Causing a Commotion (16 page)
Read Causing a Commotion Online
Authors: Janice Lynn
Tags: #Humor & Entertainment, #Humor, #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Romantic Comedy
She was moving in the right direction.
If only Colin didn’t monopolize her every thought. Mentally, she’d tossed him and his smiling self into the waterfall over and over, hoping she’d exorcise him from her mind.
Because if she didn’t, she was in fear of sinking beneath the murky waters herself.
* * *
Silence dripped between them with the brilliance of Chinese water torture. Each second that passed, another maddening drop pounded against Colin’s forehead.
Yet, he didn’t speak.
Nor did Jessie.
He drove her to the station, parked beside her car, stared out his windshield at the bleak grayness of the parking garage.
Jessie sat with her hands folded in her lap. He wasn’t sure if she stared out her window or if she looked at him. For once his Jessie radar beacon failed.
Unable to stand it, he looked.
Her green eyes watched him, void of emotion, void of clues to her thoughts.
“Thank you.” She reached for the door handle, her fingers curling around the handle.
“For?”
“Sharing today with me.”
“The winning email?”
“Is yours to choose. I’ll talk to J.P. Maxwell, too, if needed.”
The elation that should have filled him didn’t. Marian’s offer played through his mind.
“You should stay away from Maxwell. He’s a married man.”
“Yes, you’ve pointed that out to me several times in the past.”
“Just wanted to be sure you knew.”
“I got the message the first time you told me.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“Did it keep you from giving in to Maxwell’s charms?”
Jessie glared and a part of him wondered how they’d so quickly gone back to being enemies.
“I’m not sleeping with him, if that’s what you’re asking. Not that it’s any of your business.”
She had him there. It wasn’t. Not really. Only…
“I’m glad.”
“Fine.”
He raked his fingers through his hair. “Guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Unless you get lucky and I get hit by a bus on the way home.”
“Jessie,” he started, not believing she’d said the words. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“But you hate the changes to your show.”
“It’s not my show. Not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“I may still be on it, but have you noticed that with each show that airs, there’s less real news and more who’s doing who in Hollywood and such nonsense. With every new thing you ask for, I lose yet another hold on trying to present real stories.”
Her face blanched, and he got the feeling she planned to ask J.P. for even more changes.
“Who do you think ruined your office?” she quietly asked.
“I don’t know. Probably some kid. It’s no big deal.”
Her eyes widened. “You’ve had this kind of thing happen before?”
He closed his eyes, hardened the set of his jaw. “I was accused of murder. Just because the courtroom found me innocent doesn’t mean everyone else did. I’ve had this sort of thing happen before.”
Not exactly like this, but he didn’t have to tell her that.
“I know you didn’t let Karen die intentionally. You’re not that kind of person.”
He laughed, a bitter and cruel sound that echoed in his mind. “I was drunk. Had I been sober, Karen would still be alive. Of that, I’ll always be guilty. End of story.”
“But it isn’t, is it?” she quietly asked.
He looked at her. “What do you mean?”
“That’s why you’re the way you are. So controlled, so unwilling to let yourself go and feel. Because you were out of control when she died.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“You should let the hypnotist help you work through your guilt.”
“Even more ridiculous.”
She shrugged. “What do you have to lose except a whole lot of misplaced guilt?”
“My guilt isn’t misplaced.”
“Have you never heard of forgiveness?”
“Why are we even discussing this?”
“Because it’s keeping you from being the man you were meant to be.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Today, with the boys, that’s how you truly are, Colin. I recognized it the moment I saw you with those boys. This hardened man, well, it’s not natural. Not the man I…want.”
When had he leaned closer? When had she? Inches separated their mouths and suddenly he couldn’t recall what they’d been talking about. Didn’t care.
Right or wrong, all he cared about was tasting Jessie’s mouth. Had he ever wanted anything more? Anything longer than he’d craved this woman?
It seemed impossible.
Her pupils dilated. Her lips parted. Her breathing quick.
“Get out of the car,” he warned, giving her a chance to leave before he did something really stupid.
“No.” Then before he could give her one last opportunity to run, an opportunity he hadn’t given on her living room sofa, she touched her lips to his.
Soft, sweet, sassy, sensual, succulent. Everything he remembered, everything he’d dreamed of. More.
With their mouths gently brushing, Colin’s wants sky-rocketed from phenomenal to undeniable. He gathered Jessie into his arms the best the car seats would allow.
He couldn’t do this. Couldn’t let this happen.
Not when he didn’t know who was out to get him. Not when it meant Jessie might get hurt.
Hell, she would get hurt. Any person he’d ever cared about got hurt. Why should Jessie be any different?
If he didn’t end things, Jessie would pay the price, just as Karen had.
He pushed Jessie away. “Get out. Now.”
She hesitated, then nodded.
He watched until she got into her car, cast him a confused glance, and drove away.
Until he figured out what was going on at Wolf, he had yet one more reason to stay far away from his tempting co-host.
Chapter Ten
Jessie giggled and read yet another of the Get Fun for Colin emails. Oh, she liked this one. She hit print and moved on to the next one.
