3 BOOK BUNDLE "Her Last Love Affair", "Her Last Love Affair: Breathing Without You" AND "Her Last Love Affair: The Final Journey" (16 page)

Passing the Torch

S
he opened the door angrily, swinging it wide
until the inner handle almost crashed into the wall.

“Umm...Sorry if I’m disturbing you.” Grant stood wide-eyed
at the threshold, clearly frightened to be on the wrong side of Allie’s temper
and not for the first time. He’d seen it all too often and knew what the
consequences of it could be.

The alarmed look on the sandy-haired office grunt’s face
made Allie feel guilty. Sighing, she shook her head and silently stepped out of
the way to allow him to enter the apartment. “No, I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I’m
just having a bad day.”

“Oh,” he instantly brightened, flashing her his broadest
smile, which always made him look even younger than he was. “No sweat, I mean,
you’ve been sick, right? So I guess a bad mood is understandable.” He chuckled,
then seemed to catch himself. “Not that I’m saying you’re in a bad mood,” he
quickly backtracked. “I just...If you were, it’d be-”

“Grant,” she interjected halting his ramble.

“Yeah?” he responded.

“It’s fine; just sit down,” she urged, noticing for the
first time the file he held in his hand.

Without another word, he shucked his San Francisco Giants’
jacket, tossing it over the back of the couch, before tossing the file on top
of her laptop. Finally, he sat down, rubbing the palms of his hands over his
denim covered thighs as he did so.

“Did Needham send you?” she asked, eyeing the folder
curiously as she took a seat next to him.

“Kyle?” he scoffed. “Hell no,” he chuckled. “I don’t think
he’d be too happy if he knew I was here.”

“So...” she breathed. “I don’t mean for this to sound rude,
but why are you here.”

He grinned broadly at her again, shuffling forwards and
gripping the file excitedly. “I know you said to leave it alone,” he began,
looking very proud of himself as he laid the folder in her lap. “But I
couldn’t, so I did a little more poking around.”

“Grant if this is anything illegal,” she huffed.

Lifting both hands to protest his innocence, he insisted
otherwise. “This is totally on the up and up and absolutely something that we
could use.”

Allie surprised herself with the interest she suddenly had
in what she held in her hands. Quickly she flipped the file open, and found
herself looking at a photograph of a heavily built man. He was climbing the
steps of a building and held an executive valise under his right arm.

“Do you know who that is?” Grant asked, his stubby finger
cutting across Allie’s vision and pointing at the man in the image.

She shook her head with a shrug. “Should I?”

“His name is Richard Langley,” he responded. “He’s a lawyer
for Johnsons, the-”

“Company that’s been building all along the waterfront,”
Allie finished for him. “So, why would he be visiting Pelzer?”

“Ahh,” he cooed excitedly, slipping the top photograph from
beneath her fingers to reveal another one. “The question is, why did he leave
without that suitcase.”

Allie stared at the shot, which judging by the light was
taken no more than an hour after the first. Sure enough, there was Langley
leaving the building, minus the suitcase. “Maybe he just forgot it,” she said
cynically, although her instincts told her that Grant was definitely onto
something.

“Maybe,” he nodded, but the smile on his face told her that
there was still more he hadn’t revealed. Reaching for the photograph, he swiped
it away, leaving a document beneath. “Little strange that Johnsons got the
all-clear to build their new complex the day after though, isn’t it?”

Her eyes growing wide, Allie stared at the photocopied
permit on her lap, before turning her attention to the proud young man by her
side. “Wait, wait,” she paused, forcing herself to see this from their editor’s
perspective. “This is still all pretty circumstantial.”

“Not when you add this to the evidence you’ve already got,
Al,” he urged, barely able to contain his excitement. “Pelzer’s dirty and we’ve
got him.”

She had to admit, he was right; there was only so much
material that could be brushed aside as circumstantial. Once you start getting
a mountain of evidence, it couldn’t so easily be ignored. Allie sighed,
glancing once more at the building permit and two photographs. “Have you shown
this to Needham, yet?”

