The Love Experiment Read online

  “Ah, he’s, ah. We’ve, um. Oh. He’s, er.”

  The right answer if she didn’t want to start down the path of becoming Shona was “Haley is a total bore.” She’d get a free coffee. She’d get a free pass. She felt like a coward, even though this was what they’d agreed on.

  Eunice gave her double thumbs-up. “That bad. Excellent.”

  She had to repeat the update to Shona at the section editorial meeting, explaining they’d almost completed the questionnaire, and she was ready to write the story.

  “Get visuals,” Shona said. “Loved up couple stuff.”

  It reminded her to check if there was anything worth using on Jack’s camera. He’d had a waitress at the steakhouse take a shot of them. It was a classic couple having dinner shot. Nothing in it to suggest they’d rubbed their private parts almost raw before sitting down to steaks, and held hands like they wanted to meld fingerprints.

  She spent the morning studiously not looking over at the business bullpen, ran errands at lunch and got back to find an email from Jack.

  Hi. It was his typical clipped style; she shouldn’t read anything into it, he was different in person. Working late. She had a yoga class to get to anyway, not like she’d expected the weekend to continue. Martha’s food is in the top cupboard if you want to meet me at home. She likes the sashimi broth. I like you in my bed.

  She could’ve high-fived her screen. She wanted to meet him at home. She’d even had practice at getting into his place without letting Martha out. You had to be quick and quiet and use your legs as a blocking device. It was possible you’d lose skin.

  She typed back. I’d love to feed Martha. See you at your place.

  It would mean getting up early and going back to hers again to change, unless she brought a change of clothing. Was it too soon to ask if she could have a hanger in his wardrobe, park a spare toothbrush by his sink? She didn’t have any time to think about it because her afternoon went sideways.

  She got a call from Phil’s assistant. Be in his office in five minutes.

  Phil’s office. The last time she’d seen Phil, he’d listened as Jack pointed out how much she had to learn about the news business. Phil’s office. The only reason she’d have to go to Phil’s office was to say hello to sequential morning lie-ins and an unemployment line. There was no Shona to check with and she wasn’t even sure where Phil’s office was. Eunice—calm, collected, seen it all—babbled when Derelie asked for directions.

  “Derelie, take a seat,” Phil said, when she found him. That was thoughtful. He wasn’t going to make her stand up while he voluntarily laid her off.

  “You’ve been with us almost a year. You do good work. I hear you got that bastard Haley to cooperate on the love story. I want to see it.”

  Annoying that this was happening exactly when the city was a whole lot more attractive because it had Jack in it.

  “Shona Potter is taking voluntary.” Phil coughed in place of finishing the sentence. “I’m promoting you to section editor.”

  Would she have enough time to write the story before Phil made her pack up her desk? She’d have to ask Jack—”Pardon?”

  “You don’t want the job?”

  “Me? There are others—” More qualified. What the heck happened to Shona?

  “Yes, there are. Do you want the job? Because the person who had it gave it up.”

  So Shona quit with a buyout. “I want it.” What did she just agree to?

  Phil turned to his screen. “HR will fill you in on the role and salary details. Got it?”

  “I—”

  “Got or not, Derelie?”

  “Got it.”

  “Okay. Get out.”

  Amazing how your legs could leg it without the active participation of your brain. She made it to the doorway before Phil said, “Derelie. You have talent. You’ll get used to me.”

  “I thought after that day with Jack you’d think—”

  “He was being an asshole. That’s what I thought. Also, don’t fuck anyone. Not even Artie Chan.”

  “What?”

  “You like him. Everyone likes him. Don’t fuck him. But if you have to fuck him, keep it a secret.”

  “Okay.” She agreed to keep any fucking of Artie Chan a secret. She still had a job. A better job that would pay more. She almost fist pumped. She’d come in here wanting to barf.

  “Get out.”

  When she got back to her cube it was to the raised eyes of her section colleagues. Shona’s desk had already been cleared.

