Chapter 57
FIFTY-SEVEN
Reese was halfway to drunk, debating the merits of another apple martini and wondering how long it would take Knight to pack, when Markson sat down next to her in the hotel lounge.
She didn’t even try to be polite. “Get away from me.”
“Reese, I wanted to apologize for that bit in the hall earlier.”
She didn’t look up from her glass, just swirled the liquid around and around, amazed at how much it looked like green Kool-Aid. “It’s fine, Stan. I don’t care.”
It was the truth. Nothing really seemed to matter at the moment, except for the fact that she was in love with an idiot.
“I know you’re probably angry with me, but I thought it was best for both of us if the other executives thought our...relationship was over, and it seemed like a good way to make that absolutely clear.”
A snort sailed out of her mouth. “Yeah, it was clear.” Reese tilted her head to the right and wondered why the little thatched cabana where you ordered drinks seemed to be undulating like an underwater plant.
She was only on her second martini and it wasn’t even empty, but she felt a little funny, like she’d ridden a roller coaster three times in a row.
“Well, I’m sorry if I caused you embarrassment. It seems like I’ve really botched everything up for the last six months. I just want to go home and have this be over.”
Having forgotten that anyone could possibly have a problem except her, she glanced over in sympathy at him sitting in the wicker chair next to her. “You haven’t screwed anything up. Without you, the FBI wouldn’t even have a case.”
He lifted his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. She noticed his jacket was off and his tie was crooked. He looked exhausted.
He said, “Have you ever wondered if you’d done the right thing? That maybe, even though you thought you knew everything there was to know, that just maybe you were wrong?”
Besides right now? Maybe Knight was right, maybe she shouldn’t have expected him to tell her classified information. Maybe she could have respected his tenuous position a little more.
“And you can’t shake the feeling that you’ve changed your life forever for the worse.”
She sniffed. Yeah, she knew that feeling.
“And that it’s not about getting to the top at work, or making more money, it’s about the people you love, taking care of each other and sharing the little things every day.”
A sob slipped out and Reese dropped her head down onto her arm. Crapola. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore, but she was starting to think if she had to choose between Knight and a career, she’d choose him.
She felt a warm awkward pat on her hand. “Hey, are you okay?”
“No. Knight and I broke up.” Blowing hair out of her eyes, she stared through the martini glass, face barely off the table. She added, in case he was unclear of her feelings, “I want to vomit.”
Markson sucked in his breath. “Please don’t! The restroom is right over there.”
That made her snort. “I wasn’t serious. I was being dramatic. I shouldn’t have said that. But I feel like a train wreck.”
She should really make an effort to lift her head, but that seemed like too much work.
“Why did you break up?”
“He thinks I’m out to screw up the Delco case, and I think he doesn’t take me seriously as a journalist.”
“You broke up over work?” Markson dug into the peanut bowl sitting on the table and popped one in his mouth. “Trust me, Reese, no job is worth losing the person you love.”
If that could explain the sensation of a dull knife scraping away at her heart, maybe he was right.
“You do love him, don’t you?”
It took her less than a second to answer. She did love him. He was loving, kind, sexy, everything she could ask for in a man. She wailed, “Yes!”
The martini sloshing through her bloodstream kept her from being embarrassed at the sheer volume of that forlorn wail. But Markson didn’t even blink.
Instead he leaned closer, gaze meeting hers from behind his horn-rims. “Then go fix it. If you love him, it’s worth it, Reese.”
She wanted to believe he was right. But Reese wished along with his other gems of advice, Markson knew exactly how she was supposed to fix it, because she did not have a clue.
Derek jostled his duffel bag and adjusted his grip on his suitcase with wheels. He knocked on Maddock’s door with way more force than was necessary, but he had a ton of frustration to release.
Maddock answered the door in a pair of jeans and no shirt, hair sticking up on end. Derek thought maybe he’d interrupted a nap or something. “Hey, Wyatt, sorry to bother you, but do you think I could share your room?”
He cleared his throat and fought the pain that clamped around his heart and squeezed. Reese had made her choice and there was nothing to do but move on. “Reese kicked me out.”
Maddock darted a quick glance behind him. “Oh, hey, Knight, I’m sorry. And you know normally I’d let you bunk with me, no problem, but right now I sort of have some company.” He raised his eyebrows up and down, a slight grin crossing his mouth.
