But at this point, what choice did he have?
“Fine.” Swiping a hand across his brow, Jackson sighed. “Can I give you the names of who you can talk to?”
“You can give me names if you want. Doesn’t mean I won’t do my own digging.”
“Shit.” Turning away, hand on hip, Jackson glared up at the sky. How had he ever thought he could control this? Why did everyone else get to talk about him rather than him? Here he was, offering a story direct from the horse’s mouth and yet that wasn’t good enough. “Can you at least tell me who you’re going to talk to before you do it? Get my side of things?” And to maybe intervene where he could to stop the huge can of worms.
“You scorned a lot of women in your past, Jax?” Fletcher gave a wry chuckle that felt like a scratch to Jackson’s face.
“Less than you’d think,” he snapped, hovering over to his bike. He threw a leg over to straddle the seat. “Actually, maybe this is a bad idea.” Maybe he could write it himself.
If only he’d been allowed to go to school rather than being thrust into the spotlight by his parents.
“Wait.” Fletcher jogged over before Jackson had the time to fix his helmet. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… Okay. I’ll do it. But you have to let me do it my way.”
“Will you keep some things to yourself?”
“Depends. Like what?”
“Things that aren’t relevant.”
“Everything’s relevant to you as a person. But if there’s something that you want to keep for yourself, then we can cross that bridge when we come to it. If it’s in the public interest, then I have a duty—”
“I didn’t kill her.” How many times would he have to keep saying that?
“Okay.”
“I don’t know who did either. Just so you don’t think I’m going to reveal that Professor Plum did it in the drawing room with a pickaxe.”
“Not sure that was a weapon.”
“No. It was bare hands.”
Fletcher swallowed, eyes widening. “I meant in Cluedo.”
“I know you did.” Jackson sniffed. “But my life is starting to feel like a game right now. The question is, do you want to play? Or do you want to forfeit?”
After a moment when Jackson thought he would flee, Fletcher held out his hand. Jackson took it and shook. Lucky for him, Fletcher didn’t acknowledge the clammy palm or the trembling fingertips, or the grip tighter than was necessary for a simple business transaction.
“So when do we start?” Fletcher asked, sliding his hand away.
Lifting his backside off the bike, Jackson slipped his fingers into his jeans pocket and pulled out the B&B address he’d scrawled on a torn-out page from the Bible.
“I’m staying there. Come meet me when you’ve finished work. We’ll talk. We’ll lay this thing out. This is between you and me. If anyone else arrives, I’ll be outta there so quick you won’t have time to blink and you’ll lose this book.”
He then shoved on his helmet, stepped down on the shift lever and revved the bike’s engine. He gave one firm nod before trailing off into oncoming traffic, looping a U-turn and careening away with a distinct bubbling in his gut that he put down to anticipation of maybe, finally, getting his voice heard.
And not anything to do with how green eyes had drunk him in.
* * * *
“Doherty!” Rose’s voice boomed from her glass-caged office and she slid her multi-coloured rimmed glasses down her nose to glare at Fletcher as soon as he stepped out of the elevator. Her demand had snapped him from his unravelling thoughts that had seemed to travel somewhere he hadn’t expected since watching Jackson, and his backside, trail off into London traffic. “My office. Now!”
London Lights was a hive of activity. Unusual for so early in the morning. Not that Fletcher had been getting in on time lately. That novelty had worn off. But it was still a shock to be the last one there. Scarlett waggled her fingers at him from behind her desk and mouthed something that might suggest he should hurry the feck up.
“One sec.” He held up a finger to Rose only to receive a glare of disapproval as she stomped back into her cage. “Busy this morning,” he said to Scarlett out of the side of his mouth while he dumped his bag on their communal desk line.
“It’s a big news day, Fletcher.”
“Is it?”
“Christ, Fletch. Are you that out of the loop? Jackson Young. Everyone’s trying to get a piece of him. Everyone wants to tell his story. He’s big, big news right now.” She slumped onto the chair and tapped nails across her keyboard with a pout. “Kinda wish I was in news right now. Most I get is the latest in Clinique products to test.” She tapped the delivery box next to her and winked.
Fletcher knew she didn’t mean that.
“Right.” He lowered himself cautiously into the chair, flicking his gaze around the room and wishing for the sudden acceleration in his pulse to calm the feck down.
Big news? Jackson was big news? Of course, he knew that. But he hadn’t even considered that London Lights, that Rose, his editor-in-chief, would be interested in running that story. LL was considered the fun-side of news. The online portal had become a place for the public to hide away from dull, dreary and political rantings. Putting Jackson Young on their pages, on the online portal, was going to take away the whole concept of “Light”.
A loud clearing of a throat from the direction of Rose’s open office door made Fletcher peer over the desk. Rose Thorne arched an impatient eyebrow.
She was doing well for her age. Mid-sixties, she’d used to be a catwalk model, turned fashion designer, turned entrepreneur with a chain of boutiques, then had decided to try her hand at fashion magazines. London Lights was her second attempt—less focus on the fashion, more focus on the everyday stuff that kept the public returning for more wit, more escapism, and more honest reviews.
“You are so effing lucky.” Scarlett tutted.
“Why?” he asked, standing and shuffling the papers on his desk to make it appear like he might be preparing for whatever Rose wanted from him.
“She’s going to ask you to write the lead.”
“What?” He lowered his voice, keeping Rose in his peripheral vision as she stormed back to behind her desk, leaving her door wide open. “You know that?”
“It’s obvious. You’re the only one here with any connection to him.”
The loud drawn-out sigh emanating from Rose’s office lit Fletcher’s arse on fire and he gathered his notebook, pen, phone, and hurried into the glass enclosure.
“Shut the door. Sit. Sit. Sit.” Rose waved her red-nailed fingers through the air.
Fletcher obeyed every command, although he only sat once.
“I want you off gossip.” She didn’t even rip her eyes from staring at the desk, her paperwork, whatever it was she was reading when she’d said that.
“Excuse me?”
“To be honest with you, Doherty, you’re a bit shit at it.”
“Oh.” That was a slap to the face. Was he being fired? Feck. “I’m—”
Holding up a palm, Rose cut him off, eyes still darting across the page of a magazine in front of her.