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“Okay,” she said, nodding. “I’ll call Messer in the morning and schedule a background interview.”
He nodded. “And find Constantinou. He’s back in the country. I don’t care if you have to camp out in front of his office building.”
She was so never doing that. James slid off her desk and did his usual pre-news-hour circuit of the room. Izzie shoved her phone in her purse and stared at the lucky silver charm dangling from the strap. How could this have happened to her? Of all the men she could have chosen to have a one-night stand with, it had to have been Alexios Constantinou?
Inconceivable. She stood up, deciding she’d do a better job figuring this out in the bathtub. A commotion near the entrance to the newsroom made her look up. A petite brunette stood court in the middle of a group of reporters, her megawatt smile on full display. Her mother. Good Lord. She was back in town.
Dayla St. James chatted for a few minutes with the crowd, reveling in the attention they heaped on her, then blew them a kiss and made her way over to Izzie’s desk with that same shoulders-back, confident strut she’d been using her entire life. Izzie blew out a long breath and steeled herself for the hurricane that was her mother.
“I’m back,” Dayla announced unnecessarily, arriving in a flurry of floral perfume to press a kiss to both of Izzie’s cheeks. Her mother’s violet eyes took her in, the heart-shaped face that had sent a billion men’s hearts fluttering still so absolutely perfect at fifty-one she made Izzie feel like an awkward, overblown offshoot. “I’ve come to whisk you off for a drink.”
Izzie sat down on the edge of her desk. She needed to process, not go for a drink. This was what little white lies were for. “I have plans with the girls.”
Her mother frowned. “Surely you can have a quick drink with me first? I’m going to get all tangled up in this play tomorrow and I haven’t seen you in weeks.”
She groaned inwardly. “How long is your engagement?”
“Three months,” her mother said with satisfaction. “Perfect timing for me to help you with your anchor run.”
Izzie stared at her. “How could you possibly know about that already? I just found out.”
“The network is one big gossip machine, Iz. You know that.”
She hadn’t thought it worked that fast. She sighed. “Look, Mother, we both know what happened last time you tried to give me advice. I need to do this on my own.”
Her mother’s ultrasharp gaze softened. “Izzie, you were so young. I never should have pushed you into that audition. You weren’t ready.”
No kidding. She winced, remembering that stiflingly hot day in L.A. as if it were yesterday. Her mother had pulled strings to get her a trial for an entertainment reporter position with a national news show at the network she’d been doing a television sitcom for at the time. Fresh out of school and nervous as hell, Izzie had been up against competition with five times her experience, and known the only reason she was in the room was because the producer was half in love with her mother.
“It was a disaster,” Izzie muttered. “I completely fell apart.”
“You were terrified. It was wrong of me to do that.”
Had it been? Or had she just choked? Izzie cringed, remembering how she’d forgotten first one line, then another, her mother’s face getting redder and redder as her daughter blew it over and over again. Until finally the producer, a sympathetic look on his face, had suggested that they call it a day.
Her jaw tightened as she remembered how silent her mother had been on the drive home. As if to say, I knew you were the ordinary, less spectacular daughter, but did you have to embarrass me that badly?
She wrapped her arms around herself. “I’ve made my way here, Mother. My career has been all me. You need to respect that.”
Her mother nodded. “I respect the fact that you want to do this on your own. In fact,” she lifted a brow, “I applaud that. But you need to start letting me in. I’ve been trying for months to make things right between us and all you keep doing is pushing me away.”
Izzie gave her mother a disbelieving look as Dayla delivered the line as though she was on a set with a live audience of hundreds. How could she think a few months of sporadic attempts to connect with her daughter was going to make up for a lifetime of not caring? “You need to earn that right, Mother.”
“I’m trying to. But you aren’t budging an inch.”
Izzie’s mouth flattened. “Unlike you, I’m not good at command performances.”
Her mother’s frown deepened. Izzie watched her mentally check herself and pull her mouth out of its twist. Frowns were bad for business. Frowns took years off your career. “Sometimes I think you’re the one who has the drama degree, Izzie.”
She got pointedly to her feet. “How about Wednesday for dinner?”
