Diamonds and Dreams (12 page)

“Yes.”

“Sorry,
I don’t wish to talk about her.”
 
He
offered no explanation or apology.

Feeling
rejected, Lindsay was too proud to ask more questions.
 
Undoubtedly Brant knew she wanted him to
provide her with a reason, but he didn’t offer to make excuses or give her more
details, so she didn’t pry.
 
Maybe being a one-woman man is too difficult
of a task for Brant,
she thought sarcastically.

“Anyway,
I’m glad you called,” he changed the subject.
 
“There’s something you need to know and I thought it would be easier if
you heard it from me first.
 
Desi
contacted me earlier today.
 
He said I took the lead in the first round of
the contest.”

Aware
that he studied her face to measure her response, she forced herself to appear
noncommittal.
 
“Congratulations.
 
Don’t get too comfortable with the job yet.
 
You may be in the lead now, but it could be
only temporarily.”

“I
realize that.
 
You’re tough competition,
I admit.”

Does he
mean it or is he trying to butter me up so I’ll be vulnerable?
she
wondered.
 
Hearing
his next confession further boggled her thoughts.

“The
brief time I spent away from you made me realize how empty my personal life is
if you’re not part of it.
 
I don’t want
to lose you, Lindsay.”

“But
you still need to date another woman?”

“Even
if you see or hear about me being out with other women, please trust me when I
say I prefer being with you.”

“You
could have been with me, but you chose to go out with someone else.”

“It’s
more complicated than that.
 
I really
can’t explain.”

The
waitress brought their check, so Brant was spared having to continue.
 
Lindsay sighed.
 
How could he act as if it were normal for him
to date other women besides her and still have the right to expect her to trust
him?
 
Deep inside her heart, she feared
that she could never adjust to his contemporary lifestyle.
 
As long as these were the circumstances, how
could they ever maintain a permanent relationship?
 
Feeling as if their love was hopeless, she
sighed dejectedly as she left the pizza parlor with Brant.

Driving
her home in his Jaguar, he said, “We’ll start the second round of the contest
on Monday.
 
This contest is extremely
important to me, but you should know that my position at WBKB means little
compared to the way I feel about you.”

Then why
hasn’t he dropped out of the contest?
she
wondered,
still not knowing whether she should follow her heart and trust him or listen
to her mind shouting, “Beware!”

Through
sheer determination and working long, exhausting hours of overtime, Lindsay was
pleased when she won the second phase of the contest.
 
Now she waited to hear the final results
which
Desi
would announce soon.

CHAPTER
NINE

A
week later, Brant paused at Lindsay’s desk and declared, “This is it!
 
Desi
wants us in
his office.
 
He’s ready to announce the
winner of the contest.”

She
drew a deep breath and headed down the hall.
 
Seeing
Desi
look at her, then Brant, squarely
in the face, she was unable to discern from his expression
who
won or lost.
 
Sitting down, she stirred
uneasily in her chair.

“The
results were close,”
Desi
began, “but Brant is the
winner.”

A heaviness
centered in her chest, but she quickly
regained her composure.
 
The possibility
of becoming the loser, of being unemployed, remained with her all along, but
that knowledge still didn’t prevent her from feeling a sense of shock.
 
She was vaguely aware of
Desi’s
words as Brant tried to pretend he didn’t study her face for a hint of her
emotions.

“Lindsay,
I hope you realize that this in no way indicates that you haven’t done a
marvelous job for WBKB.
 
We’re sorry to
lose you, Lindsay.”

You’re
not losing me,
she thought bitterly,
but firing me and all because of this stupid ratings war!
“I’m sorry you’re disappointed, Lindsay, but I don’t think you will be for
long.
 
Just be patient,” Brant advised
her sympathetically.
 
“New opportunities
will arise.”

I lost
my job because of you.
 
Is that all you
can say?
she
wanted to scream.
 
There was a cool tone in his voice that made her wonder if he sincerely
cared about her predicament.
 
He behaved
now like he did when they first met, when he treated her casually, acting as if
he looked upon her with a slightly superior attitude.
 
Why did she believe Brant changed?
 
Simply because she hoped he would?

Lindsay
politely excused herself and went to clean out her desk.
 
Within an hour after she received the contest
results,
Desi
approached her.
 
“Don’t finish packing.
 
If you want your old job back, you’ve got
it.”

“But
I thought--”

Desi
didn’t wait for her to finish.
 
“Brant just informed me that he received a
better offer from WQXL, my mortal enemy.
 
