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Troy stepped around her and opened the door. Air scented with burned coffee and newsprint rushed into the room. From over her shoulder, she watched him leave.
Why wouldn’t the stubborn man believe this was about more than a story? If Barron was struggling with the same personal demons from her past, she couldn’t live with herself if she walked away. She had to help the NBA player for her peace of mind as well as his.
Andrea left the conference room, closing the door behind her. She’d barely sat down at her desk when her editor appeared.
“Is Marshall pissed over the Barron Douglas story?” Willis Priestly sounded almost disinterested.
He gulped his coffee. The dark liquid dribbled from a crack in the chubby, white mug. Not for the first time, Andrea wondered why her boss kept the aging cup. It leaked as much coffee as it contained.
“He wants only positive stories on the Monarchs.”
Willis took another drink and nodded his head. He brushed his lank, gray hair from his forehead. He needed a haircut. He also needed more sleep. The bags under his dull green eyes carried bags. “What did you say?”
Andrea sat back in her worn, brown chair. It squeaked as she forced it to turn toward her editor. “I told him I’m a reporter not a publicist.”
Willis nodded again. His questions seemed more like idle conversation. Had he even heard her answers?
“You know, Benson, the paper distributed almost double its usual number of copies when you wrote that piece exposing Bimm. I know when we take a count of the copies that circulated with this Douglas story, we’ll have sold at least that many more copies of this issue as well.”
She knew where this was going and she wouldn’t let it get there. “I’m not going to write negative stories just to gain an audience, Will. You know that’s not my style.”
“That article on Bimm caught the attention of other papers. The story on Douglas will, too. Keep it up and pretty soon some big paper with deep pockets will make you an offer you’d be a fool to refuse.”
“Are you suggesting I sell my soul to the devil?”
“You deserve much more money than I could ever pay you.”
“And what would I do with these ill-gotten gains?”
Willis snorted. “Buy a car with an engine that doesn’t fly south at the hint of cooler weather.”
A sense of foreboding stirred the hairs on the back of her neck. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“You’re better than this place.” Willis inclined his head toward the other reporters in the newsroom. “Your coworkers are kids fresh out of school. And while you’re trying to move up, you’ll set the standard for these kids and help me build a name for Sports.”
Andrea studied the fresh-faced cub reporters with whom she worked. Their careers were just starting, while she felt every one of her twenty-eight years.
She lifted her pencil, bouncing its eraser against her desk. “I’d like more money and a bigger audience. But I’m not going to jump on the negativity bandwagon. The Jones family and the Monarchs have given a lot to this community.” And to her. “I won’t repay them that way.”
Willis gulped more coffee. “You said you weren’t the Monarchs’ publicist.”
She smiled. Her boss was trying to use her words against her. “Well played, Will. I’ll report the news—good, bad, or indifferent—as long as it’s relevant. But I won’t deliberately smear anyone’s character.” Not ever again.
“Sometimes you have to play hardball to get ahead.”
That route hadn’t worked for her in the past, and it wasn’t the person she was trying to be. “At the end of the day, I need to be able to live with the decisions I’ve made.”
He gestured toward the newsroom with his mug. “Look around you, Benson. Do you want to be working here in five years? Three years? Next year?”
She shrugged. “Worse things could happen.” She’d already lived through some of them. Andrea bounced her pencil eraser against her desk again.
Willis scanned the room. “I had big dreams when I first started this paper. It’s eight years later and they’re still only dreams.” He looked at her. “You’re good, Benson. I don’t want you to end up with stale dreams, too.”
“Thanks, Will. But I’ll take my chances and see what happens.”
Willis’s eyes were inscrutable as he held her gaze for a long silent moment. “Don’t wait too long to see what happens. You’ll never get that time back.”
Andrea considered his drawn features and rounded shoulders. “What aren’t you telling me, Will?”
