Just One Night: Sex, Love & Stiletto Series (5 page)

“… Now as I’m sure most of you know,” Camille continued, “the past year has been an interesting one for
Stiletto
journalists. First, we had Julie Greene, whose public declaration of falling in love with Mitchell made for our bestselling issue ever …”

The crowd burst into delighted applause while Julie blushed prettily, and Mitchell’s arm slid around her waist even though a part of him looked ready to run. Riley joined in the clapping, letting out a whoop as Julie’s fingers found the lapel of Mitchell’s suit and pulled him down for a smacking kiss.

Riley had had a front-row seat to Julie and Mitchell’s epic love story, and it never failed to make her feel warm and mushy. Julie had rather famously set out to use Mitchell for a story (Riley’s idea), just as Mitchell set out to use Julie to win a bet. It could have been the makings of a trashy talk-show episode, but because they’d been unexpectedly perfect for each other, it had skipped
tawdry
and gone straight to
sweet
.

At the front of the room, Camille forged on, turning attention to her other celebrity couple. “… and more recently, we’ve enjoyed the sheer spectacle that was Jake and Grace’s love story with the whole world watching. Their very public battle of the sexes—”

“—Which I won,” Jake hollered, ignoring the elbow jab from Grace.

Camille smiled and continued. “Their very public battle turned from what should have been a routine five-issue series into a spontaneous HeSaidSheSaid blog, which, in turn, became our most successful digital program to date.”

Jake,
Oxford
magazine’s best-known male columnist,
always
up for playing to a crowd, very purposefully pinched Grace’s butt, earning a sharp squeal, which he stifled with a kiss.

The antics were clearly all for show, but the private look they exchanged was not. Their romance may have started as a good-natured competition over which sex had a better read on the other, but like Julie and Mitchell, Grace and Jake were the real deal.

Riley felt the old familiar tightening in her chest as she read Jake’s lips where they pressed against Grace’s ear.
I love you
.

“I never know whether to hug them or punch them,” Emma muttered quietly at Riley’s
side.

“Seriously,” Riley whispered back. “It’s like a nonstop romantic comedy up in here.”

Still, she was a little surprised by Emma’s admission. When it came to men and relationships, Emma had always given off that breezy, don’t-need-’em vibe. But her tone held just the slightest trace of longing, and Riley wondered if she wasn’t the only one who was starting to feel a bit lonely in her role as sexy bachelorette.

“And it’s this success of our very own
Stiletto
starlets that planted the seed for the theme of our fiftieth-anniversary issue,” Camille was saying.

Riley’s attention snapped back to her boss, dread creeping up around the edges of her boredom.

For the most part, Riley had a good relationship with the editor in chief. Sure, they butted heads every other week over whether Riley’s articles were too risqué, but at the end of the day, Camille Bishop’s sense for what
Stiletto
readers wanted was spot-on. And more important, Camille treated her team like family. A family that threw food at the dinner table, perhaps, but beneath her immobile orange hair, affinity for Botox, and bark that would have cowed Robert E. Lee, Camille was a bit of a mother hen. And it was kind of nice.

However, that didn’t mean Riley liked the direction of her long-winded speech. She was hearing an awful lot of words that sent alarm bells off in her brain.

Personal, intimate, exposure …

“She’s not going where I think she’s going …,” Riley said to Emma out of the corner of her mouth.

“Yup,” Emma said, taking a long pull on her wine. “We should probably all invest in pink fuzzy diaries like we had when we were ten, because this shit’s about to get personal.”

“When I was ten, my diary had a
lock
,” Riley growled.

Camille continued undaunted, and unaware that two of her best columnists were less than enamored of the direction she was heading. “… by now you can all guess what I’m suggesting …”

Please no, please no
.

“The theme of
Stiletto
’s semicentennial issue in December will be ‘
Stiletto
Gets Real: The Truth Behind the Headlines.’ ”

Oh shit
.

“Catchy,” Grace said, earning a snort from Julie.

