Читать книгу Tycoon Takes Revenge - Anna DePalo - Страница 8

Gossip is news running ahead of itself in a red satin dress.

—Columnist Liz Smith

Smooth, moneyed and used to having things fall in his lap.

In short, Kayla thought disdainfully, as she watched him move toward her with a thin gloss of civility, he was everything that her family history had taught her to avoid.

Noah Whittaker. She’d spotted him instantly when she’d arrived at the cocktail party tonight at one of Boston’s finer hotels to celebrate a retired Formula One race-car driver’s newly published autobiography.

Her headline about Noah in that morning’s Boston Sentinel flashed through her mind: Caught with Fluffy, Huffy Calls It Quits. Will Buffy the Man Slayer Be Next for Noah?

She supposed he hadn’t liked her story one bit. But she didn’t make the news, she just reported it. And he gave her plenty of material to work with. He had, in fact, become a popular figure in her column.

And writing about him was easy. She knew his type. He acted as if the world were his cocktail, served up dry with a twist just for him, exactly as her biological father did.

She watched him approach and pushed aside the irritating twinge of nervousness. She had nothing to be nervous about.

She knew that, for some women, thoughts of sin and Noah Whittaker went hand in hand. But she’d been inoculated at birth against the players of the world—though she could dispassionately assess the attraction: Noah’s hair, closely cropped but thick, looked as if he dried it with a blow-dryer set on scorch, its shade a burnished bronze. Over six feet tall, he had the honed body of an athlete. He’d had a brief but meteoric career as a race-car driver, though these days, he was better known as a vice president of Whittaker Enterprises, the family conglomerate in Carlyle, near Boston.

Noah stopped in front of her. “Kayla Jones, right?” He paused for a moment, his face all lean, hard planes of masculinity. “Or should I say,” he added, his tone betraying a hint of derision, “Ms. Rumor-Has-It?”

Her chin came up. If he thought to faze her, he had another thing coming. She’d gotten plenty of practice handling barbs from the pampered and privileged at the fancy prep school she’d attended on scholarship. “That’s right. It’s nice of you to remember.”

One side of his mouth quirked up. “Hard to forget when you’ve been wielding a machete all over my social life. Or is that part of your job description as the Boston Sentinel’s resident gossip columnist?”

Her shoulders stiffened. They’d seen each other a few times at various social events, but this was the first time he’d deigned to speak with her personally. “I prefer the term society columnist. I write for the style section of the Sentinel.”

“Is that what they’re calling the fiction part of the paper these days?”

She attempted a dismissive laugh. “If I hadn’t heard that line before from more people than I can count, I’d say you were trying to insult me.”

He cocked his head, seeming to consider her question. “That depends. Are you trying to spread lies about me, or is that just a nice little fringe benefit in your line of work?”

“For your information, all my columns are carefully researched and my sources checked for reliability.”

“Obviously you need to work harder.”

“Are we by chance discussing my column in today’s paper?”

“Oh, yeah, we’re discussing that all right. And last week’s column. And the one before that. One guess as to what they all have in common.”

“There’s no need to descend into sarcasm,” she said. “I’m aware of how often I’ve mentioned you in my column.”

“Are you?” he asked silkily. “And are you also aware it’s your fault that Eve Bernard—or as you’ve referred to her, Huffy—broke up with me?”

From what she’d heard, Eve had done more than break up with him. According to eyewitnesses with whom she’d spoken, Eve had delivered the news—along with a slap to the face—in the presence of dozens of departing guests at a glittering banquet on Saturday night. A Sentinel photographer had gotten a great shot of Noah, glowering at Eve and holding her by the forearms.

But what did he mean it was her fault?

“As a result of my column?” she asked with skepticism. “Don’t you mean as a result of your cavorting with Fluffy?” At his sardonic look, she caught herself. “I mean, Cecily?”

He chuckled cynically. “Cavorting? My, my, what colorful language you society columnists use. All the better to write innuendo, I suppose?”

She tossed her head. “Whatever,” she retorted, dropping all pretense of politeness. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed other guests had begun to throw curious glances their way. “There was a photo of you and Cecily kissing outside the Kirkland Club.”

“And we all know a picture is worth a thousand words, right?” he responded. “Or, in this case, a thousand lies. In fact, if you had done some inquiring instead of relying on that shot that your photographer snapped, you would have discovered that Cecily caught me by surprise with that kiss.”

