“Well, here’s your chance to prove yourself,” Ed said.
“Rob was supposed to cover this press conference at eleven o’clock, but he’s off on a breaking story and everyone else has a full plate.”
“I know, but Noah Whittaker hates me. He’ll never field a question from me.” Her opportunity to cover hard news wasn’t supposed to arrive like this.
“So?” Ed countered. “When you get there make nice with Noah, smooth over any ruffled feathers, and everything will be fine.”
Kayla wished she could be as confident as Ed that she could make nice. It was more likely she’d wind up conking Noah on the head with her purse: Sybil LaBreck’s column that morning featured a picture of her and Noah kissing in front of the Sentinel’s offices.
“If you do nothing else, just make sure you pick up a copy of the press release that they give out,” Ed said, seeming to take some pity on her. “That’ll give you enough to write a where, what, how, and when article about whatever it is that Whittaker is announcing today.”
She felt her shoulders slump. “Right.”
“Jones,” Ed said gruffly, “I’ve been trying to look out for you since the day you got here. You’ve got enough ambition to fill a football stadium. Now go and put it to good use.”
She should have been grateful for Ed’s little pep talk. Instead, all she could do was manage some weak waves of the cheerleading pom-poms. She smiled wanly. “Thanks, Ed.”
“And,” Ed continued, “if you’re interested in getting a position on the business beat, Noah Whittaker is as good a person as any to start with.”
“What do you mean?”
Ed shrugged. “I mean there have been rumors circulating for a while about some suspicious offshore company in the Cayman Islands linked to Noah Whittaker. It could be nothing, but you never know. If there’s a story there, it would be big because Whittaker has a pristine business reputation.” He added significantly, “A story like that could practically guarantee you the job you want.”
Kayla didn’t have to ask what kind of story Ed meant. She knew that some offshore companies were just tax havens for the wealthy. Others, however, provided excellent cover for money laundering and other shady dealings simply because some localities required very little information to be made public about the companies created there.
Her mind skittered across the idea of Noah connected to something less than completely legal. What could his motivation be? He had all the money he needed. Yet, wasn’t her own biological father proof that greed knew no bounds?
Aloud, she said, “Thanks for the tip.”
Ed nodded curtly. “I’m willing to give you a chance.” Then he nodded at the clock on the wall. “You better get going.”
“Right!” she said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.
As Ed walked away, she picked up her handbag and grabbed her jacket. Well, what choice did she have? The things she had to do to pay the bills!
Unlike the women Noah dated, and, for that matter, her classmates at the fancy prep school she’d attended, she didn’t have a trust fund to fall back on or family connections to milk to get ahead.
Instead, she’d gotten her foot in the door of the journalism world by getting an entry-level job straight out of college with the Sentinel. It hadn’t mattered too much that the position was with the “Styles” section of the paper; it had been one of the few job offers she’d gotten and the one that paid the best of a rather pathetic lot.
Initially, she’d done a lot of research and fact-checking, with an occasional byline as time went on. She’d written about everything from the latest fashions to museum openings—when she hadn’t been acting as a gofer for Leslie, who’d been the Sentinel’s resident Ms. Rumor-Has-It.
But then Leslie had run off with her paramour—a fiftyish, thrice-divorced millionaire who’d parted with wife number three to elope with Leslie to Paris—and Kayla had been left holding the bag, albeit a snazzy Versace number in black satin.
Kayla had been summoned to the managing editor’s office, which smelled of the Macanudo cigars that Ed O’Neill liked to sneak behind closed doors.
“Jones,” Ed had said, “you’re up at bat. We need someone fast, and you’re perfect—a classy Grace Kelly type with the right prep-school credentials. You’ll fit right in covering your old school pals for the gossip pages.”
And she had. She’d jumped at the chance to replace Leslie, not the least because Ed had dangled a significant salary raise as inducement. For her that had been enough.
So what if becoming Ms. Rumor-Has-It hadn’t been part of her career aspirations? She’d gotten her own column before she’d turned twenty-five and she’d stopped worrying about the rent. There’d be time enough, she’d reasoned, for her to segue to the business-news desk.
But that had been three years ago. She’d done her job, and well. Too well, in some respects. No one was eager to see her move away from the society page.
But, despite the seeming glamour of her job, she’d begun to feel restless. There were only so many canapés that a girl could eat before she felt like regurgitating on Buffy the Man Slayer’s Manolo Blahnik heels.
That’s why she’d recently started to lobby for an opportunity to cover some real news. Because Ed was right about one thing: she was ambitious and refused to be typecast for the rest of her career as perfect for covering fluff. She was determined to go places.
Unfortunately, today the place that she was heading was Noah Whittaker’s front door.
“Well, it’s interesting to see how the tide has turned.”
Across the boardroom table, Noah gave Allison a disgruntled look. He’d just finished explaining how his recent bad press was baseless. “I know you find this hopelessly amusing, but try to contain your glee.”
Allison laughed. “Oh, come on, big brother, don’t tell me you don’t see the hilarity in it all! Women used to chase you the way they’d run to a shoe sale. These days, though, you’re more like last year’s shoes—still wearable, but you’re wondering why you ever bought them.”
Quentin and Matt chuckled.
Noah sighed in exasperation.
It wasn’t often these days that Noah’s whole family was together, but early morning meetings of Whittaker Enterprises’ board of directors afforded them the opportunity from time to time, despite their busy lives.