CHAPTER TEN
PEDRO leaned over the cubicle wall between his desk and Sarah’s, and plucked a chocolate out of the basket on Sarah’s desk. “Hey, where’d all the candy go?”
“I’ve been eating it.” Almost nonstop since yesterday. The chocolate didn’t solve her problems, but it sure made everything seem more bearable. Like wondering how Caleb was doing. If he still hated her for that article, or if yesterday had made things better. Hell, she wasn’t sure she could make that article better, but she was willing to try.
“You ate almost all of it?” Pedro asked. “There was, like, three pounds there.”
“And your point is?” She arched a brow in his direction.
Pedro put up his hands, laughing, then he rested his head on his hands on the cubicle wall and studied her. “Something bothering you, peach?”
“No.” She looked at the pile of wrappers beside her. “Yes.” She toyed with the Frederick K stilettos sitting on her desk, supposed to be serving as inspiration for the article she was going to write on being transformed by the shoes. So far, she’d barely written a word. “I don’t know. I can’t seem to…” She searched for the right words. “…find the ending to the story.”
“Maybe that’s because there’s another twist yet to come.” Pedro grinned, then gestured at the silver-and-blue paper that had arrived on her desk that morning. “Do I see an invitation to the ball, Cinderella?”
“I don’t know if I’m going.”
“Why not?”
“Well, Caleb will be there—”
“Exactly. And it’ll be the perfect opportunity to show him what a hot mama you can be.” Pedro picked up the invitation and flipped it over to read the return address on the envelope. “It came from him.”
“I know.” She didn’t know why Caleb had sent her an invitation to the pre-Fashion Week party hosted by several of the top couture designers in New York. Did he mean for her to be his date? Was it some cruel way to get back at her because he still thought she’d written that article? Or was she just on some mass-mailing list from LL Designs and she was reading too much into a piece of paper?
What if she went, and in the end, Caleb still didn’t believe her? Seeing him again would only compound the inevitable hurt if they couldn’t move past that headline.
She sat down at her desk and reopened the article she’d been working on earlier. As her hands hit the keyboard, she wondered for the hundredth time why she kept working for Karl. The man had no ethics—that article in Behind the Scenes about Lenora had proved that. If he did it once, what was stopping him from doing it again?
“I think you should go,” Pedro said. “Wear something sexy, something shocking.”
She looked at the invitation one more time. If she went, the editors of all the other magazines in the industry would be there. If nothing else, it would be a great networking opportunity.
Yeah, that was exactly why she’d go. To network. Not to see Caleb and find out if there was a chance they could move forward again.
Pedro slid down, then popped back up again. “One more thing, Cinderella. Be sure to wear a killer dress because everyone knows when you make a great entrance, the Prince won’t be able to keep his eyes, or his hands, off you.”
But what if she got there and Caleb was with another model? Could she stand seeing him, knowing this Cinderella had no chance with the prince her heart desired? “Griffin!”
Sarah looked up and saw Karl at the end of the aisle. He strode down the block of cubicles and stopped in front of hers. “You need me, Karl?”
“Great job on that story on LL Designs. We’re slotting it in the issue.”
Satisfaction roared to life inside her. She’d done it. Written something that had made it into the main magazine. Her gossip days were finally over. “Thanks. Now about that job on the staff of—”
“Later, later. Right now, I’ve got another story for you. And this time, you can write it up and not have all that ridiculous guilt about whether your byline was really yours or not.” He rolled his eyes as if that kind of moral commitment was ridiculous. “Karl, I—”
He slapped a piece of paper on her desk. A phone number and a name had been scribbled on it. “Call this nurse at the rehab center right away.”
“Why?”
“The playboy finally did it. Finally pulled the plug on his own mother and that means the death of Lenora Lewis is going to be big news. Huge. I want you on it, and I want you to get a quote from him. I know you’ve been seeing him, for the article or…” He winked. “…whatever. That should give you an in with the bad boy of fashion. Allow you to get some really juicy quotes.”
Revulsion roiled in her stomach. She wasn’t this kind of reporter. She never had been. And she wasn’t going to be now. She regretted every one of the gossip articles she’d written. If she could yank them out of print, she would. It might be too late for that, but it wasn’t too late to do the right thing. “No.”
“It’s a simple call. Take you all of five minutes. And then, yeah, you can do those other pieces you wanted to do.” Karl grinned. “If you still want to be Lois Lane after you break one of the biggest news stories in our industry.”
“Find someone else to do your dirty work.” Sarah picked up the paper and pressed it into Karl’s hand. “I quit.”
Shock dropped Karl’s jaw. “You? Quit?”
A sense of satisfaction filled Sarah. For the first time since she’d been assigned to the gossip pages at Behind the Scenes, she felt as if she was making the right decision. She had no plan, no back-up job, not so much as a résumé in the mail, but she didn’t feel worried. Her conscience filled with the knowledge she’d finally made a choice she could live with. She’d wake up in the morning proud of the path she’d chosen, instead of cringing at the headlines she’d helped craft. “Yep. I’m done here.”
“Are you insane?”
“Maybe.” She turned and grabbed her purse and the invitation from her desk. Her hand hovered over the pair of Frederick K stilettos, sitting there as inspiration for the article. Let them be someone else’s inspiration. She’d gotten everything she needed from those shoes.
Then she turned and walked out of the office, leaving behind a stunned boss, an applauding coworker and a career that had never fully suited her.
Caleb stood in his office, watching the city go by a dozen stories below. The early-evening lights twinkled back at him, a sparkle of life that showed the city really didn’t sleep. He let out a long sigh, one that seemed to take with it a dozen pounds of stress.
What was Sarah doing right now? Was she thinking of him?
He sure as hell hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. Ever since he’d met her, she’d lingered in his mind. He should let her go—should forget her. After all, hadn’t she proved that she was only after the headline?
Except a part of him wondered if she was telling the truth. If that article had been fabricated by someone else. If that was so, then why use her name?
Was Sarah Griffin the woman who had sat in his car in the rain and comforted him? Or was she the one who had taken his most painful secret and blasted it across the front page?
He’d invited her to the party to find out. If she showed up with her reporter pad, then he would know she was the woman who wanted only the headline. If she left that behind, and came as just Sarah…
“You did the right thing.”
He turned at the sound of Martha’s voice. “Did I?”
“Of course you did. It was a hard decision to make, but the only one you could.” The assistant came into his office. “For a year, the doctors have been telling you to let her go.”
“But what if…” Those thoughts still plagued him, but not as much as before. It was as if his brain was finally accepting that he had made the right choice. The only one. He glanced over at the portrait of his mother, and he could swear she smiled right at him, as if in agreement with Martha.
You did the right thing.
“There weren’t any what-ifs left, Caleb, and you knew that.”
He sighed again. “I guess I finally accepted it.” Thanks to Sarah’s advice and wisdom, and her clearer head. If she hadn’t come along yesterday, would he have had the fortitude to make that long walk down the hospital corridor? If he hadn’t known she had gone through the same thing, and come out okay?
“Then do one more thing for me,” Martha said. “For your mother.”
“What’s that?”
She pressed a card into his hand. “Live your life. Actually live it. Don’t watch it from the sidelines. Not anymore.”