Derek saw a blonde wearing a robe coming towards the door. “Is that the wine, Wyatt?”
She had a local accent and a deep beach tan and Derek was annoyed. Reese had looked luscious and beautiful that first night he’d met her, when she had been wearing nothing but a terry cloth robe.
Now Wyatt was having a good time and he had nothing but an empty bed and his job, which wasn’t going to keep him warm at night, that’s for damn sure.
“Jesus, sorry, Wyatt. Never mind.” He started to back up, but the blonde gave him a friendly smile as she draped herself across Wyatt’s back.
“Hello, are you a friend of Wyatt’s? Are you a computer programmer as well?”
Derek said hello, shooting Maddock a questioning look. What the hell was this woman talking about?
“Sheila, this is Derek Knight and he works with me. He’s here for the programming conference too.”
Derek tried not to snort as he shook Sheila’s hand. It made sense that Maddock couldn’t go around the hotel blabbing that he was with the FBI, but leave it to him to make up some BS story, and to find a woman to spend the night with less than twenty-four hours after arriving in Auckland.
Of course, it had been that way with him and Reese. An instant attraction. An instinctive knowledge that they were meant to be together. His heart twisted painfully. Dammit. Everything reminded him of her and how much he was going to miss her.
When they started exchanging lascivious glances and Sheila’s fingernails starting marching across Maddock’s chest, he knew it was time to get the hell out of there. “Nice to meet you, Sheila. I’ll catch you later, Wyatt.”
Still hauling his luggage, he went down the hall and to the elevator. It looked like he’d have to book himself a room. Hopefully, they would have some available.
Crossing the lobby, he saw Markson. Ignoring him, since they weren’t supposed to know each other, he started to approach the front desk.
A hand touched his arm and he glanced over at Markson, startled. He said in a polite tone, “Can I help you?”
Markson didn’t even try to play along. “Derek, I need to talk to you about Reese.”
He sighed. “Stan, not here.”
“But you need to know that Reese is in the lounge right now, crying into a martini. She loves you and she’s hurting.” Stan gestured towards the lounge. “You need to get in there and make up with her, Derek, or you’re both going to regret it.”
“I tried, Stan. She doesn’t want to be with me. She’s obsessed about making her big break in journalism.” And rehashing this in the damn lobby with his suitcase next to him wasn’t helping the burn from his ulcer.
“You know, the problem is that Reese is afraid she’ll never measure up. She thinks she’s not good enough for you.”
Stan must have been hitting the martinis himself. Derek dropped his duffel bag to the floor. “That’s ridiculous. She’s gorgeous, funny, smart, and she doesn’t put up with crap from anyone. That doesn’t sound like someone with self-esteem issues.”
“You’re wrong.” Stan pushed up his glasses. “She spent her whole childhood trying to prove herself and now you come along, she falls in love with you. She feels like you’re attracted to her and you want her physically, but she’s not good enough for you for the long haul.”
Derek stared at his Cooperating Witness. “How long have you been in the lounge talking to her?” It sounded like Stan knew more about Reese than he did. He’d never heard her express those kinds of doubts about their relationship.
“For over an hour. She’s in bad shape and you need to go talk to her.” It sounded like a reprimand and Derek bristled.
“I told her I loved her.”
“But did you ask her to stay in Chicago? To live with you?”
Stan was so right, he was getting on Derek’s nerves. “Since when are you a Reese whisperer?”
Stan laughed, the first real genuine laugh Derek had ever heard come from the man. “It’s just nice to try and help someone else out with their life, instead of worrying about the mess that mine has become.”
Whatever doubts Derek had ever had about Stan’s motives disappeared then. Like so many people who walk around quietly, hidden behind unobtrusive clothing and average looks, Stan was a good man, who deserved to be protected when the Delco story hit the news. Reese had been right about that.
“Here, give me your luggage and I’ll check it with the front desk. You need to get in there before Reese slides under the table.”
Derek handed his stuff to Stan and said, “Thank you, Stan. I appreciate it.”
He headed towards the lounge, determined not to leave it until he and Reese had worked this out. He wanted her in his life. He had to have her in his life.
She wasn’t under the table, but she was lying across it, licking a peanut off her napkin with her tongue. The napkin stuck to the tip, and she moved her head back, dragging the napkin along with her. When she saw him, she pulled it off.
