Manhattan journalist Michelle Michaels just can't seem to get a break when she finds herself the subject of false rumors. Now she's being blindsided by her own boss. Wrongly suspecting her of trading sex for scoops, he's caved in to the shady newsroom gossip and sent Michelle quietly packing on a leave of absence to her hometown of Detroit where some family secrets still lurk. With a career on the DL and a love life at low-ebb, Michelle's hit rock bottom-until she meets dark, dimpled, and delicious Wesley Abbott...
Detroit reporter Wesley Abbott's plate is full investigating a corrupt local judge. Now he's got something else to investigate-and she's the sweetest thing to sashay into the Herald in years. But Michelle and Wesley have more in common than they ever imagined, and it's not just mellow vibes. In fact, it's a scandal! And when these two bodies bump, so does trouble-with a capital T...
Release date:
February 1, 2005
Publisher:
St. Martin's Publishing Group
Print pages:
320
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Michelle’s morning played like something straight out of her favorite soap opera, If Tomorrow Never Comes. Minus the cheesy sets, musical crescendo, and obligatory fade-out to a fabric softener commercial.
“Do you make a habit of screwing every man you interview?” the irate female voice seared through the phone line like a lit fuse on a stick of dynamite.
Michelle rolled her chair closer to her neat desktop and computer. She didn’t need this nonsense first thing on a tight-deadline Monday. After that bomb of a date last night with Ken Gerard, a crank call was about as welcome as the run zipping up the left leg of her panty hose and the painful zit rising on the tip of her nose like Mount Kanchenjunga. With the receiver tucked between an ear and a shoulder, her steady gaze remained glued to the monitor. Her fingertips fluttered over a kidney-shaped ergonomically correct keyboard. Early-morning newsroom activity bustled in the background.
Michelle responded with a half-distracted, “Huh?”
“You heard me,” the voice replied.
Interview eventually registered; then Michelle got a clue. “Excuse me?” Poised over the keyboard, her fingers went still.
“I said do you make a habit of screwing every man you interview or is that personal touch only reserved for multimillionaire CEOs going through a postmidlife crisis?”
Michelle swiveled her chair, her nervous gaze darting around the newsroom. Self-consciously she pressed the phone closer to her ear, as if her colleagues could overhear the caller’s rant. The two reporters who usually occupied the cubicles flanking hers had yet to arrive.
“Who is this?” Michelle demanded in a stage whisper.
“How do you plan to maintain your journalistic objectivity and professionalism when it’s obvious you’re sleeping with my husband?”
Then Michelle recognized the voice. The impact felt like a dropkick in the solar plexus.
“Mrs. Chapelle?” Michelle pretended to humor an old friend. She cleared her throat. Both hands choked the receiver. “Mrs. Chapelle?”
“Did you call me Mrs. Chapelle?”
Michelle added a cocktail party chuckle. “Yes. This is Michelle Michaels. I think you have the wrong number.” Another lighthearted chuckle with a sigh.
“Funny you used Mrs.” The woman broke into a scornful laugh. “I thought you’d conveniently forgotten that Stanford Chapelle is a married man. And I have the right number.”
“Mrs. Chapelle, seems there’s been a misunderstanding,” Michelle replied with a low, measured calm despite the cocktail of anger and confusion now churning inside her belly. A massive tension headache arrived full force. “I-I don’t know where you got your information, but—”
“Don’t try to play innocent with me, young lady. And the lady part I do use loosely, of course. I’m no fool and I’m sure your editors at the Business Journal will be more than a little interested in what I have to say on this matter. When I’m done giving your supervisors an earful on your unprofessional behavior I’ll make sure the rest of the media know just what a sneaky, opportunistic little slut you are.”
That’s it! Something inside Michelle unhinged. “Ms. Chapelle, for your information—”
“Instead of wasting time with a weak denial, I suggest you freshen your résumé,” Mrs. Chapelle interrupted. “You’ll need it when I’m done with you.”
Michelle blinked at the abrupt click followed by the rude hum of a dial tone.
