Tempting Faith (Indigo Love Spectrum) (11 page)

“We were just two frustrated, lonely kids back then,” Zander said. “Things change.”

“Yes, they do,” Faith agreed. “Now we’re two frustrated, lonely adults with some unfinished business.”

“Look, out me or don’t, but quit waving it over my head.”

“I’m not talking about a story,” she said. She took a quick, deep breath, steeling herself for her next words. “I still have feelings for you. And until I know what to do with them, I won’t know what to do with your story. And what’s more, I think you have feelings for me, too.”

Avoiding her eyes, he said, “Faith, you’re talking about something that happened a long time ago. You can’t expect that I still—”

“Then why are you still holding my hand?”

He looked down but made no move to release her hand.

“Kiss me.”

He grunted in surprise, his gaze going straight to her lovely lips.

“Kiss me, and if you can honestly say that you feel nothing for me, then I’ll drop your story.”

“A kiss for your silence,” he said. “Sounds like a good trade.”

He lowered his head to kiss her, but she pulled back. “Only if the kiss doesn’t mean anything to you,” she emphasized.

“And if it does?”

“Then I want full disclosure. I want to know everything you’ve done since the day you left Dorothy.”

“What do you plan to do with that information? Assuming your hypothesis is correct and your kiss makes me sing like a canary.”

“That’s still up in the air,” she said. “I still have a job to do, and a scoop is a scoop. The story is going to get out, Alex, and I might as well be the person to write it. The more information I have, the better job I’ll do. It’ll be good for both of us.”

“Then I guess we’d better get on with settling this.” Taking her by the waist, he drew her against him. He gently smoothed her hair away from her face, and instantly he realized how much he missed the curls he had so adored back in Dorothy. With her skin warming his palms and her hands relaxed against his chest, he knew that he had been tricked, not by Faith, but by his own heart. For so many years, he’d told himself that she was better off without him, that she was too good for him. He now understood one simple fact: He had to have Faith.

Her image now and the one he’d carried in his memory for so long smoothly merged. He wouldn’t have thought it possible for her to have grown more beautiful. There had been days when he’d been working at the auto shop, and as darkness fell, the lights in the studio above McGill’s Pharmacy would burn into the night. Mesmerized, he would watch Faith extend her arms and legs into positions both graceful and impossible, and he wouldn’t blink for fear of missing even the most subtle curve of a finger.

That vision of her had been burned into his brain. Now, with her smile both wary and eager, her eyes deep and dark and holding curiosities he could only imagine, she was as lovely and every bit as powerful as she had been all those years ago. He closed the distance between her lips and his.

Faith’s hands tightened, her spine relaxed, and her body bowed into Zander’s. His hands clenched handfuls of her blouse as the delicate brush of lips evolved into deeper exploration, a sharing of textures, a complete re-education.

Her fingers moved into the hair at his nape, the silkiness she found there so familiar even if the cut and color were not. The heat of his mouth warmed her all over, and in trying to get even closer to him, she pushed him into one of the columns.

Everything below Zander’s waist hardened as he braced himself against the column and Faith wrapped herself around him. He raised his chin, giving her access to his neck, and she took full advantage of it. As his hands moved over her backside, Zander imagined her wrapped in the petal-pink leotards she’d worn when she danced.

Her body was fuller, but just as firm and supple as it had been that last time he’d kissed her. She was more confident in how to use it, her movements eliciting reactions that made him ache and shiver.

“Faith,” he exhaled into her neck, marking her flesh with searing kisses that invited her to touch him more intimately.

She ran a hand along his inner thigh, stopping just short of the hard knot behind the fly of his jeans. Zander whimpered when she drew back altogether, her lips giving his lower one a slight tug in the process.

“Well?” she asked, pressing the back of her hand to her kiss-swollen lips. “Did you feel that?”

Still slumped against the column, he untucked his shirt and let it fall past his hips to cover his answer. Faith’s smile was so smug, so satisfied and so sinfully delicious, Zander could only bang his head against the column in frustrated surrender.

“So I guess I’ll have my people contact your people to set up an interview,” she said brightly.

“Do that,” he said. “I lost.”

“Did you?” Faith replied, lifting a finely arched eyebrow.

With that, she backed a few steps away before turning and heading for the exit.