Her mother nodded, halfway across the room before she tossed her parting barb. “I’ll have Clara make reservations for sushi. We have to keep you in anchor shape.”
Oh my God. Izzie balled her hands into fists. “I hate sushi!”
“Oh that’s right...” Her mother disappeared through the double glass doors leaving devastation behind in her wake. As usual.
Izzie picked up her phone and called Jo, deciding a bottle of wine at her best friend’s place superseded the need for a bath. She tossed the Messer file into her bag; she’d read it on the subway ride over to Jo’s. There had to be something in that file that would discredit Frank Messer. Because interviewing Alex was not an option. Ever.
CHAPTER SIX
“YOU NEED TO stop looking like you’re being dragged to your execution,” Jo chided, pushing Izzie through the tuxedo-and ball gown-clad crowd toward the bar. “It’s just an interview. Ask him to do it and get it over with.”
“Easy for you to say,” Izzie muttered. “You’re not the one who told a half truth, then had a ridiculously hot one-night stand with the man you’re supposed to be interviewing.”
“Oh come on, Iz.” Jo slid onto a stool at the gleaming ebony bar and lifted a brow at her. “How many scrapes did we get ourselves out of in J school? Where is your adventurous spirit?”
“This is not creative ways to explain covering a high-end escort service as our final project,” Izzie retorted, sliding onto the stool beside her. “Why couldn’t you have lectured me after Italy?”
“Then you wouldn’t have had the big night with the stud.” Jo’s smile was ear to ear. “Which was the best thing that’s ever happened to you, by the way.”
Izzie made a face at her. The bartender came over, leaned his palms on the rich dark wood and gave Jo a long look. “What’ll you have?”
“Two dirty martinis,” Jo said with a flirtatious smile. “Heavy on the olives.”
“You got it.” He gave her friend one last admiring look before grabbing a shaker.
Izzie groaned. “You are something else. It’s like every man in the world is programmed to love you.”
Jo lifted a brow. “I send out pheromones, Iz. Phare-o-moans. As in I give guys a chance. You’re so caught up in your ‘up at six for a run, eight to eight caffeine-induced endurance race’ you wouldn’t know fun if it hit you in the butt.”
Izzie glared at her. “That is so unfair. I have a career. I’m climbing the ladder...”
“You need some fun in your life. Desperately.”
“I do have fun.”
“You think putting purple nail polish on your toes is a walk on the wild side. I’m talking fun.”
“Yes, well, look where all the wildness has gotten me.” She’d spent the last two days trying to discredit Frank Messer in a desperate attempt not to do this, but the more she’d spoken with him and researched, the more credible he’d become. He’d played an awfully significant role in the creation of Behemoth and everyone in the industry knew it. So here she was, stuck in the vomit-inducing position of having to approach Alex at this gala event for the Met that NYC-TV was sponsoring, to ask him for the interview.
The gala was hosted in the museum’s breathtaking Temple of Dendur with its exotic ambient lighting and ancient temples lit by a mystical, otherworldly glow, and the organizers had perfectly captured the spirit and ambience of ancient Egyptian times. But instead of enjoying the atmosphere, Izzie had spent the whole evening searching for Alex’s tall, dark figure, her heart in her mouth.
She’d twisted back around on her stool to watch Jo bestow another high-wattage smile on the flirtatious bartender, when her friend’s eyes sharpened on the crowd. “Tall, black hair, blue eyes, you said?”
Izzie froze, a fist tightening in her chest. “Yes, why, do you see him?”
“Killer body?”
“Yes,” she croaked, her throat dry as the Sahara.
“This could be him. He’s with another guy—blond, nerdy in a cute kinda way.”
“His business partner, Mark,” Izzie said weakly. She’d done her research.
A low whistle escaped her friend. “Wow, Iz. He is smoking.”
Not helping. The crowded room seemed to close in on her as she turned ever so slowly and followed Jo’s gaze. Suddenly it was terribly, impossibly hard to breathe. Alex was standing talking to the Met’s PR person, not fifty feet away, the black Armani tux he wore drool-inducing on his tall, powerful frame.
