Jane Sullivan - When He Was Bad...

“No, it’s not,” she said, standing up. “Not when you humiliate me to make it happen.”

She turned to leave. Nick rose and grabbed her arm. “Hey, take it easy, okay? I don’t want you going away mad.”

She shook her arm loose and glared at him. “Too late for that.”

“Okay,” he said, holding up his palms. “I can see that we got off on the wrong foot here.”

“You have a talent for understatement.”

“So how about we start over?” A smile eased across his face. “Say…with dinner tonight?”

Sara drew back in total disbelief. “You have got to be joking.”

“I never joke about food. I know a great steakhouse on Campbell Road that’s got a rib eye that I just might sell my soul for.”

“No, thank you.”

He frowned. “Oh, boy. It’s the red meat thing, isn’t it? Are you one of those women who eats only green stuff?”

“No!”

He sighed with relief. “Thank God. Nothing’s worse than taking a vegetarian to a steak house. They end up eating a salad and poking at a baked potato.” He smiled again. “So how about it, Sara? Wanna make an evening of it?”

This was absolutely unbelievable. How could he even think she’d take him up on such a thing?

“I told you I’m not interested,” she said. “And I can’t imagine why you would be, either. I mean, why would you want to get stuck with a six like me when you could thumb through your little black book and come up with a perfect ten?”

“Come on, Sara. That rating thing is just a gimmick. My listeners love it.”

“Well, I don’t.”

“Okay, then. Forget the numbers. Here’s the truth.” He moved closer, his mouth edging into a warm smile. “When you walked in here a few minutes ago, my very first thought was that you were just—quite simply—one beautiful woman.”

For a moment, she thought she heard a note of actual sincerity in his voice, one that almost made her think he wasn’t just tossing compliments around because she’d turned him down and his ego couldn’t take it.

Almost.

“No, Nick. Here’s the truth. Your opinion of my physical appearance doesn’t interest me in the least. I was here to promote my book, not to subject myself to your adolescent behavior. But you know what? It’s my fault. I knew what your show was like, and I let my publicist book me on it, anyway. But you can bet your life I won’t make a mistake like that again.”

“Nick!” Butch said. “You got fifteen seconds!”

Nick’s smile faded, replaced by a look of resignation. “Okay, Sara. I get the message.”

“Good.”

She started to walk out.

“Sara?”

“What?”

“If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me.”

He put on his headphones and hit a button on the console. As he started his well-practiced banter once again, Sara left the booth, still fuming, still frustrated, and when she thought about the people all over town who had just heard her humiliation, she wanted to crawl under a rock and die.

You know where to find me. As if she’d ever get within a mile of this radio station again.

When she came into the lobby, Karen stood up. Sara brushed past her and headed for the door.

“Hey, wait a minute!” Karen said. “Where are you going? I wanted to meet—”

“No. You don’t want to meet him. Trust me. You don’t.”

She yanked open the door and stepped outside. Traipsing through the snow, she headed for her car, the bitter winter wind swirling around her. Karen threw the strap of her laptop case over her shoulder and followed. She caught up to Sara in the parking lot and pulled her to a halt. “Hey! What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong? Did you not hear that interview?”

“I heard every word.”

“It was a disaster!”

“Disaster? Are you kidding? You were brilliant!”

Sara gaped with disbelief. “Brilliant? What are you talking about? That man humiliated me!”

“No way. He may have given it to you, but you gave it right back. You beat him at his own game.”

“No. All I did was let him drag me down into the gutter right along with him.”

“Yeah, and while you two were wallowing around in that gutter, I was checking the e-mails coming in through your Web site. Half a dozen already.”

“What?”

“Get in the car. I’ll show you.”

They slid into the car, and Karen flipped open her laptop. She ran her finger over the touch pad, then tapped.

“Listen to this,” she said. “‘I just heard you on Nick Chandler’s show. You’re absolutely right. Somebody needs to warn women about men like him. Keep up the good work!’”

Sara blinked with surprise.

“Here’s another one,” Karen said. “‘I liked how you let him have it. If I had that kind of backbone with a man, then maybe I never would have stayed with the losers I have.’” Karen hit the touch pad again. “And how about this one? ‘I came to one of your seminars, and now after hearing you on Nick Chandler’s show today, I can see that you’re somebody who actually practices what she preaches. You don’t let men mess with you. Way to go!’”

Sara was dumbfounded. “They actually heard me? Women who aren’t Nick Chandler groupies?”

“If they were before, they’re not now. They heard you, they thought about what you said and they responded. And there are more e-mails coming in. Didn’t I tell you this would happen?”

Sara felt a glimmer of hope. “I still don’t believe it.”

“Believe it. You reached your target audience. You may have done it under the radar, but you did it just the same. It appears that Nick Chandler was his own worst enemy in there, and he didn’t even know it.”

His own worst enemy?

The more Sara thought about that, the more it made sense. He’d baited her into unmasking him just enough that at least a few of the women in his audience had been able to see him for what he really was. And that was a very good thing.

Then all at once, an inkling of an idea came to Sara. She froze, her hands on the steering wheel, as it took shape in her mind. She felt a spark of excitement, which grew hotter with every second that passed.

“Oh, my God. Karen. I know the angle for my next book.”

“What?”

“Maybe it’s time the women of the world knew exactly what goes on inside the mind of a man like Nick Chandler.”

“What do you mean?”

“I wrote my first book from the perspective of women who fall prey to bad boys. What if I write my second one from the perspective of the bad boy himself?”

“Nick?”

“Exactly. He’ll be my starting point. Once women have a peek inside his head, see his motives, hear firsthand how he goes about controlling and manipulating them, they’ll know he’s the kind of man they need to avoid at all cost.”

Karen’s eyes flicked back and forth, her mind turning. “Sounds promising. PR-wise, it could be a gold mine. But how are you going to get Nick Chandler to spill all his secrets?”

“You said it yourself—he’s his own worst enemy. He doesn’t see anything wrong with his point of view, and with an ego like his, getting him to talk about himself should be a breeze.” She gave her friend a devious smile. “Believe me, Karen. If I want to know what Nick Chandler is thinking, all I have to do is ask.”

TWO HOURS LATER, Nick swung his car out of the KZAP parking lot onto the snow-crusted road to head home. Sixteen inches of snow had hit the city already, and more was falling. His windshield wipers were working overtime to sweep enough away that he could see to drive.

He pulled up to a stoplight, then turned to look at Sara Davenport’s book lying in the passenger seat beside him. Why he was bringing it home with him, he really didn’t know. It had sat on the table beside him during the rest of his show this afternoon, distracting him to the point that he’d actually lost his train of thought a time or two. Finally, he’d stuck it under his desk, thinking out of sight, out of mind, only to see Sara’s face in his mind instead.