Chapter 41
FORTY-ONE
Derek couldn’t believe he was sitting in a restaurant with a woman wearing white fuzzy slippers.
It was only a casual Mexican restaurant, but he still was going to take a wild guess that Reese was the only one who had terry cloth on her feet.
Yet she looked adorable, strolling around wearing a tank top and his jeans.
They kept sliding low on her hips, exposing her midriff, and she had rolled the bottoms up above her ankles so she wasn’t walking on them.
Derek was starting to get a bad feeling. That he was forgetting to think of Reese as temporary. Fun while it lasted.
He was enjoying her company too much and was having trouble concentrating on anything other than making her go weak with pleasure in his arms. He needed to regain control, drag himself back into reality and remember what exactly was at stake here.
His career.
Long after Reese trotted back off to New York and resumed her life, he had to live here in Chicago, working for the Bureau for the next twenty years. He had no interest in spending that time pushing papers or taking an involuntary transfer to Podunk, Nowhere.
That case had to work out. Delco needed to be indicted.
“So, tell me again exactly what your plans are for the next few weeks?” He bit a tortilla chip and forced himself to relax back into the booth.
“You know there’s a giant maraca over your head?” Reese was looking above him as she sipped her enormous margarita that was the most horrifying blue color he’d ever seen.
Nothing could make him drink something that looked like toilet bowl cleaner.
As he tilted his head back to check out the hot pink and tan maraca swaying behind him, he realized she had effectively distracted him again.
“Reese. Forget the maraca. Tell me your plans.”
“Well, you know, Knight, sometimes we need to just go with the flow, you know? Well, that’s what I’m doing.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means I quit my job with the Newark News and I’m planning on staying here until the Delco story breaks.”
Of course. What had he been thinking? “Working for Ashton Chatterton?”
“Yes.”
He needed a beer. Flagging the waiter over, he said to Reese, “What happens when Chatterton figures out you’re not the bride’s cousin? If he looks into your background, you could jeopardize this case.”
“Oh, give me a flipping break. If Chatterton figures me out, then why in the world would he connect a reporter from the Newark News, small-time East Coast rag, with the FBI investigating Delco for international price-fixing?”
She had a point. But the whole thing still made him nervous.
After ordering the beer, he said, “Yeah, but you can’t be involved in the investigation, so why bother? If you want to still stick around for the story to break and you need money, you can be a server or something.”
Given the narrowing of her eyes, he suspected she wasn’t pleased with his suggestion.
“I don’t want to be a server because there would be no point in that! And why can’t I help you in this investigation? I could speed things up, I know I could. Or at the very least conduct my own independent journalistic investigation. ”
“You could screw things up, is what you could do.”
“You trust that guy, Markson, but not me?” Her voice rose and he panicked.
“Christ, keep it down. You’re yelling out the name of a CW in a public place!”
She snorted. “No one gives a crap. They’re all stuffing their faces with burritos after a miserable Monday back at work. There are no corporate spies lingering around the guacamole at Amigo’s.”
“This is why you cannot be involved in this case. You have no sense of discretion.”
“Uhh!” She gasped and set her margarita down, sending the blue liquid sloshing over the sides. “I am so goddamn discreet, I’m practically invisible. And don’t you dare take that patronizing tone with me. You can’t forbid me to work for Chatterton.”
Not at the moment. But Derek was sure if he thought about it hard enough, he could figure out a way to do that.
But did he really want to make an enemy out of Reese?
God only knew what she was capable of doing when she was angry.
And she knew a lot about the Delco case, thanks to Markson’s rental car goof.
“Look, don’t get so upset. I’m not forbidding you to work for Chatterton.”
The soothing tone didn’t seem to placate her.
“You know, Knight, I’m not one of those wait-at-home types and I wish you would just figure that out once and for all.
I told you right off the bat that I’m a straight-talking career woman, and you said you liked that about me.
But the truth is, that’s not what you want.
You want one of those soft-spoken agreeable women who will greet you at the door wearing an apron, the kids all pink from their baths, and smiles on their faces. ”
She had lost him. Completely and utterly lost him. How had they gone from Delco to his fictitious wife and kids?
“I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
She went on like he’d never spoken. “Which is fine, because you’re entitled to want what you want.
But the thing is, I don’t like being compared to a pie-baking paragon who doesn’t even exist, and I don’t like you implying that I don’t have the brains or the professionalism to assist this investigation. ”
Derek opened his mouth, not at all sure what was going to come out of it.
But she kept going, the pause apparently just for air. “So the thing is, you have to either accept me just the way I am, unable to boil water and working for Chatterton, or the whole thing is just off. Off.”
Reese took a sip of her drink, waiting for his response.
She didn’t want to stop seeing him, but she had to make her point clear.
There was no way she would ever be Holly Homemaker and she didn’t even want to try.
And it didn’t matter because they both knew their relationship was only temporary, but she didn’t want any misunderstanding and she did not want him talking to her like she was clueless.
Knight just stared at her, a blank look on his face. Then he said, “Does this mean you’re not going to spend the night with me?”
Brought up short by his question, Reese thought about it.
Not have sex with him anymore? She really didn’t think that’s what she had meant at all.
There was no actual good reason they couldn’t keep seeing each other as long as he understood the score—that this was just a short-term thing and that he could not force her to leave Delco.
Besides, she was finding out that Knight was like potato chips. Once you tasted one, you wanted the whole bag. She was pretty sure she’d only made a small dent in the bag so far and she wanted to keep eating until she was full. Engorged, really.
“Well, no, not exactly. We can still do that as long as you understand I’m not quitting the Delco job.” She quickly added, “And that I’ll never cook anything for you. Ever.”
Knight stopped peeling the label off his beer bottle. “How about you agree to stay out of my job and I’ll agree to stay out of yours?”
He grinned, a slow, cocky grin that turned her insides into spicy salsa. “And that when I hand you the scoop for this story, like I’ve been promising since day one, you will bake me a pie from scratch.”
If he wanted to throw up from her baking, that was his business. Besides, she’d never completely believed that he would give her the story. If he did, she’d gladly bake him a pie. “What kind?”
“Pumpkin.”
“Fine.” By the time this case wrapped, every store in town would have pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving. She’d just buy him one and fake it.
“And I get to watch you making it.”
Dammit. He knew her too well.
“Fine,” she said, significantly cooler this time.
Knight laughed out loud.