Jingle This! (7 page)

"Murder."

He grinned at the matter-of-fact tone in her voice. "Not on the menu for this evening. How about we get takeout and go to Rockefeller Center? We can watch people skate while we work. Check out the Christmas tree."

The elevator hit the ground floor, and Angie grimaced. "I hate Rockefeller Center. It reminds me of bastards who I used to go there with."

He laughed at her obvious reference to Roger. Swearing at him was definitely a step up from tears. "Then you'll have to get a new association for it, because that's where we're going." The only solution was to throw her in the middle of the holiday season and get her out of this funk. He needed to make her forget about Roger. Who knew? Maybe there'd be some guy there she'd take a liking to long enough to get her through the holiday season.

He scowled as he hailed a cab. Or maybe not. Another guy might be more than her psyche could bear. It would probably be best if she stayed single. For the good of the company. She was under his protection now. He would take care of her. There wasn't room for another man. Not right now.

Right now, she was his.

Stuck in a volatile relationship? Diamonds soothe and cajole, and they might even get your teenager to stop swearing.

–Angie Miller

"Angie!"

She snapped out of her fantasy of Roger getting run over by rogue reindeer and looked at Kyle. "What?"

"Did you hear anything I just said?"

"No." She glanced around at the crowds of holiday ice skaters, realizing that she'd totally forgotten where they were. Or maybe she'd shut it out to avoid facing the reality of her life, and the fact that the Miller holiday party was going on at that very moment in a celebration of Roger and Sheila, while she sat out in the cold, freezing her butt off. "I'm really sorry. I'll try to focus."

"Angie." Kyle looked so aggravated it was almost cute. Should she clue him in that she was a hopeless cause? They'd been arguing over her story for an hour, and she knew there was no way she could give him what he wanted. Passion. Fire. Excitement.

There was simply no way to turn the story she'd written into that kind of experience. But it was the couple she'd interviewed, not her inability to perform. Surely if she found an inspirational couple, that would jettison her back to her usual level of performance…wouldn't it? There had to be
something
she could do.

"Angie, we've been here for an hour," Kyle said, managing to keep his voice calm, despite the frustration she knew he had to be feeling. "What can I do to help you focus?"

"Um…"
Ravage me with wild, passionate sex for forty-eight hours straight.
Whoa. Where had that thought come from?

Rebound sex.

When faced with public humiliation and betrayal, it was a natural tendency to want to revert to something safe and familiar. Lord only knew that her attraction to Kyle was familiar. Sure, she'd suppressed it when she'd been dating Roger, even though she was totally over Kyle. But now that she was single and sniffing his aftershave?

Rebound sex on the brain. There was no way to deny it. Kyle was igniting all sorts of thoughts in her mind, thoughts she never thought she'd have again about anyone after Roger had dumped her.

And it wasn't simply hot, raw sex she was thinking about. She knew Kyle too well for that. She wanted intimacy with
him,
and she longed for it every bit as much as she had three years ago when they'd spent all that time together. How was it possible for those feelings to resurrect so completely after so long?

Kyle shot her a wary look, and she was suddenly certain he knew exactly what she'd just been thinking. Adrenaline raced through her. What if he really did know what she was thinking? Would he be horrified or so delighted that he'd throw her down and ravish her right on the spot? Her skin began to heat up, and the cold December air seemed to steam off her cheeks.

Kyle's eyes narrowed, and she swallowed. Perhaps having a poker face wasn't her forte. Or maybe he was a mind reader.

Damn.

That would be totally inconvenient.

Or maybe not. Maybe if he knew she was salivating for the touch of his skin against hers that would be enough to overcome his residual desire for her sister.

Sheila.
Sheila.
Her energy deflated with a brutal whoosh. Okay, there went the happy, gooey feeling that the thought of Kyle and sex had brought on.

Maybe Heidi had successfully contaminated the punch? That at least would be something to feel positive about—

A loud shrieking caught her attention, and Angie looked around. Two teenagers were screaming at each other, and the girl threw her skate at the boy. Only his quick duck kept him from being sliced open. Oh, now, that was interesting. She sat up, leaning forward to watch the interplay. "Now, this is what I'm talking about."