“No,” he quickly responded, as though he was shocked she’d
even ask. “I mean, it’s your baby.”

Scooping up all the papers and photos, she neatly replaced
them in the file, before handing it back to him. “Not anymore,” she informed
him.

Grant couldn’t have looked more confused if she’d spoken in
Swahili. “What are you talking about?” he blurted.

“You’ve done this on your own,” she stated calmly, smiling
fondly at the young man. “You’ve got the decisive evidence. The story’s yours.”

“But Allie, you did all the work.”

She shook her head sadly. “It’s yours now, Grant,” she
repeated. “I want you to run with it.”

Grant scoffed, half-expecting her to reveal that this had
all been a joke on her part. “I don’t understand,” he muttered. “You were
desperate to crack this and now that we have, you’re not interested anymore?”

“I never said I wasn’t interested,” she corrected him
keeping her temper even. “But I’ve got other things to worry about right now,
so I’m letting you take this.”

“Other things to worry about,” he echoed disbelievingly. “What
the hell’s happened to you? You used to live for this stuff; you were so
passionate about your work, and now what? It doesn’t matter at all?” Unable to
keep his own cool, Grant shot to his feet. “I thought you’d be pleased about
this, that maybe you’d come back to work.”

Slowly, she rose feeling uncomfortable with him looming
agitatedly over her. “I’m proud of you,” she assured him. “And this does
matter,” she added, pointing to the file he clutched firmly between his
fingers. “But it’s not my fight any more.” She watched his crestfallen face
closely, as he gazed at her as if she were a stranger. “Grant, there’s no point
in pretending, so I might as well just tell you...” she paused, inhaling
deeply. “I don’t think I’m going to be coming back to work.”

He exhaled a scoff, before gripping his lip between his
teeth. “You know,” he sighed. “Maybe you’re not the woman I thought you were.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, her hairs
rising.

“Do you have any idea how much I looked up to you; how much
I admired what you did; what you stood for and how driven you were?” As he
spoke he leaned to the couch, swiping his jacket up angrily and tossing it
under his arm. “I thought that if you were passionate about something, that
meant it was worth doing.”

“Look,” she said, reaching out her hand and grasping his
arm.

He snatched it back like he’d been burned. “You know what,”
he yelled. “It’s no big deal,” he shrugged, but the anger in his tone made it
clear that it was indeed a big deal to him. “Your priorities have changed. Now
you’re more focused on your love life, right?”

Allie’s brow crinkled. “What are you talking about?”

“I saw you,” he snapped. “Three weeks ago with some guy in a
bar. Then last week, you were bringing some other dude back to your apartment.
“

“Have you been spying on me?” Allie blurted, her own anger
now reaching boiling point.

“No,” he said defiantly. “I would never do that,” he
insisted. “I just happened to be at the bar that night. And when you stopped
showing up for work, I wanted to know if you were okay, so I came by and that’s
when I saw you again.”

Allie fumed silently for a few seconds, sure he was telling
the truth. “What I do and who I do it with is none of your business,” she
eventually stated through gritted teeth.

“I know,” he shot back. “Believe me, I know.” Then, Grant
began to move, striding for the door. When he reached it, he turned back. “And
I’m also coming to realize that I never knew you at all,” he spat, twisting the
doorknob in a hurry.

Turning to face him, Allie watched silently as he flung the
door open. However, as he began to march through the open door, he stopped and
began reaching for something in his back pocket.

“That reporter from the Examiner, Jack Williams, is still
calling twice a day.” Fishing a card out of his jeans, he tossed it like a
Frisbee into the room. It didn’t go far, only flying enough to manage to rest
on the floor just inside the door. “Maybe with your readjusted priorities,” he
added sarcastically, “you’ll want to get back to him now.” With that, he walked
away, slamming the door behind him.

