Risking Trust (12 page)

She let out a breath. The added security meant drastic changes from the casual way her father had done things. Under his reign anyone could have walked into the building and vandalized it.

“It’s what you need to do, Roxann. It should have been done long ago.”

Now Michael was a mind reader?

“I know, but it’s hard.”

He turned toward her, sat back a little. “Sure it is. And after what you’ve been through, most people would have collapsed by now. You’re handling it. You should be proud of yourself.”

Proud of herself. Not yet she wasn’t. She blinked a few times and drew a breath of thick, suffocating air. So blasted tired.

“Let’s deal with the lobby desk situation,” he said, obviously picking up on the tension. “You need to make a change there. An eighty-year-old blind woman can get by those guys.”

Her shoulders tightened and she ground her teeth until they ached. She was a reasonable manager, but she would not blame the security staff for the pressroom incident.

“I won’t fire them. If we’d had adequate security cameras this might have been avoided.”

“I didn’t say you needed to ax them. Add people for the lobby and reassign the ones you have.”

“Fine. I’ll take it under advisement,” she said.

Michael put up two hands. “Don’t get pissy with me. You asked what I thought and I told you.”

He began rolling the blueprints. Irritated. Roxann dropped her head into her hands. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

She could make excuses—tired, grieving and just plain mad—but she wouldn’t. Excuses didn’t give her permission to lash out, especially when he went out of his way to be helpful.

“No big deal.”

It was a big deal, but she was too tired to worry about it. She reached out and touched his arm. “Thank you for understanding.”

He secured the blueprints with a rubber band and turned toward her with a grin. “I told you, I’m in my sensitive phase right now.”

Lucky her.

“I’m assuming you’ll bill us for this. I think I’m afraid to see that bill.”

Michael draped his arm over her shoulder and gave an affectionate squeeze. “You’re getting a what-a-deal. Call it the old friend discount. It’ll still hurt though.”

A ripple shot up her spine and she found herself wishing he wouldn’t touch her. His touch clogged her already harassed brain and made her want to curl into him. Not good in her current state.

“Thanks for the what-a-deal.”

They stood, ran into each other and stopped. Her gaze fixed on his throat as his warm breath tickled her cheek.
Please back up. Please.
He remained still. Of course he did. She knew she should step back, willed herself to do it, but her body refused.

Michael reached up, ran a finger down her cheek. “Bang.”

She jerked to attention. “Bang?”

“It was the sound of your head exploding. You think
way
too much.”

“And this is news to you? Of all people?”

“I like it. It gets you all uptight. Sooner or later you’ll need to decompress. I have to time it so I’m around. If my memory serves, I’m good at helping you decompress.” He wiggled his eyebrows.

She laughed. Really laughed.

“Good luck with
that
.”

She’d missed this easy banter between them. The joking and verbal combat. Michael brought out the silly in her and not many people had accomplished such a feat. The only problem was he could roll her into a heap of heartbreak.

“The mayor went off at his press conference today,” Michael said as they walked to the door. He’d tried to avoid the Carl Biehl article, but wanted to make sure Roxann knew he understood the backlash she faced. The risks she’d taken by making this deal with him.

“I heard he lambasted us on the early news. He’s been calling me every day since the story ran. He thinks I’m vulnerable. He
thinks
if he keeps harassing me, I’ll give in.”

Michael snorted. “Moron.”

“Yep. I took great satisfaction in giving the approval for a follow-up article on Alicia and Carl. Apparently they were seen together quite often leading up to her death. Phil’s source told him Carl was questioned the morning after the murder. None of that was released. I also gave Phil the list of leads we came up with from your surveillance folder.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s a story,” she said. “That’s what we do.”

“Not many people would stand up to the mayor of Chicago. You’ve got guts, Rox.”

“I should thank you too. You came over to discuss business and I pulled you into my emotional swamp.”

He shrugged. “I’m used to it. I should have drowned in Gina’s swamp by now. Her only luck is bad.”