* * *

Magda’s desktop was empty but for her candy dish, her phone and a grainy eight-by-ten glossy of a couple kissing against a column in the lobby of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Chomping on a length of watermelon taffy that gave the office the sent of a kindergarten classroom, Magda got right down to business.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t fire you right now,” she said.

“Because I’m one of your best writers,” Faith said.

“Not good enough. Try again.”

“Because we’re friends,” Faith suggested.

“I never let friendship interfere with business. Next.”

“Because you can’t see the face of the woman Zander Baron is kissing,” Faith said wearily, rubbing her forehead. What she really wanted to do was kick herself. Paparazzi had been all over the hotel, and even though she and Zander had been pretty far back in the lobby, there was little a well-aimed telephoto lens would have missed. She’d been concerned with one thing only—finding out if Brent was right about Zander’s feelings. Her own agenda had trumped that of the magazine’s, and she’d broken one of the cardinal rules of reporting. She’d lost her objectivity.

“Bingo, kiddo.” Magda sat back in her chair and began unwrapping a fresh rope of taffy, this one strawberry. “I liked the
Monkeying Around with Harley Tatum
piece. Daiyu’s photo is going on the cover. I don’t know how that man managed it, but he looks handsome
and
charming with that gorilla in his arms.”

“Orangutan,” Faith said.

“Whatever.” As if throwing down a gauntlet, Magda tossed the remainder of her taffy onto her desk. “We need to talk, Scoop. I can’t have one of my reporters running around with the new It Kid. It compromises the integrity of the magazine. It took me years to re-shape
Personality!
’s image from a run-of-the-mill tabloid specializing in catching married celebs climbing out of their mistress’ windows to a legitimate rival to
People
, and you being shot making out with Zander Baron—”

“It won’t happen again,” Faith said.

“How’s the Baron piece coming along?”

“I’ve hit a kink.”

“A kink. A kink is not good. Describe it, and I’ll tell you how to untangle it.”

Faith sat on the arm of one of the chairs facing Magda’s desk. She had always appreciated Magda’s cool efficiency and relentless professionalism. Her unique ability to be domineering yet endearing, had earned the loyalty and trust of her staff, her readers and the celebrities whose lives she used to fill the pages of
Personality!

There was no problem she couldn’t handle. Temperamental stars, demanding agents, obnoxious publicists, reporters and photographers who filed their stories late—all child’s play for Magda, who at thirty-three was
Personality!
’s youngest managing editor ever.

“Have you ever gone into something expecting it to be one thing, and you come out on the other side and it’s something totally different?” Faith asked.

“Guess what I hate more than cellulite?” Magda responded.

“What?” Faith asked.

“Riddles. Spit it out, Faith. What’s the deal with the Baron story?”

Faith’s amusement withered. “Remember when I first proposed doing a piece on Zander Baron?”

“Yes,” Magda said, stretching the syllable out to indicate her mounting impatience. “I told you to go for it. You’re a talented writer, an excellent interviewer and you’ve never let me down when it comes to finding creative ways to get a story.” She glanced at the photo. “I don’t exactly sanction this particular approach to an interview, but I don’t know…” She laced her fingers behind her head and reclined in her chair. “Baron’s a looker. I might have done the same thing, given the chance. I figured the Baron story would be a slam-dunk for you.”

“It is.” Faith stood and paced in a small circle, holding her head in both hands. The flared sleeves of her pale pink tunic slid up to her elbows. “It was.”

Magda’s nose for news caught a scent. She perked up and straightened in her chair. “You uncovered something good, didn’t you?” She pressed a button on her phone, activating the intercom. “No calls, Butchy, thanks,” she said into the speaker, then disconnected. She leaned to one side to see past Faith.

“What are you doing?” Faith asked.

“Looking for shadows under the door,” Magda whispered. “Butchy has taken to eavesdropping.”

Faith looked and saw a pair of blunted shadows at the seam where the bottom of the door almost met the carpeting.

“Butchy’s the cutest receptionist I’ve ever had, but he’s one nosy bastard,” Magda said. “He’s always trying to get an angle on where to send his head shots and resumés. This is the last time I hire a model turned actor turned administrative assistant.”

