She was brave. She was brilliant.
She was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
The PA handed the microphone to a middle-aged woman with a couple of kids sitting on either side. “Have you been able to forgive your uncle for what he did to your mom?”
Ouch. Mitch winced for Eve’s sake, but her expression only softened.
“The same afternoon the story came out, my father came to my office to tell me everything. Now I feel I know him better than ever-and I love him more than ever, too. It takes a brave man to admit he made a mistake.” She paused. “The mistake I mean was that he didn’t tell me years ago. As for him leaving my mom, I don’t see that as a mistake. Not now. Not when it turned out that Gibson and Loreen were actually right for one another.”
They cut to commercial then, and Mitch dragged in a deep breath. Funny how he’d been so tense, as though he’d been afraid her audience would draw and quarter her over what could have been a scandal.
But she was carrying it off so well. She knew her viewers. The reason they tuned in was because she was honest, spontaneous and had the kind of positive energy that you’d want in a best friend. That’s what she was doing. Treating her viewers like her friends. Maybe that resulted in the necessity for a few restraining orders, but on the whole its biggest result was a devoted following who tuned in day after day.
CWB had been insane to think of taking her out of this environment. To disregard the slow-growth plan. Mitch had no doubt they’d come to regret it, especially if Eve wound up with another network.
The monitors flickered and they were back. Mitch focused on Eve with as much attention as Zach, who was up there behind him operating the crane.
This time, a guy in his twenties had the microphone. “So, is it true that you’ve been offered a spot on a national network if you, like, move to L.A.?”
“It’s true,” Eve said. “And it’s New York, not L.A. I’m not going.” She spread her hands as the audience erupted with cheers. “How could I go without taking y’all with me?”
Laughter. Mitch saw that the guy hadn’t relinquished the mike. “So that exec guy you were dating, is he out of the picture? Are you available?”
Eve threw back her head and laughed, exposing her lovely throat. Mitch sat up in his chair and squelched the urge to climb over there and choke the guy.
“Define available,” she teased. “Wouldn’t you say it takes a lot of man to play second fiddle to all of you?”
A woman in a pink dress wrestled the microphone out of the young man’s hand and spoke into it breathlessly. “I saw a picture of him-that man you were dating. If you’ve turned him loose, could you send him my way, please?”
The audience cracked up, and so did Eve. When she could speak, she said, “He’s fine, isn’t he?” She glanced at him, her face alive with laughter. “Mitch, stand up and take a bow.” He got up and waved at the woman in pink, and saw his own face appear on the monitor. “Folks, this is Mitchell Hayes, and he used to work for one of the networks bidding on the show.”
“Mitchell! Mitchell!” The audience began to chant. “Mitchell!”
Eve beckoned with one hand. “Come on up,” she mouthed.
He should have expected this. After all the DVD footage he’d watched, he should have known that anything might happen at one of these town-hall shows.
A PA ran out with a stool and a third wireless microphone, and he made himself comfortable next to Eve.
“How do you feel about the news, Mitchell?” With the spotlight in his eyes, he couldn’t see much, but the monitor off to the left showed a guy in a suit. “Does it make you feel weird that the woman you’re seeing is illegitimate?”
Wow. He took that one right in the solar plexus and drew in a breath.
“Legally, I don’t think she is. But it’s irrelevant to me.” He turned and gave the rest of his answer to Eve. “The woman I see is talented, beautiful and has a family who adores and protects her. I’m not sure what she sees in me, but I’m crazy in love with her.”
Under lashes heavy with stage makeup, Eve’s eyes widened.
“Atlanta, you’re lucky to have her,” he went on. “And so am I.”
Huge applause, and a few wolf whistles.
“Are you still with the network?” the next person wanted to know. He barely heard the question. He was too busy watching that beautiful face, those eyes that were shiny with tears and filling with everything she wanted to say and couldn’t. Not out here in public, with cameras and people and half of the South listening in.
Okay, so it hadn’t been fair to out them so completely, in front of all those thousands of viewers. And yet, it had seemed absolutely the right thing to do.
Something that would only happen on Just Between Us.
The volunteer repeated his question, and Mitch finally dragged his gaze from Eve’s face. “No, I’m not,” he said. “I’m happy to say that I’m the new director of business development for the Ashmere Trust.” Beside him, Eve gasped, and he turned. He couldn’t get enough of looking at her. “In fact, we’re throwing a benefit next Saturday night at Mirabel, which you may or may not know is the plantation that Eve’s family owned up until the sixties.” He returned his gaze to the cameras. “I’d like to invite all of you to join us in support of a new program in Atlanta. It’s called Music on the Street.”
Eve made a choked noise, and covered her mouth as the tears spilled over. Happy tears, he knew that. Tears of celebration that sparkled on her cheeks like diamonds.
He grinned and took the hand of the woman who had made all his dreams come true, and together, they turned their faces toward the spotlights.
Epilogue
JENNA HAMILTON CLOSED her office door with a sense of satisfaction, shutting out the buzz of activity in the offices of Andersen Nadeau.
She’d just spent the last half hour with a hard-nosed fireplug called Nelson Berg, who had been handed off to her by Eve Best when he’d made a pest of himself at CATL-TV. He’d come here with ultimatums and too much testosterone, and had left with a contract and a greater respect for the negotiating power of a woman.
Jenna smiled. That man hadn’t met a hardnose until he’d met her.
Just Between Us would be staying in Atlanta, broadcast by CWB. Score one for the little guys.
Now that the show’s future was taken care of, she had to make another trip to the law library and continue digging for precedent on lottery cases. Despite her feeling of buoyancy about her success with the CWB negotiation, she had no illusions about the possibility of losing this case for Eve and her friends. Twice now, she’d picked up her phone to call the senior partner and admit that, while she was darned good at corporate law and contracts, she didn’t have the experience for this. To ask him to have her reassigned, and give the case to someone who actually knew what they were doing and could pull it off.
But she’d disconnected before she went through with it.
Both Nicole Reavis and Jane Kurtz had called her yesterday in a panic, saying they’d arrived home to find a letter from Lot’O’Bucks. In it, the state lottery board was reminding the women that they had only eight months from the time of the announcement of their win to collect their money. Already, nearly three months had been eaten away because of the lawsuit.
The clock ticked with relentless disregard for deadlines, and Jenna was no closer to reaching a solution than she had been during those first dreadful weeks when Liza had returned to announce she wanted her fair share.
There was one tiny bright spot in this gloom, however. The Lot’O’Bucks ultimatum gave her a perfect reason to call Kevin Wade.
She took the elevator down to the lobby, where there was an espresso bar, and fortified herself with a double-shot, no-whip latte. It wouldn’t last long, but at least it cleared her brain enough to communicate like a mature woman, instead of the breathless idiot she seemed to become when she talked with him. At least on the phone, she wouldn’t be distracted by those warm brown eyes and the hot focus she saw in them. Or that mouth that spoke Latin terms and precedents when it should be making pillow talk and kissing her.