how to work his subject.
“It must’ve been hard,” he said, voice soft.
She stared at her tea. The creamy shade of brown reflected everything she’d hidden from all her life. The color of mixed skin that never quite belonged, a tint that had set her apart from family and community.
“What’s hard?” she asked.
“Coming back to find Gilbert, seeing he’s changed from the energetic, positive man you used to know.”
Gilbert. Because of his plea to return to Saunders for this hearing—and her great need to make up for all the disappointment she’d caused him—Rachel had seen him in person for the first time in months. Usually, they caught up with each other over the phone, but that hadn’t prepared her for the light that had gone out of his gaze, the wrinkles that had invaded his once-firm skin. But what hurt the most was seeing those proud shoulders slumped under the weight of all these heinous accusations. He’d been protecting so much, she thought, especially when it came to the biggest secret of all—his status as an anonymous benefactor who’d helped so many students during their worst days. Only one of the few who knew about this, Rachel was straining to stay silent, to make Gilbert believe that she and most of her other friends didn’t know about this bombshell.
Now, Rachel nodded to Ian, unable to deny the shock of Gilbert’s recently degraded appearance, the sadness of her friends who also loved the professor.
“Yes,” she said, voice choked, “it was hard seeing him this way. But that’s why we’re back, to bring him around again. Just like he did for us.”
“And just like someone else did,” Ian added.
Rachel froze while he eased out his notepad.
She should’ve seen this coming, but she wasn’t as good as this pro. He’d definitely been doing his research.
“Rumor has it,” he said, “that there’s been an anonymous benefactor who’s helped select students on campus for many years at their moment of greatest need. And guess what?” Ian offered her yet another cocky grin.
She stared straight ahead, giving nothing away.
“Those students just happen to include most of your friends,” Ian added. “Any comment?”
Chapter Two
Even the next morning, as Ian strolled over one of the manicured lawns that covered the Saunders campus, he couldn’t believe he’d been so blunt with Rachel James.
Kid gloves, he reminded himself. This particular woman required a little more finesse than most.
When he’d busted right out with that benefactor query, he’d been going for the shock effect, the pure second of truth in an interviewee’s eyes as he or she absorbed the question. Rachel hadn’t been any different than the other countless subjects Ian had ambushed for a story—it was just that her unguarded reaction had gotten to him this time. She had bent his heart as if it were heated steel, reshaping it until his pulse had finally cooled hours later.
It bothered him to be treating Rachel James like another cog in the wheel of his career, and this shocked Ian, a man who wasn’t so used to regret.
In fact, her reaction had caused him to really look at himself in the mirror this morning…and he didn’t like what had peered back at him: a man with the flint of self-loathing in his gaze.
Maybe he just felt bad about the way she’d left the little Thai restaurant without another word to him, slipping on her knit cap and walking out of the place with a dignity Ian could only wish for. Or maybe he was getting soft in his skills, just as his new editor had muttered last week.
Remorse. Emotional second-guessing. Hell, his job didn’t allow him those sorts of perks. Nope. His profession—damn, that was sure a noble word for digging up crud and slinging it over a page just to make a buck—demanded that he chase Rachel down again.
Yet, frankly, he had the sneaking suspicion that she knew something about the “mysterious benefactor” of Saunders University, so he had every reason to pursue the matter, anyway.
A looming clock tower struck eight times, the bells ringing through the cool air. Ian fixed his gaze on Lumley Hall, the maple-shrouded red-brick building where Professor Gilbert Harrison’s hearing would be held. Students wearing scarves and nosy frowns were loitering outside, and Ian’s reporter sense prodded him to ask a few questions, just to establish the tone for today’s proceedings.
Were these kids here to support the professor? Or did they, like the administration, have an ax to grind?
Somehow Ian doubted they did, based on the information he’d gotten so far. Everyone seemed to love Gilbert Harrison—except for the old stodgies in charge.
While passing one of many bike racks that dotted the campus, Ian scanned the crowds again, locking in on a single person who stood outside of the hall.
Rachel James, the one-time queen of the campus.
Although she was clearly included in a cluster of friends, she was standing on the fringes, arms crossed over a long, camel-colored coat that had seen better days. Her black hair fell to her shoulders in a cloud of rough curls, and she had a wool scarf wrapped over the bottom half of her face, hiding the full lips Ian had entertained more than a few wicked thoughts about.
He took a couple of seconds to appreciate her, this serene woman who obviously had so much more going on beneath the surface than she would reveal. He could tell by the troubled depths of her almond-shaped brown eyes, by the way they often reflected a level of sadness that he wanted to understand.
Damn, he thought, ambling closer to her. It was all pretty interesting, this new side he was discovering about himself. He didn’t really stick around women long enough to develop anything beyond the superficial warmth of a morning-after glow, not that his job allowed him to do more than that, anyway. Still, he always seemed to find willing-enough partners who understood what they were both getting into.
Would a woman like Rachel James…?
What? Agree to eat local cuisine, drink some wine and come back to his hotel every night until he checked out and moved on to the next assignment, the next affair? Not likely. Not someone sweet and earthy like her.
It didn’t matter, though. She was only a misguided tickle to his sex drive, encouraged by any number of things: the slam-in-the-gut rush of the first time he’d identified his beautiful source on campus and talked with her, going beyond their all business phone conversations. The willingness she’d shown to talk to him further—albeit secretly—even though her friends weren’t nearly so accommodating. The way she watched him—as if she expected more of him than muckraking.
How could one assessing look from her make him reevaluate the growing compromises of his job, the sleazy need to uncover scandal, the negativity that his editor emphasized more every week?
Wiping away a twinge of guilt that was recurring far too much lately, Ian boldly approached Rachel, donning his give-me-some-info facade once again: the persuasive smile, the relaxed frame of his body.
“Morning,” he said, nodding at her, then at all her friends.
They gave him an assessing glance, said