The mention of Gina and her dead husband brought silence, and Roxann rocked back and forth on her toes—probably his cue to leave. He pulled the door open, shut it again and turned back to her. “You okay? I can stay awhile. Talk if you want, not talk, whatever.”

She gazed up at him, those big blue eyes hesitant. What was she thinking? A clanging erupted in his ears and he imagined himself going over a cliff in slow motion. The ride over the edge might be exhilarating, but it would hurt like hell when he landed.

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Besides, you’ve done plenty. I’ll get some sleep and be ready to fight again tomorrow.”

Something in her tore him up. He wasn’t sure if it was sadness, exhaustion or the weight of her responsibilities, but he knew she’d never give up. The competitor in her wouldn’t allow it.

Years earlier, when Roxann tried to help him, he’d been too stubborn to let her. Maybe if he had, their lives would have gone differently and they’d have a few kids running around by now.

Without thinking, he leaned in and let his lips glide softly over hers. She stiffened.

Shit.
Big mistake, Taylor
.

He stood motionless, waiting for her to push him away as the citrus scent of her soap surrounded him, made him crazy enough to kiss her again. She didn’t move. Nice. When the stiffness left her and she began kissing him back, his heart hammered and he felt sure the world could hear it. All these years, he’d thought about this, the way her body, with those long, long legs, curved against his. He pulled her closer and settled in, let himself enjoy the moment because the memory of kissing the unequalled Roxann had never left him.

Suddenly, the room became hot. Boiling. Explosive.

And he had a woody.

She must have noticed that bad boy because she slapped her hand over the back of his neck, sending sparks roaring through him. She hauled him closer, kissing him harder and harder still, her tongue darting in and out until his mind nearly disintegrated.
So good.
The moment became a battle of lips and grunts and bodies pressed hard, and he swept his tongue along her bottom lip and nipped her.
Too damn good
.

When she slid her hands under his sweatshirt—
thank you!
—he dropped the portfolio he held in one hand and it hit the floor with a smack. Roxann jumped out of his reach.

Nuh-uh. No way.

She stood inches from him, her chest hitching with each breath and her gaze darting over his face. “We shouldn’t do this, Michael.”

Sure they should.

He stepped forward, wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her from retreating again. “Why not?”

With her hands against his biceps, she pushed back. “Call it self-preservation on my part. I’ve had a rotten day and I’m needy tonight. It would be for all the wrong reasons.”

Michael dipped his head lower and grinned. “It might be a lot of things, but wrong isn’t one of them.”

She shoved him a little. “Reckless, then.”

On a sigh, he stepped back. He could charm her into giving in and they’d have a hot night ahead of them, which would be pretty damn great. Or he could give her space, which would be boring as hell, but it would earn her trust. Trust had to be the goal, and manipulating her into the sack wouldn’t do it.

He opted for boring as hell. The spark between them obviously still existed. He could take it slow. Work on her a little at a time until she realized they’d be good together. Maybe even great.

This from the guy with the iron clad rule about not mixing business with pleasure. He’d already blown that sucker out of the water.

Besides, even horny as hell, he’d come to believe she was right about destroying the integrity of a story with rumors about the publisher sleeping with the suspect. In fact, he’d put Vic in charge of her security. Michael would stay as far away from the
Banner
as he could. Problem solved.

He took one step back and smiled.

“I’m not giving up.” He picked up the blueprints and portfolio, pulled open the door and walked out of the house.

Halfway down the walk he angled back, saw her standing in the doorway, her mouth partway open. Perplexed? Mad? Either way, he had to snap her out of it.

He laughed. “I’ll come back in,
if
you beg me.”

From his distance, he could see her jaw tighten.
Atta girl,
he thought. The warrior returns.

“We’ll see who begs,” she fumed and slammed the door so hard he swore the house shook. He stood on the walkway grinning. This would be fun.

Early morning talk radio jolted Roxann from a restless sleep.