Hire a crew of belly-dancers to come in and give him a good shake down.
Not likely. The only woman going to give Colin a shakedown was her. She paused mid-click. Only Colin didn’t want shook down. Not by her or any woman.
He just wanted left alone to wallow in his guilt.
Guilt that, as best as she could tell, he had no right to feel. Sure it would be great if he could go back to that night and stay stone sober, but there was no way to know that even if Colin hadn’t been drinking that the woman still wouldn’t have died from taking so much heroine. Enough to kill a horse one source said.
She’d accessed Wolf’s huge database and read everything ever written about Karen Bennett’s death. Which was quite a lot since she’d been a fairly well-known actress and Colin an Emmy award winning journalist.
The media had a field day with Colin’s alcohol addiction, dragging in that his father died while driving under the influence and took out his current girlfriend along with him, calling Colin a chip off the ole block.
Jessie hurt for Colin by the time she’d finished going through the articles. He’d been tried. Karen’s family had pressed criminal and civil charges against him. The charges had been dismissed, but no wonder he avoided life, preferring to play it safe.
No wonder he’d practically thrown her out of his car last night.
She closed her eyes and recalled his reaction to her kiss. At first, he’d been responsive, meeting her passion with a passion of his own. A passion that hadn’t lasted. Struggling for breath he’d ordered her out of the car. Ordered her into her own car. Watched while she got into her car and drove away.
From her rearview mirror, she’d watched his head slump forward onto his steering wheel and experienced guilt of her own. Was she wrong to have kissed him?
Damn it, he deserved happiness even if he didn’t think so.
She wanted to give him happiness.
Even if he didn’t think he deserved it.
Even if he didn’t want it.
He relaxed at the boys center. She wanted that relaxation to rule his life. Not guilt over something he had no control over. She intended to free him of that guilt. Somehow.
Even if she had to write in a Get Fun for Colin email of her own.
“What’re you looking so lost in thought about?” J.P. sank beside her, eyeing her computer screen. “Belly-dancers? You should keep that one. I like it.”
“Colin won’t,” she insisted.
J.P. shrugged. “That’s the whole idea, isn’t it?”
Jessie rounded on him. “What do you mean?”
“The purpose of the Get Fun for Colin. He hates it all, so that’s why you suggested it, right?”
Was it?
Of course it was.
But not really. She wanted Colin to lighten up, enjoy life a little. Get Fun for Colin merely served as a means to an end. Sometime during the long hours of the night while she’d waited for the sounds of Tamara returning to the apartment, Jessie made the decision that she was tired of holding back where Colin was concerned.
She planned to give him anything he’d take from her and damn the consequences and damn his guilt over the past. She’d take away his guilt by showering him with…whatever it was that filled her every time she thought of him.
Not love, but something powerful and full of passion and totally illogical. Something that said she could fill that void in his life that refused to let him be happy.
Of course, she hadn’t made that decision when she’d teased Colin into a corner following her hypnosis. But she would make sure the Get Fun for Colin worked to his advantage.
“You might be surprised at why I suggested it.”
“Or maybe not.”
Something in J.P.’s tone gnawed at her insides. “Out with it,” she demanded.
He grinned. “Did you know Wolf’s parking garage levels are equipped with security cameras? It’s a safety measure to cut down on theft and attacks and such. With what happened with the electrical wiring and then with Colin’s office, security’s on high alert.”
Jessie eyed him, refusing to flinch despite knowing where this conversation was going.
“Seems one of the security guards noticed some improbable activity last night.”
“And felt the need to share that improbably activity with you?”
“Actually, he shared it with Maxwell.”
“Maxwell?” Why would a security guard bother the company’s CEO with something so frivolous?
JP nodded. “He called me into his office and wanted to know what the hell I was going to do about it.”
“Huh?”
“Maxwell doesn’t like the thought of you and Colin cozy.”
“Well, it should please him to know that last night won’t be happening again if Colin has anything to say about it.”
“Which doesn’t sit well with the great Jessie Davidson,” he teased.
No, it didn’t, but apparently not for the reasons J.P. thought. “Great? Me? Ha, you must have me confused with Jilly.”
J.P.’s face became serious. “Jill’s great, but so are you. You know that.”
Embarrassed by the conversation, Jessie nodded, hoping J.P. would take the hint and move along.
“You don’t, do you?” he asked, incredulousness in his voice. “You are gorgeous, sexy, smart, funny, and successful and yet you don’t see it.”
“I see it,” she quickly corrected, knowing it’s what he expected her to say.
“No, you don’t.” J.P. whistled. “All this time you’ve had me buying the same garbage you scam the rest of the world with. That Jessie Davidson is a confident woman without a care in the world. Instead, you’re so wrapped up in standing in Jill’s shadow that you can’t see the truth. That you are an amazing woman.”
Jessie closed her eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m an expert on women. Six wives does that to a man.”
Jessie sighed. “Still working on finding number seven?”
J.P. scratched his white head. “Nah, I’m taking a break from my search, gotta make sure
Causing a Commotion
has a winning first season. What about you? Still looking for Steve’s replacement?”
