Chapter Thirteen
Elizabeth
“This above all: to thine own self be true.”
Hamlet
I hid in plain sight at my desk, unable to concentrate on the never-ending news. My emotions were in complete turmoil.
I shot a text off to Chelsea. There’s a new weatherman at my job. How am I supposed to avoid a coworker?
In the week after we first met, I would have been over the moon to run into Evan. But then he’d ghosted me. When he finally called me, his reasons became clear, but that only made me feel ten times worse.
My phone vibrated. Just leaving work. Can you get free?
God, I wished. There was never enough time. Lauren’s patience with me had run out after my first day, and I still needed to finalize the rundown. I shot off a self-pitying text. Can’t. Manacled to my desk.
My phone buzzed again. Let’s whisk off to a man-filled island this weekend.
That was always her solution, like I could fuck my feelings away, quite literally. I’d never understood the expression fight fire with fire. I couldn’t see how fucking some new hookup was supposed to help me forget the last one. The way I figured it, I’d end up doubling my sorrow.
I typed: I think I just need to go into witness protection.
She shot back: Thoughts and prayers.
That was code for: I can’t help you if you won’t let me. But there wasn’t anything to do right now. Short of quitting, I had no options for avoiding Evan.
I wiped my eyes to clear them so I could futz with the rundown script until it was good enough. Nobody expected Sandra or Kent to lay down a Shakespearian soliloquy.
The next hour passed in a blur of activity as the final news stories were chosen, but when I looked around the newsroom to flag Lauren for her approval, she was nowhere to be seen. Maybe she trusted me enough to do the job without constant supervision finally.
“Lauren’s tied up with the hot weather dude,” Gigi said.
I pushed my chair back and rolled the kink out of my shoulders. It was fast approaching six.
Tom popped his head out of the control room and waved at me. “Lauren’s busy. Can you take over?”
I swallowed. I’d seen Lauren lead production for the past three nights, but I wasn’t nearly prepared. “Shit.”
“Come on," he said. “I’ll give you a hand.”
In Lauren’s seat, I put on her headset, nuclear butterflies trying to claw through my stomach. “What do I do?”
“Just watch that clock,” he said, “Make sure everyone’s in place, then count it down to the pre-show teaser. Easy peasy.”
Right. How hard could it be?
“Talk directly into the mic. Everyone will be able to hear you.” He laughed. “Don’t say anything inappropriate.”
His advice was counterproductive: telling me not to say something inappropriate was like asking me not to think about elephants. Or dick jokes. Bad idea.
I stared at the clock as if it were tied to a bomb that needed defusing. Panic set in. Never mind the red wire versus the blue wire, could I count backwards from five? Was it too late to quit?
Tom pointed at me, and I said, “Here we go.”
The monitors came on, and there stood Evan, without his glasses, shaved, and wearing an expression that could only be described as hey girl.
I simply stared at him, eating my heart out a little. His hair had been styled for the broadcast, taking the Haircut Magazine look up a notch to—well, TV personality hair. My God the cameras loved him.
And in that suit? I’d like to rock him like a hurricane.
Women—and men—across town would fantasize about straddling him while sucking on those lips.
And for me, that was pure memory. Those green eyes had seen every inch of my body.
Those hands, now straightening his tie, had touched me all over.
I ached with desire for what had been, even as a rage tear formed on my eyelash at the regret for what could never be.
Here I was, cursed to gaze upon his beauty like I was staring at a model in a catalog. Look but don’t touch.
His eyes glittered and then shot right to me, through the screen, his tongue dragging across his lip as he tugged at his cuff.
I sucked in my breath and whispered, “Holy fuck.”
Every eye in the control room turned toward me. Both of the anchors also looked up as if they could see me back here. Oh, shit.
“Sorry,” I blurted, too loud, throwing a glance at Tom who was silently laughing. My one saving grace was that I was wearing Lauren’s headset, so she was the one person who couldn’t hear me. I prayed I hadn’t just lost my job.
Mortified, I wanted to take off the headset and walk away, but the clock kept ticking, and beyond all belief, the news crew was waiting on me.
My heart hammered in my chest, as if I’d been expecting a spray of fusillade.
But I could survive embarrassment, so I forced myself to stay put in that chair and kept watching the bright red seconds countdown, my doom approaching one microsecond at a time.
I swallowed. “Evan?”
His eyes flitted up toward the camera. “Elizabeth?”
His voice in my ear conjured a visceral memory of him, tangled in my sheets, making me shiver with sexy talk. If it had only been the sex, I could have shaken this off. But there’d been something more, or so I’d thought.
“Are you the teaser?”
He swallowed, his lip curving up on one side, devilish. “I’d never tease.”
I was so discombobulated, I’d lobbed innuendo without even hearing it first. I forced a laugh I wasn’t feeling, like making polite chitchat on a plummeting airplane.
The second hand clicked over, and I said, “You’re coming in ten.” A blush colored his cheeks, and my hand clapped my mouth, smacking the microphone and making everyone groan. “I mean, you’re on top.”
Evan just laughed. “Okay. Wherever you want me.”
I dropped my forehead into my palms. What the fuck was wrong with me?
The clock ticked down, and I counted, “Five, four, three, two. . .”
The red light came on, and Evan composed himself. “How long will this mild November weather be with us? Stay tuned for your weekend forecast.” I couldn’t look away. He was mesmerizing, his baritone voice sultry seduction in my ear. “The news at six is next.”
And then it was over.
I didn’t breathe until the on-air light turned off. We went to commercials, and I wiped the drool from my chin.
As I ripped off the headset, Evan spoke into his mic. “Thanks for taking care of me, Elizabeth. Was it good for you?”
The bastard. The entire studio burst out laughing. Was he mocking me? Or flirting?
Was this payback?
At that moment, Lauren tapped my shoulder, and I jumped out of my skin, but she just held out her hand and took back the headset. Her expression read, “Let the professionals handle this.”
She dropped into her chair, her eyes never leaving the screen where Evan unhooked his mic. “My God. It’s like watching soft core porn. Shelby’s a genius.”
I hated myself a little for agreeing. I hated Evan even more for just existing.
My ears were ringing as I stewed in the compounded mortifications of screwing up my first time at the helm and worse, screwing up in front of Evan. He was probably in his office having a good chuckle over my embarrassment.
I stood off to the side, paying more attention to everything Lauren did than I had all week. That moment in the hot seat had fueled my motivation to prepare for next time. If there ever was a next time.
As we returned from commercial, Lauren called over to Tom. “Load Greg’s package.”
I muffled a snort.
Tom queued up a video on a side screen while on air, Kent said, “Well, Sandra, looks like the new interstate access ramp will offer an easy in and out.”
I couldn’t hold back a muttered, “That’s what she said,” and the entire production staff turned to look at me.
How was anyone supposed to resist that?