Allie stood motionless for several moments, just staring at
the wooden door and wondering how that conversation had gone so badly wrong.
She’d never even seen Grant’s temper before. After her shock had subsided, she
wanted to drag him back and tell him that he had no right to be ‘disappointed’
in her; that she’d never asked him to stick her on some pedestal. However, the
cold hard truth was that a part of her was disappointed in herself.  The part that
had striven to be the best, the part that had refused to let the Pelzer story
die, even when Needham told her to drop it. That part of Allie McLaren was
still alive, if much smaller than it had been, and it was looking scornfully on
the decision to turn her back on the story and her work.

Eventually, Allie allowed her eyes to drop from the door and
they inadvertently landed on the small card Grant had left in his wake. She
found her body drawn to the face-down white rectangle, stooping to pick it up
before flicking it the right way round. Her eyes quickly scanned the eagle
emblem and the words SF Examiner and then the contact details of ‘Senior
Journalist, Jack Williams’. She cast her mind back to the day she’d met him,
realizing that at the time, she’d given him very little of her attention. It
had been in the middle of a press conference and she was keen to get back to
the office with the story.

However, she recalled what he’d looked like: reasonably
tall, maybe a little short of six feet; with a tightly-shaved buzz-style cut of
dark hair; she could also remember brown eyes and a hard, defined jawline.  For
some reason, the only other thing that really stuck in her memory was that he
dressed very well, and had smelled good. She’d thought at the time that he
obviously took good care of himself. He was attractive, there was no question
about it, attractive enough to pique her interest now that she was no longer so
preoccupied by the press conference. Moreover, he was single and interested in
her.

Without second guessing herself, Allie turned and strode
further into the room. She grabbed her phone from the small end table at the
far side of the couch, and began to punch in the numbers to his office line. It
wasn’t until the phone started ringing that she wondered if she was doing the
right thing.

“Williams,” he answered briskly.

Allie could hear the tap of a keyboard close by and assumed
he’d either got her on speakerphone or hooked the receiver beneath his chin so
that he could continue working. “Err, hi,” she eventually said. “This is Allie McLaren,”
she introduced herself. “I work for the Chronicle.”

“I know who you are,” he chuckled, the typing suddenly
ceasing. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for weeks.”

“Yeah, I know,” she mumbled, having the good grace to be
embarrassed by her sudden about-face. “I’m sorry about that; things have been
pretty hectic, you know?”

“Sure,” he replied, brushing it off. “So, umm,” he added,
hesitating as he seemed to want to test the waters. “You know I’ve been trying
to ask you out, right?” he wondered lightheartedly.

“Yes,” she responded. “That’s why I was putting you off.”

“Oh?” he muttered quizzical.

“Well, like I said,” she sighed. “Things have been pretty
hectic.”

The tap of a few keys sounded down the phone and Allie
sensed that he was losing interest. “It’s no problem,” he said, seeming to be
focused on something other than the conversation.

“Anyway,” she breathed. “I was hoping that you’d still be
interested in grabbing dinner sometime.”

Once more, the tapping was silenced and she had his
undivided attention. “Absolutely,” he chuckled. “When are you free?”

“How about tomorrow night?” she responded without
hesitation.

“Sounds good to me,” he agreed, the sound of his voice making
it clear that he was grinning into the phone. “You got somewhere in mind?”

“Umm, no, actually.”

“No problem,” he quickly said. “I’ll book somewhere and get
back to you later today with the details.”

“All right,” she smiled. “I look forward to it.”

“Me too,” he responded.

As Allie said goodbye and replaced the receiver, she felt
the first flutters of excitement in her belly. There was something sexy about
Jack Williams and, with any luck at all, she wouldn’t be plagued with any
doubts or thoughts of certain ‘other men’; to be more specific, another man, on
this date.

Home Sweet Home

J
ack was exactly as Allie had hoped he’d be. He
was funny, smart and interested in her work. And, more importantly, he made no
attempt to hide his attraction to her. Throughout dinner, he took every
opportunity to touch her, whether it was her hand, her arm and even, at one
point, her ass. It was just the lightest brush, as they were getting up to
leave. It could have been an accident, but Allie sensed that it was very
deliberate. She certainly didn’t mind and even encouraged it by grinning
broadly at him.

