Virtually Perfect

2

“WELL, THIS ISN’T a bad start, but we need more.”

Raine resisted the urge to roll her eyes, and stared at Duane, her managing editor, straight in the eye. She liked him, though grudgingly at times such as now.

“I need to add in the research, get some outside interviews. That should round it off. This is just the first draft, obviously.”

Duane nodded and set the draft of the article she had been up nearly all night writing on the desk between them. She could’ve had his job if she had wanted it, but she liked being a writer. Duane was a good manager, and oddly, he seemed to enjoy it.

He was twenty-eight, almost four years younger than her, fresh out of graduate school, and on the job for a year. He was cute in a frat-boy kind of way, with shaggy dark brown hair and bright-blue eyes. Half the women in the building were gaga for him. Raine just couldn’t work up that kind of enthusiasm, though she had come to respect him as an editor.

He had one of those low-key, soft-spoken, intensely focused personalities that could be deceptive at first. But when the chips were down, or when he wanted things to go his way, he would wield his will like a sword. So far, he’d kept the ship on course, and skillfully managed a diverse group of writers at the magazine. But at the moment, Raine wasn’t in the mood to be managed.

“C’mon, Raine. You know as well as I do what you have to do here to make this article pop. The real meat of it is in the move from online to real life. You need to meet him. This is too good to pass up. See it through.”

She just glared, and her voice was stiff and caustic when she spoke. “Is that an order? Just how far would you like me to take this, Duane?”

“I’m not saying you have to marry the guy, or do more than have a cup of coffee with him. But you have already invested all this time in establishing a connection with him, right? And how can you answer the questions that are facing readers if you haven’t really put yourself in their place?” His eyes narrowed thoughtfully, and she resisted the urge to squirm under his gaze.

“This isn’t a real romance, is it? You have chalked this up as research?”

She closed her eyes and thought of all she had left out of the draft—if only Duane knew the connections she had “established” with Rider. She’d left out most of the intimate material and had written up the experience as a light flirtation, a dalliance. She wasn’t about to expose the reality—or herself—like that for the sake of a column. But deep down, she knew that Duane was right, and just for the moment, she hated him for it.

She nodded. “More or less. But he is a nice person, as far as I know, and you can’t just play with people’s feelings, Duane. He’s not just a lab rat for the article.”

Nodding again, Duane quirked an eyebrow.

“If the safety aspect of it is worrying you, we can help with that. I don’t expect you to go out and meet some creep by yourself.”

“He’s not a creep.” She felt a headache fuzz her thoughts. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“Okay, but that’s what we need to know. And what you need to find out.” He picked up the draft and handed it back to her. “You pitched this, you make it work. Meet the guy, then take another stab at it. This could be a killer story, Raine, but you have to see it through.”

“I THINK HE LOOKS LIKE Superman.” Gwen sighed dreamily, watching a man who stared intently at a computer on a desk directly across from them.

Raine snorted and put sugar in her coffee. “That’s Jackson Harris. I think everyone calls him Jack, though. He is the ultimate in computer gurus, from what Duane says. Been here about six months.”

Raine didn’t add that the new guy seemed to have taken a dislike to her on sight, for reasons she couldn’t fathom. He seemed friendly enough with everyone else, but gave her the cold shoulder. The few times they’d crossed paths he hadn’t even returned her hallway acknowledgments. So she’d stopped offering them. She only knew his name because he had been introduced to everyone upon his hiring.

“He’s a computer geek—that would make him a lot more like Clark Kent, right?” Raine didn’t bother holding back on the sarcasm.

Gwen stuck out her tongue. “Kent was Superman—and those dark glasses he always wore were so sexy. Anyway—that guy would look great in a tight blue bodysuit. How the heck did I miss him? This place is hiring one buff guy after another, first Duane, now Jack. I love working here.”

“Please. Spare me.”

Gwen just shrugged and continued to watch Jack work. “So what’s the news on Jerry?”

Raine rolled her eyes and leaned back against the kitchen counter in the employees’ lounge at the end of the hall. The staff often worked late hours, especially on a deadline. Having a full, stocked kitchen available was one of the luxuries that made the company worth working for.

“It was ridiculous. Terrible. He was like a dog in heat—it was crazy, I don’t think I did anything to lead him on. In fact, quite the opposite.”

“Yeah, the buzz is he wasn’t all too happy about it, either. Did you guys argue?”

Raine expelled a disgusted breath. Word traveled fast. Jerry must not have bought the stomachache defense. Oh well.

“No, no arguing. But I was barely able to eat because I had to keep stopping him from mauling me under the table at the restaurant. He couldn’t even hold a conversation. Everything—and I do mean everything, had to come back to sex. And it wasn’t just talk, he has hands like an octopus. So, when we got back to my place, I pretended I had to throw up to escape the good-night grope. Or worse, him wanting to come in.”

“Hey, that’s a new one! I don’t know if he bought your excuse though.”

“Yeah, well, whatever. I have a whole repertoire of techniques to get away from men at the end of dates. I’ll scratch that one off my list.”

“Maybe you should be thinking about things to do to get them into bed at the end of dates.”

Raine snorted. “All I would have to do to get Jerry into bed is breathe. There’s no point.”

Gwen’s jaw dropped in shock. “Wow, you really have forgotten, haven’t you? Jerry aside, orgasms are the point, girlie!”

Raine sipped her coffee and muttered over the top of her cup, “Really? I’ve never known a man who thought so.”

She turned and headed back to her office. Gwen followed, slipping into Raine’s office before she could close the door.

“Gwen, really, I have work…”

“Whoa—hold on. Are you trying to say you have never, you know—that you haven’t had…”

“An orgasm. Yes, I have. Plenty. Just not with a guy.” She sighed. “They haven’t got the faintest clue. I mean, I don’t want to have to tell someone what to do. Women shouldn’t have to come with an instruction booklet.”

“You should use that line in a column. Clever.” Gwen grinned.

“Yeah, right. Sometimes I wish I was a lesbian, maybe a woman would be better at it. That’s my curse—I’m stuck with men.”

Gwen sighed and dropped down in the cushy chair in the corner of the office, ignoring the impatient looks Raine was sending her way. When Gwen was intent on a visit, there just was no stopping her.

“Oh now, it’ll happen one of these days. But geez, I can’t believe you are what…thirty-two?” She ignored the glare Raine shot at her. “And you haven’t had one tiny tingle with a guy? I guess I can see why you don’t want to bother anymore, but you know you have to keep on trying. Sitting at home in front of your computer certainly isn’t going to help things any.”

“I never should have told you about that. Let’s just drop it. That whole thing is coming back to bite me in the butt now, big-time.”

“Why? Are things going downhill? Is the prince turning into a frog?”

Raine sighed and knew Gwen would not go away, and she would not be able to get any work done until she dealt with it.

“No. I don’t know. Rider’s getting too pushy, so I ended it. I wanted it over with.” She sat back, staring out the window at the dark gray clouds forming in the sky over the shops lining Pickering Wharf’s crescent-shaped streets. “But, Duane, in his ultimate wisdom, doesn’t want it over with. He says the article won’t fly unless I ‘see it through.’”

She screwed up her eyes and did a shabby Duane imitation on the last three words. “But I don’t want to see it through. I want to see it over.”

“Why? The computer guy sounds hot from everything you’ve said.”

“Yeah, well, he wants to meet, and I don’t want to—end of story.”