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“So let me get this straight. You and Mitchell haven’t gone a single day without seeing each other since that night you picked him up at MoMA?”
“Shh!” Julie hissed. “Do you have to announce it to the world?”
Riley pointedly looked around at the nearly empty hallway. “And by ‘world,’ you mean … Grace?”
“I already knew,” Grace pointed out practically.
“Well, still. I don’t want people to know about it until I figure out how to explain it.”
“What’s there to explain? You have a new boyfriend.”
“Mitchell is not my boyfriend,” Julie said.
“Um, how do you figure? You’re seeing him on weekend days and weeknights. How many times has that happened, Grace?”
“Hmm, let me count … Zero, and never.”
“Exactly,” Riley said as she started to push open the conference room door for their weekly staff meeting.
Julie yanked her back. “You know full well why I’m doing this. It’s not real.”
Grace’s finger hooked into Julie’s collar. “That hickey sure is real.”
Julie’s hand slapped over the right side of her neck. The saleswoman at Bergdorf’s had been such a liar—that concealer could not cover anything up. She wanted her fifty bucks back.
“I still can’t believe you slept with him,” Riley hooted. “That is so geisha of you!”
“It wasn’t like that,” Julie said as she flipped her collar up around her neck. “The other stuff was for the story. The sex part just … happened.”
“What other stuff?” Grace asked, pulling them out of the way so they weren’t blocking the conference room door.
Julie hedged. “You know, just hanging out for the sake of research. We go out to eat, go to the movies, drink wine. Nothing important. We’re just two people who enjoy each other’s company and happen to have sex. I don’t know that there’s a name for it.”
Grace and Riley exchanged a meaningful glance, looking very much like they wanted to burst out laughing.
“What?” Julie snapped.
Grace tried unsuccessfully to wipe the smirk from her face. “Hon, what you described most definitely has a name.”
“Yup,” Riley said, taking a slurp of her macchiato. “It’s called … oh, what’s the word? … a relationship.”
Grace’s smile slipped at Julie’s scowl. “Julie, we’re not trying to be difficult. But you’re a bundle of mixed signals. One second you’re jumping down our throats about how he’s only a story, and the next minute you’re all protective like you actually like him. Which is it?”
I don’t know.
“Let’s talk about it later,” she grumbled. Julie shoved open the door to the conference room before Grace and Riley could continue their assault, and took a seat between Angela and Maria. She couldn’t cope with any more prying questions from her best friends at the moment. Normally she relished the chance to discuss everything involving men, on both the personal and professional levels.
But this thing with Mitchell—and she really didn’t have a name for it—felt far too private. And she was afraid she knew why. She was falling for him. She was falling for the subject of her story.
“Are you all right?” Angela asked. “You’re looking kind of … feverish.”
No, what you’re seeing is guilt. I’m seeing this perfectly great guy, using him for sex, companionship, and my August column.
“Oh, I’m fine,” she replied breezily. “Just a little warm this morning.”
Further conversation was halted by Camille’s arrival. Stiletto’s editor in chief marched into the room with a cellphone attached to her ear. From the look of things, the boss had not been having a good day. Her lipstick had faded to unbecoming flecks on her lips, and her hair was pulled back into a stubby, unattractive ponytail.
Julie and some of the more senior columnists exchanged looks. They all knew what the presence of a disheveled Camille meant. That the meeting would be run with all the gentle sensitivity of a Navy SEAL raid.
