“Yeah?” He thought for a second. “How the heck does she know we’re down here?”
“We gossip columnists have our ways.”
“You don’t say.”
She nodded. “Sybil seemed quite happy to have the rumors of our romantic idyll confirmed by my picking up the phone in the hotel suite that’s booked under your name. She was just—how did she put it?—surprised.” She added, her voice dripping acid, “After all, you’d told her that the day you got serious about me would be the day that you called her yourself with a story for her column.”
He had some vague recollection of running into Sybil at the Charlesbank Association charity event. She’d been irritating and had asked probing questions. She’d hinted that she suspected he and Kayla were really having an affair and not just attempting to bury the hatchet for appearance’s sake. He recalled saying something dismissive in order to get rid of her. And now, it seemed, that something was coming back to haunt him.
Still, he wasn’t going to try to explain to Kayla that the comment had been made half-jokingly in an attempt to make Sybil go away. Because what counted was that Kayla hadn’t trusted him.
She hadn’t trusted him enough to give him a chance to explain what he’d said to Sybil. If she’d trusted him, she wouldn’t have sneaked into his private correspondence.
It was clear that she valued getting a story more than any feelings for him. And, given his experience with the press, he was ten kinds of sucker for ever thinking otherwise. Even if they’d made the earth move last night.
He held up the correspondence that he clutched in his hand and demanded, “You want to know what these papers are about?” When she made no reply, he continued, “I’ll tell you—the worst ten seconds of my life.”
She looked taken aback.
“That’s right,” he said. “The racing accident I’d give anything to undo.”
She shook her head. “But those papers refer to a company called Medford.”
“Right. The company that I formed for the sole purpose of supporting Jack’s family since the accident.”
“But that’s a good thing…”
It gave him perverse satisfaction to see she seemed perplexed. “What? Are you disappointed you haven’t discovered another scandal connected to me? Did you think I didn’t know there’d been rumors—despite doing my best to keep Medford under wraps—that I was involved with a mysterious company in the Caymans?”
“But why create an offshore company? Why try to hide the fact that you’re doing something good because…?”
He arched a brow. “Because, instead, people might believe I’m doing something bad? Is that what you were going to say?” He shrugged. “I didn’t want Jack’s family to know who was helping them.”
“But why?”
She was pressing him for answers that he wasn’t prepared to give. She had a journalist’s doggedness all right and at the moment he was finding it damn irritating. “I just preferred it that way,” he said, adding sarcastically, “is that okay with you?”
She unfolded her arms and looked shocked. “You still carry an enormous amount of guilt about the accident, don’t you? Do you blame yourself?”
“What is this? Pop psychology 101?” he snapped.
He could swear a flash of hurt crossed her face. Well, that made two of them with open wounds.
“I was just asking.”
“No, you were asking and snooping.” The betrayal cut like a knife. She was prepared to sell him out for a moment’s glory in the newspaper and a shot at a better job. Hell.
He turned his back on her abruptly.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“To pack,” he said curtly, not looking at her. Today was supposed to be their last day in the Caymans anyway. Might as well pack it in early. “It was fun while it lasted, honey, but now it’s over.”
Noah shoved his hands in his pockets and paced to the windows of his office, where he stared out unseeingly.
Surly. That described him to a T lately.
After the debacle with Kayla in the Caymans, he’d been mad as hell. He should have stayed mad as hell. Instead, he’d started to invent reasons to see her point of view. Had started to think maybe he was partly to blame.
Which was crazy. Just as crazy as the fact that he’d trusted a reporter to begin with. He needed his head examined.
To top it off, Sybil LaBreck was hot on their trail again. Her most recent headline, just after his return from the Caymans, had shouted: Is Noah Whittaker Finally Getting Paired Off? Sybil went on to detail his and Kayla’s getaway in the Caymans despite his recent denials that anything romantic was going on.
He thought back to his face-off with Kayla in the Caymans. If he hadn’t been so pissed off, he might have tried explaining to her about his comment to Sybil. At the time he’d tossed off the remark, all he’d wanted was to throw Sybil off the scent—because he’d already started lusting after Kayla intensely.
And the sex, when it had happened, had been incredible. Hotter and steamier than he’d fantasized. It had been good. They’d been good.
His mind went to the question that had been chewing at him more and more: was it fair of him to have expected Kayla to check her reporter’s instincts at the door of their hotel suite?
That was precisely what he’d expected, he realized. Because of the sex, because he’d started wanting and needing her and because she’d gotten under his skin.
But, even if he had a right to be angry because she hadn’t trusted him more, he’d been the one to leave the Medford correspondence lying around. And—he could now concede, putting himself in her shoes—Sybil’s call had led her to believe he was an untrustworthy jerk.
“Troubles?”
He turned from the window and saw Matt standing in the open doorway to his office. “No more than usual.”
Matt came in, shutting the door behind him. “Yeah, well you haven’t been your usual self lately, and people have started to notice.”
He shrugged as Matt sat on a corner of his desk. “We all have a bad week occasionally.”
“Yeah, and yours happened to coincide with your return from the Caymans with Kayla Jones. Don’t think people didn’t notice.”
“So, let people notice.”
Matt shook his head resignedly. “Stashing a sexy reporter in your hotel room during a firm trip to the Caribbean?” Amusement darkened his brother’s eyes.