“I’ll bet,” Priscilla drawled.
Molly ignored her. “I’ll tell you all what happened as soon as I get back.”
“We’ll be waiting,” David assured her.
THREE MINUTES LATER, she walked into the outer office of the upstairs suite where Sam Reed controlled the Payne Sentinel. Had it only been six weeks? It felt like a lifetime. “Morning, Karen,” she greeted the young woman behind the reception desk. “He’s expecting me.”
Karen gave her a sympathetic look. “So he said.” She shot a quick glance at his closed door, then dropped her gaze to the classified section on her desk. “Er, Molly—”
“It’s a long story,” Molly assured her.
“I can imagine.”
Molly paused, deliberately stalling for time. “Do you think he’s going to kill me when I go in there?”
Karen’s eyebrows knitted together in confusion. “Nooooo,” she said thoughtfully. “He didn’t seem mad or anything.”
Molly didn’t think that was a particularly good sign. “No?”
“Uh-uh. He was, you know, like he usually is. Intense, only—” Karen seemed to search for a word.
“Darker?” Molly supplied.
Karen shook her head. “No, more like ‘alive’ or something. Actually, I’d say he’s in a pretty good mood.” She glanced at the paper again. “Considering.”
“Great.”
Karen leaned closer. “Frankly, I thought the two of you were actually going to come to blows in that meeting on Friday.”
“Me, too.”
“So it really didn’t surprise me—” The buzzer on her phone interrupted her. Karen gave a guilty start and punched the button. “Yes?”
“Is Miss Flynn here yet, Karen?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good.” The soft click of his phone seemed to reverberate off the glass walls of the reception area.
Karen gave Molly a knowing look. “I guess you should go in.”
Molly nodded, forcing a bright smile, and headed for the door to the lion’s den. Sam pulled it open the instant she reached for the doorknob. Startled, she raised her gaze to his and saw a flinty look that quickly dissolved as he flashed an unusually warm smile. Was it her imagination, or was there a hint of steel in it? “Morning,” he said quietly, then looked at Karen. “Hold my calls, will you, Karen?” He placed his hand at the small of Molly’s back.
“Sure.” Karen leaned back in her chair, her expression speculative.
Sam was already applying a subtle pressure to her back, leading her through the door. “This could take awhile.”
The instant the door shut behind her, he dropped his hand, and walked to his desk in silence. When he had rounded it, he sat in the high leather chair and simply watched her with an enigmatic look in his eyes. Molly felt her sneakers sinking into the plush carpet. Like quicksand, she mused. She had to fight the urge to shuffle her feet. She’d seen a survival documentary once where the expert had explained that the surest way to die in quicksand was to fight the inevitable by thrashing around.
She pulled an envelope from her back pocket and headed for his desk. “Before you fire me,” she said, “I can save you the trouble.” She dropped the envelope. “That’s my letter of resignation.”
He said nothing. She tried not to squirm. This was beginning to feel like the time in kindergarten when she’d been called to the principal’s office for slugging Carolyn Lockhardt on the playground. The man hadn’t understood that Carolyn—with her perfect hair, perfect clothes and constant boasting about how she always colored inside the lines and moved her crayon in the same direction—had simply been begging for the punch. Every kindergarten kid had been on Molly’s side. She’d become the hero of the bad colorers. The principal had given her a lecture on ladylike behavior and suspended her for two days.
Something told her that Sam Reed wouldn’t let her off that easily. She forged ahead. “I—you don’t have to accept it. You have the right to terminate me. You probably should terminate me.” A voice inside her head was screaming at her to shut up, but his inscrutable expression wouldn’t let her heed the voice. Once, just one time, she wanted to see him crack—even if it meant watching his temper explode. The day he’d fired Lawson Peters for faking a source, he’d been noticeably angry but completely controlled. Molly had watched the exchange, fascinated by the raw current of power that seemed to ripple just beneath the surface of Sam’s facade. She had a feeling that if he ever released it, it would have the effect of a volcano. “It was a stupid thing to do,” she continued. “And for what it’s worth, I never intended it to actually run in the paper. I was angry at you on Friday.”
She paused, hoping he’d at least acknowledge her with a tilt of his head or a slight compression of his firm mouth. Anything. He sat statue-still. Molly waded out a little deeper. “When you wouldn’t listen to me about the transportation hub story, I lost my temper.” An understatement, she knew. She’d lost her cool in the editorial meeting when he’d refused to explore the validity of the story in favor of a community action piece he’d assigned to another writer. The depth of her reaction had surprised Molly herself, but not when she weighed it against the pressure of dealing with his heavy-handed management for the past six weeks. By Friday afternoon, she’d had all she could take. She’d exploded in a fit of temper that had left no doubt about the extent of her frustration. Sam had waited out her tirade in silence, then infuriated her by simply ignoring the outburst and continuing with his elaboration on the article he’d assigned.
Furious, Molly had left the meeting with a pounding headache and a hammering pulse. She couldn’t decide whether she was angrier with him for his condescending attitude, or with herself for letting him get to her.
Molly shook her head and shoved her hands into the back pockets of her jeans. Sam still said nothing. He wasn’t going to make this easy for her. He had no reason to, she thought grimly. She’d brought this on herself. “Regardless,” she said wearily, “running the ad was irresponsible and unprofessional. I’m sure it made you uncomfortable, and if you want to fire me for it, then I understand. I can have my desk cleaned out by the end of the day.”
An uncomfortable silence began to spin its web in the stillness of his office. Molly fought the urge to fill the void. Finally, when her nerves were practically screaming for relief, he blinked. “Finished?” he asked softly.
She nodded. “Um, yes.”
“Good. Sit down.”
She didn’t have the energy to decide whether or not the proprietary command annoyed her. She dropped gratefully into the leather chair. He reached for his briefcase. The sound of the locks snapping open seemed unnaturally loud in the stillness of his office. Sam pulled the classified section from the briefcase and flipped it onto his desk.
Molly closed her eyes and waited for humiliation.
“I had no idea you were quite this—eloquent.”
He couldn’t possibly be teasing her. Could he? Her eyes popped open. “I minored in creative writing in college.”
“It shows.” He glanced at the newspaper. “Arbitrary decisions,” he read. He captured her gaze. “They aren’t arbitrary.”
Dear God. He was teasing her. “Er—”
“Periodic