The Lost Enchantress (11 page)

Finally, he turned toward the desk, glancing first at the photo of Grand, Chloe and Rory taken last summer on the beach in Newport, and then at her.

“I was wrong,” he told her. “I assumed that if I kept increasing my offer that eventually I would reach a figure you couldn’t resist. But you’re not interested in money.”

“Oh, I’m interested,” she countered, visions of Jimmy Choos and trips to Europe and Rory graduating from an Ivy League college dancing in her head. “Very interested. It’s just not the most important thing in the world to me.”

“I see that now.” He reached for the photo. “This is what’s important to you. Family. Your grandmother and your sister, Chloe, and niece . . . Rory, isn’t it?”

Eve stiffened, unsmiling, her gaze sharp. “That’s right. You know an awful lot about my family.”

“Only what’s a matter of public record, and not for any nefarious purpose.”

“Then why?”

“Because the most important thing in the world to me is that pendant . . . your newly discovered family heirloom. I’ve spent several fortunes and more of my life than you can possibly imagine searching for it. I came here to make a deal with you, and I wasn’t about to come without arming myself beforehand with as much information as possible. That’s just good business.”

“Fine. But I’m the one you’re dealing with, not my family. Leave them out of this.”

“It’s not me you should be worried about. You said the pendant has family associations; it also has other, darker associations that you know nothing of. There are others who do. And that can be very dangerous. As long as it’s in your possession you’re at risk. And so is your family.”

“Are you talking about the men who attacked us last night?”

He shook his head. “The warlocks won’t bother you again. I can promise you that.”

“Warlocks. So that’s what they were. I wondered.” She eyed him uncertainly. “How do you know they won’t come back?”

“Because I know the man who sent them. Unlike you, money is what matters to him . . . all that matters. Before I came to see you I paid him a visit and made it worth his while to keep his lackeys away from you.”

“Why would you do that for me?” she asked, not sure whether she should be appreciative or suspicious.

“I didn’t do it for you,” he returned, lifting one shoulder in a careless shrug. If a shrug could be elegant, his was. “I did it so they wouldn’t get in my way again. But there are sure to be others who may not be so easily dealt with.”

“Thanks for the warning.” She managed to sound more confident than she felt as she stood and reached for the photo he was still holding. She put it back where it belonged. “I’ll be sure to lock my doors.”

“You’ll need to do more than that. A protection shield like the one you conjured last night would be a good place to start.”

“The one I conjured? I had nothing to do with it.”

“I was there. Remember?”

“So was I. And the only conjuring I saw was coming from you and the warlocks.”

There was an uncomfortable stretch of silence as he studied her, his gray eyes narrow and frankly skeptical. He ended it with a smile that barely lifted the corners of his mouth.

“Far be it from me to call a lady a liar.”

“How gallant of you,” she drawled, hoping he caught the touch of sarcasm in her voice. “I’ll walk you out.”

For a second she thought he was going to ignore the sledgehammer hint that it was time for him to go. Then he reached into the inside pocket of his coat and handed her his card.

“Call me when you change your mind,” he said.

Eve dropped it in her purse without looking at it.

“Thanks,” she said.

Don’t hold your breath
, she thought.

E
ve walked him to the elevator and waited until he got in and the doors closed behind him. She wanted to make sure he left and that no one stopped him along the way to chat. People who were drawn to the news biz liked to ask questions, and they were good at eliciting answers. She had no idea what might come out of Hazard’s mouth if he were asked who, what, where, when or why, and as much as she’d love to find out more about him, she wasn’t crazy enough to let it happen in public.

The trek back to her office was a gauntlet of surprised smiles, speculative stares and knowing winks from the newsroom staff. The communal reaction was galling, not to mention unwarranted. It wasn’t as if she were a nun, for heaven’s sake. True, men didn’t stop by to see her unannounced or unrelated to work, but for all anyone knew Hazard’s visit could have been business. And the fifteen dozen roses he brought her could have been . . . all right, maybe it was a stretch to expect anyone to believe the roses were strictly business. Still.

Peggy, a sweet, sixtyish secretary from Human Relations gave Eve’s elbow a squeeze as she passed. “Morning, Eve. Your new boyfriend is so handsome.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Well, whoever he is, I’ve got just four words for him: va, va, va, voom.”

Tiffany, assistant to a production assistant and nearly forty years Peggy’s junior, needed only three. “Hot. As. Hell.”

“Ditto,” agreed the young woman beside her who Eve seemed to recall worked in sales, one floor down and all the way over on the other side of the building. With a look of grudging admiration she added, “Men are suckers for you uptight, brainy types because they think you have a hidden wild side only they can unlock.”

While Eve considered whether to be flattered or offended, Tiffany growled, and the two women giggled wickedly.

Sobering, Tiffany crossed her arms to study Eve with a critical frown. “You should lose the glasses when he’s around, though. A little of that smart-girl look goes a long way.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Eve muttered. “Did you by any chance have time to find those transcripts I asked for?”

Tiffany shuffled some papers and came up with a folder. “Voila.”

“Thanks,” Eve said as she turned away. She was a few feet from her office when her phone started to ring, and she hurried to grab it.

“Eve Lockhart.”

“You’ve been holding out on me,” said a familiar voice.

“Hey, Jenna. What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the man who just left your office. Mr. Tall-Dark-I-Come-Bearing-Roses.”

“I don’t believe it. I know news travels fast, but you don’t even work in this building for pity’s sake.”