With a swipe of her hand, the clock radio sailed through the air only to be jerked back when the cord caught. The blasted thing was still making noise.

Had a jackhammer gone through her right eye? She pressed a finger to it. There would be no way she could run today. The first time in years, barring illness, she’d missed her normal run, but she was too damned tired after staying up half the night to work.

After bracing one foot on the floor, Roxann rolled out of bed, crawled to the insidious alarm and smacked the snooze button. She curled her bare legs—hadn’t she put on the bottoms of her pajamas?—into a ball and figured she could hit snooze at least three more times until she absolutely had to get up.

After the third snooze, she rolled to her back and was never happier she opted for the double thick padding under the carpet. The only bright spot was that the follow-up story on Alicia and Carl would be in the paper today.

At least she had warned Michael so he’d be prepared for the embarrassment.

Who was she kidding? Michael had yet to experience an embarrassing moment. A crisis turned him into a building that refused to implode. She supposed it came from his military training.

“Enough,” she said. “Stop analyzing. Pretend he’s not involved. This is a regular story. Let Phil handle it.”

Forty minutes later, after three ibuprofens and a hot shower, she slipped into in her most comfortable slacks—the beige ones that matched her mood—and headed downstairs to her office to collect her laptop and briefcase. Sundays were just not meant to be spent at work.

She stepped through the office doorway and her low heels dipped into the carpet. A faint, musky smell caught her attention and, on instinct, she spun around and jerked the door away from the wall. A relieved whoosh of air escaped her straining lungs.

She sniffed again, but didn’t detect anything. Did exhaustion make people paranoid? It had to be the headache. She sat at her desk to pack her laptop and froze. The gold pen had been moved. She stared at it while her veins turned to icicles. She always—always—placed the pen in the holder with the
Banner Herald
logo facing out. All she saw now was glinting gold and no logo.

She took inventory of the office. Nothing else appeared out of place. Well, the stacks of folders on her desk shouldn’t be there, but that was her own fault. The pen though, that was something else entirely. She’d been distracted lately. Maybe she wasn’t paying attention when she put it back? Again she surmised it could be exhaustion inflicted paranoia.

If someone
had
been there, it was while she slept. A fierce panic blasted her. She didn’t want to contemplate all that could have happened.

A burglar would have snatched her laptop and Blackberry, but both of those items were still on the desk. By the time she’d gotten done making all these assumptions, she had almost talked herself out of the intruder theory.

To ease her mind, she charged up to the bedroom and rifled through her dresser, checking all the places she kept her jewelry. Part of the joy of being anal retentive was knowing where she kept everything. All accounted for. Excellent. She continued her quick tour of the house, but nothing looked disturbed and all the doors and windows were intact.

Okay, she was losing it. She thought about calling Max and telling him about the incident, but nixed the idea. What could she tell him that would warrant a police report? An odd smell and a wayward pen? Didn’t sound like much of a crime scene and Max would say the same. He’d probably laugh at her.

Thirty minutes later, Roxann strode into the corporate suite at the
Banner
and found Mrs. Mackey at her desk. A good woman to come in on a Sunday when her boss hadn’t even asked. She wore a red and white floral dress way too busy for Roxann’s reeling head. “Good morning. You do remember Illinois has a law that requires employees to have one day of rest for every seven they work, right?”

“Are you going to tell?” Mrs. Mackey asked.

Roxann forced a smile, grabbed her messages and read the first few until she felt her laser sharp secretary studying her.

“You feeling okay, Sassy?”

“I’m a little off, nothing to worry about. Would you get me Vic Andrews at Taylor Security please? And find Phil Dawson? Otherwise, hold my calls. Thank you for coming in. I so appreciate what you do for me.”

Roxann took the remaining messages into her office, tossed them on the desk with the stacks and stacks of folders. With a tired sigh, she hung her suit jacket behind the door.

A few moments later her phone buzzed and she scooped it up to silence it. “Vic?”

“At your service,
Miz
Thorgesson.”

“Good morning.”

