“They’ll be looser with me, you mean,” she fires back. Sharp girl. “That’s what you want, isn’t it, Osprey? Not actual music coverage, but tabloid fodder.”
I lash her with a slow smile.
“That’s the beauty of this arrangement, isn’t it? You can bring me both, Double Agent Landry.”
She glowers. “You haven’t asked if I want to bring you anything.”
“I don’t need to. It’s in your job description, and you seem interested in keeping this position.” I arch a brow, continuing to tap out the rhythm of an old Nat King Cole song, an idle habit pattering soft beats against my ceramic mug. “Besides, I think you’ll come to like this assignment.”
“It would help if you told me what it was.” She starts to take a sip of her own coffee with an obvious forced modesty—then stops. “...is that 'Paper Moon?'”
My lips curl slightly.
“Good ear. Aren’t you a little young for Nat King Cole?”
“You’re never too young for good jazz. Aren’t you a little young for it?”
“I’m certainly older than you.”
“Prove it.” Her mouth quirks, eyes glittering like mercury.
“Should I show you my ID, officer?” I ask. “I’m thirty-five on the nose.”
“Oh. So not that much older.”
Her resume said she was twenty-six.
That nine-year difference feels like a century.
She’s just so open.
So easily roused to her emotions while I’m restrained, beaten into a firm shape and constantly maintaining the image of the man I have to be to live the life I’ve chosen.
A part of me ices over.
As amusing as her wit may be, I don’t have time to lose focus and get distracted by a fiery little spy mouse.
This is strictly business, and that’s how it’ll have to stay.
My smile fades as I lean forward to set my cup down, folding my hands on the desk and looking at her directly.
“Let’s hear it,” she says knowingly. “What are you really after, boss?”
It’s hard not to smile at the sarcastic venom every time she says that word.
“While you’ll provide general coverage for all Osprey publications, your focus is Easterly Ribbon,” I say.
Her brows knit together into small scarlet lines of confusion.
“Easterly? You mean the new kid who broke out last summer at the top of the pop charts?” she asks.
“The one and only. I’d especially like you to see if she’ll open up about her relationship with music executive Vance Haydn.”
That only deepens her confusion. Landry’s face sours, growing suspicious.
Am I that underhanded?
Fuck, she barely knows me.
“I mean, that kind of thing is all over the music industry, sad to say,” she says slowly. “Execs sleeping with the clients they manage. It’s disgusting but it doesn’t seem like a huge story. Not even for you.”
“Ah, but you’re missing the fine details,” I grind out, stabbing my finger against my desk. “One, Easterly is barely nineteen years old. Haydn is forty-seven, and there are implications that this particular star-maker was making it with our star before her eighteenth birthday and her big breakout.” Callie goes pale, staring at me in dawning horror. I give her a few seconds before I continue. “There are also rumors that their relationship isn’t wholly voluntary, and that she isn’t the first to end up in a hideous arrangement with him. She’s also pretty tight-lipped about it, and when questioned, only tells the world that she’s madly in love with this hyena—”
My mouth pulls shut so fast I almost bite my tongue.
I can’t let on how much I abhor this man.
“Love...” Callie repeats painfully. “So, you’re...what? Worried about a young girl in an abusive relationship? And you think I can get her to open up about it?”
“That’s the long and short of it, yes.”
Callie just stares at me like I’ve taken off my nose.
I tip my head to the side.
“Questions?”
“I’m just...I’m having trouble believing you intend to use your tabloid to go all white knight over this girl. I mean, I get that it’ll be an explosive story, tons of clickbait and drama, but...” Her nose—a little button of a thing, freckled and slim—wrinkles. “How will you twist it? Are you going to hurt Easterly? Expose private things about her? I can’t be a part of that.”
That shouldn’t sting like a scorpion jab to the neck.
I know who and what I am.
I know what I do.
I also know damn well what lines I’ll never breach.
I regard Landry silently, letting her sparking anger settle, burying it under the cool calm I’ve cultivated over the years.
“I’ll tell you what I tell everyone,” I say slowly. “We only tell the truth here. Sometimes a selective truth, but truth nonetheless. You may find that hard as hell to believe. I don’t care. I give you my word that I’m not interested in hurting that girl. There’s no profit in that. I’m interested in exposing the truth about Vance Haydn, and making sure Easterly Ribbon is the last girl he ever gets his grimy damned paws on.”