Chapter 55
FIFTY-FIVE
Reese was on edge. She crossed and recrossed her legs in the conference room the next day, ignoring the chatter of the executives as she thought about last night.
It had been more than good sex. It had been more than mind-blowing sex. It had been a connection, an intimacy she’d never felt with any other man ever.
Yet this morning Knight had said nothing about his stunning pre-orgasm revelation. Instead, he had grumbled about her hogging the sheet, had stumbled off to the shower with barely a backwards glance, and had kissed her on the forehead before leaving to meet the other agents.
The forehead.
The bleeping forehead.
More than likely he was totally regretting his words, remembering that she wouldn’t exactly fit the yoga pants he had mentally picked out for his perfect suburban wife.
Yet his distance this morning equal parts pissed her off and broke her heart. She should never have told him she loved him back.
Geez. Her stomach rolled and pitched and she felt like she’d come down with a wicked case of PMS. Bloated and weepy, capable of biting off the head of the next man who dared to speak to her.
“Reese, can you get me some coffee?” Chatterton waved his hand towards the coffeepot on the buffet table.
Reese sighed. “Sure.” At least Chatterton hadn’t come on to her. Whoopee.
Jenkins was standing by the coffeepot and he gave her a sly look. She glared at him.
“That for Stan, Reese?”
Oh, Lord. She’d forgotten about the debacle in the lobby yesterday. Jenkins clearly hadn’t. Office innuendos were beginning. She was so not in the mood.
“No, Stan already had his coffee this morning. In bed.” That ought to shut him up.
It did. Jenkins gaped at her, his hand frozen on his tie where he was adjusting it. Reese dumped coffee in a cup and stomped off towards Chatterton. The executives were chitchatting and she was considering claiming a headache.
She had her interview with Markson. She was of no use here to anyone, as Knight had told her on more than one occasion.
After she passed off the coffee, she sat down again and blinked hard.
Her nose was itching and her eyes were watering.
It had to be from the ugly flower arrangement sitting next to her on the end table.
Why anyone would use gladiolas to fill a vase when there were gobs of gorgeous native flowers right outside, she couldn’t even begin to imagine.
Dammit, her eyes were stinging, welling with tears, in what had to be a sudden allergy to ugly flowers, not any reaction to Knight’s ambivalent behavior that morning. She picked up the vase and crossed the room, sticking it in the corner behind a big blue chair.
“Reese,” Chatterton called to her a minute later. “Your purse is ringing.”
“What the hell is she doing?” Maddock stopped pacing in their surveillance room and stared at the screen in disbelief.
Derek knew the feeling. “I have no goddamn idea.”
After sniping at Jenkins with a comment that had confused the hell out of Derek, Reese had suddenly picked up the vase with the camera hidden in it. Their only view of the room now was of the back of a chair.
He hadn’t told Reese where the camera would be hidden, afraid she would clue in the executives to its presence with her less-than-subtle behavior. But he had never anticipated her moving the camera, for fuck’s sake.
Grabbing the room phone, he took deep breaths and prayed her cell phone was on. He could feel Nordstrom’s hands on his throat already.
“Hello?” she snarled into the phone.
Before the camera had disappeared, he’d noticed her body language was a little tense. He wondered if the tension in the room among the executives was getting to her.
Or maybe she was tired. He hadn’t let her sleep a whole lot the night before. Not that this was a good time to be thinking about that.
“Reese, honey, it’s me.”
There was a long pause. Then she whispered, “Why the hell are you calling me? We’re in the meeting.”
“Well.” He rubbed his eyes and watched the chair on the screen. “Honey, you moved the camera. It was hidden in the flower arrangement. You’ve got to put it back.”
She made a sound of exasperation. “Well, if you had trusted me enough to tell me in the first place, we wouldn’t have this problem.”
Then she hung up.
Derek sank back in his chair and said to Maddock, “I think she’s going to move it.” Not that he could ever be sure with Reese.
Man, he had screwed up last night. Of all times to tell her that he was in love with her, he had picked in the middle of sex. That was a total cop out.
She had probably answered in kind just to get him to hurry up. He’d had her on the edge of an orgasm, she wasn’t going to stop and discuss their relationship.
Not that she had that morning. Instead, she’d shot him wary glances, making him uncomfortable. It was like she was afraid he was going to lose it and blabber out a marriage proposal or something.
Which he wasn’t going to do, because Reese would say no. Hell, he didn’t even know if she was planning to stay in Chicago.
“Hey, you know, Derek, I’ve been debating whether or not I should tell you this.”
Derek snapped his head up. Maddock sounded nervous and was running his hand through his hair.
“What is it, Wyatt?”
