Who Needs Decaf?. Tanya Michaels

person.”

      “If your definition of nice involves stealing,” Nathan retorted. “Are you telling me you honestly believe the similarities between Brad Hammond’s game and Kendra Mathers’s story—a story that first appeared on her site long before the public had any information on Xandria Quest—can be chalked up to coincidence?”

      Not about to comment on the case, she focused only on his first sentence. “My definition of nice sure as hell doesn’t involve making snap judgments about people I don’t know, but am more than happy to vilify in order to sell a few papers!”

      “I do not make snap judg—” But Nathan cut himself off. She wondered if it was because he had in fact recently leapt to a conclusion about someone, or simply because he’d noticed people were beginning to stare.

      Jonathan appeared at the edge of the group of onlookers, and muttering pardon me to several of them, reached Sheryl’s side. “Your wine. I hope white Zinfandel is all right?”

      “Sure, thanks,” she murmured, annoyed with the effort it took to pull her gaze away from Nathan’s face and turn to her date. “Jonathan Spencer, Nathan Hall.”

      “Oh, the reporter?” Jonathan asked brightly. “You did a great series on industrial effects on the water-front! How you took such dry statistics and presented both the pros and cons of commercialization…”

      NATHAN NODDED and managed a gracious response to Jonathan’s words, but it was difficult to concentrate on anything other than Sheryl Dayton. She riled him, no escaping that, but it helped to know he had a mutual effect on her. He doubted that a woman who made her living in PR usually lost her temper.

      How devoted to her job was she, he wondered? Would she defend her company even if she knew it was in the wrong simply because she was paid to? Nathan understood the necessity of a paycheck, but in his journalism career, he’d seen too many people sell out their scruples.

      Not that he should care so much about Sheryl Dayton, but it bothered him to know he might be attracted to a woman with shady ethics. And he was attracted to her. Wrapped as she was in that slinky fall of soft fabric, which hugged her body and made her eyes glow, how could he not be?

      To his right, the crowd parted like a sea before Moses, and a statuesque redhead made her way up the stairs, drawing admiring male stares as she passed. Nathan was used to the Kaylee Phenomenon, but he couldn’t remember his beautiful co-worker ever delivering the kick to his libido that Sheryl Dayton did.

      Kaylee stopped at his side with a sigh. “I’m back from the powder room. I suppose we have to watch Act Two now?”

      “Only if you want your column to be accurate and well-informed,” he kidded his co-worker.

      She wrinkled her nose. “I’m pretty sure I could just turn in the words save your money and cover it. Oh, aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”

      Nathan did so, watching Sheryl’s face as she met Kaylee. Most women looked intimidated or envious meeting the supermodel-caliber beauty for the first time, but Sheryl simply grinned and remarked on how awful the show was.

      “Well,” Kaylee said, “as long as we still have a minute, I should probably excuse myself to call my—”

      “You’d better hurry,” Nathan interjected. “I’m not watching this thing by myself.”

      She nodded and stepped outside for a better cell connection. Moments later, the lights blinked to signal the second half, and Sheryl and her date disappeared inside the auditorium. Standing in the lobby, Nathan watched them go, wondering whether he’d interrupted his co-worker specifically so she wouldn’t have a chance to say she was calling her husband, who’d had to work tonight.

      Had Nathan wanted Sheryl to think he was on a date just because she had been? Of course, Sheryl wouldn’t know how ironic the idea of his dating Kaylee was. Not only was his friend and co-worker very happily married, she was the person who routinely insisted Nathan should date more.

      He changed the subject whenever Kaylee brought it up, but she’d made it clear that she thought Nathan distrusted women because of his mom walking out when he was young. Apparently, Kaylee had been exposed to too much Freud one semester in college. The problems Nathan had in relationships had nothing to do with the mother he barely thought about and everything to do with individual circumstance. Sheryl Dayton was a perfect example.

      Yes, he was drawn to Sheryl, he was man enough to admit that. But the inconvenient desire he’d felt both times he’d been around her wouldn’t blur his principles. Her employer had boasted his aggressive company goals in numerous interviews, and if Nathan learned of concrete proof that the man’s ambitions had led him to take advantage of a struggling writer without the same corporate legal resources, all of Seattle would read about it.

      Sheryl wouldn’t like it—wouldn’t like him—but that was just too bad. Nathan’s dad, a dedicated police officer, had spent hours lecturing him on integrity, and Nathan was determined to live up to his late father’s ideals. The very ideals that had eventually broken up his parents’ marriage.

      Nathan would simply put Sheryl and his curiosity about which was softer, the velvety concoction she wore or her skin, out of his mind.

      Although, he’d feel better about the sensible, uncompromising resolution if he weren’t already thinking about seeing her Tuesday.

      4

      REMINDING HIMSELF that he’d dealt with dignitaries, celebrities and the mob, for heaven’s sake, Nathan reached over his cluttered desktop and hit the intercom button on his phone. “Thanks for the heads-up,” he told the receptionist, who’d buzzed him to say Sheryl was coming his way.

      He was not nervous about this meeting. In all actuality, his slightly energized feeling was probably anticipation and not nerves at all. Then again, being this excited about seeing her again didn’t seem like a good idea, either.

      Nathan leaned back in his cheap, creaky chair—he must have unknowingly maligned the office supply manager to be assigned furniture so uniquely unsuited to sitting—recalling too late that the balance was slightly off and that the chair tilted back too far. He was scrambling to an upright position when Sheryl appeared in the open doorway. “Knock knock,” she said in a wry tone.

      Terrific. Not exactly the all-knowing, indomitable image he’d wanted to start off with, but he figured they were even now for her last visit to the office. He’d certainly thrown her for a loop when he’d caught her off guard with his identity.

      He cleared his throat and moved to straighten his tie before recalling he didn’t bother with ties at work. He had when he’d first started out, but soon realized his editors didn’t care about his dress code as much as documented sources and word count.

      “Good morning, Ms. Dayton. Please, have a seat.”

      Eyebrows raised over green eyes glinting with mirth, she considered the chair opposite him, a replica of the piece of unbalanced furniture he occupied. “Are we sure that’s a good idea?” She glanced around the cubby-sized office, filled to capacity by a desk, two chairs and a wastebasket with a miniature basketball hoop suspended over the top. “Although, I suppose there isn’t much standing room in here, is there?”

      “The accommodations not up to your standards?” He tried to imagine her surroundings at HGS.

      She surprised him with a bright laugh. “Are you kidding? This is palatial compared to the last building we were in. My office space was pretty much me working out of a box and sitting hunched over with a laptop literally in my lap. I guess that’s how those things got their names. But Brad promised us we’d be moving on to greener pastures, and he kept his word.”

      At what cost? the insatiable reporter in Nathan wondered.

      From what he’d read, Brad Hammond was driven to succeed. But driven enough to convince himself that “borrowing” a few ideas from an obscure