“How nice for you.”

He ignored her. “You see, Cecily has this weird idea that making the gossip columns will bolster her fledgling acting career—and so much the better if the guy on her arm happens to be rich or famous. So she plastered herself to me the minute she spotted the Sentinel’s photographer.”

“Perhaps then,” she said sweetly, “you should reconsider the risk of dating publicity-seeking aspiring actresses. Or, for that matter, intellectually challenged models. And, hmm—” she pretended to consider for an instant, tilting her head “—I seem to recall at least one ruthless reality-show contestant as well.”

“Oh?” he responded, letting his gaze rake over her from head to toe. “Considering that the field doesn’t yet include any gossip columnists, I don’t think my tastes can be called into question.”

“From what I’ve been able to see, your tastes can best be described as blond, platinum-blond and strawberry-blond.”

“Are you calling me shallow?”

“If the shoe fits,” she retorted.

He shook his head. “So young and yet so bitter.”

Bitter? No, she was cautious, but that’s how a single woman budgeting to make rent payments had to be. And how the product of a fling between a slick, social-climbing financier and his young college intern knew to be. But then Mr. Playboy Whittaker didn’t have a clue about the struggles of ordinary people.

Aloud, she countered, “We journalists have jobs that require us to think, and thinking doesn’t appear to be high on your list of criteria for a girlfriend.”

“Whether it is or not isn’t anyone’s business but mine,” he responded.

“For your information, I didn’t just rely on the photo. I called Huff—I mean, Eve—about it and she confirmed she was planning to break up with you over the, ah, incident.”

“That’s because Eve was thinking of her public image. She believed me when I said your column had misconstrued things because she knows Cecily is a publicity hound. But, as she put it, publicly she had to at least look like she was punishing me for being a naughty boy.”

Kayla felt her lips twitch. “Well, that’s not my fault, is it?”

“It is your fault,” he disagreed. “You’re printing salacious gossip and you’re wreaking havoc on my social life.”

“So find yourself another aspiring starlet,” she retorted. “In fact, I think Buffy the Man Slayer is between men these days.”

“Right, and that’s another thing,” he said tightly. “I don’t need you trying to line up dates for me. Particularly not with someone known as a barracuda in heels.”

“Now that’s not nice.” She spread her hands in an expansive gesture. “You should consider expanding your horizons.”

He braced an arm on the wall near her head and she took an involuntary step back. He leaned in, his gaze, green and grim, boring into hers. “You know, I wonder why you consider me such a fascinating subject. Is it because you wish you were one of those women I date?”

“Don’t be absurd,” she snapped.

He gave her a slow once-over, dwelling on her ringless hand and letting his eyes linger on her chest before coming back to meet her outraged expression. “You do appear a little uptight. What’s the matter? Wish your life had a little more zing in it?”

“No thanks. My mother taught me to stay away from the players among men.”

“Ah,” he said. “Now we’re getting somewhere. The intrepid reporter is repressed.”

“This isn’t about me,” she said coldly. What nerve. He knew nothing about her life. Nothing.

“So, you have no problems dishing about others’ lives, but yours is off-limits, is that it?”

“There’s nothing to dish about,” she retorted. “I don’t have anything as interesting as a fatal racing accident in my past!”

The minute she blurted the rejoinder, she winced inwardly, realizing she may have gone too far. He might be a first-class jerk who believed his money and his family name would get him out of any predicament, but she didn’t need to throw a terrible tragedy in his face.

His face turned stony and he straightened. “Be glad you don’t.”

“Excuse me,” she said, brushing past him and hurrying for the nearest exit.

Noah stared broodingly at Kayla’s retreating back. Damn.

“Problems?”

Turning, he noticed Sybil LaBreck, gossip columnist for the Boston World, standing behind him.

“Yeah. A little lovers’ spat,” he replied sarcastically.

Sybil’s eyes widened, and Noah realized she’d taken his flippant comment seriously.

Sybil was Kayla’s biggest rival among local gossip columnists. In her late fifties, Sybil looked like an updated version of Mrs. Santa Claus, but she could shovel the dirt with the best of them.

Sybil looked perplexed. “But you’ve been seen everywhere with that model—what’s her name?—Eve.”

