“I wouldn’t be so quick to talk about objectivity, Mr. Hayes, when your relationship with Eve has been about as far from that as you can get.”
Mitch sat back in his chair, unsure if the man meant what it sounded like he meant. “I beg your pardon?”
“Yes,” Eve said with scathing politeness. “Clarify that for me, would you, Dan?”
The man shrugged and picked up his sandwich. “It just seems odd to me that the other network reps have been very aboveboard in their meetings with me, while you choose to meet with Eve alone, in nonbusiness settings. Aside from the fact that you seem to be cutting CATL-TV’s management out of your discussions, it disturbs me that the way you spend your time with Eve can be, uh, too easily misconstrued.”
“Speak English, Dan,” Eve suggested, clearly trying to keep her temper.
“Meetings in the park, Eve?” he asked, eyebrows rising. “And at your home? Come on.”
“I’ll have my meetings wherever I want. We’re talking business.”
“If I were meeting with Mackenzie Roussos in my apartment, would you say that about me?”
“Yes. And I’d mind my own business, and so should you. Have you got somebody following me, or what?”
“I have sources all over town,” he pointed out. “If one of the tabs happens to call me with a question about Eve Best’s latest arm candy, it’s my job to know.”
“That comment was derogatory to Mitch,” she snapped. “And you have no right to talk to a journalist about me. That’s been our policy from day one.”
“Times have changed,” Dan replied.
Mitch decided it was up to him to step in before one of them said something that couldn’t be taken back. “I think each of our positions is very clear,” he said. “I recommend that we table this discussion. Eve will consider everyone’s offer and let us know what she and her people decide. Isn’t that right?”
He put all the appeal he could into his gaze, begging her not to lose it and back Dan into a corner he couldn’t get out of without loss on both sides.
Eve pushed her sandwich away and got up. “That’s fine. Excuse me, gentlemen. I don’t mean to cut this short, but I have video to screen and a script to prep for Dr. Birdsall tomorrow. I’ll talk to you both later.”
She laid a hand on Mitch’s shoulder, as if trying to communicate to him that she wasn’t angry with him. He saw Dan Phillips register the gesture and frown before she was out the door, leaving it swinging shut behind her.
13
EVE COULD ONLY be grateful that watching the video cut into segments for her by the show’s editor required every ounce of her concentration. The script for their male/female communications show, which she’d been working on this morning, didn’t need much support from her. She’d structured the show so that Dr. Birdsall’s commentary on these video clips would be the highlight.
She was glad that for once, the focus wouldn’t be on her.
Sitting in one of the station’s three editing booths, she and Cole approved the segments they would send to Dr. Birdsall, which had been promised by 8:00 p.m. Try as she might, though, every time the editor finished a clip and saved it into its own file-“Cole, don’t let me forget to follow up and see if Nicole got that stripper housewife booked”-the anger and guilt bubbled up out of the cracks in her concentration.
If she’d been alone, she could have fumed at Dan aloud. But as it was, she had to stuff him in a box in the back of her mind. She’d take him out later and yell at him in private-in her imagination.
Or better yet, she could call Mitch and they’d yell at him together, in absentia. Maybe she’d do that, as soon as she and Cole were finished. Any excuse to hear that voice one more time.
“Four clips, right?” The editor ran the digital counter under the last frame and clicked the mouse. “One for each five minutes?”
“I think so. If we keep them to two minutes each, that gives Dr. Birdsall time for her analysis and me time to elaborate. Plus a minute each for the opening monologue and my close.”
“Have I told you lately how brilliant this idea is?” Cole watched the editor save the four clips up to the production server, where two of their five camera operators would run them at the times Eve had indicated in her script. “It’s something new. I bet that you’ll get a boatload of letters asking that the town halls be moved permanently to Thursday. The chance that an audience member can star in their own segment will be a big draw. Reality TV comes to Atlanta.”
“We’ll see. If the lines get any longer, we’ll have to hire bouncers.”
Cole thanked the editor for his work, and when the kid had made his escape, he opened an e-mail screen. “What’s Dr. Birdsall’s addy?”
She gave it to him, and watched him type a message letting the psychologist know where she could view the clips. When he hit Send, she glanced at the clock. Eight-fifteen. A little late to call Mitch. She’d make it an early night. Lord knew she could use it, after getting next to no sleep the night before.
Had it only been the night before? It seemed a week ago.
“Everything okay with you, Evie?” Cole asked, leaning back in his chair as the e-mail went off into cyberspace. “You seem…preoccupied.”
What a sweetheart he was. He had his own problems with being a single dad, not least among them the fact that he’d had to arrange child care in order to stay here with her tonight. And still he could take the time to show her his concern, the way he had since the earliest days at the station when they’d both been green as beans.
“I am,” she admitted. “I didn’t mean for it to show, though.”
“About the buyout? Or about…other things?”
“Both.”
“I figured so.” He stretched his big frame, making the chair squeak. Not for the first time, Eve wondered what kept him in this industry when he was so much happier bushwhacking around the wilderness or loading his kids and the dog into a canoe in the north woods. “Word in the halls is that Dan’s got his panties in a twist about us choosing CWB.”
“Word in the halls is right. But what’s worse is that SBN and CBS have come back and said that they’ll let us stay in Atlanta, too.”
Cole lifted an eyebrow. “And this doesn’t make us jump for joy because…”
“Because I don’t think they mean it. I think it’s a bait and switch to cut CWB out before any signatures go on paper.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “Could be. From what you said, they seemed pretty adamant about New York in the beginning.”
With a sigh, she said, “I have to admit this is getting to me. I thought we had a decision we could all be happy with. Now I have to call another meeting and present the new offer to everyone. And goodness knows how that will go. It’s pretty hard to turn down more money plus staying here if that’s all you see.”
“I think Nicole sees the big picture. And Jane and Zach would, too. But yeah, it’s still a risk.” He paused. “Word in the halls didn’t stop there.”
“Oh?”
He grinned at her. “You have that innocent look perfected. It’s me, remember?”
Someday, some lucky woman would convince this guy that she could be trusted. Eve looked forward to that day.
“I never forget,” she said, smiling back. “Come on, out with it.”
“It’s kind of personal.”
Obviously it was. It had probably gone around the station at the speed of light. “I can handle it.”
“Word is that you and the CWB guy have a thing going on. That being the reason you want to go with them instead of the big guys.”
“Is it, now?” Keeping something on the down low around here was like keeping M &M’s in your desk. It wasn’t a matter of if someone would find them, but when. “Are people saying he’s romancing me to get the deal? Do they know how insulting that is?”