“So,” he sighed, guiding her out of the restaurant. “Can I
take you home?”

Allie glanced up into his rich brown eyes. There was a grin
on his face that suggested he had other things in mind than just dropping her
at the door. She found her eyes unconsciously running down the length of his
body, taking in his gray suit with light blue dress shirt. Her gaze lingered
over the crotch of his pants, before moving slowly back up to his face. “It’s
the twenty first century,” she shrugged. “How about I take you home?” She
beamed mischievously at him and lifted a suggestive eyebrow.

He chuckled in reply. “Sounds good to me,” he added, tipping
his face to hers and kissing her temple. “You’re not going to try anything
though, are you?” he added, bouncing off her joke.

Her smile widened. “You’ll have to wait and see,” she said,
stepping forward with a coquettish sway of her hips.

Jack quickly strode forward, nestling his hip against her as
they reached the sidewalk. “You should come and work for the Examiner,” he
hummed thoughtfully, as he lifted his hand at a cab parked a few feet down the
street. “I think we’d have a lot of fun together.”

“Maybe,” Allie conceded, “but if we worked together, we
wouldn’t be doing this.”

“Why not?” he asked, keeping his hand in the air, but
twisting his head over his shoulder to look at her.

“I don’t have sex with men I work with,” she told him simply
and unapologetically.

“Oh, I see,” he replied, grinning. “So, you are going to try
to take advantage of me tonight?”

Allie’s focus moved to the cab that was drawing to a halt
beside them. “Like I said,” she quipped saucily. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

He chuckled; a deep throaty, sexy noise. Then, finally
noticing the car, he reached forward and opened the rear door. “After you,” he
encouraged, wrapping his free arm around her waist and guiding her into the
back of the car.

She had been about to stop him and insist that he go first,
continuing their running gag. However, the feel of his strong, warm arm around
her was too good to pass up. Before she bent down to slip into the car, she
rose on to her tiptoes and kissed him gratefully on the cheek. “Thank you,” she
whispered, gradually pulling back and lowering herself onto the back seat.

Jack inhaled sharply, breathing in the scent of her perfume,
before quickly following. He was so fast, that she was still scooting across
the bench seat and he watched appreciatively, as her skirt rode up her thigh.
When she was settled, he climbed in and slammed the door firmly behind him.
“Seventh Avenue,” he told the driver, leaning forward slightly, before reclining
into the seat and turning his upper body so that he was facing Allie. “Let me
ask you something,” he said, his voice suddenly low and intimate. His hand
drifted forwards and he placed his fingers on her stocking-covered knee with a
familiarity that would have suggested they’d been dating for months. “How come
you have this reputation?”

Allie’s eyes watched his long, strong, masculine fingers
drawing lazy patterns on her leg and causing the alluring scratch of flesh on
nylon to fill the otherwise quiet car. “What reputation?” she managed to ask,
her focus remaining on the soft, hypnotic action of his hand.

“Well,” he hesitated, choosing his words with great care.
“When I first told a couple of my colleagues that I’d met you and was trying to
get you to come out for dinner, they told me not to bother.”

“They said, I’m only interested in work?” she offered. “That
I’m a man-hating bitch?”

“No,” he quickly insisted, but the smile on his face told
her that she had come close to what he’d heard about her. “But, yeah, they
thought you were very work-orientated and that not much else mattered to you.”

She turned to face him, careful to move gradually, so she
wouldn’t disrupt his fingers. However, he did slide them back. Allie bent her
right leg, tucking the ankle beneath her butt, mirroring his body, and nestling
her knee against his. “Appearances can be deceiving,” she told him, her hand
resting on his thigh and slowly working its way up. Deliberately, she allowed
just the backs of her fingers to lightly brush his groin, before stroking her
way back down to his knee. “That’s something people in our line of work learn
quickly, isn’t it?” she asked, propping her free elbow on the back of the seat
and leaning her head on her palm.

