“Mr. Trakas, you missed all of the excitement,” Maddie said when he reached their desk.
“So I gathered. I was hoping you could fill me in.”
“Lavaman tanked my bets in the pools. I’m about to be out seventy bucks,” Jerome said.
Alec leaned on the desk. “Jerome. You know you guys aren’t supposed to be doing that.”
Jerome shrugged. “What are they going to do? Fire me? I’ve been here forever. I know everyone’s secrets.”
Maddie simply nodded in agreement. “Anything he doesn’t know, I do.”
Alec thought that sounded like a great insurance policy and made a mental note to start paying better attention to people’s secrets. “So what’s the bet?”
“Whether Ms. Monroe will fall in love and get pregnant,” Jerome said. “I was sure it was going to be a no on both counts. Now I’m nervous.”
Alec’s brain became like an old beater car, sputtering to a stop and exhaling a plume of steam. “Because of Jason Adams?”
“He asked Ms. Monroe to be his date for his premiere. She said yes, of course,” Maddie answered. “Who could say no to him? Nobody, that’s who. I saw them together, and I’m telling you, there was chemistry. Big time.”
“You’re saying that because it works for your line in the pools,” Jerome sniped.
“You don’t have a nose for romance,” Maddie countered. “I had a feeling something good was going to happen for her. The timing is pretty uncanny. She and I werejusttalking about how she could be pregnant by Christmas. How amazing would that be? It would be the best gift ever. Plus, she and Jason Adams would have very pretty babies.”
Alec didn’t know what to say. He only knew that it felt like his heart was currently residing under the soles of his shoes. Just that morning, he’d sent Brooklyn flowers. Now how much of an idiot did he look like? For some unknown reason, he continued to listen to the naive part of his brain that was saying he should try building a bridge to her. But it always seemed to crumble. And now he had to compete with Jason Adams? Knowing Jason’s effect on women, he’d probably only have tolookat Brooklyn to get her pregnant.
“Thanks for the scoop, guys. I’m going to head home.”
“We’re going to miss you if you end up in news, Mr. Trakas. We won’t see you as much. Those folks always breeze right past us and head straight up the elevator,” Maddie said.
“You know about that?” Alec had done everything he could to keep it quiet. If he flopped, he could tell people that it was just a one-off.
“We know it all,” Jerome said.
“Well, let’s put it this way. Nothing has been decided yet.”
As planned, Alec changed and walked home, then headed straight to his home office. He dove right into work and managed several hours of research before his body waved the white flag of surrender. He couldn’t cram in any more details of Barry Millner’s life of private jets, exotic vacations, and expensive cars on other people’s dime.
But now that he wasn’t immersed in reading, his brain returned to the other pressing matter, finding out what exactly had happened on his show while he’d been upstairs getting a hard time from Robin. More important, he had to see Brooklyn and Jason together. If Maddie was right, and there was chemistry, he was prepared to blow off the premiere. Strong recommendation from the network or not, Alec wasn’t about to endure that sort of punishment.
Steeling himself, he pulled up theGood Daywebsite. It took no searching at all to find the segment. The network’s digital team had already put it front and center on the homepage. He pressed play and sat back in his chair, running his hand through his hair. After waiting through a commercial for laundry detergent, he was greeted by Tilly Ann’s intro to the segment, followed by several minutes of fun banter and makeup tips between Lela and Brooklyn. Alec wasn’t even particularly bothered by the part where Brooklyn gave an update on her quest to become a mom. “Exploring her options” seemed like a perfectly reasonable response to the question.
But as soon as they reached the end of their segment and Tilly Ann called out Jason Adams, Alec couldn’t help but cringe. He’d endured so many similar situations on the show, where the producers are grasping at straws to make something make sense. Since the network and the film studio were owned by the same media conglomerate, it was clear to Alec that somebody, somewhere, demanded Jason Adams be given full reign onGood Day USAto do whatever the hell he wanted.
Even so, Alec saw the chemistry Maddie had mentioned, and it made his stomach pitch like a restless sea. Brooklyn’s eyes sparkled, her cheeks flushed with brilliant pink. She smiled and laughed at Jason, and then she accepted his invitation.I’d love to.The whole thing felt like a punch to the gut, but it also left Alec with a few questions. If Jason simply wanted to ask Brooklyn out, why not get her number and call her? Why ambush her on national TV?
He closed down his computer, now plagued with even more unknowns, none of them having to do with Barry Millner. What if Jason Adams was Brooklyn’s one perfect guy? The phoenix rising out of the ashes? What if they became a thing? A couple. No matter how you sliced it, Alec was going to end up feeling responsible for that particular twist in Brooklyn’s life. He’d begged her to come on the show in the first place, which was what made her return segment possible. It was Alec’s fault that Brooklyn and Jason Adams had met.
That wasn’t the fickle finger of fate. It was all on him.
Alec’s stomach growled angrily, so he stumbled into his kitchen, made himself a peanut butter sandwich, and ate while leaning against the counter. The clock on the microwave said that it was a little after six. When his phone rang, he had to dash for his home office—he’d left it on the desk.
“Hello?” he croaked, his mouth still sticky from peanut butter.
“Alec? It’s Brooklyn. I feel terrible.”
Was she going to tell him that accepting Jason’s invitation had been a mistake? God, he hoped so. “Why? What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“You sent me flowers. But I didn’t know they were from you, so I gave them to my doorman and told him to bring them home to his wife.”