  “Hello, boss,” said Eunice. “Don’t mess this up.”

  Chapter Twenty

  It was possible Jack was more nervous than Derelie was. Her first senior editorial meeting. Her first time sitting in the seat Potter normally occupied. They’d celebrated her promotion with a late meal, a long session of lovemaking that didn’t leave much time for talking through the issues.

  And the current issue was how unprepared she was for this. The daily editorial meeting was a shark tank. Madden was the whale shark and everyone else was the fish food he fed on, with two exceptions: himself and Spinoza. It wasn’t a gender thing; it was the economics. Sports sold papers. So did Jack’s stories. Until they moved to subscriptions on the website, that part of the business wasn’t an authority at the table. Yet. The day was coming, but until it arrived, Derelie was plankton.

  Today, Spin had another player scandal. There was a heavy dose of city politics, a story on low-cost housing, another on extreme weather events, and one on a major archeological find that came about because a professor got out of his car to take a piss. There was also a feature on driverless cars and what happens if you got hit by one.

  Health had the most amusing story for the day about a man who’d farted during an operation and got badly burned when his gas ignited a laser being used in the surgery. The truth was stranger than fiction and they’d had a good laugh, but Derelie flinched when Madden called her name.

  “We have a work-life balance story about bringing your pet to work and there’s a start-up that gives staff stay in bed days, headline is ‘In Bed with The Boss’—we’ve got a video interview for that one.”

  “And the lovey dovey experiment?” Madden asked.

  “I still have to do my part,” Jack said before Derelie could try to take the rap for him.

  Madden looked at Derelie. “Stand over him till he does it.” He looked at Jack. “Your Keepsafe story doesn’t run until after the love story, and what’s going on with Keepsafe?”

  Not good things. “Someone is getting to the victims. Paying them off. Getting them to withdraw their cooperation.” The story had started to blow up over the weekend. While Jack was goofing off with Derelie, ten of the victims, including the Shenkers, were visited by a lawyer from Keepsafe who explained there’d been a mistake and offered them generous compensation. They signed non-disclosure agreements. They’d been paid to shut up.

  “Is it over?” said Madden.

  Jack had no idea what was behind the story softening. He was scrambling to find out if someone at Keepsafe knew about his investigation and was moving to shut the story down.

  “No.” They had enough still to make a case, unless victims continued to drop out.

  “Move up on it like it was hot for you, Jack,” said Madden, and closed the meeting.

  Jack was almost out of the room when Derelie said, “Please don’t do that.”

  “Do what?” He’d been careful not to show anything of their out of office relationship, remembering to call her Honeywell. He needed to get back to his desk; instead he was replaying the first time they’d stood in this room, an odd couple thrown together to satisfy Madden’s desire to keep Jack in his place. He’d never have guessed what they’d become to each other, thirty-six questions later.

 
“Speak for me,” she said.

  “I didn’t.”

  “You did. I get that I’m the most junior person here. I get that I don’t rank and I have to earn my place, but you speaking up for me doesn’t help.”

  He didn’t have time to debate this. “Fine.” If he’d had his eye on the ball over the weekend instead of experimenting with love, maybe his own story wouldn’t be sliding sideways.

  “Don’t get mad at me.”

  He was angry with himself. If the walls weren’t glass, he’d kiss Derelie’s downturned lips into a happier shape. It wasn’t her fault he was tense. “I’m sorry. I was worried for you. I can’t help it. I’ll do better.”

  “You mean that?”

  “I want to take every punch for you, especially against Madden, but that’s not what you need from me. You have to make your own mistakes.”

  “Wow.” He realized how anxious she’d been when her body softened. “I’m really falling for you, Jackson Haley.”

  A quick glance to check the corridor outside was clear and he put his hand to her face. He needed to touch her like he needed the cigarettes he was addicted to. “I’m already on my knees, Derelie Honeywell.”

  The smile she gave him was worth the risk of exposure.

