Sex, Lies and Her Impossible Boss. Jennifer Rae

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СКАЧАТЬ I’m wearing?’

      Cash sighed. ‘Nothing. I said you looked nice. Why do you get so defensive with me, Harris? Why do you argue with everything I say?’

      ‘I don’t do that.’

      ‘You’re doing it now.’

      Did she do that? She hadn’t noticed. It was just that everything he said was usually wrong.

      ‘When you said I looked nice I just thought you meant...something else.’

      ‘What else could I possibly mean?’

      ‘When you asked me what was I wearing you meant what was I driving.’

      ‘That was an autocorrect mistake on my phone. You’re just being difficult.’

      She wasn’t being difficult; she was trying to be professional. She needed to calm down and start again.

      ‘I’m sorry, Cash. I just wasn’t expecting you to say something...nice.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘Because you never say anything nice.’

      Cash stilled and Faith swore under her breath. Offending him wasn’t professional either. If only she were better at being professional. Faith remembered a report she’d done the other week on getting what you want in the bedroom. Speak softly. Be frank. Look your partner in the eye and ask them their fantasies. If it worked for sex, maybe it would work in this situation. Faith cleared her throat.

      ‘Cash, I’d like to know what you want. How I can help you understand what it is I do.’

      She felt his eyes on her and gripped the steering wheel. She remembered the way he often looked at her. Unblinking. Intent; as if he was reading her mind through her eyes. He had a way of throwing her off balance when he looked at her like that, but she was safe as long as she didn’t look at him. And at the way he cocked his eyebrow at her.

      ‘What I want?’

      ‘Yes. I want to know what I can do to change your impression that what I do has no value.’

      ‘No value?’ He paused and Faith felt a trickle of sweat slide from the back of her neck into her shirt. Red had no air conditioning and it was close to forty degrees outside. ‘I never said your show didn’t have value. Some of the things you report on are obviously stories that need to be told. Your problem is you get too close. You want everyone to believe what you do—that love is the answer.’

      She turned to him then, her cheeks heating again and her palms slipping from the steering wheel in response to his annoyingly patronising tone.

      ‘That’s not true.’

      ‘Yes, it is. You invest too much emotionally. Journalists have to put distance between themselves and the issues they’re reporting on. That’s what creates objectivity.’

      Faith bristled. She didn’t need a lecture on objectivity. If only he knew how distant she was from the topics she reported on.

      ‘Sometimes you have to get close. That’s the only way you can get the truth.’

      ‘Advertisers don’t like close. They like light and fun.’

      ‘But that’s not what my viewers want. They want me to get close, to get involved. They want to know more.’

      He paused, then let out a sigh. Not a huge sigh but a little exasperated puff. ‘People are not interested in love and relationships and everything else you report on.’

      She stole a glance at him then. Of course people were interested in that—hadn’t he heard? Love made the world go round.

      ‘What about my report on online dating? That show got more hits on our website than any other. I talked to dozens of people who found love online and another dozen who found nothing but perverts and deviants. The public needs to know about this stuff. And what about the report I did on body image and the way women were perceived differently depending on their body shape?’

      Cash breathed in through his nose, flaring his nostrils slightly. Faith watched him, then watched the road, then turned back to him, determined to get an answer from him.

      ‘Was that the one where you were naked?’

      ‘Where I...? What?’ Faith turned just in time to veer away from a woman crossing the street with her massive Alsatian. ‘Yes. But that wasn’t the point.’

      She didn’t turn back to him. She could feel him grinning at her.

      ‘I got naked to show women they had nothing to be ashamed of about their bodies. And I wasn’t completely naked—my intimate parts were covered in leaves.’

      ‘Your “intimate parts”?’

      ‘Yes. My intimate parts. You know—the ones you don’t show people.’

      ‘I enjoy showing my intimate parts to people.’

      Faith pushed the mental image of Cash’s ‘intimate parts’ out of her mind. Professional. Sparkling. Insightful. That was what she was supposed to be.

      ‘I’m sure you do, but I like to keep my intimate parts private. I only show them to a selected few.’

      ‘Really?’ Faith still wasn’t watching Cash, but had her eyes intent on the twisting turns of the narrow Sydney streets. But she could feel him prop his elbow up on the console and move a little closer. He smelled of the beach and of something she somehow knew was just him. ‘How many “selected few” have been privy to a viewing of your “intimate parts”, Faith?’

      ‘How many?’

      ‘Yes. How many?’

      ‘As in...as in...a number?’ she stuttered. This conversation was definitely not professional.

      ‘Yes. A number.’

      His breath was warm against her shoulder. She could feel it through the thin T-shirt she was wearing. Her skin prickled at the feel of it. His lips must be close to her skin if she could feel his breath. His tongue would only have to reach out a little to lick her skin...

      Faith’s body throbbed. Her pulse hummed. Her foot slid a little further down on the accelerator. Professional.

      ‘I don’t think my number is relevant.’

      ‘I think it’s very relevant. You are the self-confessed sexpert around here. I’d like to know how much of an expert you are. I’d like to know about your personal experience with sex.’

      Faith’s tongue lay dry in her mouth. Her personal experience?

      ‘I’ve had enough to know what I’m doing.’

      ‘Is that right?’

      The air was now stifling. Faith lifted a hand off the steering wheel to pump the old rolling handle of the window to get it down. She needed air. Fast.

      ‘That’s СКАЧАТЬ