So today’s TT comes right from yesterday’s release of INFLUENCE ( DUH! LOL) You knew I was gonna hawk this book to the max, right? Heehee
I wrote a quick text to my driver and was about to hit the send button when I heard my name called from behind me. The voice was eerily familiar and the all the hair on the back of my neck stood straight up at attention.
I spun around and – yup, just like I thought – Dominick Templeton was dangerously close to me.
I didn’t even think. I simply bolted like a rambunctious puppy let off a leash.
Weaving around the partiers packed in wall-to-wall, I shoved and pushed my way around people so rudely if my mother had borne witness to my behavior she would have had heart palpitations.
With my phone clutched tightly in one hand, my bag in the other, I had to elbow people to get passed them.
Templeton continued to call my name from behind me as he peppered it with excuse mes and out of my ways.
I was almost at the door that swung into the kitchen when a hand snaked around the back of my arm, halting me. I would have pitched forward from the sudden stop if Templeton hadn’t wound his free hand around my waist.
I spun around like a mad dervish and shoved him in the chest. “Get your hands off me,” I shouted. I don’t think anyone but him could even hear me because the noise level was at supersonic now.
I think he said, “Please, Mackenzie, stop. I need to talk to you,” but I wasn’t sure. I’m not adept at reading lips.
He slid his hand around my arm again and despite all my movements to shove him off, was able to propel me through the swing doors.
The decibels, thankfully, dropped, but the long kitchen was jam packed with servers, cooks and sous chefs. No one stopped to stare at us as we all but fell through the doors.
Templeton glanced right and then left and with his hand still holding my arm, guiding me toward a back door.
“Get your hands off me,” I said again, trying to pull away from him with all my strength.
The guy had a grip like a steelworker’s vise.
“I will the moment you agree to talk to me,” he said. He pushed through the door, which found us in the back alley of the club. A smelly dumpster and about a hundred empty boxes surrounded us.
Templeton finally let go of me.
“How dare you,” I spat, pushing against his chest again with all my strength. He didn’t even budge.
“Look, I’m sorry for the Neanderthal tactics, but I knew you weren’t going to come willingly with me—”
“You got that right.”
“—and I really need to speak to you.”
“You have nothing to say I want to hear.” I started walking away from him.
“Mackenzie, please. I know you’re mad—”
“Mad doesn’t even come close to what I feel.”
“Please. Hear me out. Let me explain.”
I spun around. “Why should I? You’ve lied to me already. Everything about you is a lie. What’s to prevent you from doing to so again?”
“I never lied to you.”
“You told me your name was Nick Churchill.”
“No I didn’t, Mackenzie. I never told you my last name. You assumed it was Churchill.”
“With just cause. And you didn’t correct that assumption!”
My voice echoed around the empty space. I couldn’t believe I was standing in a smelly, filthy alleyway, screeching like a banshee at this guy. Forget heart palpitations. My mother would need to be admitted to a coronary care unit if she saw this little scene.
Templeton slid his hands into his trouser pockets, his shoulders dropping down a bit as he folded in on himself. Even in the subdued lighting I could tell his cheeks had darkened. “You’re right, I didn’t correct your assumption. That’s on me, and I regret it. But there’s a good reason I didn’t.”
“Of course there is.” My nasty flag was flying full sail. “You want an interview and just like the sleazy gossip rag reporter you are, you used unscrupulous tactics to get it. Showing up and getting introduced to me by someone I knew. Dancing with me, taking me to lunch. Kissing me.” I gagged on that one. “Making me believe you were a good guy, a guy who—”
I stopped myself in time. I’d been about to embarrass myself fully by admitting how much I liked him and wanted to see him again. How much his simple kiss had wrecked me.
Good God.
I dragged in a breath and dug deep down to my toes for some semblance of my mother’s calm demeanor.
“Well, too bad for you, because you failed.” Better. My voice was decidedly stronger. “Horribly. I wouldn’t talk to you if you were the last person on earth.”
I turned around again and too late realized I faced the wrong way to exit the alley because the brick wall of the opposing building was right in front of me. I had to go in the opposite direction in order to do so, which meant skirting around him.
“It’s not a normal interview,” he said when I began walking past him. “Mackenzie, please. Stop. Please.”
I could tell myself a dozen different reasons why I did later. But the truth was something in his voice, something so raw and so real, made me stop, short.
I’ve never intentionally hurt another person in my life. Not that I knew of, anyway. That’s what I heard in Templeton’s tone – a stab of hurt that sliced through my anger.
Suddenly, all the fight left me. I wanted to go home, fall into bed and forget this day ever happened.
Templeton took a step toward me, his hands out at his sides and lifted as if in surrender.
When I didn’t spring away from him or hit him again, I guess he took it as a sign I was going to listen.
Was I?
I didn’t want to. Nothing he could say would ever allow me to trust him.
“Please,” he said one more time while he lowered his hands. “Give me a few minutes to explain everything. That’s all I’m asking.”
“That’s asking a lot. More than you deserve.”
“Five minutes,” he said.
Why did I agree to hear him out? Damned if I know.
INTRIGUED? let me make this easy – aim and shoot your cell phone camera at the following image and you can get your copy. It’s available in kindle and print, and on KU.
Peggy Jaeger, Author 