Two steps inside the lobby, she realized the hotel was hosting some kind of computer electronics convention. Crowds of men wearing everything from iPods to Ralph Lauren milled on the carpet. She wove between them, heading for the front desk-and arrived in time to see Mitch turn away, tucking his credit card into his wallet and picking up the handle of his rolling suitcase.
“Mitch!”
He blinked as she rushed up to him. “How did you get here?”
“Drove. Fast. Tell me you didn’t check out.”
He glanced over his shoulder at the mob pressing itself toward the harried clerks behind the counter. “I have a ten o’clock flight to LaGuardia. Just as well. This place is a madhouse.”
“Ask them to reinstate you.”
“Are you kidding? My room’s probably already gone.”
She thought fast. “Then come home with me.”
His face looked tired-not quite defeated, but getting there-and her heart squeezed. “I can’t, Eve.” She took his arm and guided him toward the door. He didn’t seem to notice. “My boss talked to the executive committee and they want to change the terms of the deal. Apparently they want you to be the next Letterman.”
“Letterman doesn’t do daytime.” She smiled her thanks to the valet and Mitch, who obviously thought she was taking him to the airport, got into her car. She’d let him think that. For now.
“I know. They want you to move to New York, and they’ll create a late-night show for you.”
Sliding behind the wheel, she said, “We already agreed I’m staying here.”
“Yes, but the deal memo isn’t signed yet. My instructions are to get you to agree to the new terms, or else. So I’m going to New York to meet with them personally. It’s a long shot, but I have to convince them they’re shooting themselves and the network in the foot.”
“You don’t need to go all that way.” She sped up the on-ramp to the freeway.
“I feel I do. Nelson said he’d set up a phone call, but that won’t cut it. I have to do this in person to have any chance of convincing them.”
One exit. Two. The next one was hers.
“It’s a helluva trip, though.” He rubbed the back of his neck, as if stress were making his muscles seize up. “There aren’t any nonstops at this time of night, so I have to route through North Carolina and Philly. I get in at some ungodly hour in the morning, but I had to take what I could get. I just hope I’m coherent.”
The things he was willing to do in order to keep his word-or at least the network’s word. Talk about above and beyond. That meant something, didn’t it? Surely he couldn’t be motivated strictly by loyalty to the network? There had to be more to it than that.
“I have a better idea.”
“You do? Hey!” He sat up as she took her exit. “This isn’t the way to the airport. Do you want me to miss my flight?”
“You don’t need to kill yourself doing this, Mitch,” she told him. “You don’t need to fly to New York when we have a network feed right at the station. What’s the point of technology if not to use it?”
He stared at her, and then his gaze narrowed, as if he was remembering something. “You have a video linkup. I saw it the first day I was there.”
“Right. We can beam your pitch right to CWB’s head office. And I happen to know a damn good executive producer who could run, say, a kick-butt presentation with a voice-over and graphics if you wanted. We’re all in this together, right?”
She pulled into her driveway and shut the engine off. He was looking at her as though she had just announced the cure for cancer.
“I knew there was a reason I was crazy about you,” he said.
She grinned. Maybe her tangerine sundress wasn’t going to be wasted tonight. After all, it was the color of fire.
17
“YOU’RE RIGHT. It was a total cave moment. All men have them and all women have to learn to deal with them.”
Jane brushed the excess powder off Eve’s nose and turned her face toward the light with the gentle fingers of long friendship.
“I agree.” Nicole, with her ever-present clipboard in her lap, pulled her legs up under her and watched the two of them in the dressing-room mirror. “When a woman tells a guy she thinks it’s more than a fling, his first instinct is to run.”
“But last night…” Eve’s voice trailed off, and she caught Jane and Nicole exchanging an amused look. The station’s dressing room had become the equivalent of a girls’ clubhouse, and she’d just told them everything. Except about the puzzling photograph. That was private-and she wasn’t sure she wanted to dig any more, anyway. Grandmother thought it was nothing, so it probably was. She had bigger fish to fry.
“Can I just say that the man is fabulous in bed and funny to boot? What sane woman wouldn’t want to keep him around, and tell him so? I took a risk. I was honest. Now it’s up to him. Unless he thinks making love is the answer.”
Jane examined her work with a critical eye. “Eve, not everyone is as forthright as you about their relationships. And it does look kind of bad that he tried to leave town practically as soon as your agreement about the show was in his hand.”
So Jane had heard the rumors, too. “Mitchell Hayes did not romance me to get the show. He really does care about whether I’m happy.” He’d been prepared to fly all night for her. The least she could do was show some faith-unlike some people. “I’m not a teenager. I can tell when a man is sincere. And he is.” The pain she’d seen in his face was proof of that. Wasn’t it? “He couldn’t have made love to me the way he did last night if his feelings weren’t real. We all know that some men communicate through action. For them, it’s not about the words.”
“Eve, Eve,” Nicole said, shaking her head. “You did a show about this only last week. ‘Is What He Says Really What He Means?’ Maybe you should do one called ‘It’s in His Kiss,’ like that song.”
“I think that stripper housewife said it all,” Jane put in. “‘All that’s real during sex is sex. Anything else is gravy.’”
“Ow.” Eve winced. “Easy on the hair.”
“Don’t jerk back like that, then.” Jane loosened her grip on the curling iron. “We don’t want you expecting gravy when all there is is meat. No pun intended.”
“Ha. And here I thought you guys would help me build up the nerve to try to talk with him about it again.”
“I’ll be happier when he comes out of his cave and tells you something honest, with real words,” Jane said. “Until then, I’m reserving judgment.”
“We still need to address this rumor that you two are an item,” Nicole added. “Even if you are, we still have to maintain your privacy. The answering service has had half a dozen calls from that rag-mag Peachtree Free Press, over the last twenty-four hours. Every one of them was for you. I don’t know how they got wind of who you’re dating.”
“The tabs can screw themselves.”
“They usually do, with the crap they print,” Nicole said. “The Free Press is one of the worst, though I must say their cameraman must love you. Your pictures are always great.”
“I never talk to the tabs, and they know it. Okay, Jane. Am I ready?”
“Ready and able. You’ve got half an hour to prep, so make the most of it. And here’s your bug.”
Eve took the wireless transmitter and fitted it in her ear. Because she had a habit of rambling around before the show in an effort to control her adrenaline, Cole had invested in the bug so he could give her the countdown without tying her to her desk. With a final tug at the hem of a new beaded tank, Eve strode down the hall toward the set, where the guys in the control booth would be doing sound and lighting checks before showtime at three.
But underneath it all the question of Mitch nagged and prodded at her. Was she wrong to want resolution? Why wouldn’t he talk about them, even when he was wrapped in her arms, with no one to listen in but the night? Communicating through action seemed to be a male thing. Maybe she needed to do that. But how?