” Then he glanced over her shoulder at Zach. “You’re wasting your time here. He’s going to run this magazine right into the ground. If you want, I could put in a good word for you at several other places.”
She smiled. “Thanks, but I’ve just signed a contract for three more articles and you know what they say about ‘a bird in the hand…’” She let the sentence trail off and tugged on hers. When Bill didn’t take the hint, she said, “Speaking of hands…”
“Look, I’m headed down to Flannery’s to join the rest of the staff for a drink. Would you like to join us?”
“Sure. I’d love to.”
Chelsea felt Zach stiffen behind her. “The lady would like her hand back.”
She didn’t have to turn to get a sense of the intensity in Zach McDaniels’s eyes. She could feel the heat of his gaze boring into her back. Since her hand was still in Bill’s, she could feel the temper begin to build again in the older man.
“Mr. Anderson, I’ll be happy to join you and the rest of the staff just as