After the shadows disappeared, Magda said, “Okay, we’re in the Butchy-free zone now. So what did you get on him? Is it major?”

“To him.”

Magda rested her elbows on her desk and rocked forward. “He killed someone, didn’t he?”

Faith swallowed hard, unexpected emotion forming a hard lump in her throat. “Kind of.”

“Who?” Magda asked hungrily. “His mom? His dad? An old girlfriend? I always thought he had the look of a fugitive. Give me the goods, doll!”

Her heart heavy with somber remembrance, Faith averted her eyes as she answered. “His mother died in what was called a household accident about eight years ago, but the consensus was that his dad gave her one beating too many. His father died of cirrhosis a couple of years after that. He’d been dead in his trailer for a week before he was found.”

Magda’s excitement died. “Jeez, Faith,” she gasped. “The kid’s got more family drama than Hamlet. It kind of contradicts the 4-1-1 Baxter and Baxter have been peddling all these years.”

“It certainly does,” Faith agreed somberly.

“Yet I still detect a trace of Eau de Scandal,” Magda said. “Tell.”

“I’m not sure I can.”

Taken aback, Magda’s expression cooled. “This isn’t a congressional hearing, kiddo. I’m not going to subpoena you or hold you in contempt if you don’t tell me his big secret. But as your managing editor, I can reassign you. I can give the Baron piece to another writer. I already know that I don’t have one who’ll show the same sensitivity and concern for Baron. His story is a career-making piece. Have you lost sight of that?”

Faith displayed the West Virginia backbone that had gotten her this far in her career. “Do what you have to, but I won’t give my research to another writer.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” Magda said gently. “For right now, just answer me this: Why does the Zander Baron story have you so alloverish?”

A short laugh burst from Faith, which defused some of the tension. Faith admired anew the tightrope Magda walked between friend and boss. “I know him. We grew up in the same place.”

“How is that possible, Faith? You’re from some mining town in West Virginny. Zander was raised in Wyoming.”

Color flooded Faith’s cheeks. “Well, Dorothy was the name of the town, but Zander and I lived in an area called Booger Hollow.”

Magda’s jaw ticked. “Suave, sexy, mysterious Zander Baron is a Booger Hollow boy from WV? Is that what you’re hiding?”

“I’m not hiding it,” Faith protested. “He is.”

“Well, hell, if the boys in Booger Hollow look like Z.B., then I’m calling my realtor,” Magda said.

“They don’t,” Faith assured. “Zander was truly one of a kind. In high school, all the girls were crazy about him.”

“You, too?”

Faith studied her thumbnails. “He was so…”

“Mysterious,” Magda said.

“And…”

“Dark,” Magda purred.

“Yes. And he was so handsome it hurt to look at him. He was the only boy who looked like a man.”

“No wonder Olivia Baxter snared him. Do you know where she comes in?”

“He literally ran into her, or she ran into him, when he came out here. I’m not exactly sure when he ended up in L.A., but he disappeared from Dorothy when he was nineteen.”

“Disappeared?”

“There was a flood,” Faith explained, her voice tremulous. “It was bad. Sixty people were injured, and the guy you know as Zander Baron died.”

“Disappeared,” Magda said.

“Left,” Faith conceded. “I took it very personally. We, uh…” Suddenly feeling very self conscious, she cleared her throat.

“Yes?” Magda prompted.

“He was special to me. I thought I was special to him, too.”

“And this brings us to the kink,” Magda murmured. “He abandoned you, Faith. You don’t owe him a thing now.”

“I know. But I’m not sure I have it in me to betray him.”

“I’m not unsympathetic to the position you’re in. As a friend, I’d tell you that you need to meet with this man and find some closure. Real closure, not hormonally-charged tonsil hockey in the lobby of the Wilshire. But as your managing editor, I’d have to be insane to pass up a chance at a cover story revealing the secret origin of Zander Baron.

“May I assume that you wrote for the
Booger Hollow Gazette
in your spare time?” Magda teased, easing the tension.

“It was the
Lincoln High Observer
, and no, I didn’t write for it,” Faith said. “My father thought reporting would take too much time away from my schoolwork. He wouldn’t let me participate in too many extracurriculars in school. I was a cheerleader, but my parents also had me in ballet, piano, French and drawing classes outside school.”