"You've had me followed?" He struggled for outrage, but panic had already outdistanced everything else. She could ruin him, with one careless announcement on her show. "What right do you have to pry into my personal life?"
"None at all. That's what makes it so exciting. And it is exciting." She toyed with the top button of her jacket. When his eyes flicked down to the movement, she glanced at the antique clock behind him. Eleven-ten, she thought, coolheaded, cold-blooded. Perfect.
"If you think you can use some sort of blackmail to ruin my relationship with Deanna, it isn't going to happen." His palms were wet, from fear, and from a terrible arousal. He would resist it. He had to resist it. "She's not a child. She'll understand."
"She may, or she may not. But I do." With her eyes on his, Angela flicked open the first button on her jacket. "I understand. I sent my secretary away, Marshall." Her voice lowered, thickened. "So I could be alone with you. Why do you think I went to all the trouble to find out about you?" She released the second button, toyed with the third and last.
He wasn't sure he could speak. When he forced the words out, they were like grains of sand in his throat. "What kind of game is this, Angela?"
"Any kind you want." She shot forward, quick as a snake, and caught his bottom lip between her teeth. "I want you," she whispered. "I've wanted you for a long time." Straddling him, she pressed his face against the breasts that strained against the hint of black lace. "You want me, don't you?" She felt his mouth open, grope blindly for flesh. There was a flash, razor-edged and hot, that was power. She'd won. "Don't you?" she demanded, gripping his head in both hands.
"Yes." He was already dragging her skirt up to her waist.
Deanna waited impatiently for the elevator to climb to sixteen. She really didn't have time to keep the appointment with Angela. But she was obligated by that invincible combination of manners and affection. She glanced at her watch again as people shuffled on and off on seven.
Angela was going to be upset, she mused. And there was no preventing it. Deanna hoped the dozen roses she'd brought along would soften the refusal.
She owed Angela much more than a few flowers, she thought. So many people didn't see what a generous and giving person Angela Perkins was, or how vulnerable. All they saw was the power, the ambition, the need for perfection. If Angela had been a man, those traits would have been celebrated. But because she was a woman, they were considered flaws.
As she stepped off the elevator on sixteen, Deanna promised herself that she would follow Angela's example, and the hell with the critics.
"Hi, Simon."
"Dee." He moved past her, double time, then stopped short and rushed back. "It's not her birthday. Tell me it's not her birthday."
"What? Oh." Seeing the horror on his face as he stared at the armload of flowers, she laughed. "No. These are a thank-you gift."
He let out a sigh, pressing his fingers to his eyes. "Thank God. She'd have killed me if I'd forgotten. She was already chewing off heads this morning because her flight was delayed getting in last night."
Deanna's friendly smile faded. "I'm sure she was just tired."
Simon rolled his eyes. "Right, right. And who wouldn't be? I get jet-lagged on the el." To show his complete sympathy with his boss's mood swings, he sniffed deeply at the flowers. "Well, those should brighten her mood."
"I hope so." Deanna continued down the corridor, wondering if Angela was taking Simon to New York. If she wasn't taking Lew… just how much of her staff would be laid off? Simon, the perennial bachelor and fussbudget, might be a bit twitchy, but he was loyal.
The twinge of guilt at knowing, when he didn't, that his career was on the line made her wince.
She found the outer office deserted. Puzzled, she looked at her watch again. Cassie must have had an early errand. With a shrug, she approached Angela's door.
She heard the music first, quiet, lovely. The fact that the door was open several inches was rare. Deanna knew that Angela was obsessive about keeping it firmly shut whether she was in or out. Shrugging, she crossed over, knocked lightly.
She heard other sounds now, not as quiet, not as lovely as the music. She knocked again, easing the door open wider.
"Angela?"
The name stuck in her throat as she saw the two forms wrestling on the love seat. She would have stepped back immediately, with embarrassment flaming in her cheeks, but she recognized the man, and the heat drained away into cold shock.
Marshall's hands were on Angela's breasts, his face buried in the valley between them. Even as she watched, those hands, ones she'd admired for their elegance, slid down to tug at the stylish linen skirt.
And as he did, Angela turned her head, slowly, even while her body arched forward. Her eyes met Deanna's.
Even in her haze of shock, Deanna saw the quick smile, the cagey delight before the distress clicked in. "Oh my God." Angela shoved against Marshall's shoulder. "Deanna." Her voice held the horror she couldn't quite bring to her eyes.
He turned his head. His eyes, dark and glassy, fixed on Deanna's. All movement froze, hideously, as if a switch had freeze-framed them. Deanna broke the tableau with a strangled cry. She turned and ran, trampling the roses she'd dropped at her feet.
Her breath was heaving by the time she reached the elevator. There was pain, a terrible pain radiating out from her chest. She stabbed the Down button again and again. Driven, she whirled away and ran for the stairs. She couldn't stand still, couldn't think. She stumbled down, saving herself from a fall by instinct rather than design. Knowing only that she had to get away, she plunged down, floor after floor, her sobbing breaths echoing behind her.
At street level, she rammed blindly against the door. She battered against it, weeping, until she found the control to depress the handle. Shoving through, she ran straight into Finn.
"Hey." Amusement came and went in a heartbeat. The moment he saw her face, his laughter fled. She was pale as a sheet, her eyes wild and wet. "Are you hurt?" He gripped her by the shoulders, drawing her out into the sunlight. "What happened?"
"Let me go." She twisted, shoving against him. "Goddamn it, leave me alone."
"I don't think so." Instinctively, he wrapped his arms around her. "Okay, baby. I'll just hold on, and you can cut loose."
He rocked, stroking her hair while she wept against his shoulder. She didn't hold back, but let all the shock and hurt pour out with the tears. The surging pressure in her chest eased with them, like a swelling soothed with cool water. When he sensed her calming, Finn shifted his hold. With his arm around her shoulders, he led her across the lot to a low stone wall.
"Let's sit." He dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it into her hands. Though he hated a woman's tears, escaping Deanna's would brand him as the worst sort of coward. "You can pull yourself together and tell Uncle Finn all about it."
"Go to hell," she muttered, and blew her nose.
"That's a good start." Gently, he brushed the hair away from her damp cheeks. "What happened, Deanna?"
She looked away from him. There was too much concern, too much willingness to understand in his eyes. "I just found out I'm an idiot. That I have no sense of judgment, and that no one can be trusted."
"Sounds like a resume for a television news anchor." When she didn't smile, he took her hand. "I haven't got any whiskey on me, and I gave up smoking last year. The best I can offer you is a shoulder."
"I seem to have used that already."
"I have another one." Instead of leaning on it, she sat up straighter, squeezed her eyes tight a moment. Maybe she was an idiot, but she still had pride. "I just walked in on a woman I considered a friend, and a man I was considering as a lover."