Read Online Hidden Gems by Carrie Alexander - Free Book Online Page B

workaholic style. “Want to have lunch?”
    “We already had breakfast.”
    “A late lunch.”
    The whirring picked up its pace. “No, I’ll just get a smoothie at the juice bar.”
    Jamie swallowed. “Dinner?”
    “I think—” she panted “—I’m going out with Shandi.”
    “Oh. She’s still at your place?”
    “For one more night.”
    “Sure, sure.”
    Marissa laughed. “She caught me at a moment of weakness.”
    “You have those?”
    “You of all people know that I do.”
    “Yeah, but you bounce back so fast, I wonder if you purposely choose men you don’t truly care about so the split won’t slow you down.”
    “My moments of weakness don’t all involve men.” Whirr. Whirr. Whirr. She was thinking faster than she was pedaling. “Well, maybe they do.” More pedaling. “So you think I’m calculating?”
    “Of course not.”
    “But I am without mercy.”
    “That depends.”
    “Fierce? You’ve got to give me fierce.”
    “Hell, yeah.”
    “Cold-blooded?”
    “Not necessarily. You run hot and cold.”
    She stopped pedaling. He heard only the more distant whirring of the other bicyclists, underlaid with the clank of weights and peppy aerobic music. He waited, drumming his fingers on the desktop.
    Finally she let out a big breath. “Hot and cold, huh? Then how come you make me feel warm?”
    He leaned forward in his chair, took a quick glance around the newsroom, then dropped his head so low it almost hit the desk. His voice came out like gravel. “When do I make you feel warm?”
    “When your voice gets like that.”
    He couldn’t reply.
    She was whispering. “When I know you’re keeping your feelings inside so you don’t spook me.”
    “Fierce women spook?”
    “Sometimes.”
    “I don’t want you spooked.”
    “But you do want me.”
    “Yes.”
    There was another long silence.
    “You don’t feel the same way,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose.
    “I don’t know. I mean, I do, but I don’t. Shandi says that the only way for me to get over Paul is to get under someone else. You know how she is. So that’s why we’re going out—manhunting. I didn’t tell her…”
    “That I’m the man.” He was surprised by the confidence that poured into the statement. Given one small opening, his suppressed desire would erupt like a volcano.
    Marissa had better be sure.
    So had he, after hesitating for three long years.
    “Shandi’s always suspected it, way before I did. I thought she was loco, at first, going on about how you had it bad for me.”
    He felt his face redden. “No kidding? You never said. How long has this been common knowledge?”
    “Oh, you know. Girl talk. But it wasn’t knowledge. Only supposition.”
    He’d thought she told him everything, including the girl talk. It was good to hear he’d been wrong.
    “So how about an early dinner?” he suggested. “You know Shandi won’t be ready to go out for hours.”
    Marissa answered quickly. “No. We can’t go out romantically when we’ve decided to stay friends.”
    Stabbed in the gut. “I didn’t mention romance.”
    “It’s in your voice.”
    And she wasn’t having any.
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t.”
    “Then I’ll see you around.”
    “Don’t go away mad.”
    “Just go away?”
    “For now, yes.” Her voice was gentle.
    He hung up, feeling almost as crummy as he had when Carly Bibb, tenth-grade siren, had turned down his invitation to see Wayne’s World. He’d hung up the phone four times before he’d worked up the courage to say hello.
    An unsettling similarity.
    Was it only the adrenaline that had rushed him into kissing Marissa?

    5
    AS SOON AS DARKNESS had fallen, Jean Allard scaled the fire escape, a rusty structure that clung to the backside of the five-story brownstone via a zigzag pattern of ancient bolts. The steps would rattle menacingly under the weight and motion of any normal person. La Souri Noire, however, passed without a sound. He was accustomed