“Caroline!”
Marcus Pratt was Caroline’s one friend at CNN. He was an editor and had taken to Caroline’s ballsy personality right away. Perhaps because he was so shy and quiet, or maybe he could tell she was going places.
“Marcus, what’s up?”
“Sorry to bust in,” he panted, “your doorman said you were here.”
“What’s going on?”
“The hurricane is big news. I guess the damage is record-setting. Upstairs wants you to do a short piece, teasing a follow-up story. The storms are working their way up the coast and they want a story to coincide. ‘Caroline talking Hurricane Caroline’ has everybody totally jazzed. Felicity was there, and she was pissed. Said she would take it over, but it’s your story now. Felicity said she would shoot it tonight if you weren’t there, knowing full well you were gone for the day.” He rested both hands on top of his head. “If we head back now, you can do the promo.”
Caroline was on her feet before Marcus had finished, correctly predicting how his story ended. She gave an apologetic smile, and Emma waved without a thought.
“Go. Kick ass.”
“Thanks, Em. Be home later.”
Caroline and Marcus jumped into a cab as Emma waved goodnight from the sidewalk. That was going to be an interesting editing session. Emma had walked about ten steps when she felt a meaty hand on her shoulder and was hauled around to face an extremely red-faced guy with an unsteady gaze.
“Hey,” he said to the side of her face.
“Hey,” she replied, feeling immediately put out, “I’m just heading home.”
“Here’s the thing. You’re hot.”
“I know.”
“Wow, and you’re kind of a bitch.”
“I know.” Emma started scrolling through her phone.
“Why don’t you pass me that, and I’ll enter my number.”
“No, thanks.”
Emma wasn’t handling him well, but she was out of sorts, and the guy was pissing her off. Where did he get the nerve? Although based on his breath, she knew the answer.
“Okay, how ‘bout if I just feel your tits and send you on your merry way?”
The wave of laughter and fist bumps confirmed his buddies had formed an audience, and he was now showboating. JT was leaning against the storefront reading a text. He looked up when he heard ‘tits’ and just chuckled to himself as he backhanded Jorge on the arm with a ‘get a load of this’ expression. He turned to watch the exchange more closely but made no move to come to her rescue.
“Go for it.” She cocked a brow at Red Face.
If he was stunned by her reply, he covered it with a forced cockiness in front of his onlookers and reached out his hand to her chest.
Thumb bent back, knee to the groin, heel of her hand to his nose. It took all of three seconds. A few of his friends rushed to help him. One yelled, “you fucking cunt!”
Yeah, I’m the bad guy here.
JT just shook his head smiling and, when Jorge waved them off, ushered her toward her building. One of Red Face’s friends moved to confront Emma but thought better of it when he took in the skyscraper now flanking her. Across the street, something caught her eye. A man sat in a town car, which wasn’t unusual, but the way he was holding his phone put her on edge. She had had her picture taken enough to know what it meant when someone was holding their phone like that. Maybe he had videotaped the scuffle. Although, from that angle he wouldn’t have been able to capture it well. That also didn’t explain why he continued to hold his phone upright. When he saw Emma looking at him with a WTF expression, he simply tossed the phone on his passenger seat and pulled out into traffic. Emma noted the license plate and that was that.
“Who was Mr. Subtle in the Lexus?”
Emma looked up, surprised to see JT watching the same thing.
“No idea.”
“Nice takedown by the way. He was a big guy,” JT praised.