What the hell was going on? She gaped at the receiver. Her next impulse: Pitch it. Pitch something. Anything. Like Bliss Worthington would surely do. Bliss Worthington was resident daytime diva of If Tomorrow Never Comes, and the ballsiest concoction since the dang bubble gum machine. Bliss Worthington was Foxy Brown, Lois Lane, and Erica Kane all rolled into one.
But instead of unleashing a Bliss move, Michelle opted to fake cool instead. She was at work after all. And Thomas, the nerdy nosy news aid whose station was just a few feet away, gawked in Michelle’s direction with his radar hitched high. She didn’t need him poking around in her beeswax, nor did she need to add to the newsroom scuttlebutt. Michelle’s alleged exploits read like Anna Nicole Smith’s tabloid rap sheet.
Michelle acknowledged Thomas with a nod and pasted-on smile in hopes of convincing him that everything was just peachy in her world. He nodded, gave her a jaunty thumbs-up, then went back to his mail sorting. Pivoting in the chair until her back was to the news aid’s station, she wrung her hands, then slumped forward, staring at the glowing green print on her computer screen.
“Think, Michelle,” she muttered to compose herself. Her fingers stole to her temples, where the dull ache progressed to an unrelenting rhythmic throb.
She’d just finished putting the finishing touches on a major career-boosting profile on Stanford Chapelle, CEO of Luxor Enterprises, for her employer, the Manhattan Business Journal, a top national business publication.
Over two decades, Chapelle, known as one of the most brilliant business minds in the country, had taken a half-dozen failing companies with flagging stock and made them Wall Street darlings again. An expert on business leadership and organization, Chapelle had been a hot commodity as far as interviews went. He didn’t agree to many in-depth profiles, but Michelle had gone after him anyway. She hadn’t been the first reporter to pursue Chapelle, but she’d been the one to succeed. And as much as she’d like to credit her intellect and ingenuity, there was more to Chapelle’s caving in to her interview request. Utilizing choice connections, she’d crashed a tournament at his private racquet club, marched over, and introduced herself to him between tennis sets. For lack of a better word, she’d immediately realized there was a type of chemistry between them. But not sexual chemistry, for crying out loud. Ewwww! Michelle crinkled her nose and mentally shuddered at the thought. At sixty-six, Stanford Chapelle was old enough to be her grandfather, and the man was married.
Katherine Chapelle was paranoid, plain and simple, and completely off-base, accusing Michelle of sleeping with the man. The most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard!
She sighed, running her fingers through freshly relaxed auburn tresses as an unwelcome thought surfaced in bits and pieces. She couldn’t lie to herself. She supposed that … maybe … if pressed … she could concede that she and Stanford Chapelle had made a connection beyond the norm between interviewer and interviewee.
There was something about him. Charming. Smart. Funny. Warm. She’d spent weeks picking his brain and trailing him for a five-part groundbreaking series on the man and his business machinations. In hindsight, Michelle would also admit that it probably hadn’t been the smartest move to accept every “off-campus” invitation he’d extended away from Luxor Enterprises. That impromptu trip to Maui on one of the Luxor company jets while Chapelle did a personal check on one of Luxor’s many business subsidiaries had no doubt come back to haunt her.
She could not deny that though she was working, she’d thoroughly enjoyed spending time with the man. And was more than flattered that he seemed to enjoy spending time with her, too. Any hesitation that surfaced Michelle had simply rationalized away. Most journalists had to do the tagalong thing at some point in their careers. Accepting Chapelle’s invitations had been necessary—for the sake of thorough journalism—to get a handle on the real man beyond the tasteful Brioni suits and expansive cherrywood executive desk on high at Luxor headquarters in Midtown. Readers had come to expect certain things from a Michelle Michaels in-depth profile.
Michelle shrugged out of her black suit jacket as nervous perspiration dampened her palms and armpits and the back of her neck. What did this mean? What if her editors believed Mrs. Chapelle’s wild accusations? Was a pink slip forthcoming? Michelle oscillated between panic and anger. She willed her rapid-fire breathing to stabilize. It was all just a big ugly misunderstanding that would clear up soon enough, she told herself to ease the tension tightly coiling the muscles in her neck. She’d simply talk to Larry about what just happened. Between the two of them they’d straighten out this mess.
