The Trouble With Love(4)

Friendship.

It had started when he’d clicked with Jake Malone. Jake was one of Alex’s employees, who’d fallen hard and fast for Grace Brighton when the two of them had done a story together.

Then Jake and Grace had introduced him to Julie and Mitchell.

Who’d then introduced him to Riley…

And then Sam had entered the picture, and before he knew what was happening, Alex had found himself part of a group.

One he enjoyed very much. Even if it did mean coming face-to-face on a regular basis with his former fiancée.

He deliberately did not look at Emma when she entered the room.

He only ever looked at her when his guard was down—or when hers was—and neither scenario happened very often.

Instead, he nodded in greeting at Julie, who gave him sassy little smile as she entered the room. Alex didn’t consider himself a smiley sort of guy, but it was hard not to smile at Julie Greene. There was something persistently likable about her.

It didn’t hurt that Julie was gorgeous. Her hair was an intriguing mix of blond and brown, her brown eyes sparkling and friendly.

Hell, for that matter, they were all gorgeous.

Grace Brighton—no, Grace Malone—was all soft curves and class with dark brown hair and hazel eyes.

And it was hard not to take a second look at Riley McKenna, the city’s closest thing to a real-life sex kitten. Tall, with long black hair and a sassy smile, Riley also had a rather exceptional figure, although if Sam Compton ever asked, Alex would swear up and down that he’d never noticed anything but her startling blue eyes.

And then…

And then there was Emma.

Emma, whose every feature he knew by heart, even without glancing at her.

Although not glancing at her was harder than usual today when she was wearing a sexy-as-sin pink dress that was completely unlike Emma’s usually conservative wardrobe.

There was a story there, clearly.

Not that he cared one way or the other. Not much, anyway.

“Stop staring at my girls,” Camille said under her breath.

Alex spun the conference room chair just slightly in the direction of Stiletto’s editor in chief.

“You’ve told them, right?” he asked.

Camille ignored him, continuing to tap out something on her iPad with the awkward, pointer-finger taps of someone only reluctantly familiar with touch screen technology. And touch screen was definitely new to her. Camille Bishop had been in the business longer than he’d been alive and tended to cling to old school methods whenever possible.

“Told them what?” Camille asked innocently. Too innocently.

He gave her a look, which she returned vacantly.

She was wearing big, oversized glasses today. Everything about Camille seemed big. Even though she had a wiry figure, her voice was loud. Her hair was bright. Her personality was…massive.

“No, I haven’t told them,” she hissed. “That’s what this meeting is for.”

He groaned. “Come on, Camille. Not even a heads-up?”

She pursed her lips and ignored him.

Shit.

As in, shit would definitely hit the fan when Camille dropped her little bomb on her team.

“Okay, everyone, let’s get started,” Camille said, standing and waiting until the small talk around the table trickled off. “You’ve probably noticed that there’s an extra dose of testosterone in the room today.”

At least two dozen pairs of eyes snapped to Alex. Half of those eyes had been staring even before Camille had mentioned him. There were nearly thirty people in the room, and there was only one other guy besides Alex.

And from the way the one other guy—Oliver, if he remembered correctly—was giving him the once-over, Alex was fairly sure he was the only man in the room who liked women.

He gave a weak smile at the group, wishing he could be somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Up on his floor, the Oxford guys were probably discussing last night’s game. Instead of joining them, Alex was surrounded by presentation boards covered in everything from lingerie to perfume ads.

He liked to think of himself as a relatively modern man. A little gruff and stoic at times, sure.

But he didn’t grunt and drag women around by their hair, or brand them, or scream at them to make him homemade biscuits every morning. And he liked his nice suits and cologne and high-thread-count sheets. He was evolved.

But Stiletto was too much woman. It was like girly stuff on steroids. It made even the most modern man long for beer and onion rings.

“As most of you know, Alex Cassidy is the editor in chief for Oxford, our sometimes rival, sometimes partner. He’s the man version of me, so to speak.”

God help him.

“Anyway, he’s here because I have an important announcement to make.”

Camille paused dramatically, clearly waiting for someone to beg her for more info. She frowned when everyone merely stared at her, half-bored, half-expectantly.

Alex hid a smile. Clearly the Stiletto editor in chief had cried wolf one too many times. Her team didn’t expect this news to be earth-shattering.

And he supposed it wasn’t. Not really. But it might be to one person in the room.

A person he still refused to look at.

Camille finally snapped when the silence stretched on ten seconds past awkward. “I’m going on a sabbatical,” she said.