She was beautiful, and man, did he love her. He’d been an idiot to think he could ever walk away.
“What are you looking at?”
“The woman I love.” With all his heart and soul.
Reese looked over her shoulder. “Where? I don’t see anyone.” Then she laughed, hitting the glass table with the palm of her hand.
He raised his eyebrow and took in the martini glass almost drained.
She followed his gaze. “Don’t worry, I’m not drunk. I’ve only had one and a half martinis in two hours and any effects of the alcohol in my stomach have been absorbed by the three thousand peanuts I’ve eaten.”
Damn Knight for walking in on her misery, looking delicious and telling her that he loved her. Was he trying to destroy her along with breaking her heart?
“Can I sit down? We need to talk.”
Oh, yippee. “It’s a free country. I think.”
He sat down, stretching his bad leg out stiffly. She wondered if his knee was bothering him, knowing he would never admit it.
There was a long silence where she rolled a peanut around the tabletop, still lying with her head on her arm.
Then he blurted, “Reese, baby, I never said I objected to your career choice or your ambition.”
Pain sliced through her malaise. “No, you just criticized me every step of the way.”
His finger drummed on the table. “I like doing things by the book. That’s true. And you do not. But I fell in love with you, and maybe you are…creative in your pursuit of a story, and it is hard for me, but I love your passion. And you make me laugh.”
Oh, great. She was laughable. “Then why did you act so weird this morning? Last night was...” She sighed, unable to find the right words to describe that moment when he had said he loved her, her body singing with pleasure and his eyes locked with hers.
“Then this morning you acted like you couldn’t get away from me fast enough. ”
“Because I felt like I’d blown it. I’d been wanting to tell you all week that I love you, and I wanted to ask you to move back in with me, to stay in Chicago, and instead of being romantic about it, I just blurted it out during sex. You deserved better than that.”
If he didn’t look so sincere, she’d swear he was making that up, it sounded so dumb. “It was romantic! Geez, it was incredible, beautiful.”
She sat up, unable to lie still any longer.
His eyes went soft. “Yeah, it was, wasn’t it?”
“I wasn’t trying to screw up your case, I really wasn’t.”
He nodded. “I know. And I wasn’t trying to cut you out. There are just things that have to stay private.”
“I know.”
“It was never a competition, it was never about who could win or who was controlling who, and I’m sorry if I made it seem that way.
I never meant that you had to make some kind of choice between your career and me.
I want you to have a career that you enjoy.
I was just trying to protect myself from getting hurt, and you have the power to hurt me, Peaches. ”
He had the same power. She believed him, felt the first flicker of hope. “I don’t want to hurt you and I think when two people are friends, they’re equal. No one is in charge.”
“I agree. I want to be friends.” Though the look on his face was really friendly. “With benefits. As the foundation of a really fucking incredible relationship.”
Her head started to swim and it wasn’t from the martini. She gave a small smile, her hands feeling clammy, her breath hitching. She really wanted this to work out. “So does this mean you’ll still give me the exclusive story?”
He leaned closer towards her. “Yeah. And then you have to bake me a pie, remember?”
She’d forgotten that she had agreed to bake him a pie if he gave her the story. “Oh, yeah.” She licked her lips, heart beating faster. “But where should I bake that pie?”
His hand closed over her and started stroking her. “I was hoping in Chicago. In my apartment.”
“Like... a visit?” If he said yes, she’d shove a peanut up his nose.
“No.” He came closer, his chair creaking as he rocked it forward so that his mouth was inches from hers. “As my person. I love you, Reese. I want to be with you forever.”
She wanted to be witty and dazzling, sharp with a snappy reply. Instead she said, “Okay.”
Knight blinked. “Is that a yes?”
His lips were almost touching hers, and she was distracted by the musky smell of his aftershave and his knee pressing against hers under the table. It had been twelve long hideous hours since he had touched her and now, they were going to be together.
This was good.
“Yes, I love you. Yes, I’ll move in with you. Yes, I’ll be your person.”
The relief that crossed his face, followed by a tender smile made her break out into a moronic grin. Yeesh, she was one lucky woman.
“Just one thing, Reese.” His finger brushed her lip while the other hand went into her hair, stroking, caressing, claiming.
“What’s that?” She’d agree to just about anything. She was on the verge of falling into his lap and it was time to head upstairs.
“At home, you have to call me Derek.”