Spit it out.”
I took a deep breath. And spit. “And not because we slept together?”
Chapter Three
My history with Felix was complicated, at best. Completely fucked up, at worst.
I’d first met Felix two years ago when he was the Informer ’s top reporter and I was still studying journalism at UCLA. He’d been covering a story at the time, and I’d been fascinated at his information-gathering tactics, none of which they taught in my classes. Hacking databases, picking locks, breaking and entering. I was intrigued. Throw in the fact that Felix was not entirely hard on the eyes, and I’m woman enough to admit I’d had a teeny tiny schoolgirl crush on him.
Unfortunately, he’d also had a crush of his own at the time, and not on me. There was this fashion designer who was also involved in the story he was working on. And she was everything I was not—sophisticated, worldly and stylish enough to have walked out from a magazine cover. It wasn’t hard to see how a college kid suddenly became invisible in her shadow.
Still, when Felix had let me tag along on his story, I’d jumped at the chance. In fact, I’d jumped so much that I ended up getting myself kidnapped by a killer, bound, gagged, and shoved in the back of a bakery van. I’d spent a day and a half surrounded by stale muffins and pure fear before Felix had tracked the killer down and come to my rescue.
That was when things had really become complicated between us. The fashion designer Felix was into? Well, as soon as the story wrapped up, she ran off to Vegas and married another guy. Felix was crushed and, lucky me, I was the closest blonde at hand when he went on the rebound.
The blonde he’d just swooped in and rescued action-hero style, causing my little crush to swell to ridiculous proportions. Ridiculous enough that I’d gone home with him, let one thing lead right into another, and I’d ended the evening between Felix’s 500-thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets. Naked. On top of Felix.
Of course, in the morning we’d both realized with startling clarity what a mistake it had been. Felix was clearly still in love with the fashion designer, and I had acted like the pathetic equivalent of a journalism groupie.
So, we’d parted ways.
Or, more accurately, I’d dressed in the dark, claimed an early class and slunk out with my tail (and inside-out panties) between my legs.
It wasn’t until a year later, after I’d graduated and was desperate for a job, that I’d contacted Felix again. He’d been promoted to managing editor by then and was the only person I knew working at an actual paper, even if it was a tabloid. I’d pleaded my case, telling him he was the only thing standing between me and certain starvation. Despite my lack of experience, he’d finally relented. Probably out of guilt. Possibly out of lust. For sure out of pity.
No matter the reason, I’d gratefully taken the job, and we’d maintained a professional editor/reporter relationship ever since, never once speaking of The Night.
Until now.
And, I could tell by the look on his face, he wished as much as I did that we’d maintained that silence.
“ What?” he asked blinking at me.
“ You heard me,” I said, sticking to my guns even as a thick film of awkwardness settled over the room. “Did you hire me because I can write, or because we slept together?”
He didn’t answer me right away. Instead his eyes narrowed, assessing me. So intently that I began to fidget, picking at the waxy glitter under my fingernails. Then finally he moved from the barrier behind the desk, crossed the room until he was standing in front of me. Close in front of me. So close I could smell warm coffee on his breath.
I licked my lips, fighting off the instinct to take one giant step back. The awkwardness in the air had shifted to something else. Just as thick. Just as potent. Ten times more