  Next stop, Henri Costa. They met halfway across town, in a dingy bar in a rough neighborhood. It was difficult to know what rattled Henri more, the surroundings he’d chosen, Jack’s impatience, or the fact the story was unraveling. While Jack was in the editorial meeting, fifteen more victims had made contact to say they’d had their cases overturned and received a payout worth more than they were due.

  “I don’t know why this is happening. The guy driving this is Kaspersky, he’s a big wheel on the Keepsafe legal team,” Henri said. He didn’t make eye contact, as if he thought not looking at Jack might protect him. “I can’t imagine him making house calls.” But Kaspersky had personally visited eight of the people who’d been denied their coverage. “I’ve asked around, but I’m an accounting manager, there’s only so much I can nose about in claims and legal, before people wonder what the hell I’m doing. I’ve already had pushback. They’ll destroy me if they find out I’ve been leaking information to you.”

  “They can destroy you anyway, Henri, and all of this will have been for nothing if it turns out this isn’t fraud, but some system error.”

  “But you have evidence of payments to the doctors, Whelan and Noakes. Isn’t that paper trail enough?”

  “Not if we can’t point to a deliberate attempt to defraud people legitimately entitled to a payout.”

  “I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

  “Did someone get to you too, Henri?”

  Henri slumped over the bar, his forehead inches from the dull wooden surface. “It’s unrelated. My supervisor gave me a warning. If I don’t shape up, I’ll be out of a job.”

  “Who is your supervisor friends with?”

  “No, it’s not like that. I’ve been distracted and I...” Henri sat upright and looked at Jack. “His daughter and Kaspersky’s daughter are on the same softball team. He’s always jawboning about it.”

  Henri would’ve run out into the street with his head on fire had Jack not stopped him. “They know,” Henri said, trying to dodge around Jack. “I can’t talk to you.”

  “You can’t panic either. You’re a whistleblower and you’re protected by the law. But not if you’ve gotten this wrong. If this isn’t fraud—” Jack’s story would collapse, but for Henri the impact would be personal “—you’re in a difficult place.”

  “They’ll come after me for theft and trading company secrets. I could go to jail.”

  They spent the next hour talking through the additional information Henri could provide without tipping off his suspicious supervisor. If he could provide the names of additional doctors linked to higher than average denial of claims and Jack could connect them to Bix, they were back in business.

  It was a big if. Henri was scared, but having come this far, he had a lot to lose. Meanwhile, Jack needed to prove that Kaspersky’s home visits weren’t random, while Berkelow and some of the other business writers were tracking down other victims and writing up new case studies.

  It was late again when he made it home. He stood outside his apartment door, and checked his cell one last time. Derelie had messaged him hours ago, but he’d not seen her text till well after she’d have made alternative plans for the night, and that shouldn’t have been disappointing. He had no juice left for company, and it wasn’t like they had expectations of each other aside from keeping the fact they were lovers secret.

  He eased his key into the lock and got into position to open the door and slip inside without letting Martha out. The click click of the lock retracting wasn’t followed by a merrow of outrage. His shins weren’t head-butted when he slid inside. His desk lamp was lit and there was no righteous starving cat flicking her tail at him to deal with the empty bowl situation.

  What was unreasonable disappointment became irrational chest-tightening when he stood in the doorway of the bedroom. Martha wasn’t furious with him for being late, she wasn’t crying from hunger, she was curled on the bed, her large rump backed into Derelie’s stomach.

  Both his girls were sleeping. He leaned on the doorjamb and took them in. Martha might well have been drooling, she looked so content, a large ball of fluff, tail tucked around her like a blanket, face buried in her paws, only one pointy ear indicating which end was up.

  Under the covers, Derelie looked equally serene, her lovely face relaxed, her hair spun out on the pillow behind her in a chocolate-red swirl. She was curled on her side, with one hand under the pillow. He could see a bare shoulder. He could see a different kind of future in the shape of her, one where neither of them were alone, one where his world was the other way up and he wasn’t just a bystander anymore.

