I Know What You Read (3 page)

“Hey, as long as his zero account isn’t because he’s a bum or a leech, no. Sure, I expect a guy to work as hard as I do, but his bottom line should never be part of ‘the’ bottom line. Besides, the big road block to Noah, other than the fact of him being over-confident and pompous, is that he is married.”

“Would you date him if he wasn’t?” he asked with a little half grin tearing at the corner of his lips.

“Did Noah put you up to asking me all this?”

“Absolutely not—I’m just curious,” he replied sincerely.

She drew her bottom lip in tight as she considered what impression Noah would have made on her had his marital status been single. The man looked good, but his attitude was a tough one to get past. “I honestly can’t say for sure, but I’m leaning toward no simply because I think he views women on one level. Don’t get me wrong, I like sex as much as the next person, but I want something deeper. I want a real connection with a man that’s not limited to the bedroom.”

Julian burst out with laughter.

“What?”

“You’re too innocent if you think the bedroom is the only place for sex.”

She couldn’t keep from laughing as well. She could feel her cheeks pinking as she considered that her morning delight in the middle of her office was the most risqué thing she’d ever done sexually. Her experiences with the few men in her life had all been tame and limited to a bed, “You know what I mean.” She could feel him studying her face intently.

“By God, you are innocent, aren’t you?”

“No,” she defended rather weakly, “I’m just not—not wild.” Of course, she considered if she kept reading erotic stories her bravery might improve.

“Ever in a car?” he asked seriously.

“Ah! Julian!”

“It’s okay, we can talk like girlfriends—you’re safe with me, Perfect Jade.”

She rolled her eyes and relented, “No.  I think it’s cheap.”

“Kitchen?”

“No.”

“Living room, balcony, or—”

“No.  You can stop now, I’ve—”

“I’ll play it safe: bathroom?”

“I don’t discuss this much detail with girlfriends.”

“Okay, I’ll make it easy to wrap up: have you had a man anywhere besides in your bed?”

She didn’t want to answer. She cut a quick, frustrated glance at his handsome, yet completely curious expression, “No.”

“Innocent,” he declared with a funny high lilt to his voice.

“I thought innocent was virgin.”

“Oh no, girlfriend, you can still be innocent in a number of ways. For instance: how about sex on a first date?”

“That sounds slutty.”

“Bing! We have an innocent playing this game,” he chuckled. “Sent a naked or provocative pic to a guy?”

“That is purely stupid and can come back to bite you in the ass,” she growled.

“Bing! Bing! She’s two for two on the innocent scale. We’re going for the all time innocent proof: let a guy get a French kiss or cop a good feel on a first date?”

“Kissing is for date two,” she laughed, finally starting to enjoy Julian’s little game. “And if he tries to feel me up during the kiss, it’s the last date. Okay, I don’t think you’ve proven innocence, but maybe it says I have some old fashioned values.”

“Face it, Jade. You, my sweet girl, I will lay money on it right now, are a sopping sweet, innocent romantic who is waiting for a knight in shining armor to sweep you away to his castle, charm the panties off you, while promising a lifetime of heartfelt, sincere, married devotion.”

“God, that sounds great,” she confirmed. “But what’s so wrong about wanting a happily-ever-after?” she asked as she pulled into her parking spot. He wasn’t answering, so she turned off the engine and waited patiently.

“Nothing. It’s just rare nowadays to meet someone who believes it will happen. Don’t give up on your dream.” He opened his door and reached into the back seat for his camera.

“Julian?”

“Yeah?”

“Is it that way between you and Ethan?” She felt embarrassed to ask, but she had to know.

He smiled slightly, but it was an unusual melancholy type of smile, “We’ve been best friends since tenth grade, and he’s the kindest person I know. I hope we both find our happily-ever-after, even if it’s not together.  I just don’t want to see
anyone
hurt him.”

His statement went past her ears, tugged at her heart strings, and promptly knotted somewhere in the middle of her throat. “I understand,” she said. “I was going to go to lunch. Do you want to grab Ethan and we’ll go together?”

“Rain-check? I have to get these pictures downloaded.”

