LITMIR.BIZ

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while. That would help in one area without moving us into dangerous territory.”

      Three sets of eyebrows shot straight up, but he watched as they all rolled the thought around and considered.

      “It might work.” Michael spoke first, his enthusiasm for the idea gaining ground. “It would be a chance for her to meet you face-to-face, you could charm her, give her a T-shirt, CD. At the same time it would give us the opportunity to make a statement on air, something to the effect that we’re doing everything we can to help.”

      Looking questioningly at Ken, Chris waited.

      The attorney spoke slowly, weighing things out as he went. “We’d need to keep the details from your listeners. A simple announcement that you heard their concerns and that we’re getting Katy the help she needs. For her protection, you can’t reveal specifics, but want to assure everyone that you and the station are committed to helping this bright young woman through a traumatic experience.”

      Despite having made the suggestion, Chris wasn’t entirely convinced it was the best idea. In fact, he wasn’t exactly sure where it had come from.

      Certainly, he’d taken female listeners to dinner before. More than he cared to count over the past five years actually. At first he’d enjoyed the attention Dr. Desire received from the female population. He’d wanted sex, and the women had wanted a brush with fame. Everyone had walked away satisfied. But lately, satisfaction hadn’t been enough.

      Obviously, this would be different. He wouldn’t expect sex when the night was done, and he would make it clear to Katy that that wasn’t his intention—for her sake, as well as his.

      He turned the idea over one more time, examining it for pitfalls. If eating a simple meal with her allowed him to lose the sense of guilt he’d been fighting for the past few days, got his audience off his back and helped Katy, well, then maybe it would be worth a few hours out of his life.

      Heath, the station manager, jumped in as devil’s advocate. “Couldn’t we simply say that without actually doing anything? I mean, we did offer her information on therapists.”

      Ken countered immediately, “Certainly, if we could guarantee Katy won’t come forward to discredit the statement. If that happened, the show and the station would look worse than you already do.”

      Chris pushed up from the table, walked to the floor-to-ceiling glass windows and looked out over Birmingham’s skyline. Ruffling a hand through his hair, he could feel the tight pinch of a headache coming on.

      “We don’t know how to get in touch with her, that’s certainly a problem.”

      Papers rustled behind his back before Heath said, “We had her call-in number traced. We have her real name, address and home telephone number.”

      Chris turned and stared at the station manager before moving his gaze to the attorney.

      “Is that even legal?”

      Ken shifted in his chair, but met Chris’s ice-blue stare. “It’s a bit gray, but nothing that could land anyone in jail.”

      “Isn’t that a relief.” Chris narrowed his eyes, boring holes into the other man.

      “You should do it, Chris. It’s the best way out of this. One night from your life and it’s over. Charm the pan—” Michael stalled and cleared his throat. “Charm her a little. Piece of cake for Dr. Desire.”

      The impish grin he gave rubbed Chris the wrong way. But whatever Michael’s faults—and they were many—the man did have his back when it mattered. At the moment he was making it difficult to remember that but…

      Taking Katy out for a nice dinner would be simple for Dr. Desire. Chris on the other hand…he wasn’t convinced. She’d expect him to be on, they all did. Smooth, sexy, sophisticated. Intelligent. Funny. Perfect.

      Most women wanted everything from a man. Unfortunately, he’d done his job so well they all seemed to think he could give that to them. He was tired of trying. Tired of pretending that the persona he’d built was real.

      One night out of his life.

      “I’ll call her. But if she doesn’t want to do this, we all agree to issue a statement on air, anyway.”

      “Agreed.”

      Chris took the paper Ken held out to him and glanced down at the neat black ink against the white page.

      “Karyn Mitchell.” He liked that much better than Katy.

      KARYN WALKED into her apartment, threw her keys onto the hall table and hung her purse and briefcase on the coatrack. Walking into the silent kitchen, she couldn’t hold back a sigh.

      Her head pounded, her shoulders slumped and a brick seemed to have lodged at the base of her spine. She knew stress, tension and exhaustion were responsible for her weary state.

      It had been four days since that damn phone call. For the past three nights she’d turned on Dr. Desire only to hear his show become a heated discussion of her life and what he should do to help her.

      Her hours at work hadn’t even been safe. Every time she’d tried to add up a string of numbers today someone had popped their head into her cubicle to gossip about Katy.

      Her so-called best friend hadn’t been much better. Anne had teased and admonished, going so far as to try to cajole her into a double date. After hours of frustration Karyn had snapped at her. And felt guilty for it afterward.

      But the frustration and anger hadn’t lasted long. It was hard to keep her bad mood when Anne was around. She was always so…chipper. Or rather, that’s what she showed the world. Even Karyn hadn’t realized that the brightness and light Anne seemed surrounded with was a facade. Not until it had slipped. She’d truly known they were friends the night Anne had broken down and allowed her to see the emotions she buried deep inside.

      That same night Karyn had opened up and shared her own deepest secret. She’d never regretted the action or the trust she’d placed in the other woman.

      At the moment, however, she was seriously regretting sharing that secret with half the South, even if she had used an alias.

      She couldn’t believe it was happening all over again. She’d moved to Birmingham to get away from this kind of minute dissection of her life and choices. She’d spent years defending her actions to newspapers, TV stations, radio shows, her lawyers, the judge, not to mention the jury.

      The job offer from Walker Technologies had provided her with a clean start, the chance to lose herself in the city crowds and forget the trauma everyone at home remembered when they looked at her. And with one five-minute phone conversation she’d inadvertently opened herself up to it all over again.

      The one saving grace was that the city was discussing Katy’s life, not hers. But she wondered how long that would last. Reporters had a way of digging up details, especially the ones you thought safe and secret. Unfortunately, the only thing she could do was wait and hope the interest died down soon. Doing anything else would just draw attention to herself.

      She’d gone in to work this morning hoping to bury herself in the minutia of number crunching. It hadn’t worked—she’d completely screwed up the monthly sales report and it had taken all afternoon to rework it. She’d become an accountant because she loved numbers, because they followed hard-and-fast rules that never changed. Today she wasn’t so enamored of them or her job.

      If only people hadn’t kept interrupting her. If only she’d been able to concentrate on the numbers instead of Dr. Desire…

      There was no escape. She kept telling herself that the interest in Katy would die down eventually, that something else would happen to catch everyone’s attention.

      At the moment, that wasn’t very comforting; what would be was a hot bath, a good book and a glass of wine. The only food she wanted was a tub of mint chocolate chip ice cream covered in fudge sauce. Comfort and solitude at its finest.

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