  How the heck was he going to manage not to fuck that vision up?

  Martha must’ve sensed him and woke, pushing her paws out, arching and rolling on her back. “Merrow, yip.” She gave Jack a look that said, “this is what happens when you leave me, sucker,” and yawned to punctuate her couldn’t-give-a-shit-about-him attitude.

  “Hey.” Derelie opened her eyes. She caught Martha’s yawn and came up on her elbow. She’d worn her underwear to bed; he saw the shadow of a nipple through creamy lace. “I hope you don’t mind that I stayed over.” Her sleep saturated voice, low and crackly, hit his ears and communicated with the rest of his body parts that weren’t already alert to possibilities. “I didn’t hear back from you and I knew you were busy.” She rubbed Martha’s belly, and the cat brought her paws up under her chin and stretched her neck out, the position for chin scratch now. “I was going to feed her and go, but I really wanted to see you.”

  Whatever exhaustion he’d trailed home was now an insistent buzz of desire. “You appear to have stolen my cat,” he said, with zero attempt to sound remotely concerned about that.

  Derelie tickled under Martha’s chin. “We’re besties now.”

  “She’s five years old. I’ve fed her every night of her life. You’ve fed her twice.” That’s what he liked about cats. No sentimentality, merciless self-interest. You knew exactly where you stood with them.

  “Are you jealous, you big dinkus?”

  “That my damn cat is close to you and has your hands on her? Hell yeah.”

  Martha’s purring was deep-throated approval, a vibrating hurr sound, as Derelie caressed her. She flexed one paw in her ecstasy, opening out her pink jelly bean toes and showing scimitar claws he’d had to trim when she was a kitten but she’d never used on furniture and only occasionally on skin.

  “You’re not annoyed that I stayed over?”

  “I’m annoyed I didn’t answer your text. I love that you stayed over.”

  �
��Are you going to keep standing over there being all broodingly attractive?”

  Not if she kept looking at him like what she had planned was going to be worth going without sleep. “I need to clean up.” He rubbed his jaw, whiskers, and the grit of the city was all over him and he didn’t want to infect her with the stench of his failure of a day.

  Under the bedclothes Derelie’s hand moved, over her hip, dipping down as she bent her elbow. “Hurry.”

  “Christ, woman.” Was she doing what he thought she was doing?

  She dropped on the pillow to her back and groaned. “I was having a sexy dream before you woke me up.”

  “You were having a sexy dream in my bed, without me.” He pushed off the doorjamb, dumped his suit coat, walked on something soft that squeaked and looked down. “You bought her a toy.” It was purple with green feathers, vaguely dragon-like.

  “Not me. I’m a dog person.”

  “You’re catnip.” He put his knee to the bed, looming over Martha and Derelie. “Are you wet?”

  Derelie closed her eyes. “Hmm.”

  He poked Martha in the hip. “Get your own.” Martha scarpered under his arm and off the bed, and the toy squeaked. He put a hand to Derelie’s face, slipped it into her hair. She smiled up at him. “This one is mine.”

  And she was his, without discussion, without question.

  The rest of the week became a race to uncover and interview more victims and the agonizing wait for Henri Costa to report in. Jack’s own clean bill of health report was an anticlimax. Every night, he staggered home to find Derelie curled up in his bed with Martha, her clothes for the morning hanging on the back of the bedroom door. She was the reason he bothered to come home, didn’t go begging to Barney for a fight. Every night they’d turn to each other, seeking comfort. Mornings were for waking early and finding pleasure in each other’s lips and hands and bodies.

  Derelie had her head down too. Working extra hours, adapting Potter’s editorial calendar, adding her own content and learning to manage her lifestyle team and the politics of the editorial meetings. Madden didn’t go easy on her. He was smarting after Potter’s defection to one of the new media content companies, and Derelie was a soft target. But Jack held it together in the morning editorial meeting without coming to her defense because she was right about having to do that for herself.