Noah was about to tell Sybil that he’d been joking, but he suddenly realized he’d been handed a golden opportunity to even the score with Kayla. “The so-called relationship with Eve was just a smoke screen, a way to throw the paparazzi off the scent. Eve got a little publicity out of the arrangement, and Kayla and I got a little privacy. It was perfect.”

“But only last week Eve was seen slapping you for cheating on her!” Sybil blurted before seeming to catch herself.

“Really?” Noah said, raising an eyebrow while privately relishing the thought of the headline in Sybil’s column tomorrow. “It was a great way to signal the end of our pretend relationship for the benefit of the press, wasn’t it?”

Sybil opened her mouth—in all likelihood to probe for more details—but he cut her off smoothly. “Excuse me.” He let his eyes focus on a spot across the room. “I just spotted someone I need to say hello to.”

“Of course,” Sybil said, stepping aside.

He chanced a glance at her out of the corner of his eye as he moved past: she looked like the cat that had swallowed the canary.

As he headed to the bar at the far side of the room, he pondered again about his problem with Ms. Rumor-Has-It. If newspapers were printed in color, he thought to himself disgustedly, Kayla’s column would be nothing but a series of hot-pink exclamation points. It had the same breathless quality as the gossip that sorority sisters shared over drying nail polish.

Of course, her column had nothing on the woman herself. Tonight she’d been wearing a clingy black cocktail dress that revealed a tantalizing bit of her full chest and a fair expanse of her shapely legs, her honey-blond hair hanging in a smooth curtain past her shoulders. Her eyes were large and wide set but balanced by lips that were lushly curved. Under other circumstances, she’d have been exactly his type—blond, busty and beautiful.

Still, even the attractive packaging couldn’t obscure the fact that the woman was a menace. And he’d had enough. More than enough.

His reputation as the playboy Whittaker brother made him a favorite of the press as well as the object of more than a little ribbing from his older brothers, Quentin and Matt, and his younger sister, Allison.

But the truth was that he worked damned hard in his position as vice president of product development for Whittaker Enterprises, the family business started by his father, James. His degree from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology was put to excellent use in his capacity as head of Whittaker’s computer business.

If he liked to consort with models and actresses when he was let out of his prison cell—uh, office—well, he wasn’t going to begrudge himself some fun. Besides, there was a worldwide shortage in decent-looking computer geeks like himself.

Frowning, he ordered a cocktail. Kayla had some gall taunting him with the car accident that had marked the end of his career racing Indy cars. God knew, if he could take back the accident that had killed another driver, he would. Didn’t everyone understand that? Couldn’t the press that had plagued him after the accident comprehend that?

His physical scars had healed but the emotional scars on his soul would never go away.

Turning away from the bar, he took a sip of his drink and thought again that it would be a shame to miss Kayla’s reaction to Sybil’s column in the morning.

But then again… A smile rose to his lips.

Reaching into the pocket of his pants, he pulled out his cell phone. The number he wanted was already programmed in, having been used both before and after countless dates: Bloomsville Florists.

The following morning, Kayla’s first sign that something was wrong was the large bouquet of red roses parked on her desk in her cubicle at the Boston Sentinel’s headquarters.

At first she thought there must have been some mistake. She glanced around the office, then put her purse down and reached for the note that was tucked among the flowers.

After pulling the card from the envelope, she scanned the contents: “Kayla, thanks for a wonderful evening.”

Confused, she turned the card over and then looked at the envelope, but there was no further clue as to who had sent the flowers and why—not even the name of a florist.

Hmm, interesting. Who could have sent the bouquet? She hadn’t had a date in a couple of months, ever since she’d gone out with a radio-show producer before quickly deciding they had no chemistry.

Frowning, she sat down and logged onto her computer. She’d e-mail the receptionist; every visitor had to sign in at the front desk.

Out of habit, however, she first surfed to the news sites to check out the day’s headlines and, more importantly, to scan the society pages. She made it a practice to read her rivals’ gossip columns just to keep up with what the competition was doing.

When she got to the Boston World’s gossip page, Sybil LaBreck’s years-old, black-and-white photo stared back at her along with the headline Dangerous Liaisons: Noah Whittaker’s Secret Relationship with Gossip Maven Kayla Jones, aka Ms. Rumor-Has-It.

She froze, blinked, and then stared.

No. But the headline was still there, staring at her, taunting her.

She scanned the rest of the article while a sickening feeling settled in the pit of her stomach.