“Honey, how many times do I have to tell you that when it comes to romance Jenna sees all, knows all? Actually, I had to call over there to talk to Cindy in archives about some cuts I want to use from that piece on underage drinking you guys ran a while back, and she told me all about it. She said that Tiffany somebody-or-other put out the word that your mystery man strolled in like he owned the place and brought you a gazillion red roses.”

“Tiffany’s an airhead. It was nowhere near a gazillion.”

“Really? How many was it?”

Eve hesitated and then gave a resigned sigh. “Only one hundred and eighty.”

“Lordy. That’s close enough. Any particular significance to that number?”

“Long story.”

“I have time. Dish.”

“Can’t. I’m taping an interview with the dean of Newberry College at one, and we’re planning to shoot some walk-and-talk around campus first . . . which I still have to write script for. And before that I have to return calls and squeeze in a meeting with Angela.”

“Lucky you.”

Eve smiled at the way Jenna’s tone soured at the mention of her boss. Angela Beckett, the station’s straight-shooting, hard-driving and very glamorous news director was not on Jenna’s list of favorite people. Eve sensed the chill was mutual and that it had something to do with it being impossible for two larger-than-life personalities to hold center stage at the same time.

“Why don’t we have lunch sometime this week and I’ll fill you in?” By then she should be able to come up with a story that would satisfy Jenna’s craving for details without revealing too much of the actual truth.

Jenna sighed theatrically. “Oh, all right. But at least throw me a crumb to hold me till then. Who is he? Where did you meet? Is he really as young as he looks? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“I honestly don’t know how old he is. And it doesn’t matter, becau—”

Jenna broke in. “I totally agree. In fact, I say the younger the better; that way they don’t have time to form any annoying bad habits. And besides, no one bats an eye when men date younger women. Turnabout’s fair play. Go, cougars. Hey, wouldn’t this make a great topic for my show? I can already hear the phones ringing off the hook. You could be my star guest!”

Eve winced at the thought. “What I was going to say was that his age doesn’t matter because this . . . thing is no big deal. Really. In fact, there is no
thing
. He’s just someone I met last night at the auction.”

“I knew it,” Jenna crowed. “As soon as Diane described him, I knew it had to be the same yummy guy who was checking you out last night. I was going to mention it to you, but you took off in such a hurry I didn’t have a chance. And speaking of, I still want to hear what gives with you and that necklace. I mean, good God, that was a lot of money. Anyway, when I saw him follow you out I thought to myself,
hmmm
. And now he shows up with a hundred and eighty roses. Hot damn, Eve.”

“Like I said, it’s no big deal.”

“If you say so.”

Eve could hear the grin in her friend’s sing-song tone. “I’ll check my schedule and get back to you about lunch. Try not to let your imagination run amok in the meantime.”

“Sorry, amok is my imagination’s natural habitat. As for lunch, sooner works for me.”

“I’ll see what I can do.” Eve hesitated before saying good-bye. “Hey, Jenna, you’re a good judge of people. Would you describe me as brainy and uptight? Be honest.”

“Brainy as in smart and insightful? Yeah, that’s you all day. As for being uptight, well . . . ‘uptight’ is such a harsh word, with really negative connotations. If you think of it as being careful and highly structured, then I suppose some people might consider you a teensy, tiny bit uptight . . . in a charming sort of way,” she hastened to add.

“Charmingly uptight,” Eve muttered. “Terrific. I have to run.”

“Lunch. Soon. Don’t forget.”

Around the station, the news director’s spacious corner office was known as “the fishbowl.” Exterior windows overlooked the bustling center of downtown Providence, and a wall of glass provided a view of the newsroom, where the tempo ranged from busy to frenetic depending on how close it was to broadcast time. Phones rang, police scanners hummed, printers spit out an endless stream of fresh copy and everywhere there were monitors to monitor the local and national competition.

There were more monitors inside the fishbowl, a half dozen of them mounted in a row close to the ceiling. At the moment they were all muted, but at regular intervals Angela scanned them, and Eve knew that if anything exploded, crashed or declared war anywhere in the known world, her boss would have the sound up in one heartbeat and a reporter working the story in two.

Angela was a master of the game of television news. The average tenure for a news director in a midsize market was eighteen months; Angela had been at WWRI for nearly three years and things were still rosy. Her arrival had been akin to tossing a live grenade into the studio. With management’s support, she’d overhauled the existing sets, played to the stations’ strength by focusing resources on local news, and defied convention by axing such formula relics as the one-two punch of running an attention-grabbing prime-time tease followed by the irritatingly coy “details at eleven.” Angela had little in common with average viewers, but she was shrewd enough to
get
them; she understood what interested them and what pissed them off, and she proceeded accordingly.

Initially, she and Eve were wary of each other. Eve didn’t want the new boss trying to clip her wings, and the new boss didn’t want Eve thinking longevity entitled her to coast. However, it didn’t take long for each of them to recognize a kindred spirit in the other. They were both ambitious, unafraid to take chances and willing to do whatever was necessary to get the job done right. On the personal side, neither of them had to balance her career with a husband and children. And neither of them lived with one eye on the next rung of the ladder, a rarity in the world of television journalism.

Most journalists and news directors were always looking ahead to the next job in the next biggest market, ready to pounce on any opening that would bring them more exposure and more money, with the ultimate prize of being tapped by one of the major networks. Eve had never viewed her job as a stepping stone. She’d always intended to stay put in Providence. In the beginning it was because Grand and Chloe and Rory were depending on her and she wanted to be there for them, even if it meant letting go of her own dreams. But as time went on she discovered other reasons to stay. Not that a fatter paycheck wouldn’t come in handy; Rory’s college tuition was right around the corner, and for all she knew there were other expensive family talismans to be rescued. But there were things that mattered more to her, personally and professionally.