* * *
Dizzily, Michelle watched her editor, Larry Morgan, squeeze the hell out of the rubber stress ball in his meaty grip and pace his corner office.
Settled in the leather chair positioned in front of Larry’s cluttered desk, Michelle had just relayed the details of that heated call from Katherine Chapelle.
Larry stopped moving long enough to perch his beefy rump along the edge of his desk. The front of his rumpled khaki slacks strained across thick thighs. His nose and rounded cheeks burned a deep crimson from rosacea and anger.
“And you swear there’s no truth to these allegations?” he grilled her in his thick Brooklyn accent.
“Larry!” Offended by his accusing look, Michelle gripped the armrests so firmly she felt her knuckles crack. “How could you even suggest that—”
“That you’d stoop to having an affair with a dashing multimillionaire CEO—”
“Who just happens to be married and old enough to be my grandfather,” Michelle huffed, reeling from his insinuation. “How could you of all people even think that I—”
“Look, I’m sorry, all right?” Larry plunked the ball on top of his desk, then ran his fingers through his spidery brown comb-over. “Just need to make sure I’ve got all the facts straight. And besides, it’s not as if something like this hasn’t come up before.”
Michelle rolled her eyes. “Is this about Maxwell Coleman?”
Maxwell Coleman, founder and CEO of Coleman Electronics. Michelle had profiled him for the Business Journal eight months ago. The paper wanted an in-depth feature, and that’s what she’d given them. Michelle had turned on the charm and done the whole tag-along-journalist thing as usual. Michelle had found Coleman, like Chapelle, utterly fascinating. And Coleman had been so pleased with the job Michelle had done on his story, he’d sent a representative from Tiffany’s to the Business Journal’s newsroom with a selection of pearls from which Michelle could choose as a token of his appreciation.
Michelle had been at once flattered and taken aback by his well-meaning but highly inappropriate way of expressing his gratitude for a job well done. She did not accept—or even consider accepting—such a grand personal gift. Not just because company policy prohibited reporters and editors from accepting “gifts or tokens of appreciation” valued at fifty dollars or more, but also because she simply knew it wasn’t right. Despite the ugly rumors, she was not swayed by high-priced graft. Her personal and professional integrity was not for sale.
When it came to scoops, no one could deny that she kicked ass, though. To take her down a notch, some of her Business Journal colleagues gossiped about her “questionable” methods of gathering information. The disgusting newsroom rumors had been rampant: Michelle Michaels was not beyond putting the moves—in every sense of those words—on top players in the business world to get them to open up to her. But she refused to be broken by petty jealousy. She’d simply done her thing to the best of her ability. She wouldn’t lose this job. She couldn’t lose this job!
“Yeah, I was thinking of Maxwell Coleman.” Larry nailed Michelle with his gray unwavering gaze. “And Desmond Bloomingthal of NitroTec last year.”
Michelle’s cheeks stung. She couldn’t believe all this was coming from Larry, a man she thought of not only as her supervisor but also as her most loyal Business Journal supporter. “Don’t tell me you’ve bought into the maliciousness spread by a bunch of insecure hacks, who’ve shown all the decency and sense of fair play of crabs in a barrel,” she bit out.
“This isn’t just about newsroom gossip, Michelle.” Larry searched for the right words. “It’s about … well … I suppose we should’ve had this discussion long before now.”
“Discussion about what?”
Larry averted his eyes, then paused thoughtfully as the next few minutes of silence dragged like Michelle’s beleaguered spirit. Dread settled in and her breath caught. Her stomach plunged like a bear stock market.
He was going to fire her.
“You see …,” Larry started slowly.
Here it comes. Michelle winced.
“I should have said something sooner, but hell…” He pushed out a sharp breath. “You were doing such a bang-up job on these showy profiles and grabby series. Who the hell was I to question your story-gathering techniques? Hey, you know, if it ain’t broke … But I’ve had senior editors coming to me, expressing concern over how … what’s the word … close you seem to get to some of your subjects, particularly the male CEO types.”