Jack kept his eyes on her face, appearing as though he was
unaware of what her left hand was doing on his leg, as it gradually moved back
up once more. “That’s very true,” he stated calmly, the corners of his mouth
twitching upward.

“So, is that why you were so persistent?” she queried, this
time allowing her fingertips to go all the way to his belt and looping
momentarily inside it.

“What do you mean?” he countered, his brain still remaining
focused on the conversation.

“Was it the challenge?” she clarified. “Everybody said I was
the untouchable ice queen, so you wanted to achieve something no other man
had?”

His smile widened and he swiftly covered her hand with his
own. “No,” he whispered, as he removed her fingers from his belt and placed her
palm directly over his groin, pushing her firmly against his manhood. “I was
persistent, because you turn me on.”

“Really?” she asked, slowly rolling the heel of her hand
over his penis and finding it only partially hard.

“Yes,” he nodded, increasing the pressure of his fingers
over hers and coaxing it into a stroking action. “The real question, Ms. McLaren,”
he continued, staring deep into her eyes. “Is why you suddenly changed your
mind?”

Allie felt him beginning to swell and lengthen beneath her
touch. She glanced furtively to her left, noting the driver’s eyes in the rear
view mirror and wondering just how much of what they were doing could be seen.
However, the concern wasn’t great enough for her to pull away from Jack. In
fact, she realized the cab driver watching was enhancing her excitement.
Smiling, her head snapped back to the man by her side. “I suppose I just found
time for you,” she breathed.

“Well, I’m very glad you did,” he chuckled, using his other
hand to tuck a strand of her chestnut hair behind her ear. His fingers lingered
there, caressing her cheek, before leisurely stroking down her neck.  When he
got to her collarbone, he traced the ridge with his index finger. “Can I kiss
you?” he asked quietly.

Allie was slight taken aback. It was not a question she’d
ever been asked, and while she’d always assumed hearing the request spoken
aloud would seem cheesy and gauche, the way in which Jack said it, as though it
was something he’d been longing to do all night, was bizarrely gentlemanly
given where her hand was. And, at the same time, it sent a flood of arousal
between her legs. “Please,” she begged, breathlessly.

The old leather seat of the cab squeaked as he shuffled
forward, wrapping his fingers around the back of her neck and pulling her to
him, as he leaned into her. She was transfixed by his lips as they drew
inexorably, but unbearably slowly, towards her face. They were a soft pink,
almost like a woman’s lips. However, the five o’clock shadow above and beneath
them was unmistakably masculine. When he was no more than a breath from her,
Allie allowed her eyes to slip closed.

It was a gentle touch of mouths, just the smallest taste.
Jack pulled back, but only slightly, seeming to gauge her reaction. Allie
couldn’t have made her feelings more clear. She eagerly lunged forwards,
closing the small gap and kissing him back with passion. Her mouth moved
quickly over his, her soft skin being scraped by the rough stubble on his upper
lip and chin. Jack was soon matching her enthusiasm, sending his tongue
questing forth. With a moan of gratitude, Allie parted her lips, welcoming him
hungrily. She was unaware of the movement of her hand, but it was rubbing
rhythmically up and down the length of his rigid shaft and Jack’s hips rocked
in response. His fingers were tangling in her hair at the back of her head and
tugging lightly at her scalp. This also caused Allie to moan and, as she did,
Jack’s tongue slipped further into her mouth. It moved expertly, changing
speeds; lingering over the roof of her mouth, before entwining frenziedly with
hers.

Allie was losing herself to the sensation, becoming restless
with her hips and began to breathe frantically. There was no longer any
question that the breathy moans and whimpers would have been obvious to the
driver. But by that point, she would have been prepared to make a spectacle of
herself in front of hundreds of people, never mind one.

Jack’s hands were suddenly on her legs, smoothing up the
soft nylon of her stockings and creeping beneath her dress. When the tips of
his fingers met the lacy stocking tops, he caressing the soft skin of her upper
thighs. “Oh, yeah,” he moaned against her lips, as he continued to explore the
edge of her stockings.