But Riley was too horror-stricken to join in even thinking about joking, especially when she heard Camille’s elaboration on the theme.

“… each of our columnists will write this issue’s story in first person. A sort of real-world account of how they live the
Stiletto
way in their own life.”

“ ‘The
Stiletto
way’?” Emma asked. “Is that a thing? I mean I know I’m new here, but …”

Riley didn’t answer. Instead she pushed her cocktail glass at a surprised Julie and headed for the bathroom, where she was quite possibly going to puke.

The truth behind the headlines
.

The truth.

She’d always known there’d come a breaking point. A time when she’d either have to come clean or get laid.

The trouble was, she didn’t know how to come clean without losing her pride. And worse, she wasn’t at all sure she could get laid without losing her heart.

Because when Riley was completely honest with herself, she wasn’t celibate because of lack of opportunity, or because guys like Steven Moore carried around handcuffs in their back pockets.

When it came right down to it, there was only one man for Riley Anne McKenna, and she’d pretty much made a career out of telling herself he wasn’t interested.

But if she was going personal for the story—if she was going to tell the
truth
—first, she had to find out the most important truth, once and for all.

It was time to find out if Sam Compton wanted her back.

“Um, Mom? Does Dad know we’re having tacos for dinner?”

“No, he does not. And neither of you will mention it until it’s too late for him to start hollering about the ways of our motherland. It’s a stubborn, rigid mind-set, if you ask me.”

Riley exchanged a glance with her younger sister, Kate, both of them wisely opting not to mention the chunks of potatoes nestled in with the meat on the stove. Her mother probably hadn’t even consciously included them. For her potatoes were like salt. Never the meal, but always an unspoken
part
of the meal.

Both Erin and Joshua McKenna had been born and raised in Cork, Ireland, but they had different approaches when it came to the cuisine of their homeland. Riley’s dad was a purist and rarely made it through a meal without muttering, “If my mother caught me eating this foreign slop, she’d die all over again.”

Erin, on the other hand, fancied herself a bit of a fusion cook.

Hence the tacos with potatoes. Last week it had been pasta carbonara. With potatoes. The week before that, she’d put corned beef in stir-fry.

“Always an adventure,” Kate muttered under her breath before grabbing her beer and escaping to the living room, where the guys were watching soccer.

“I like the new cupboards,” Riley said, gesturing at the dark-wood cabinetry her mother had finally convinced her father that they needed to install. It was one of the few things that had changed in the Park Slope house Riley’d been born and raised in, and she liked it that way. She liked the way everybody had a favorite chair around the kitchen table that fit their butt just right. Liked the way they all knew not to wear socks without shoes in the kitchen because the boards were getting rough and tended to snag them. She even liked her mother’s affinity for cheap watercolors, and the way the weepy landscapes covered every possible wall.

It wasn’t fancy. But it was
home
.

“How’s work?” her mother asked, carefully spooning a carton of sour cream into a bowl. Riley’s mother wasn’t above convenience, but she drew the line at setting a plastic carton on the dinner table. Everything store-bought was promptly transferred to a “real dish.”

“Work?” Riley asked, feeling her eyebrows creep up to her hairline. Her mother rarely asked about Riley’s job.

Probably because she
hated
Riley’s job.

Riley couldn’t blame her. She doubted there were very many mothers out there who would be excited that their baby girl’s career involved reviewing dildos.

Particularly conservative Irish-Catholic mothers.

“Work’s … um …”
Awful? Stressful? Ruining my life?

It had been two days since Camille had dropped her little bomb about the fiftieth-anniversary issue, and even though Riley wouldn’t need to turn in a draft for the stupid semicentennial issue for at least another month, it was all she’d been able to think about.

“Work’s fine.”

“Mmm …” Her mother sucked a glob of sour cream off her thumb and wandered over to the side table, where they stacked mail and bills and magazines. “Here it is.”

Shit
.

It
was the most recent
Stiletto
article. The one in which Riley’s BDSM headline was sandwiched between “Over-the-Knee Boots Are Back!” and “Rich Autumn Makeup That
Anyone
Can Pull Off.”

