“How nice for you.”
He ignored her. “You see, Cecily has this weird idea that making the gossip columns will bolster her fledgling acting career—and so much the better if the guy on her arm happens to be rich or famous. So she plastered herself to me the minute she spotted the Sentinel’s photographer.”
“Perhaps then,” she said sweetly, “you should reconsider the risk of dating publicity-seeking aspiring actresses. Or, for that matter, intellectually challenged models. And, hmm—” she pretended to consider for an instant, tilting her head “—I seem to recall at least one ruthless reality-show contestant as well.”
“Oh?” he responded, letting his gaze rake over her from head to toe. “Considering that the field doesn’t yet include any gossip columnists, I don’t think my tastes can be called into question.”
“From what I’ve been able to see, your tastes can best be described as blond, platinum-blond and strawberry-blond.”
“Are you calling me shallow?”
“If the shoe fits,” she retorted.
He shook his head. “So young and yet so bitter.”
Bitter? No, she was cautious, but that’s how a single woman budgeting to make rent payments had to be. And how the product of a fling between a slick, social-climbing financier and his young college intern knew to be. But then Mr. Playboy Whittaker didn’t have a clue about the struggles of ordinary people.
Aloud, she countered, “We journalists have jobs that require us to think, and thinking doesn’t appear to be high on your list of criteria for a girlfriend.”
“Whether it is or not isn’t anyone’s business but mine,” he responded.
“For your information, I didn’t just rely on the photo. I called Huff—I mean, Eve—about it and she confirmed she was planning to break up with you over the, ah, incident.”
“That’s because Eve was thinking of her public image. She believed me when I said your column had misconstrued things because she knows Cecily is a publicity hound. But, as she put it, publicly she had to at least look like she was punishing me for being a naughty boy.”
Kayla felt her lips twitch. “Well, that’s not my fault, is it?”
“It is your fault,” he disagreed. “You’re printing salacious gossip and you’re wreaking havoc on my social life.”
“So find yourself another aspiring starlet,” she retorted. “In fact, I think Buffy the Man Slayer is between men these days.”
“Right, and that’s another thing,” he said tightly. “I don’t need you trying to line up dates for me. Particularly not with someone known as a barracuda in heels.”
“Now that’s not nice.” She spread her hands in an expansive gesture. “You should consider expanding your horizons.”
He braced an arm on the wall near her head and she took an involuntary step back. He leaned in, his gaze, green and grim, boring into hers. “You know, I wonder why you consider me such a fascinating subject. Is it because you wish you were one of those women I date?”
“Don’t be absurd,” she snapped.
He gave her a slow once-over, dwelling on her ringless hand and letting his eyes linger on her chest before coming back to meet her outraged expression. “You do appear a little uptight. What’s the matter? Wish your life had a little more zing in it?”
“No thanks. My mother taught me to stay away from the players among men.”
“Ah,” he said. “Now we’re getting somewhere. The intrepid reporter is repressed.”
“This isn’t about me,” she said coldly. What nerve. He knew nothing about her life. Nothing.
“So, you have no problems dishing about others’ lives, but yours is off-limits, is that it?”
“There’s nothing to dish about,” she retorted. “I don’t have anything as interesting as a fatal racing accident in my past!”
The minute she blurted the rejoinder, she winced inwardly, realizing she may have gone too far. He might be a first-class jerk who believed his money and his family name would get him out of any predicament, but she didn’t need to throw a terrible tragedy in his face.
His face turned stony and he straightened. “Be glad you don’t.”
“Excuse me,” she said, brushing past him and hurrying for the nearest exit.
Noah stared broodingly at Kayla’s retreating back. Damn.
“Problems?”
Turning, he noticed Sybil LaBreck, gossip columnist for the Boston World, standing behind him.
“Yeah. A little lovers’ spat,” he replied sarcastically.
Sybil’s eyes widened, and Noah realized she’d taken his flippant comment seriously.
Sybil was Kayla’s biggest rival among local gossip columnists. In her late fifties, Sybil looked like an updated version of Mrs. Santa Claus, but she could shovel the dirt with the best of them.
Sybil looked perplexed. “But you’ve been seen everywhere with that model—what’s her name?—Eve.”
Noah was about to tell Sybil that he’d been joking, but he suddenly realized he’d been handed a golden opportunity to even the score with Kayla. “The so-called relationship with Eve was just a smoke screen, a way to throw the paparazzi off the scent. Eve got a little publicity out of the arrangement, and Kayla and I got a little privacy. It was perfect.”
“But only last week Eve was seen slapping you for cheating on her!” Sybil blurted before seeming to catch herself.
“Really?” Noah said, raising an eyebrow while privately relishing the thought of the headline in Sybil’s column tomorrow. “It was a great way to signal the end of our pretend relationship for the benefit of the press, wasn’t it?”
Sybil opened her mouth—in all likelihood to probe for more details—but he cut her off smoothly. “Excuse me.” He let his eyes focus on a spot across the room. “I just spotted someone I need to say hello to.”
“Of course,” Sybil said, stepping aside.
He chanced a glance at her out of the corner of his eye as he moved past: she looked like the cat that had swallowed the canary.
As he headed to the bar at the far side of the room, he pondered again about his problem with Ms. Rumor-Has-It. If newspapers were printed in color, he thought to himself disgustedly, Kayla’s column would be nothing but a series of hot-pink exclamation points. It had the same breathless quality as the gossip that sorority sisters shared over drying nail polish.
Of course, her column had nothing on the woman herself. Tonight she’d been wearing a clingy black cocktail dress that revealed a tantalizing bit of her full chest and a fair expanse of her shapely legs, her honey-blond hair hanging in a smooth curtain past her shoulders. Her eyes were large and wide set but balanced by lips that were lushly curved. Under other circumstances, she’d have been exactly his type—blond, busty and beautiful.
Still, even the attractive packaging couldn’t obscure the fact that the woman was a menace. And he’d had enough. More than enough.
His reputation as the playboy Whittaker brother made him a favorite of the press as well as the object of more than a little ribbing from his older brothers, Quentin and Matt, and his younger sister, Allison.
But the truth was that he worked damned hard in