Trust Me on This - Jennifer Crusie [63]
* * *
“Okay, hold it,” Dennie said before the second suit had finished his recitation of all of the things she had a right to. She turned to Tom and the brunette. “I don’t know what your deal is, but I’ll get to you in a minute.” Then she turned back to Janice. “But your deal I know, and you should be ashamed.”
“I should be ashamed.” Janice’s brows snapped together. “You have been pursuing me—”
“I have left you alone and done everything in my power to reassure you,” Dennie snapped back. “But that’s not the point. The point is, talk is cheap, lady. You make big speeches about risking, and then you turn tail and run the minute the most important risk of your life is in front of you.” Dennie shook her head. “I really admired you. One of the reasons I wanted that interview was because I wanted everybody to know how smart you were, about life and relationships, and how the end of a marriage doesn’t mean it was a failure, and about everything else you know that I don’t and that nobody else does, either, and I wanted to be the one to help you tell them. And then you pull this.”
Janice didn’t look convinced. “I’m not the one in trouble here,” she told Dennie. “You’re not going to fast-talk your way out of this.”
“I’m talking truth.” Dennie leaned forward. “And you are the one in trouble here. I’m the one who could help you out if you weren’t shoving your head so far into the sand.”
“Just get her out of here,” Janice said to the second suit tiredly. “I just want her away from me.”
Dennie’s temper spurted. “Oh, and for the record, you remember that crack you hit me with in the elevator about reputable journalists not eavesdropping?”
Janice tried to level her with a glare. “I remember nothing about you.”
“Well, you’re a hypocrite on top of everything else,” Dennie said, her voice rising as the second suit tried to tug her away. “Because I read about your first scoop, and you got it by overhearing two diplomats on a commuter train. You must have been something back then.”
Suit Two tugged on her arm, and then someone caught her other arm and she swung around to face the new problem.
“Handcuffs,” Alec said. “This is a good look for you, but more about that later.” He smiled at the two suits. “Gentlemen, I sympathize with your impulses, but you’re going to have to uncuff her. She’s working for me, and you’re screwing up a very nice party here.”
Dennie craned to look over his shoulder. Victoria and Donald were talking to Bond, Victoria all but bending over the table to distract him. With Alec between her and Bond, there was a fair hope he hadn’t noticed the handcuffs and the cops. But only a fair one unless they moved fast.
Tom was handing Alec back his identification when she turned to tell him to hurry up. “Well, this is interesting,” he said to Alec. He gestured to the brunette. “This little lady has some information too.”
Alec looked at the little lady appraisingly. “Hold on to her, will you?” he said to Tom. “I think we may have some information of our own.”
“I want a deal,” Sherée said.
* * *
Dennie sat down at the table in a flurry of purple jersey, praying the fourth button would hold or she’d get arrested again. “Sorry,” she said to Bond. “We were up late last night.”
Bond smiled back into her cleavage. “I heard. I bet that doesn’t happen often.”
Dennie heard Alec stir beside her and kicked him on the ankle to make him behave. “Only when I get a house,” she said. “I am getting one, right?”
“Right.” Bond tore his eyes from her breasts with great difficulty and shoved the contract across to Alec.
“Great deal,” Alec enthused, and signed with a flourish.
Dennie took the contract and handed it to Bond, leaning closer as she did so. “I want to watch you sign it,” she whispered.
He straightened a little and shot a smile around the room. Then the smile faded. Dennie followed the direction of his eyes and saw Sherée, somehow detached from Tom, walking as fast as she could toward the lobby doors.
“Brian?” Dennie