For a long second he held her gaze. A faint smile lifted the corners of his lips. “That’s what I thought you’d say.” He picked up the wine bottle and poured more in their glasses. “Josh is going to be disappointed. He’s sick to death of covering cops.”
“At least he gets to keep his testicles.” Harper reached for her glass.
Dells snorted a laugh. “Look, I want to work with you,” he said, growing serious again. “I meant every word I said. But I understand.”
“No hard feelings?”
His smile was genuine. “None.”
The waiter approached with a tray of food, and they fell silent again as he worked. Harper looked around, surprised to note that the other tables in the dining room had emptied while they’d been talking.
Dells waited impatiently for the waiter to leave.
“I think it’s the right decision but I’m disappointed—I’m not going to pretend I’m not.” He speared a shrimp. “Harper, the newspaper is in real trouble.”
“I know,” she said, trying the grits. The garlic smell of the shrimp was making her mouth water.
“No, you don’t.” A warning note entered his voice. “It’s worse than you know. She’s nearly bankrupt.”
“Who, Charlton?” Her fork hovering in midair, Harper stared at him. “She can’t be bankrupt. You told me she bought a villa in the Caribbean.”
“She did,” he said. “And an apartment in Manhattan, and several businesses in Atlanta, and a house on St. Simons Island. Along with half of Chanel’s winter line. Money runs through her hands like water, and the board has been too weak to stop her. That’s why she keeps laying people off.” He paused. “There’s a rumor going around that she’s putting the paper on the market.”
Harper set her fork down with a clatter. “I don’t believe you. It’s been in her family for decades. Her great-grandfather started it.”
“And MaryAnne destroyed it,” Dells said.
Harper stared at him as her mind ran through a series of possibilities.
“Who buys newspaper companies these days?” she asked finally.
He paused before replying. “Nobody good.”
They exchanged a gloomy look. Then Dells gestured at her plate. “Eat your food,” he ordered. “Now that I’ve ruined your appetite.”
“No kidding.”
She popped a shrimp in her mouth. It was delicious—rich and buttery—but he was right. Her appetite was shot. Still, she made herself eat. She’d managed about half her plate when he smiled at her as if she’d done something funny.
“What?” she said, touching her chin in case there was food on it.
“Nothing,” he said, but he kept smiling.
“Really, what?”
“I was just wondering,” he said, “whatever happened with that guy you were waiting for.”
She didn’t need to ask what guy he was talking about. She’d told him about Luke. That it wasn’t working out, but that it didn’t feel right kissing someone else yet.
“Last time I checked he was dating someone.” She kept her tone light.
Dells took a deliberate sip of wine, setting the glass down carefully. “Well, he’s an idiot.”
The two of them exchanged a smile.
He straightened his neatly folded napkin. “What about you? Are you still waiting for him?”
Harper thought about how nice it had felt being with Luke at the bar the other night—the way he’d wanted to defend her—and looked down to where the tines of her fork made straight lines through the snowy grits on her plate.
“Not anymore,” she said, hoping it was true.
“Well, since you refuse to work for me, is there any chance you’d go out with me?”
Her head jerked up. He was watching her with a curious mixture of tension and amusement.
“What, like a date?” she asked, surprised out of any subtlety.
“Exactly like a date, actually. I’d like to go for a drink with you.”
It was so ridiculous. A killer was hunting her. She’d just learned that her father was at least partly responsible for her mother’s murder. There was a nine-millimeter semiautomatic handgun in her bag. And Paul Dells was asking her out on a date.
She fought back a sudden delirious desire to laugh. None of it was funny.
“I’m not your type,” she insisted, and his eyebrows rose.
“How do you know what my type is?”
“Oh, come on.” Setting her fork down, she folded her arms. “I saw the women you brought to office parties when you were at the paper. They were all very pretty and very…”
“… shallow?” he finished for her.
She lifted one shoulder in response.
“Look, Harper,” he said, “I’ve lived in this town for ten years and never dated anyone seriously.” He was watching her so steadily it was making her nervous. “I enjoy spending time with you. You’re smart. You’re funny. You don’t put up with any bullshit. I need that in my life. If you’re not going to work for me, and you have no objection, I’d like to take you out for a drink.”
Harper searched his face for deception, but he seemed to really mean it. She thought about all the things she could say. Then she thought about Luke, going home to someone every night while she went back to her empty house. To her cat. And she heard herself say, “Sure. Why not?”
His face brightened just enough that she could see he hadn’t been certain of her answer. “How about tomorrow night?”
“I can’t. I’m working.”
“I know,” he said patiently. “I meant after you get off. We could go back to that bar around the corner from the paper.” He tilted his head. “You remember the one I’m talking about?”
The way he looked at her made her insides soften.
“I remember it,” she said. “But you know what my job’s like. I might get tied up.”
“I don’t mind waiting.”
He smiled then, and she found herself smiling back. She didn’t know what was wrong with her. Why was this happening now, when her life was spinning out of control?
But there wasn’t any point in asking questions like that. It was time to move on from Luke. That was the past. The man sitting in front of her was good-looking, successful, charming, and interested.
If she was still alive tomorrow, she’d have a drink with Paul Dells after work.
That was all she could say for certain.
20
After Harper left the restaurant, she barely made it back to the car before Baxter called.
“Where are you?” the editor demanded.
Harper wondered with a flash of panic if Baxter somehow knew she’d been meeting with her ex-boss.
“In the city,” she said, vaguely.
“I need you to come in to work. Nobody can get anywhere with the Rayne case and it’s dying on us. We need something today.”
Mondays were Harper’s day off but she’d been expecting this.
“No problem. I’ll run by the cop shop and see what I can find out.” Harper pulled her scanner out of her bag and set it in the dashboard holder. Glancing in her rearview mirror, she saw one of Savannah’s infamous parking-enforcement officers working his way down the street toward her. Hurriedly, she started the engine and pulled out into Bull Street traffic.