Kate Hoffmann - Brian

His thoughts jumped back to the first night they'd spent together, to that moment when he'd "saved" her from a boring evening with a boring man. Maybe Sean had been right to warn him. His brothers had fallen victim to the Quinn curse. But Brian thought that if he just didn't believe in it then he wouldn't be affected by it.

A door creaked above them and Lily froze. He slowly drew back and gazed down at her, her eyes wide. She blinked, then swore. "That is absolutely the last time I let you kiss me." Frantically, she rearranged her clothes, then hurried up the steps.

Brian didn't follow her. Instead, he leaned back, against the wall and raked his fingers through his hair. Maybe he ought to heed her warnings. After all, he couldn't seem to control himself when he touched her. Considering that little problem, he might do something stupid-like fall in love. And recent history had proved that when a Quinn fell in love, there was no way out.

"We need a strategy," Lily said, pacing the width of the conference room. "Brian Quinn isn't going to give up."

Her mind flashed back to the kiss they'd shared in the stairwell and realized she might as well be talking about the undeniable desire between them, rather than her problems with Patterson.

Up until that kiss, Lily had maintained the delusion that she was still in control of her feelings for him. But all it had taken was a simple meeting of lips to make her realize he held some strange power over her, the power to turn her into a woman obsessed with her own lust. She just had to avoid him, that was the only solution to her problem.

"I'll just have to avoid him," Lily repeated.

She glanced around the room at Patterson's public relations staff, then forced a smile. "The injunction will be lifted within the week and we're going to schedule the ground-breaking right after that. Meanwhile, I need you all to flood the media with positive messages. We need the public to turn on Quinn. We need them to see that the waterfront project is good for Boston and that he's just stirring up trouble for his own benefit."

"But he's one of the most popular reporters in Boston," Derrick Simpson said. "His Q rating has been through the roof for a year now, especially with women."

Lily sighed. Yes, she did have a difficult job ahead of her and there was no doubt the women of Boston found him as irresistible as she did. But there had to be a way to get Brian Quinn to back off the story. Just the whiff of a scandal was enough to drive investors away. "We need to shift his focus," Lily said. "What we really need is a bigger scandal. Some public official taking a bribe or some celebrity caught sleeping with his sister-in-law."

"You can't make that happen, can you?" Margaret Kinger asked.

Lily frowned. "Shift his focus?"

"No, make a celebrity sleep with his sister-in-law."

She smiled. "I'm good, but not that good. But there should be a way to keep Brian Quinn distracted." Lily quickly evaluated her options. "We could… mislead him. Make it so he's not sure which sources to believe and which to discredit. It will be difficult for him to track down the truth that he might not have time to get the story straight."

"That's a great idea," John Kostryki said. "We can plant some false leads. And then, if he's lazy and reports them without checking his sources, we've got him. His reputation as a reporter in this town will be ruined."

Lily hesitated. She shouldn't have any qualms about hitting Brian Quinn right where it hurt-in his reputation. Still, she didn't want to completely ruin him, she just wanted to keep him busy for a while, until all the furor died down. "That's a possibility," she said.

"We could catch him in a compromising situation," Allison Petrie suggested.

"I hear he has quite a reputation with the ladies," Margaret said. "If we catch him with the wrong kind of woman that might cause him to lie low for a while."

Lily found that idea downright distasteful. Plus, she couldn't ignore the current of jealousy that shot through her at the thought of Brian with another woman-especially some sexy harlot with big breasts and the appetites of a nymphomaniac. "We can consider that."

"You know, he has a record," Derrick said.

"He was a singer?" Lily asked. "Now that might be something. I mean, if he imagined himself some kind of rock star and he was really awful, we could get his record played on the local radio stations. That would be really embarrassing."

"Not that kind of record," Derrick said. "A criminal record."

Lily gasped. "Brian Quinn has a criminal record? How do you know that?"

"Mr. Patterson had him investigated after he reported on building code violations on the Minuteman Mall project."

"I read the report," Lily said. "I didn't notice any mention of a criminal record."

Margaret held out a file folder. "This is the latest report from the investigator. It came in this morning and Quinn's got a whole history with the police. They way it looks, the only reason he isn't in jail right now is that his brother is a cop."

"Did you know that Quinn actually had the nerve to crash the benefit that Richard Patterson sponsored last weekend?" Allison asked. "A whole bunch of people saw him there."

Lily snatched the folder up. "From now on, I'd like to be the first person to see the reports from the investigator. Margaret, you make sure that happens. We'll meet again tomorrow morning. I want to brainstorm a few more options."

She opened the folder and quickly scanned the report. There was a complete background piece on Brian's childhood. "We-we can use this," she murmured. Lily glanced up at the four expectant faces staring at her. They were looking to her to take the lead, but she wasn't sure what she wanted to do. Not yet. "We'll meet again tomorrow morning. I need time to look this over."

When Lily got back to her office, she didn't go inside. She wandered over to her assistant's desk and picked up her messages, then flipped through them. There were two from Brian, one with a number she recognized as the station's and the other listed as his cell phone.

"I think he might be calling for a quote," Marie said. Lily crumpled them up and tossed them both in a nearby trash can. She meant what she'd said! They were virtual enemies on opposite sides of an issue. And she would not put herself in a position to be seduced by the enemy again.

Lily slipped the investigator's report inside her bag. "I'm going to get some lunch," she said to her assistant. "And then maybe I'll walk over to the park. If Brian Quinn calls again tell him that I have nothing to say to him." She paused. "No, just tell him that I'd appreciate it if he'd stop calling. No, wait, don't say that." She shook her head. "Don't say anything. Just take a message."

As she walked out to the elevator, she couldn't contain her curiosity. The report, like the first one she'd examined, was neatly typed and meticulously researched. But this report focused more on Brian's personal life than his professional one.

The elevator opened and Lily stepped inside, joining a crowd of workers on the way down for their lunch hour. When she finally reached the lobby, she hurried outside, into a rush of pedestrians marching down the sidewalk. An unbidden surge of loneliness washed over her, as stifling as the warm, humid air.

Every day she spent in Boston, Lily was reminded that she was a stranger in this town. She had no friends, no one she could confide in, no one who might sympathize with her problems. The only person she felt close to was Brian Quinn and now she'd resolved to put him out of her life for good.

Lily sighed and walked toward the park at Post Office Square, a pretty little oasis in the midst of skyscrapers. When she reached the park, she headed right for the glass fountain and found a grassy spot nearby where she could listen to the soothing sound of water.