“What’s happenin’?”

She loved his easy, happy style, so different from Michael’s. Brooding worked for Michael. Vic belonged on a surf board somewhere.

She pasted a smile on her face hoping it would lighten her mood and make her sound casual. “I’m thinking about putting a security system in my home.”

“Sure. What happened?”

That question certainly squashed her trying-to-sound-casual theory. Roxann tapped her pen on the desk. “Just precaution.”

“Okay, let me check the schedule, see when we can get there.”

“I was hoping to do it today.” As if
that
wasn’t a red flag.

“Today?” he said. “Come on, Roxann, what’s up?”

The tap-tap-tapping of her pen continued as she contemplated her next statement.

“I’m not sure what’s up. I could be paranoid, but it can’t hurt to have a security system, right?” Didn’t her father always say the best defense was a good offense?

“Yeah, but what’s your hurry? I’ve seen you at least eight times in the past week and you’ve never mentioned it. Now you want it installed on a weekend. No dice.”

Darn.
She had purposely called him instead of Michael because she didn’t want to be questioned. Thinking on it, it was probably easier to tell Vic than Michael anyway. Vic could at least stay impartial.

“I think someone was in my house last night, but I could be making the whole thing up because I’m so brain-fried. I don’t know what I’m doing. How’s
that
for a reason?”

He half laughed. “Not bad. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I’m not even sure someone broke in, but why take a chance?”

“Absolutely. I’ll get someone there today. What time can you meet us?”

She sat back and closed her eyes. The little ball of nausea that had plagued her since stepping into her home office that morning unwound itself. “Thank you. I’ll work around your schedule. Just tell me when.”

“I’ll call you back.”

Roxann picked up the advertising revenue reports sitting on her desk. She hoped the numbers were good because they were going to need all available cash to get through the next few weeks.

The
Chronicle
’s exorbitant leasing fees would severely cut into the already sinking bottom line. First thing tomorrow morning she needed to check on the repair of the presses. All but one of the parts had been acquired so the repair should be imminent. She hoped.

Otherwise, she needed to come up with a cash flow plan to get them through. Advertising revenue would be key. Subscribers were important to a newspaper, but the big money came from major retailers and airlines that spent tens of millions of dollars peddling their services. The
Banner
would need to keep said retailers happy, not an easy task.

An hour later, Mrs. Mackey knocked on the open office door wearing her bulldog look. “Michael Taylor has called twice.”

Roxann, distracted by the email she’d been reading, went back to her computer. “What about?”

“He said it was personal. He must think you have nothing better to do all day than chit-chat.”

“If he calls again, ask him if I can call him back.” She had to get through these emails.

Roxann swore a trail of dust kicked up as Mrs. Mackey stormed out.

Ten minutes later the secretary hovered in the doorway again. “Remember when I said Michael Taylor called?”

Dammit.
The stupid headache had Roxann’s skull throbbing and the pattern on Mrs. Mackey’s dress wasn’t helping. Could it be getting bigger? And moving? She placed both hands on her head. “I’ll call him back.”

Undeterred, Mrs. Mackey entered the office. “Mr. Hot-Shot is downstairs and wants to see you. Can I get rid of him?”

Between the two of them, Roxann was out-muscled. “Let him in, Stonewall.” When Mrs. Mackey got this way
she
could have been the one holding the line at Bull Run. “Something has crawled up his butt and the sooner I know what it is, the sooner I can get my work done.”

Mrs. Mackey turned and started for the door.

“And I’ll handle him.” Roxann didn’t want the pair of them having it out in the middle of the office.

She pulled her mirror and did a quick hair and lipstick check. What a mess. Nothing could help her pale, puffy appearance, but she pulled her lipstick from the drawer and slicked some on. Couldn’t hurt.

Michael stepped into the office just as she finished putting her makeup away. He shut the door and when he turned to look at her, she couldn’t move. He wore gray dress slacks, a black v-neck sweater and that dangerous, brooding look that was so much a part of him. She sat mesmerized by the force of him. So amazingly hot.