Sybil alleged that Noah and Ms. Rumor-Has-It had been secretly involved for some time. The column went on to disclose a lovers’ row that they’d had at the book-launch party last night. It ended by toying with the delicious possibility that Kayla’s skewering of the millionaire playboy in her column had been a smoke screen for her own clandestine relationship with him.

Kayla’s mind raced. Had Sybil witnessed her argument with Noah last night and wrongly concluded she’d been privy to a lovers’ spat? Or—a more ominous thought intruded—had someone led Sybil to believe it was a lovers’ spat?

She looked up from her computer screen and caught one of the Sentinel’s health columnists giving her a curious look. Had Sybil’s headline already been making the rounds?

Kayla’s eyes went to the flower bouquet again. Now that she’d read Sybil’s headline, the flowers suddenly made sense.

Noah. The rat. Whether he’d started the flames or was just fanning them, she had a thing or two to tell him.

Using the Internet, she located the main number for Whittaker Enterprises. Once she dialed it, she was quickly transferred to Noah’s secretary.

“May I ask who is calling?” the secretary intoned once Kayla had asked to speak with Noah.

“It’s Kayla Jones.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Jones, but Mr. Whittaker isn’t in the office yet this morning. May I take a message?”

He wasn’t in the office yet? Probably due to his late-night carousing, she thought acidly. Her eyes strayed to the clock on the wall, which indicated it was just after nine.

As she looked down and started to tell Noah’s secretary that she’d call back later, her gaze landed on the man striding toward her.

Noah Whittaker, smiling sunnily.

“Never mind,” she said absently into the receiver. “I’ve found him.” She couldn’t believe he had the nerve to show up at her office! Planning to milk this baseless rumor for all it was worth, was he?

She hung up and straightened, rising from her chair just as Noah came to a stop in front of her.

He nodded to the impressive arrangement of red roses. “Glad to see I got my money’s worth.”

“You snake.” She kept her voice low, not caring that her tone sounded furtive. The last thing she needed was for someone at the Sentinel to overhear her conversation. Fortunately, it was still early enough that a lot of the staff hadn’t rolled in yet.

Noah chuckled. “Now is that any way to thank the guy who’s come to apologize for our lovers’ quarrel?”

“You know it was no such thing!” she exclaimed in a low tone, catching another curious look from the Sentinel’s health columnist.

“I suppose,” he returned placidly, “you’re about to express outrage and claim bloody retribution.”

She looked at him. He seemed so smug, and he was so infuriating. “You planned this,” she accused. “You let Sybil think we were…involved.” She could barely get that last word out. “You sent the flowers to make it seem as if Sybil’s story held water.”

“Not only did I let Sybil think we were involved,” he replied, “I told her we were.”

“What?” she squeaked. That was the best she could manage without drawing attention. Inside, however, she felt like screaming.

“Right after you left last night, I had an unexpected run-in with Sybil. Apparently she witnessed enough to know we’d been arguing.”

Kayla closed her eyes. It was a nightmare, a complete nightmare.

“I’ll say this for her,” Noah continued, “that woman has a nose for gossip like a bloodhound on a scent.” He regarded her blandly. “Anyway, I made some sarcastic remark about a lovers’ spat, and she took it seriously. I was going to correct her when I realized it would be much more fun to make the most of the situation.”

“So instead of letting her believe we were arguing, you told her that we were involved?” she asked incredulously.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Uncomfortable being the subject of rumors? Not too pleasant, is it?”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

He shrugged. “I’ll admit to some grim satisfaction at being handed an opportunity to even the score.”

She grabbed her shoulder bag and her blazer. “Let’s discuss this somewhere else.”

He looked mildly surprised. “If you say so.”

They had to talk, she thought, but this wasn’t the place to do it. She wasn’t about to provide fodder for the office gossip mill. But somehow she had to convince him to call Sybil and get her to print a retraction. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about. She refused to be lumped together with Huffy, Fluffy and Buffy.

As he followed her down the hall and into an elevator, she was aware of his tread behind her—and of the glances that the two of them attracted.

When they got downstairs and outside into the still-warm September sun, she sighed with relief. At least they were away from prying eyes.

Turning to Noah, her brows snapping together, she began, “Now look—”

Her planned reprimand ended with a gasp as he swept her into his arms.

Her eyes widened. “What—”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man—a photographer—leap forward and snap a shot of them just before Noah’s mouth closed over hers.