Love the One You're With(44)
It was time to have a little talk with 2.0 about the rules.
Maybe sex with Jake would be a step forward in her recovery, but 2.0 was having none of it.
And since the war between Grace 1.0 and 2.0 took up most of her mental energy, she never saw the email from Camille coming.
Grace—
Spoke with Cassidy. Given the success of the HeSaidSheSaid website, we’ve decided to eschew the original plan of a traditional series in the print magazine and continue fostering the unexpected digital growth. The website feels like a better venue for this type of back-and-forth story anyway. Will wrap up your and Jake’s “story” at the end of the month and feature a new couple with new chemistry.
Great work on this—we can get you back on your regular story rotation immediately. Was thinking your next piece could be on the resurgence of online dating. Haven’t done that angle in a while, and readers will relate to a newly single gal entering a new approach. Good?
Camille
Grace numbly reread the email. Knew what it meant.
At the end of the month, there’d be no more Jake. She could refocus on Grace 2.0 without the distraction of a certain sexy journalist.
She could simultaneously secure her reputation as an expert on men while going back to dodging them completely in her personal life.
It was the perfect ending to her perfect plan.
And it sounded awful.
Chapter Seventeen
“What do you mean, I’m off the story?”
“You’re not off the story. We’ve just switched the objective a bit.”
“You said I’d write five articles. I’ve only written two.”
Alex Cassidy slowly tapped a pen on his desk as he studied Jake. “Two print articles, but the online component has monopolized all of your time for over two months. You’ve put in more than enough legwork, and I couldn’t be happier with the results.”
Well, I’m glad someone’s happy.
In truth, Jake knew he should be happy. This meant he could get back to writing his own story ideas instead of appeasing the higher-ups. It meant that at the end of the month he’d be able to go to Starbucks and grab something to eat without creating a firestorm in the office.
It meant he could get back to dating women for fun instead of for work.
And yet he still wanted to punch something.
“Why don’t you just come out and ask?” Cassidy asked, watching him with an amused look on his face.
“Ask what?” Jake grumbled.
“How soon until you can start the Travel gig now that you’re wrapping this up.”
Jake’s mind went temporarily blank before reality crashed down.
Well, holy hell …
Somehow he’d temporarily forgotten all about their initial agreement.
It was really happening. He was going to live abroad. See the world.
Get rid of the damn itch between his shoulder blades.
Which … come to think of it, he hadn’t noticed the itch or the restless feeling in weeks. But this travel position was still the opportunity of a lifetime.
“How soon?” he asked Cassidy.
His boss gave a sly smile. “I’m working on it. Just wrap this thing up with the Stiletto woman, and I think you’ll like what I’ve got in the works.”
The Stiletto woman. It didn’t even remotely do Grace justice.
“Aha,” Cassidy said, tossing his pen down on the desk triumphantly. “I knew it.”
“Don’t,” Jake said with a glare. “Just don’t.”
His boss ignored him. “I thought Cole was full of shit when he said he thought there was more going on between you than just a little good-natured website banter. But here you are looking like I just took away your puppy. Or should I say … your girlfriend.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“You want her to be.”
Jake opened his mouth to refute it. That was nuts. Jake Malone wasn’t the settling-down kind of guy. Not yet, anyway. He’d always imagined he had several more years of playing the field before he’d get nipped by the white-picket-fence bug.
Although Grace wasn’t a white-picket-fence kind of girl. She was more a gated-community-and-penthouse kind of girl. He tried to picture her with her teetering high heels and sleek hair twists in the casual chaos that was the Malone living room back in Wisconsin.
She wouldn’t last a day under his sisters’ prying scrutiny or his dad’s nonstop Packers talk or his mom’s insistence that she should really just try a little Wisconsin cheese on her toast. And her salad. And her apple pie.
“Grace and I are mismatched.”
“That’s not what our readers say,” Cassidy said, turning around his monitor and gesturing to the damned website. Jake barely glanced at it. The latest poll had 92 percent of readers thinking he and Grace had already slept together.