Inspiration raced through her, the glorious, wonderful feeling of an idea. Immediately, she grabbed her glitter pen and notepad out of Kyle's hand and jogged across the asphalt. "Excuse me," she called out. "Can I talk to you guys for a moment?"

"Angie!" Kyle grabbed her arm, but she shrugged him off and plopped herself down on the bench between the screaming couple.

"Hi, guys."

They ignored her and kept shouting at each other. She was immediately impressed by the creative use of obscenities. "So, love increases creativity. Good to know." She pulled out her notebook and started writing. Maybe that was why her creativity had gone out the window. Roger had pulled the plug on love, and there went all her great ideas for stories. An interesting thing to note.

"Angie. What are you doing?" Kyle was standing in front of her, glowering.

"Getting inspiration. Have a seat." She moved over, giving the girl a shove. "Make some room for my boss." She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "He's hot, isn't he? I'm totally having sex fantasies about him."

The girl stopped shouting at her boyfriend long enough to stick her pierced tongue out at Angie and flip her off.

"Mmm...good point. Non-verbal communication is key to a successful relationship." Angle patted the bench next to her. "Sit, Kyle. Watch genius at work."

"I'm afraid I'm going to be watching you get beat up." He glanced warily at the boy, who was brandishing a skate guard like a baseball bat. "Um, Angie, wouldn't it be better to do this from afar?"

"And lose the emotion of the moment? Not at all." She turned to the girl. "So, did he cheat on you? Check out another girl? Get your sister knocked up? Why are you yelling at him?"

"None of your business, bitch." The girl directed a hostile glare at her, and Angie noted none of her six eyebrow rings were holiday related. The girl was obviously not in the holiday mood.

"Fine." Angie turned to the boy, who had stopped yelling at his girlfriend and was now scowling at Angie. "So, what's the problem? Did she flirt with one of your friends? Shtup the math teacher in the shower?"

"Angie!" Kyle parked himself on the bench between her and the guy. "You're going to get yourself killed." He glared at the kid, who backed up a few inches.

For a moment, Angie paused, shocked by Kyle's protector move. Was that cute or what? Kyle protecting her? If she didn't know it was merely for her storytelling talent, she might even get all soppy and lovey about it. But as it was, three years ago she'd made the mistake of interpreting his actions as interest and suffered third degree burns of the heart as a result. There'd be no making that mistake again.

"So, since you guys aren't yelling anymore, want to talk about what the holiday season means for your relationship?" she said, trying to draw her focus away from fantasies about Kyle. "It really beefs up the hostility, huh?" Angie waggled her glitter pen while the two kids stared at her. "I hear you. Christmas sucks. So, um, do they make those nose rings in holiday colors to match your hair?"

The boy touched his green hair. "It's puke-color, not Christmas."

"Right. I should have realized that." Angie elbowed Kyle. "See? I'm not the only one struggling to get into the holiday spirit, huh?"

Kyle ignored her in favor of removing a small pocket knife from the fist of the boy.

At the sight of the knife, Angie faltered, then plowed on. There had to be a story in here somewhere. There
had
to be. "So, were you really going to use that knife on your girlfriend? I'm all for making loved ones suffer, but don't you think that's taking it a little far?" Angie shook her head while Kyle pocketed the weapon. "I mean, death is pretty permanent, and quite honestly, violence has no place in a relationship."

The girl swore at the boy, obviously not impressed with the knife thing. Oh, wait a sec. She was swearing at Kyle for stealing the knife. "Look at that, Kyle. Loyal until the end. I suppose I should be impressed." She waved her hands to silence the raging obscenities. "So, listen, girlfriend, I have a question for you."

The girl told her what she could do with the question. Interesting option.

"Anyway, if Rambo here were to buy you diamond earrings for Christmas, would you dig that?"

The girl blinked. "What kind of diamonds?"

Ah ha. An entire sentence without any curse words. See what diamonds could do? Clean society right up, they would. "Whatever you want. Earrings. Nose ring. Nipple ring."

