“Sure you are. This is perfect for us. An American heiress on the gold carpet . . . Everyone will be talking about it. Then we run an exclusive with a major recluse, a star the world wants to know more about, interviewed bytheCorina Del Rey.” Gigi shivered and sighed. “Brilliant. I’m ecstatic with myself.”
“Gigi!” A few of the staff lifted their heads above their computer monitors as Corina’s call rocketed through the bull pen, “Send a stringer.” She dropped her tone. “It’s a movie premier. An interview. Clive is a sucker for any gorgeous face. Send . . . I don’t know . . . He’s going to probably be a no-show anyway.”
“He’ll show. I’m sending you. Why would I send anyone else but you, darling? A stunning, wealthy, intelligent woman. A Del Rey, the South’s answer to the Kennedys. I dare say you’re as much an interest to the world as Clive.”
“I’m nobody, Gigi.” Corina glanced toward Mark, who waited for her with his arms crossed, leaning against the door frame. “Why are you doing this?”
Did the woman know something? Did she see Stephen this weekend? Or perhaps one of her spies? Corina suspected Jones from the night security desk was an informant of some kind, and he had seen her with Stephen in the parking lot last week. But Corina had been careful. She felt sure she’d not given Stephen away. Could the roses have tipped her off?
Surely if Gigi had any kind of a story on a royal like Prince Stephen, she would’ve run it on the front page of the SundayPost, the newspaper’s only online and print edition.
Corina assumed her weekend secret remained safe. Yet this sudden go-to-Cathedral-City rattled her. Raised her suspicions.
“It’s a royal invitation and I’m sending my A team. Live a little, Corina. Take an adventure. Remember what kind of life you had before your brother died.”
“That life is over, Gigi. All that remains is lifeafterCarlos died.”
“Well then, start carving out your destiny. Goodness girl, don’t confine yourself to a life of insignificance.”
“Excuse me? What did you say?”
“I said carve out your destiny.”
“No, after . . .”
“Don’t confine yourself to a life of insignificance. Make Carlos proud. Do something. This?” She flagged her hand toward the corners of the building. “A baby step for you. Now, don’t keep Mark waiting.”
But Corina couldn’t move. Gigi’s words, so off-the-cuff and flippant, nailed her to where she stood. Corina’s heart cracked open a little bit further. She was uncomfortable with an internal trembling.
“Do I have a say in this, Gigi?” Mark called, finally engaging the conversation.
“Not really.”
With a shrug, Mark turned into his office. Oh sure, he was exactly what thePostneeded. A weak-bellied Gigi Beaumont pawn. He’d be no help in this fight.
“Darling, what are you thinking on so hard?” Gigi waved her hand in the air. “I can almost smell the smoke. It’s a simple decision. Yes. Tell you what—you can stay at The Wellington. On me.”
“The Wellington?” Cathedral City’s luxury hotel. Corina’s family had stayed there when they visited Brighton in the summers.
“Corina,” Mark said from the far corner, exerting what little backbone he possessed, “any day now.”
She made her way to his office, trying to figure out how she could get out of this outlandish assignment. Surely she’d run into someone from the royal family at the premier. Maybe Stephen himself. Then what?
Besides, how was going to a movie premier and conducting an interview with a long-in-the-tooth actor living a life of significance?
Just as she crossed into Mark’s office, the peaceful voice from the chapel, from church yesterday, moved across her heart.
Love well.
The simple communication aroused all sorts of ponderings. She still didn’t know exactly what it meant. Love well? Love who? Love how?
Shaking off the residue of the divine whisper, she set up at the conference table, preparing to show Mark, again, how thePostonline assignment board worked. But he was on his phone now, so she paced over to his window, which faced the road and the community beside thePostbuilding.
Across U.S. 1 was a Catholic church with a cross perched on the highest point of the pitched roof. The midmorning sun highlighted the icon, sending a long shadow of the cross over the four-lane road. The shadow also fell through Mark’s window and across his floor.
When Corina glanced down, the cross also covered her. Shivering, she stepped back. How was that possible? The church was sixty, seventy yards away.
Backing toward the conference table, she felt light and swirly. She steadied herself with her hand on the table.