“What about it?” Riley asked nervously.

“Have you tried this stuff you’re talking about?”

Riley nearly spit out the water she’d just sipped. And here she’d thought she and her parents had a good thing going with the don’t-ask-don’t-tell routine.

She knew that her mother collected every issue out of loyalty to her middle daughter. Maybe even read an article from time to time. But to actually
talk
about it?

There were vicious stomach bugs that were more pleasant.

Not to mention, this really,
really
wasn’t good timing.

“Ma! Come on!”

“Don’t
Ma
me. My friends’ daughters talk with them about sex.”

Your friends’ daughters are probably actually having sex
.

“Do you talk to Kate and Megan about it?” Riley asked, referring to her two sisters.

“Yes.”

“You do?” Riley nearly fell off the ancient bar stool. What sort of craziness was this?
“Why am I never included in this girl talk?”

Her mother set the magazine aside and began grating some cheese. “Well, dear … you
are
a tiny bit of a prude.”

Riley’s jaw dropped. She pointed at the headline. “Did you read that? I talked about
spanking
.”

There.
That
should rile her mother.

But Erin merely lifted a slim shoulder and tucked a stray red hair back into her bun. “Yes, yes, the article was all very edgy, but it lacked passion. That tells me the story wasn’t personal for you.”

“This is not happening,” Riley muttered, glancing at the ceiling. “My mother is not telling me my spanking article lacked
passion
.”

And what was with her mother’s timing? Was the entire universe conspiring to help Riley get some?

“You never texted me back. How was your date with that boy? The one you met at that bank.”

“That
boy
was thirty-seven years old, and he was—”

“Oh dear.”

Riley threw her hands in the air at her mother’s doomsday tone. “I haven’t said anything yet.”

“But you’re using past tense. Which means he won’t be coming over for tacos anytime soon.”

Lucky guy
. “He was no good, Ma.”

Her mother was silent as the pile of grated cheese grew higher and higher.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Riley finally said, prodding. “Lecture me on how I’m too picky and I didn’t give him a chance?”

Her mother set the grater aside and moved to the fridge. “Oh, honey. When you know, you’ll know.”

Riley blinked in surprise.

What the heck is happening here?
Where was the lecture? The reminder to be patient and kind and open-minded?

“Did Father Sellars give some sort of homily on being more accepting of your adult
children or something?”

“No, dear. I just want my kids to be happy is all.”

A new voice joined the conversation. “Well, rest easy, Mama McKenna, because
this
kid is happy.”

Riley froze.
Sam
. Immediately her shoulders went back and her spine straightened as she armed herself for the inevitable sparring.

To say nothing of the protection she needed from the thick layer of lust that threatened to choke her whenever Sam Compton was around.

Their regular Wednesday-night dinner guest had the opposite effect on her mother, turning the usually implacable Erin into a pile of goo. It was disgusting. The woman already had two sons of her own, but to the casual spectator you’d think this semi-adopted one was her favorite.

“Sammy. You came,” Erin said, scooting around the counter to give him a hug. “I thought you had a date tonight.”

Riley didn’t turn around. She’d have to deal with him eventually—she did every week. But after the unexpected
spanking
conversation with her mother, she needed an extra minute to build up her defenses.

Because while she couldn’t say she’d ever really been intrigued by the spanking thing, there was no telling what her loins would do in the presence of this guy.

But quickly she was realizing that keeping her back to him wasn’t nearly enough. She could still
feel
him. She’d
always
been able to feel him, starting with that day he’d walked into this very kitchen, where she’d been sitting on this very stool.

That had been over ten years ago, and nothing had changed.

Well, except for pesky little things.

Like his marriage. And his divorce. And the fact that he’d never so much as tried to kiss her.

“Angela can’t make it,” Sam said in his low, don’t-give-a-shit growl. “She’s a nurse and had to take an extra shift at the hospital.”

A nurse. That was new. Usually they were waitresses and actresses and singer-songwriters.