Suddenly aware of how rapidly her hand was moving over the
front of his pants, Allie forced herself to stop and then resumed the action
much more slowly, worried that he might ejaculate far too soon. “I’m sorry,”
she whispered breathlessly, opting for a more soothing rubbing action.

“It’s okay,” he replied, between desperate, lustful kisses.
“Hmm, Allie,” he groaned, trailing his kisses to her ear, before taking the
lobe between his teeth.

“Ahh,” she moaned happily, tipping her head to one side to
give him greater access to her. She was snapped from that delightful reverie
when he gave a groan of frustration and removed his face from hers. As he
leaned back, he was chuckling, but it was clear that he was displeased with
something. Allie was confused over what had upset him and why he’d stopped.
“Wh-” she began to ask, when the jangle of a cell phone cut her off.  It took a
moment for the penny to drop. It was her phone. Glancing around the back of the
cab, she searched for her purse, eventually finding it on the floor. “I’m
sorry,” she giggled, as Jack’s laughter began to become infectious. “When I
find it, I’ll turn it off, I promise.”

“It’s all right,” he mumbled. “It might be important.”

Pulling her phone from her purse, Allie turned to face him
and saw her lipstick smudged all around his mouth. It made him look even
sexier. “No,” she insisted, shaking her head. “Whatever it is, it can’t be any
more important than this.” By the time she got the phone out of her bag, it had
stopped ringing. There was a text message from a number she didn’t recognize
and, although she was tempted to leave it unread, the moment was killed for the
time being. So there seemed no harm. Tapping the screen, she used her other
hand to gently wipe some of the red off Jack’s upper lip. He peered at her
quizzically, until she showed him her lipstick stained thumb.

When her focus drifted back to the phone, she wished she had
never scooped the thing out of her purse. ‘Hey, Al. I know we said that we’d
just let things lie between us, but I can’t stop thinking about you. I really
need to talk. Please call me. Love, Reece’

Allie felt the color drain from her face, but hoped it
didn’t show. That hope was in vein.

“Is something wrong?” Jack asked, leaning forwards.

Quickly, Allie tossed the phone onto the empty seat next to
her, keeping it face down. “No,” she said, a little too brightly.

“Are you sure?” he continued to probe. “Not that it’s any of
my business, it just looks like whatever it was has upset you.”

“It’s umm...” she stalled, realizing that her attempt to
hide her distress was pointless and would only increase his suspicion. “It’s
complicated,” she replied truthfully. “But it’s fine.”

“You know,” Jack hedged, seeming reluctant to say what was
on his mind. “If you have to go, I’ll understand.”

Allie didn’t know how to reply. She had been having a
wonderful time with Jack, and Reece
had
been the furthest thing from her
mind. She had felt certain that she would have enjoyed the rest of the evening.
But things were suddenly very different and she didn’t want Reece to haunt her
as he had when she’d been with Patrick. The signs were already appearing; her
desire for Jack, which had been at boiling point, had suddenly abandoned her. A
part of her believed that the best course of action would be to go home,
perhaps pick up her date with Jack another time. However, as the phrase,
‘another time’ drifted through her consciousness, she countered it with, ‘there
may not be another time’.  That was the whole point of what she was doing,
living for the moment, because she didn’t know whether she would have a
tomorrow.

“Allie?” Jack nudged, placing a hand around her shoulders.

As if suddenly brought out of a dream, she twisted to face
him. Her eyes took in his strong features and the red that was still staining
his lower lip. Silently, she asked herself whether she really wanted to pass up
the opportunity to be with this man. The answer came much more easily than
she’d expected. “No,” she said aloud, shaking her head. “I don’t need to go.”

The car was coming to a halt and the driver yelled the cost
of the fare over his shoulder. “Are you sure?” Jack asked, his attention
tightly focused on Allie.

Allie peered over his shoulder and out the window to the
apartment building. It was a cute converted townhouse, with a four concrete
steps leading up to it. “Get me inside,” she whispered, before her eyes drifted
back to Jack’s face. “I want you to take my clothes off.”