Nope. Not Nic. Just her friend and next-door neighbor, Serena, asking her to pick up some milk on the way home.
Her heart fell as she shoved the phone back in her pocket, despite the very stern talking-to that she gave herself. Of course it wasn't Nic. It hadn't been Nic in over three weeks. Which was fine. Better than fine. It was what she'd wanted, after all. Otherwise she would have answered one of the dozen text messages he'd sent her in the seven weeks since she'd snuck out of his house while he slept.
But she hadn't answered them, no matter what approach he'd taken. Funny, sweet, friendly, sexy. She'd read them all-over and over again-but hadn't been able to bring herself to answer them. Not because she didn't like him, but because she did. Not because she thought he was a jerk, but because she thought he was kind of … sweet. And goofy. And far too charming for her own peace of mind.
As she'd looked at those text messages, she could see herself falling for him, and she couldn't afford to do that. Couldn't afford to open herself up to him only to find out she was wrong. She'd been hurt doing that too many times before to risk it now. Or ever again.
"So, Desi," her boss finally began. "I have a story for you to write."
"Excellent," she answered with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, even while inside she was rolling her eyes. She could only imagine what he wanted this time. Probably gossip coverage of some socialite's garden party or something equally ridiculous.
"You know, for someone who's been begging to get out of the society pages for months, you certainly don't seem very excited about the opportunity."
It took a second for his words to sink in, but when they did she felt her whole body come to attention. Her gaze sharpened, her heart beat faster, and she leaned so far forward that she almost fell out of her chair. Even as she told herself to cool it-that she didn't even know what kind of story he was offering-her brain started racing with possibilities as excitement thrummed through her blood.
Malcolm must have seen the difference, because he laughed before saying, "Now there's the Desi I was expecting!" He nodded toward her tablet. "Ready to take notes?"
"Absolutely." If this was just some newly sadistic way for him to assign a high-society story to her, she swore she was going to kill him. And since she'd spent her off-hours moonlighting as the obituary writer for the past few months, she knew a bunch of ways to do it, too.
"So, I have a story for you. This morning, I got a tip about a business new to San Diego that might not be quite as legitimate as it seems on the surface."
Her mind started racing. Drugs. Guns. Mexican Mafia. She could practically feel herself champing at the bit to sink her teeth into whatever it was. She'd been trained in investigative journalism from a very early age by her father, one of the best reporters in the business. She could do this story. No, she would do this story.
"Diamonds," he told her after a brief pause that saw him turning back to his computer.
"Diamonds," she repeated. "Someone's using their business to smuggle diamonds?"
"I just sent the file I've begun assembling to your email," he told her as her tablet dinged to let her know she'd gotten mail. "It's got the basic information that the source gave me along with all of his contact info. I want you to get in touch with him, listen to his story the same way I did. Then I want you to do some digging. I want to know what's going on with this company, whether or not you think the accusations are true, and how you think it's happening."
"The diamond smuggling."
"I never said it was smuggling." He shot her a look. "Don't make assumptions. And look, I'm not just having you dig as an exercise. I really don't know if what this guy told me is true. If it is, it's a big damn deal. I just spent the last two hours researching these brothers, and if half of what this guy says turns out to be right, it's going to explode their whole damn lives. These guys have built their whole business on clean diamonds and-"
"Clean diamonds?" she asked, trying to wrap her head around the term. "Meaning not stolen?"
"Clean meaning responsibly sourced."
"Oh, of course. We're talking about conflict diamonds. Blood diamonds."
"Exactly."
"Bijoux." The name came to her easily, thanks to her time in the society pages. Much of San Diego's elite had been buzzing for the past few months about the fact that Marc Durand and his brother had come to town. They were big philanthropists and everyone wanted some of their money to support their pet charities-or themselves, for that matter.
She hadn't met either of the brothers yet. They'd been too busy setting up their business and their foundation to come to any of the galas she'd worked. Or if they had, she'd certainly never run into them. Which might be a good thing considering she was now going to be investigating them.
"Good," Malcolm told her with a satisfied nod.
"They're one of the biggest diamond corporations in the world right now, and you think they've been lying about where they get their diamonds."
"I don't know if they're lying or not, but your job is to figure out if they are. Right now, all I know is that somebody came to me and told me the brothers were pulling a fast one, masquerading as responsible diamond sourcers and then marking up the prices on conflict diamonds to ratchet up profits. I want to know if there's any truth to the story, and if there is, I want to know every single detail about it before we run this story and blow their whole business sky-high. You double-, triple- and quadruple-check this source and every other source you come across. Understand?"
"Absolutely." She opened up the file on her tablet, skimming over the information he'd sent her. Most of it was pretty sketchy, but she'd fix that soon enough. "When's the due date? And how many words do you want on this?"
Malcolm shook his head. "Let's just see how it goes. You find out if this is just some disgruntled ex-employee blowing smoke. If he is, the story goes away."
"And if he isn't?"
"If he isn't, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. It will be a huge story and I'm thinking you'll probably need a partner to write it with you."
"I don't need a partner-" she started, but he held up a hand.
"Look, I know you're good. I know you're ready to show me what you've got. But you're still a rookie reporter and it doesn't matter how good you are, kid. There's no way I'm trusting a story this big to a snot-nosed society reporter."
"You're going to use me for the grunt work and then cut me out." She kept her voice calm when all she really wanted to do was curse. This could be her big break, and he was already talking about taking it away from her.
"I didn't say that. What I said was that I'm going to let you investigate and if you get something, I'm going to let you help write the biggest story of your career to date. If you want to write this story, if you want to see your byline front page above the fold, you need to give me something to work with. Show me what you got."
"Of course." She nodded calmly while inside she was dancing. What he said made sense-and it was fair. She would investigate the hell out of this story, find out everything she could and even find out the angle she wanted to take. Maybe she'd even write the article and present it to him as a fait accompli. Then he would see what she could do and make an informed decision about how to proceed. And if she did this right-if she triple-checked her sources and dotted every i and crossed everything that even looked like a t-then he wouldn't have a choice. He'd have to move her out of the society pages and into news. Or at least into features.
This was what she'd been waiting for. Her big break. The story she'd been dying to tell.
"Got it?" Malcolm asked again.
Oh, she had it. God, did she ever. "Got it," she agreed.
"Good. Then go do your job. And don't forget, this is an extra assignment. You've still got your society-page duties-including that party tomorrow night. I'll cut down on you some, so you've got time to work on this on the clock, but you can't let the rest of your stories suffer for it."
"I won't."
He nodded, looking satisfied. Then, out of nowhere, he gestured wildly toward the door. "So go! Does it look like I've got time to stand around here chatting all damn day?"
"Right. I'm going." She quickly picked up her stuff, headed toward the door. But she stopped right before she crossed the threshold, turning back to look at him. "Thanks for giving me a shot. I won't let you down."