“Deal,” she smiled. She cranked the car and headed for Sweet Tomatoes in Brandon. She was starving for a great salad and a bowl of soup.

CHAPTER FOUR

I know what you read.

Her conversation with Julian rolled around in her head from the time she left the paper to the time she returned. She kept thinking about what he said and the sadness on his face. Perhaps the ‘sharing’ Ethan mentioned last Monday was heading them toward a breakup. Although she had some personal moral issues with two men being together, it still hurt to picture them splitting up in the future.  They were, ironically, the happiest couple she knew.

She placed her briefcase on her desk and sat down, ready to write her story about the four wonderful women she met today, but she found a horrible surprise when she pulled out her keyboard tray. A small piece of paper, not much larger than a fortune cookie slip, was on it. It only had five words on it, but it was enough to make her feel faint. The color drained from her face as she stared at the knowledgeable remark.

I know what you read
.

“Oh shit!” she whispered. Immediately, she looked up to see if anyone in the office was watching her reaction. There were at least fifteen people with a good view of her office from across the floor, one of whom was an over-bearing sports columnist on the opposite side of the office expanse. He’d have to have great vision to see her from such a distance, but the man had good enough eyesight to stare down a batter thirty yards away and manage to land a ball in a catcher’s mitt.

Her blood felt as if it turned to steam.  She crumpled the little note in her hand and stormed across the building.

“This isn’t funny!”
she snapped, but then abruptly realized he was on the phone.

“Hey, let me call you back in a couple minutes, I have someone in my office. Thanks,” he said as he hung up. “Jade, what’s—”

“Don’t play coy with me! Your note wasn’t funny. What I do is none of your—”

“Whoa, princess, whoa,” he said putting his hands up as if in defense, “What note?”

“Like you really don’t know,” she retorted, displaying the small piece of crumpled paper.

“I don’t. Let me see it. What does it say?”

“Uh!”she groaned. “You’re full of shit! And,” she stressed, “I’m
not
going out with you!”

“I haven’t asked—not today anyway,” he clarified, “but I don’t have any plans for dinner if you—”

She turned without listening to another word and stomped back to her desk to fume. She knew she was in the wrong frame of mind to write her story. It infuriated her to think he’d been spying on her somehow. Her computer had been up all weekend, so it was a distinct possibility that he came into the office on Saturday and turned her monitor back on.
Damn it all
. It was embarrassing to realize he saw what she’d been reading. She glanced around the office again; several people were looking at this point. Her anger began to calm and worry replaced it. What if he wasn’t the person who left the note? No—it had to be him.

It didn’t take more than a few minutes for her to decide to skip-out of work for the remainder of the day. She would finish her story from home and email it in. She grabbed her stuff and headed for the front door.

She had just placed her hand on the crash bar when she felt someone touch her arm.

“Are you okay?” Ethan asked.

She was so frustrated that her jaws felt locked from clenching her teeth.

“I’ve been calling out your name for the last hundred feet or so. What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”

“I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t hear you.”

Ethan smiled.  “Rough day?”

“Yeah,” she sighed, still sounding upset, “Noah is just being a jerk.”

“Oh, you mean he’s acting normal,” he chuckled.

She felt the smile coming back to her face, “You’re absolutely right. He’s being himself.”

“Where are you headed?”

“Don’t tell Hiram, but I’m out of here for today.”

“Girl, I’m definitely not a snitch. You just take your fine self to the spa, or the salon, or—hell, this actually sounds like something I’d like to do. I could really use a manicure,” he said, looking at the nails on one hand as he put the other on his hip. He was using his over-the-top southern gay accent.

At this point, she couldn’t keep from outright laughing, “Thanks, Ethan,” she said, as she went up on her tippy toes to wrap an arm around his handsome neck and give him a hug.

The hug appeared to take him completely by surprise, “For what?”

“You just brightened my day, that’s all.”

He grinned, “Well, Julian doesn’t call me sunshine for nothin’.”

She laughed harder. “I have two words for you: comedy club.”

He tipped his head back and smiled as if he just had an epiphany, “I
love
the comedy club! Open mic night at Side Splitters—you have to go with me and Julian next month.”