"Big diamonds?" she asked, her voice suddenly much softer than before. Gone was the harsh rasp of hate. She actually sounded like a sixteen-year-old girl now.

"If you want them. Size isn't always what's important you know." She winked, and almost laughed at the girl's shocked expression that Angie had clearly made a sex-reference. Always good to be a little inflammatory and see what kind of interesting response you can get.

The boy sniggered and elbowed Kyle. "Bigger is always better, don’t you know?"

Kyle muttered something and looked like he was in pain.

"So, anyway, is that a yes? Diamonds kick butt and all that?" Angie quickly brought the interviewees back around to the story.

The girl shrugged nonchalantly, but there was no way for her to hide the gleam of interest in her green eyes. "He can buy me diamonds if he wants."

"I don't want," Rambo said. "But I got other big stuff for you if you want it."

She leered at him and waggled her pierced tongue at him. "I'll take it."

Ah ha. The mere mention of diamonds had turned two raving, cursing lunatics into snuggle bunnies. "So, diamonds would keep you guys happy together. Is that what you're saying? Despite the screaming and the fights and the incipient violence?"

The girl ignored Angie. "Want to ditch this place?" she asked her boyfriend.

"Yeah." The kid shoved off Kyle and stood up, grabbed the girl by the wrist and hauled her to her feet, where he proceeded to suck face with her for a good long time. Once his hands made it up the front of the girl's coat, Angie decided it was time to move on.

"Well, that about does it, don't you think, Kyle?" She stood up and patted the kids on their shoulders. "Thanks for the interview. Happy Holidays." They ignored her in favor of more public displays of affection. "Great. See you guys around."

She'd made it only about twenty feet when Kyle's hand closed around her arm and he pulled her to a stop. "Angie..."

No. She was
not
in the mood to take grief from him. Her spark of inspiration was fragile at best, and it would not survive criticism from him. So she slapped a mittened hand over his mouth and scowled at him. "If you can't say something nice, then say nothing at all. Got it?" She was feeling creative energy right now, and she absolutely didn't need Kyle lecturing her on the inappropriateness of her subjects.

His dark eyes met hers, and she realized how silly he looked with a fuzzy green mitten clamped over half his face. Not exactly the hard-ass business man he liked to project at work. She grinned. "You almost look human right now."

His eyes flashed, and he closed his hand around her wrist and removed her hand from his mouth. "You could have gotten yourself killed." Kyle fingered the knife in his pocket and felt a cold chill go through him that had nothing to do with the subarctic temperatures and everything to do with how he'd felt when he saw that knife in the kid's hand.

That was why he'd sat down next to Angie. To stay between her and the boy. With her expensive coat and leather boots, she exuded enough money to make it worthwhile for a kid like that to make a move for her purse.

Angie rolled her eyes. "There's about a gazillion people around. He wasn't going to do anything to me." The faintest hint of vulnerability flickered in her eyes. "I am glad you got the knife though. I'm not sure what was up with that."

"He was going to mug you." Hell. Why couldn't he stop thinking about how close she'd gotten to being roughed up? His interest in Angie should be to make sure she wrote a good story. So why did he feel much more worried about her than that? "Did you want to get mugged? Did you think it would make Roger feel bad for ditching you?"

She stared at him, and he regretted his words.

"Face it, Angie," he said, softening his voice. For some reason, he needed her to accept that Roger was in the past. He needed her to let the bastard go. "Roger's never going to feel bad. He's a jerk, and you deserve better."

He felt like a heel while she stared at him. He realized he probably shouldn't even have brought it up. From now on, he'd practice avoidance and pretend Roger didn't exist.

"I thought you hated me," she said, not able to keep the surprise out of her voice. "Why do you care who I date?"

"Because you're an amazing woman—"

Her eyes widened, and he immediately cut himself off. Crap. What was that? He hadn't meant that the way it had sounded. He tucked his hand under her arm and guided her back to their table. "I don't care who you date," he muttered.

She studied him. "Then why are you trying to get me to stop dwelling on Roger?"