Applause broke out all around him, and there she was. She took her seat alone at the front of the stage, a single spotlight beaming down on her.
God, she looked good. His heart turned over.
“Good afternoon, Atlanta,” she said. “I’m Eve Best, and I’d like to keep this just between us.”
The audience roared, and she made jokes with the people in the front row until the noise died down. Then she looked directly into the camera, which was positioned above the audience so that she looked directly at them, too. Mitch sat mesmerized by the emotion in her wide green eyes.
“Today I’d like to do something different with our town-hall meeting. Y’all know what I want to talk about. My family. You guys have been with me through thick and thin. If anyone is going to get me through this, it’s my friends, and I count y’all among them.”
Shouts of approval and another burst of applause.
“So, that said, lemme have it, Atlanta. What do you want to know about what you’ve been reading in the papers and seeing on TV?”
Two production assistants roamed the audience with wireless microphones, picking people at random. The camera zoomed in on the first volunteer, a heavyset woman with apple-red cheeks.
“First of all, Eve,” she said, her voice trembling with nervousness, “is it really true or a bunch of made-up gossip aimed at selling papers?”
Over the laughter, Eve said, “It’s true. My biological father is Roy Best. He and my mother dated before he went away to college. He was young, only eighteen, and when you’re eighteen, maybe you don’t make the kinds of decisions that last well over a lifetime. He chose to leave when my mother told him she was pregnant.”
“Bastard!” someone yelled.
“Not to my knowledge,” Eve said calmly. “But you can ask my grandmother. She’s sitting right over here.”
The camera zoomed in on Charlotte Best, who was sitting a few seats down from Mitch and whose cheekbones were a force to be reckoned with. Mitch grinned as she quartered the studio, located the guy who’d yelled and pinned him with a glare.
“Sorry, ma’am,” the guy said, subsiding into his seat.
“But meanwhile,” Eve went on, “the man I’ll always think of as Dad had been carrying a torch for my mom for years. Since grade school, I think. Anyway, she married him instead and gave me the happiest childhood a kid could ask for. Except for the accident that took them away from me, I wouldn’t change a thing.”
You go, love. Mitch’s heart swelled with emotion at her bravery. He knew what it had taken for her to choose dealing with this head-on instead of hiding behind her legal team and maintaining the chilly, private silence that Charlotte would have preferred. That would only have inflamed the media into a frenzy. This way, she controlled people’s impression of her, and the media would have to take her leftovers.
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.