“I have done nothing unethical or immoral,” Michelle insisted, slapping the armrest for emphasis. “What female reporter hasn’t used the charm-and/or-a-bit-of-flirting thing every now and then?”
“And beyond that?” He still seemed skeptical.
“I know where to draw the line. I am not—I repeat—I am not a mogul- and millionaire-fucker, Larry, if that’s what you’re getting at!”
Whoooops!
Eyelids twitching, Michelle wanted to snatch those words back the second she said them. Her butt was most definitely burnt toast, her professional reputation fried, and she wielded the blowtorch.
“I’m sorry. Th-th-that kind of language is uncalled for.” Michelle downshifted to frantic backpedaling. “It’s just that … I-I mean … This is all too much. These accusations hurled at me. I do not trade sex for scoops.”
“Okay. All right.” Larry lifted his hands in supplication and Michelle heard contrition in his tone.
He continued, “But there’s a fine line between engaging subjects and presenting yourself in such a way that the subject is confused or misled to believe you’re opening yourself up for a personal relationship.”
“I haven’t purposely misled anyone.” Exhausted from having to defend herself, first to Mrs. Chapelle and then to someone she thought would always have her back at the Business Journal, Michelle released her grip on the chair.
“Maybe not on purpose. Look, I know it’s tough, setting and maintaining boundaries and all. Even I’ve been tempted, but I’ve never once played where I worked, meaning no office romances, either. And I had even more rigid rules for when I was reporting, to make sure I didn’t cross the line. For one, I never socialized with sources, because I believed keeping that distance was crucial to maintaining my independence.”
“But it’s different where beats are concerned—”
“Of course,” he cut her off. “For beat reporting you do want to keep those relationships oiled and symbiotic, but at the same time it’s vital to be well aware of the subtext and the agendas that abound. Do you understand?”
Michelle nodded, feeling like a third grader in the principal’s office getting reprimanded for launching a spitball attack.
Upside: she still had her job.
So far.
Larry continued, “I’ve worked at major papers in Chicago, Washington, and Los Angeles. I got the hot leads and insider info without once partying with a subject or source, nor was I ever on a first-name basis with any of them. And for the record, I do know about that business analyst at Cooper-Braxton that you’ve become particularly chummy with.”
Larry’s reference to man-poaching Courtney Banks was like a jab from a rusty nail. Michelle’s friendship with Courtney was no longer an issue because it was k-a-p-u-t. Courtney killed it after that stunt she’d pulled the night before when she crashed Michelle’s date with Ken Gerard, then proceeded to steal the man away. Michelle had been relegated to riding out third-wheel syndrome as she guzzled lukewarm Kendall-Jackson and her insides heaved in gastrointestinal revolt. She began, “About Courtney—”
“Wait. Let me continue before you have a conniption again. Maybe you don’t even realize what’s happening. But I recall how downright giddy you always were after you returned from one of your many meetings with Stanford Chapelle. You’d practically float into the newsroom like Tinker Bell on speed, then start chattering away about what a great meeting you two had.”
“I was just excited about the story, my work, Larry. Is something so wrong with that? I thought you of all people would understand.” Michelle slumped in her chair. “You’ve read that whole series. You worked with me on it, helping me shape it and polish it. You know how proud I am of it.”
“Yes, and you did some damn fine reporting and writing, as usual. But can you honestly look me in the eye and tell me that you and Stanford Chapelle did not develop some sort of personal relationship?”
Michelle looked away from him to the wall where tattered construction paper and crayon art drawn by Larry’s two grade-school-age grandchildren clung to a corkboard.
“Michelle, can you tell me that you and Chapelle did not develop a personal relationship while you were working on his story?”
Michelle bit her lip, looked down at her hands, then up at Larry again, breaking down faster than a perpetrator on an old Perry Mason rerun. “Okay. I guess you could say there was.”
Dragging a hand down his face, Larry came to his feet. “Hooooh, boy,” he said with a mix of resignation and weariness.
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