“Yesterday I was in the lobby...” Maddock squirmed, shooting uneasy glances toward the technical agent, who had earphones on listening to the executives in the meeting.
“Yeah?”
“And ...” Maddock finally met his eye. “I saw Reese with Markson.”
While he didn’t like the sound of that, he wasn’t totally alarmed yet. “So?”
“They were touching each other, um, inappropriately.”
Another time he might have laughed at Maddock’s awkward explanation but instead he was so floored he just gaped. “What?”
“Jenkins and Goldberg saw, too. I think that explains that comment Jenkins made to her about the coffee.” Maddock was grimacing. “It was in an alcove, behind a potted plant, but I could see...well, I could see.”
There was no way. There was absolutely no way. He was as sure of that as he was of his own name. Reese would never, ever, in a million years. And with Markson? Not in this lifetime. The man wore argyle socks. Plus, he was married. Reese would never hook up with a married man.
“Maddock, that’s nuts. Reese wouldn’t do that.” But he wasn’t disbelieving that she was talking to Markson without his knowledge. Probably for some kind of reason he wasn’t going to like.
“If you say so,” Maddock said, sounding completely unconvinced.
The picture on the TV screen bounced as Reese walked the vase back across the room. She plunked it down hard, and when it had stopped vibrating, they had a clear shot of everyone in the room except Reese. Perfect.
Derek breathed a sigh of relief.
Maddock swore, giving a little laugh.
No laughter was coming out of Derek until he resolved this. “Hey, Wyatt, can you hold down the fort for ten minutes?” While he went and searched through Reese’s possessions.
She wanted to be a serious journalist. If she were talking to Markson, there would be notes.
He couldn’t believe it.
There in Reese’s briefcase on a yellow legal pad sat notes of a full interview with Markson, where it seemed pretty obvious he had spilled everything.
His first contact with the FBI, everything he had given the agents in terms of evidence, and his motivation to see the bad guys at Delco put behind bars.
From the looks of her scratched notes, Reese was already organizing it into a news story, and Derek felt equal parts baffled and furious. How could she do that? Releasing an interview like this, even after a raid on Delco, could tip off the hands of the defense lawyers and jeopardize prosecution.
It was betrayal, plain and simple. He had trusted her, and she had betrayed him.
Derek shoved Reese’s notes back into her bag. He had to get back to the surveillance room and see if any progress had been made.
Despite the fact that he felt like someone had sucker punched him, he still had a job to do.
And maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised. Derek glanced around the room they had been sharing and shook his head, sticking his key back into the pocket of his pants. Hadn’t he always guessed Reese was all about getting ahead in the game, no matter what she had to do to get there?
Yet like an idiot, he’d fallen for her, letting her manipulate him, then in a final humiliation, had told her that he loved her.
Maddock gave him a look of concern when he entered the room. “Everything alright?”
The look of pity on the agent’s face made his stomach turn and his anger rise another notch. “It’s fine. Reese is not fucking Markson, so just drop it.” She wasn’t fucking the CW, but she was fucking Derek over.
“Sure, okay, man.” Maddock turned back to the screen.
Derek trained his eyes in that direction as well. Reese had left the room entirely.
Then they both heard it.
“So you agree not to manufacture generic versions of the above analgesics?” Chatterton said to the executive from Ricould.
“Yes, we agree to that, if you agree not to pursue patents for the following.” The Ricould exec pointed to the chart where they had listed all the drugs in question.
“Agreed,” said Chatterton.
Derek wanted to let out a whoop of joy, but was afraid he’d miss something. These guys were putting the nails in their coffins and he wanted to hear it live, not off the recording later.
The Stanfield executive said, “Does anyone have any concerns over the prices we’ve set for our share?”
“No, no problems.” Chatterton grinned. “You could probably even go higher. Who’s going to stop us?”
There was laughter from around the room.
“Hot damn,” Maddock breathed. “We’ve got them. Stupid bastards.”
Reese, reentered the room and sat down quietly next to Chatterton. She turned and looked directly at the camera, her expression aloof, but her eyes filled with an emotion Derek couldn’t pinpoint.
He wanted to reach into the screen, grab her and hold her to him, to have her admit she’d made a mistake with the Markson interview and both pretend they could have a future together.
The triumph for the case soured.
When it was all over, he was still going to have a bum knee, an empty apartment, and no one to laugh with.
Ignoring Maddock’s excited chatter and clap on the back, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his antacids. His finger ran over and over across the satiny paper they were rolled in while he watched Reese lock eyes with him.
It felt like she could see right through to him, knew his anger, had her own, eyes staring, wills clashing, always a contest.
Then he broke the contact, the ever present push-pull between them, and flipped the first tablet out and into his hand.
All the antacids in the world couldn’t fix his heart and his hurt, but it was all he had.