freak” was Joanna’s first response.
Kit quirked her mouth into a smile, belying the nervous tremor in her stomach. “Okay, now that I know it’s freakworthy, what’s going on?”
“I think the magazine’s been sold.”
“What?”
“It’s just what I heard. I could be wrong.”
How could this happen without her knowing something was up in advance? “Who bought it?”
Joanna shrugged. “Some idiot who wants a century-old monthly that’s hopelessly outdated and losing readers by the score every day, I guess.”
It was a fair assessment, Kit knew. The once venerable publication had become so desperate for readers that it offered subscriptions for the cost of postage. Every time she’d suggested to Ebbit that maybe they should become a little more contemporary, he gave her a lecture on tradition.
Lucy came up next to Kit, her small, tanned face tight with worry. “They sold the magazine? What’s going to happen to us?”
“Hang on—we don’t know anything yet,” Kit said, trying to inject reason. “As far as we know, this is just a regular editorial meeting.”
In her gut she knew it wasn’t.
The door opened and a tall, slick-looking man with dark hair, light eyes, a square jaw and a suit that probably cost almost as much as her monthly salary walked in.
Everyone made their way to their seats around the conference table and turned to face Ebbit at the head of the table like obedient schoolchildren.
He stood behind his chair rather than sitting down. “As you all know,” he began, clutching and unclutching the back of the chair with gnarled hands. “I have been working for Home Life for over fifty years. I began in the mail room and worked my way slowly but surely to where I am now.” He glanced at the man with him. “Or, that is, where I was until today.”
This was not good.
Ebbit mustered a smile. “Home Life has been sold, along with her sister publications, to the Monahan Group. If the name sounds familiar to you, it’s because they own and operate such publications as Sports World, Kidz and Celeb Dish magazines.” He looked at the man with him. “With the new management comes a new direction for all of us. As of today, I am entering into that wonderful state called retirement.” His voice wavered over the word retirement. “I plan to do a lot of fishing and gardening and generally get on Connie’s nerves.”
There was a small wave of polite laughter in the room.
“Anyhoo,” Ebbit said in his wrapping-it-up voice, “this is Cal Panagos.” He gestured toward the man. “Cal is the former editor of Sports World. Now he’s the new executive editor of Home Life.”
Ebbit stepped aside, and Cal Panagos stepped behind the chair as if it was a grand podium. “Thanks for the welcome,” he said, giving Ebbit a stiff but technically courteous nod. His bearing was positively regal. His looks were as strikingly sultry as one of the Calvin Klein underwear models who routinely looked over Times Square with long-lashed bedroom eyes. But it was his air of confidence that struck Kit the most.
He set his expensive-looking leather briefcase on the table and opened it up. “I know this is a surprise to many of you.”
Kit’s stomach turned over. Her heart pounded as if a boxer was caught in her rib cage. This couldn’t be happening. Yet it was.
She was losing her house.
Cal continued. “Personally I’m excited about the challenge this presents.”
Kit noticed he tensed his jaw for a moment. It was a gesture that hardened the planes of his face and made him look even more manly.
“My plan is to start this magazine over from the ground up, and I’m bringing in my own people for the task, so…” His expensively clad shoulders rose a fraction of an inch, then dropped. “I thank you for your years of service to Home Life and, if you’ll make your way to Ebbit’s former office, you’ll find your severance packages waiting for you.”
The room responded with silence. No gasps, no objections.
“I believe you’ll find the terms generous,” Cal finished. “Thanks for your time and your service to the magazine.” He gave a brief—and Kit thought insincere—smile.
And with that he turned and left the room.
Chapter Three
This was not happening. It couldn’t be happening. Surely God, Thor, Zeus and the rest of the Divine Justice League weren’t so ticked about Kit’s minor sins of the past—an overdue library book here, a little white lie about a man’s prowess in bed there— that they’d let this happen.
Now of all times!
Well, she just couldn’t let this happen. She didn’t know how she was going to stop it, but she had to.
She remembered her own words to Johnny—was it just this afternoon? You can’t walk away every time a bully tries to take something from you.
She couldn’t walk away. She couldn’t just let this guy pull her job out from under her. But how on earth could she stay? She’d been fired, for Pete’s sake!
She watched, numb, as her friends and colleagues collected thick manila envelopes from a makeshift desk manned by a glossy-haired buxom brunette Kit had never seen before.
“Are you really going to take this without a fight?” Kit asked Lila Harper, author of a sewing column that had, perhaps, contained a few too many crocheted sweater-vests.
“The man said he doesn’t need us anymore. No sense in fighting. Plus, I don’t need the work, dear,” Lila Harper said, patting Kit’s shoulder with a thin paper-white hand.
No, of course she didn’t. Neither did half the people here. They all either had other careers, well-paid spouses or retirement pensions. All the other staff members were in their twenties with no dependents or urgent considerations. For one ugly moment Kit felt as if she was the only one who really cared about keeping this job, the only one who needed it.
She continued to watch in disbelief as several of her other coworkers took their envelopes one by one and left as if they’d won some kind of prize. A slip-knot tightened in her stomach. It was over. She’d lost a battle without even realizing she was fighting.
Her house.
The little yard.
The school one block away.
The community pool with two diving boards.
All of it gone. Unless she could pull off some kind of miracle with this unapproachable man who seemed to have ice water running through his veins.
“Can you believe this?” Kathleen Browning asked, interrupting Kit’s thoughts.
Kit looked at her and was gratified to see that the copy editor looked unhappy about the turn of events.
