Chapter 9
It was a light kiss, her lips only brushing his before he pulled away a little, but she could swear light flashed behind her closed eyes. Then the feel of his arms, strong against her back, and the wool of his jacket, and the stubble on his chin, that brushed her hand where it still clutched her coat to her, made Ellen’s heart rate double, and she fell into a panic attack out of all proportion. Her eyes flew open, and she saw him smile. Now I’ve done it. Now he’ll think he’s entitled to more than a good night kiss and—
She pushed hard on him with the hand at her collar, which made him choke and put his hand to his neck, releasing her from the circle of his arms. Ellen took a few steps away from him; if the street hadn’t been busy with the last of the weekend’s dinner-goers, she would have broken into a run.
“Ellen,” he said, a little hoarsely, putting out his hand to stop her. But she dodged him and had made it a few steps farther before his longer legs caught up. He got a hold of her arm, pulled her around to face him. “What—”
She didn’t know what kind of face she turned on him, but it made him drop her arm as if it had burned him.
“Shit, Ellen,” he said. “I don’t—”
She started shaking. “Just let me go,” she said; it came out as a plea.
“Let me at least get you a cab.”
“No.”
She continued to walk away from him, hoping he couldn’t see her knees wobbling or hear her heart pounding in her throat.
At the corner of the street she risked a quick look over her shoulder. But he was still standing where she’d left him, watching her go.
• • •
It took a lot of concealer to cover the dark rings around her eyes the next morning. She wished she hadn’t given Cabo back; he had been a nice solid presence in her apartment. Without him she had nothing to distract her from how bad she looked, how little sleep she’d had. She was already late, and fighting through the rush-hour traffic didn’t help her edginess. You’ve got five days to make the Queen’s Ball the best yet, she told herself over and over in the car, so you’ll get your pick of transfers. Stop jumping at every movement, stop feeling like shit at the idea of leaving, and stop remembering.
She hoped Penny wouldn’t notice anything wrong when she walked past reception, but her friend was on to her from the minute she walked through the doors. “Hi,” Ellen said, keeping a few feet away from the desk.
Penny excused herself from the man she was helping and as decorously as possible raced over to the end of the desk. “Hi yourself,” she said, keeping her voice low. “So how was your date?”
Ellen looked up, eyes wide. Penny wasn’t smiling, for once. After telling Penny what an ass Kane had been on Friday, she hadn’t been able to confess that she’d agreed to dinner with him. “How did you know?”
Penny said nothing, just reached under the desk and pulled out that morning’s Herald, open to somewhere in the middle, and a quarter-page shot of Kane kissing her. Reaching up to him, her hair had fallen back from her face; she was easily recognizable. Kane was always easy to place, with his height and his hair.
“Setting his own flame,” said the byline below the picture. “Kane Fielding takes some time off from fighting fires to start one of his own under new squeeze Ellen Hunter, an employee of the Rosette Hotel. Looks like Kane’ll be getting a discount on a room pretty soon.”
The flash of light. That I thought was my own fireworks.A quiver of fury ran through her, so strong that she visibly swayed. She focused on Penny for a moment, then spun around and walked right back out of the hotel, the newspaper still clutched in her hand.
She didn’t remember much of the walk between their buildings, the ride in the elevator to the top floor, or her sweep past Gloria without even a nod. When she strode past Anna’s office, though, Anna said, “Miss—hey, wait a minute—” But Ellen was already opening the door to Kane’s office.
• • •
“You’re an arrogant, self-serving little shit,” she said loudly, the door banging back against the wall.
Kane looked up from the inspector’s report of the Grand Rapids fire, which he’d been too distracted to read anyway. Ellen was striding the few steps from the door to his desk, her coat falling open to show a blouse with small beads running around the neckline. When she slammed her hand down on the desk, he got an involuntary shot straight down her cleavage. He made himself look up at her face; this was not a moment to get sidetracked.
“What the fuck were you thinking?” she shouted, and threw the crumpled newspaper at him. Anna was at the door, mouth open, apparently too horrified to speak. He could imagine heads popping up over the top of their monitors behind her.
“I am not,” Ellen continued, “one of those little bimbos you use to further your reputation!”
Kane peered around Ellen and made “go away” motions with his hand. Anna scowled at Ellen’s back but retreated and mercifully closed the door.
Ellen’s cheeks were red, her hair falling into her eyes. She was only a couple of feet from him across the desk. This was the most animated he’d seen her, the most beautiful. Certainly the most pissed. And it was all his fault. Anna had brought him the paper with his coffee.
“I suppose your little friend Joe called your buddy the journalist and told him where we were. I suppose you’ve done this kind of shit before, and those little tramps lap up the publicity—”
“Not tramps—” he tried.
“Don’t—say—one—word to me!” she snapped back. “Do you understand that I have a career, and that you have probably just destroyed it? I’ve been working for ten years to get where I am, and your fucking ego has swept it all away in one photograph!”