Don’t go there
.

The first time she’d seen that look was early in their dating when he’d gotten mad at her for running alone at night. Even then he’d brought a quiet energy that immediately put her on edge. After that, she never ran alone in the dark.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Michael planted his hands on the desk and leaned in. She scooted back an inch. She didn’t appreciate people, men in particular, in her personal space. Even if he was sexy.

“Why didn’t you call me this morning?”

“Pardon?”

“You called
Vic
instead of
me
. Why?”

It took a minute to register. The pulsing in her head flared and she counted to ten. Now he thought he could come into her office and demand answers? Wrong.

She got to her feet and mirrored his stance. “
Vic
has been here day and night, why wouldn’t I call him?”

“
I
could have helped you.”

They stared at each other for a long moment until Michael finally gave in and dropped into one of the guest chairs.
That’s better
.

Roxann nodded, then sat. “I’m sure you could have, but Vic’s been in charge around here and I thought he should be my first stop. If I was mistaken, I apologize. He should have told me. Besides, I wanted to keep it between us.”

Michael’s hand shot up, his voice still holding a bit of frustration. “He didn’t squeal. Tell him something and it stays there. The scheduling manager came to me because Vic pulled two of our best techs off a commercial job that was paying double for a weekend install. He thought Vic was smokin’ crack.”

She smiled, her disappointment in being betrayed diminishing. “I don’t think he was stoned. He was doing me a favor.”

“What the hell happened?”

Michael listened—quietly—until Roxann finished. It took great effort to not bombard her with questions and he tried to stop tapping his foot, but the more she talked, the higher his frustration climbed and the faster his foot moved.

Why the hell didn’t she call him with this?

He should have been her first phone call. No matter how much Vic had been around. Did she not think he’d help her? The sound of her voice broke into his thoughts and he focused on her words, ignoring the roaring chaos in his brain.
You got her into this.

“So nothing was missing?” he asked.

“Nothing. The pen was the only thing disturbed. I’m not even sure anyone was there.”

“You’re sure.”

She gave him a puzzled look. “I am?”

“You know your house. No broken windows?”

“No,” she said. “Locks are intact. If I reported it, my uncle would tell me there’s no proof. I’m putting in a security system to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“Who do you think it was?”

“My guess is, one of the pressmen. I had to put them on furlough until we get the presses repaired. Plus, with the ongoing contract negotiations, maybe they’re trying to scare me.”

“No. If they wanted to scare you they would have tossed your underwear all over the place.”

Her head jerked back and he knew he’d gotten his point across. Between running alone, sometimes at night, and working late, she took too many chances. It was incomprehensible that she didn’t have a security system.

“Maybe they were looking for something that wasn’t there.”

He let out a sarcastic grunt. “Think about it. You pissed people off by running that story about Biehl and Alicia.”

She gave him one of her famous, irritating eye rolls and he jabbed his finger at her. “Don’t give me that. It’s possible.”

“You honestly believe someone broke into my house to see if I have Phil’s notes?”

“Don’t you?”

She was way too predictable not to have brought Phil’s notes home to read. She probably didn’t have time during the day and, as he would do, brought memos and reports home.

She opened her desk drawer, pulled out a small bowl of M&Ms and offered him some. They wouldn’t cure her problems.

He waved off the candy and she glared at him. “I haven’t had lunch, I’ve got a massive headache and Vic hasn’t called me back.”

“He’s not going to. I told him I’d handle this. Knowing him, he’ll call you later for a temperature check. He hates being in trouble with women.”

Roxann looked skeptical.

“Believe it.” Michael stood. “Now, get your stuff.”

“Why?”

“You want an alarm on your house?”

“We’re going now?”

“Yeah. I’ve got two of my best guys sitting on ice. They’ll meet us at your place and you tell them what you want.”

Roxann’s eyes, so big and blue and definitely unsure, leveled on him. “You put two of your best employees at my disposal?”