Follow Your Heart (Catalina Cove #4) - Brenda Jackson Page 0,90
wanted them not to rush things while she built trust in him and faith in their relationship.
One promising thing was that she had invited him to dinner at her parents’ home this coming Friday night and he felt good about that. He wanted to believe that in time she would fall in love with him as hard and deeply as he knew he loved her.
He glanced up when there was a knock on his office door. “Come in.”
“Mr. Jamison, we have a problem.”
That was the last thing Tanner wanted to hear. “What is it, Hank? Is something wrong with this morning’s delivery?”
“No. It’s reporters. They’re outside. Swarming all over the place. We won’t let them in, but they want to talk to you.”
Tanner lifted an eyebrow. “Reporters? Talk to me about what?”
“They told me to give you this in case you hadn’t seen it yet.” Hank handed him a newspaper, more precisely a tabloid.
Tanner frowned when he saw the picture and read the headline. His frown deepened when he began reading the article. “What the hell! Who authorized this paper to print these lies?” He and Victoria weren’t engaged, nor had they ever been involved. This was an unflattering article about Victoria, meant to defame her character. The Madaris family was not going to like this one damn bit and heads were going to roll.
“So what do you want me to do about those reporters? They’re a pesky bunch,” Hank said.
“I’ll take care of them after I make a few calls.”
Tanner tried calling Victoria. When he couldn’t reach her, he called Blade. “Have you seen the headlines in The Tattler?”
“Yes. Mom called. She saw it in the grocery store.”
“Where is Victoria? I tried calling her,” Tanner said.
“I just talked to Uncle Jake. Thanks to Victoria’s boss, he made sure she got out of the television station by a side door to bypass those reporters. Victoria heard from her friends in Catalina Cove that reporters were there waiting for her to come home. Her boss gave her two weeks off and she decided to go to Texas instead. Uncle Jake’s jet is on its way to New Orleans get her now.”
Tanner nodded. “Reporters are here, as well, but I haven’t spoken to them. I don’t know where they got their story, but it’s all lies. Victoria and I were never involved and she’s free to date anyone she wants.”
“Yes, but obviously the intent was to damage her and RJ’s reputations. Uncle Jake got a call from Alex. He’s mad as hell and is going to trace the story.”
“Good. If anyone can find out who fabricated this lie, Alex can.” Alex Maxwell was married to their cousin Christy and was tenacious as a private investigator. One of the best. He was also a former FBI agent with a skill for finding out anything he wanted to know.
Tanner checked his watch and knew he had to call Lyric. He could just imagine what she would think if she read the article. Mainly, that he was involved with another woman while pursuing her. Damn!
“I need to call Lyric, Blade. I don’t want her to see this garbage and think any of it’s true. Lyric and I decided to begin seeing each other exclusively, and I don’t want anything to mess things up with us.”
“Exclusively? Are you now admitting that you’re falling for her?”
After clicking off the phone, he tried calling Lyric and his call went to voice mail so he left a message. “Lyric, this is Tanner. I need to talk to you. Please call me back when you get this message.”
* * *
ROMAN SNATCHED HIS phone off the table the moment it rang. “Victoria?”
“Yes, Roman, it’s me.”
“Where are you, sweetheart?”
“I’m on my way to the airport. Uncle Jake is sending his jet for me. My boss managed to get me out of the station without any reporters seeing me. He also gave me a couple of weeks off. Hopefully things will calm down by then.”
Roman doubted it. When The Tattler got ahold of a story they thought was hot, they would run it to death. “I’m sorry about this, and I promise to find out who put out all these lies. Not only that, our privacy was violated by the cameraman stalking us and taking photos without our consent.”
“It doesn’t matter, Roman. This is the very thing I was trying to avoid. This is why I can’t become involved with you.”