Chapter 20 #2
“Of course,” I told him. “I’m also telling him that I’m not in a rush to ratings. I want facts. I want to know what I’m reporting is accurate and not just scandal.”
“You won’t tag him or caption it or in any way relate it back to this story.” While his attention seemed far away, thoughtful, his tone said he was impressed.
“Precisely.”
A slow smile ghosted the corner of his mouth. Gone almost as soon as it appeared.
“That’s risky,” he said, his gaze flicking back to mine once more.
I held his gaze. “So is doing nothing.” Then I shrugged. “Right now, I prefer action to staring at the wall. He’s reached out. It’s my turn.”
“I want to see the segment—all of it—first,” Brewster said abruptly. “I want to review it and the plan. Show me where and how you think it will work and the exact clips you want to use.”
“Right now?”
My phone buzzed again.
“Did you have other plans?” The dry tone almost made me snort.
“I’ll get my laptop.” Snagging my phone, I headed for the kitchen. “You could send one of your agents out for food. The full piece is over an hour long and then there’s the clips teasing it and the follow-ups.”
“What do you want to eat?” Brewster might sound resigned, I enjoyed my first surge of adrenaline in days. I was doing something and as long as I was walking away, I smiled.
The food arrived forty minutes later. By then, the office no longer felt quite so temporary.
Cardboard cartons spread across the desk between us—lo mein, sesame chicken, something aggressively spicy that Brewster insisted “wasn’t that hot” and absolutely was. The smell of soy and ginger cut through the sterile air of the safe house, grounding everything in a way caffeine hadn’t managed.
We didn’t bother with plates.
Brewster shifted one of the desk chairs closer to mine without comment, close enough that our knees nearly brushed when he sat. It wasn’t accidental. Nothing he did ever was. He angled the laptop between us, screen tilted so we both had equal claim to it.
“Start from the top,” he instructed.
So I did.
The segment played quietly, volume low, captions on. My voice filled the small room—measured, composed, younger by just enough to feel strange watching myself. Brewster didn’t interrupt. He didn’t react outwardly at all, which I’d come to understand meant he was paying ruthless attention.
I backed it up once, then again, marking timestamps as we went.
“That pause there,” he said eventually, pointing with his chopsticks. “That’s intentional.”
“Yes.”
“You make the audience want to know what you’re going to say and work for it.”
“I always do,” I said. “People rush to fill it. That’s when they tell you what they’re afraid of.” Then I elbowed him. “You do the same thing.” He wasn’t fooling anyone, much less me.
His mouth twitched. Approval again. Subtle. Dangerous.
We worked like that for a while—rewinding, scrubbing forward, me flagging clips, him testing them aloud like hypotheses. Our shoulders brushed once. Then again. Eventually neither of us bothered to move away when we touched.
At some point, he handed me the last of the Lo Mein without asking. At another, I reached across him for the chili oil and realized my arm was resting along the back of his chair.
Neither of us commented.
The room had gone quiet in that particular way it only does when two people are focused on the same thing—breathing syncing, attention narrowing, the rest of the world pushed out to the edges.
His forearm rested along the desk, close enough that I could see the faint scars there, pale against darker skin. Old. He didn’t hide them.
I didn’t ask.
“You’re right,” he said after a long stretch, pausing the video. “This works.”
“Wow,” I said slowly. “Be careful, praising a girl like that could go to her head.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
I smiled anyway.
He leaned closer, eyes scanning the notes I’d made. “This clip here,” he continued, voice lower now, “you don’t lead with it. It needs to come up on its own, if we can get your clips to go viral, this might actually just surface without any nudging.”
“Agreed.”
“And you don’t watch any response or commentary clips,” he added. “Your social media footprint has gotten larger, if this gets picked up… and it might even with only a gentle push, then you let them do what they do and suggest even the network leave it alone.”
“I know.”
He looked at me then—not the screen. Me. “Is that going to be difficult for you?”
I shrugged. “I’ve done harder things.” Like sitting in this damn safe house while everyone else chased my story.
“Hmm.” The way he hummed that sound sent a small, unwelcome shiver down my spine. We sat there for another beat, too close, the glow of the laptop washing his face in soft light.
As much as it would pain me to admit it, I’d enjoyed the past couple of hours. Enjoyed… him.
When he finally leaned back, the space he left behind felt noticeable. Charged.
“I think we sleep on this, then finalize in the morning,” Brewster said. “You will want to run the timing of the uploads through the network team, the social media manager, and the response team, set up the distribution path, and platforms, as well as who touches it and who doesn’t…”
“I thought I’d send a message to Brandon in marketing, mention that my network share is down a little and could he do me a favor. Maybe cherry pick some of my political pieces that aren’t too controversial and get them recirculating."
One arm settled along the back of my chair, Brewster studied me. “Then he just magically picks these?”
“No,” I said slowly. “He goes through and does a keyword search in the archives, pulls up a few, then flags them to send to me and asks if I have a preference and I pick one or two that I like and…”
I gave a little air wave.
“All natural, very normal. Network and Flint see you wanting to stay relevant and in front of your ratings, and he…”
“Sees I was instrumental in choosing the message I want to send.”
Rubbing a finger against his lips slowly, Brewster nodded. The five o’clock shadow on his face had rapidly turned into something a lot rougher and gave his square jaw a far more rugged appearance.
“You are a dangerous woman, Mallory McBryan.”
“Thank you.” I deadpanned.
“Send the email in the morning, get it started…”
“So that’s tomorrow.” I didn’t look away from him. “What’s tonight?”
His gaze flicked back to me, steady and unreadable.
“Tonight,” he said, “we let everything settle. You did just get his message today.”
I nodded, even though part of me already hated the waiting.
As we stood, our chairs scraped softly against the floor. He reached past me to close the laptop, his hand brushing my wrist in the process—just barely. The contact lingered longer than necessary.
Not enough to be a mistake.
Too much to be nothing.
I met his eyes.
He didn’t look away.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
The office felt smaller, the air thickening as if the space between us had developed its own gravity.
He was close enough now that I could see the faint notch in his lower lip, the subtle tension in his jaw where restraint lived.
My awareness narrowed to him—the heat of his arm still along the back of my chair, the quiet steadiness of his breathing.
I didn’t lean in.
Neither did he.
But the distance between us closed anyway—an unconscious drift, like two bodies pulled into the same orbit. His gaze dropped, just briefly, to my mouth. My breath caught, shallow and traitorous. I could feel the moment tipping, the precise second where choice became impulse.
His hand tightened on the chair behind me.
For one heartbeat—maybe two—I was sure he was going to kiss me.
Instead, he stopped.
The restraint in him snapped into place like a lock engaging.
“Good night, Mallory,” he said softly.
The sound of my name in his voice—low, deliberate—stroked over my senses like it was the most erotic thing I’d ever heard. He straightened, stepped back, and the pressure vanished so abruptly it left me dizzy.
Just like that, the spell broke.
He turned away, already composed, and crossed the room without looking back. The door opened and stayed that way, the soft hush of his shoes against the wood fading down the hall.
I didn’t move.
My pulse was still racing. My skin still humming. The absence he left behind felt deliberate—placed with the same care as everything else he did.
He hadn’t kissed me.
Yet, we both damn well knew he could have.
And he’d left me there with the wanting.