She was about to tell him she might when she saw Hiram walking toward the front. He hadn’t seen her, yet.  “Crap!  Here comes the boss.  I’m outta here.”

“Go. Go,” he said, pushing her out the door.

She drove to her home in Valrico. It was an ample two/two, build in the early 1970’s in a safe, but older neighborhood. Her grandmother willed it to her several years ago, and Jade was grateful to get out of apartment life in the city. She honestly was a bit of an introvert. She liked to putter around the house putting her home repair skills to the test. When she wasn’t watching Youtube videos on how to repair a leaky faucet, or how to lay tile, or whatever happened to need fixing at the time, she could be found mowing the lawn, trimming the trees, or replanting her flowerbeds.

Her mother tried to talk her into selling it and moving to South Carolina, but, with the crappy real estate market, it didn’t have a decent resale value right now. And, besides, she didn’t care for the guy her mother remarried. No, she would stay in Florida and live in her modest home, work as a reporter, and pray for prince charming to find her one day.

She went into her dining room and pulled out the notes for her story. Her angry emotions faded and all that remained was happiness over working from home. So what if mister big-shot-former-baseball-player knew she liked to read erotica. What was he going to do about it? Blackmail her? She didn’t have much money, and he certainly didn’t need any more.

She chuckled to herself as she turned on her laptop, “I’ll just say it was research for a story I’m working on.” The more she gave it thought, the funnier it became because a new adult store had opened in downtown Tampa and she might actually have to turn it into a story. If Noah thought he was going to rattle her cage, she would prove him wrong.

CHAPTER FIVE

“You, Jade, are a gem—and that isn’t a pun.”

Tuesday found her happy and chipper. Morning traffic had been light and she made it into the office a few minutes early with time to spare for picking up a Starbuck’s cappuccino. Her story from yesterday had come together brilliantly and she considered it to be some of the best writing she’d done in a long time. She would meet with Julian around 8:30 to decide on which pics to use and it would be finished.

Hiram stood at the front desk waiting, apparently for her.

She groaned internally, but put a smile on her face, “So, what did you think about my piece, boss?”

He was wearing the kind of smile her Granny used say was like ‘a possum eating shit and enjoying every mouthful.’  She suddenly worried
he
might be the one who read what was on her monitor. She gave a mental, ‘Ewww!’  He was in his mid-fifties, short, balding and pudgy, but everyone told her how much he liked her. He called her his ‘Roxanne Simpson’ of the office. Roxanne was the reporter played by Eva Mendez in the movie Ghost Rider.  Jade didn’t exclude herself from her celebrity matching habit, and although she did see a striking resemblance, with the exception that she had green eyes and Eva had brown, she simply didn’t see herself as sexy.

“Great work! I loved it. I want you to make sure you don’t have anything on your calendar when they finish the three-day so you can do a follow-up.”

“Sure. No problem.”

“Listen, the Lightning are—”

“Don’t say it or I quit!”

“Huh?”

“You and I need to talk,” she glanced to Kristen who was seated at the reception desk trying to appear busy and uninterested, but Jade knew she was listening to every word. She also knew within the hour her refusal to cover the Lightning game would be all over the building.

Five minutes later, she and her boss were standing in his office.

“Boss, I know you’re getting ready to pair me up with Noah, and I
know
he asked you to do it.”

Hiram appeared to be a little ashamed as his cheeks turned red, “Jade, he—”

“Mr. Spencer,” she said, addressing him formally so he’d know she was serious, “he’s harassing me, and I don’t appreciate you going along with it.”

He sat down behind his over-sized desk and sank into his over-sized executive chair, “I’m sorry.”

His sudden apology caught her totally off-guard.

“He interviewed with Jacksonville and Miami before he came here. I was working hard to land him, and I hate to admit it, but I think when he saw you, he made up his mind. He wanted to know everything about you, and he asked me what you wrote. He also asked if I could arrange for the two of you to do a couple stories together. I’m sure it helped for Tampa to have major league baseball, football, and hockey, but once he saw you, he agreed to work for us.”