I can’t match their offer, so he’s decided to work for them.
 
I should’ve stuck with you, Lindsay, and
never forced you into the contest.
 
I’m
sorry.
 
If I’d known Brant was just an
opportunist, using WBKB to further his career goals…”

“Can
you really call him an ‘opportunist
?’
 
He probably reacted as any guy would if he
were offered a chance to better himself.
 
If you were in Brant’s situation, wouldn’t you have been constantly
alert for enticing new offers?”

“I’m
surprised you’re defending him.”

Frankly,
so was she.
 
The strange turn of events
left her befuddled.
 
Did Brant stay in
the contest only to win and obtain more bargaining power at WBKB’s rival
station?
 
Remembering past conversations
with him, she realized suddenly that he hinted of a better offer and didn’t
care much anymore about his position at WBKB.
 
At the time, she assumed he tried to intimidate her because of the
contest.

A
little later, Brant passed by her to discuss final details with
Desi
and Lindsay remained at her desk.
 
Alone with her thoughts, she wondered why
Brant hadn’t confided in her and told her the whole story about his job offer
at WQXL.
 
She recalled how he recognized
Mike MacDonald of WQXL when she hadn’t even known what the man looked like
after listening to him on the radio for three years.
 
Remembering that Brant mentioned meeting him
prior to the time he accepted a job at WBKB, she realized that WQXL must have
been Brant’s first choice from the beginning.
 
Since he knew he’d probably leave WBKB eventually, why did he agree to compete
against her?
 
Did he feel it was
necessary to prove he was the best disc jockey to satisfy his ego?

Or did
he want to humiliate me because when we first met, he didn’t want to work with
a partner any more than I did?
 
An hour passed.
 
There’s only one way to find the answers,
she thought.

Searching
for Brant, she found him downstairs in the lobby and approached him.
 
He tried to avoid answering her questions by
saying, “You’re probably upset with me, Lindsay, but I have a lot on my mind
right now.
 
At the moment, I’m too busy
to discuss anything with you.”

“But
I want answers, Brant!
 
Now!
 
Did WQXL’s offer to you come out of the blue,
or did you know they might hire you?”

“I
knew there was a possibility; that’s all.”

“And
you didn’t ever think about mentioning it to me?”

“Is
it necessary for me to report every detail of my professional life to you?” his
sharp voice lashed at her.

“I
would’ve thought you might have wanted to share it with me.”

“If
you don’t mind, I really don’t feel like talking now.
 
Desi
already told
me how displeased he is with me.
 
Nevertheless, I expected you to be thrilled that I’m leaving.
 
You didn’t want to give up your job, and now
you don’t have to.
 
Excuse me, but I’d
like to be out of here before I have to muddle through another confrontation
with
Desi
.
 
I’ll call you in a few days.”

Watching
him leave, she almost yelled, “Don’t bother.
 
We have little left to say to each other,” but her instincts told her to
let him have time to adjust and cool down after the heated exchange she felt
certain he’d been engaged in with
Desi
.
 
She feared their close friendship reached an
end, but she wanted to do everything possible to assure that they remained
friends.

The
next morning
Serita
arrived while Lindsay, still in
her pale green cotton nightgown, cleaned up the living room.
 
“I heard the results of the contest, so I
came over to take you out for breakfast in case you need cheering up,”
Serita
told her.
 
“Get dressed.
 
I’ll wait for you.”

“I
still have my job,” she called as she slipped on a pair of white pants and an
aqua cotton blouse.

“Good.
 
For
awhile
I was
afraid you might be too stubborn to accept your job again and
Desi
would hire someone else to take Brant’s place at
WBKB.”

At
the pancake house Lindsay swallowed her orange juice.
 
“How’d you hear about the winner of the
contest?”

“An
announcement came out in this morning’s paper.
 
Didn’t you see it?”

“No.
 
I hadn’t been awake long before you arrived.”

“Maybe
you should take a look at the paper.
 
There’s an accompanying photo of Brant Diamond with the new female station
manager.”

“The
press already knows about Brant leaving WBKB?”

“Yes,
but that’s not all I want to tell you.
 
I
recognize his new station manager’s face.
 
She’s the woman that was with Brant when I saw him at the restaurant
earlier.”

“Their
dinner must have been a business meeting.”
 
Why didn’t he simply tell her this instead of letting her believe he
dated another woman?
 
Could it be
possible that part of the reason he accepted the job at WQXL was because he
might be fond of the station manager?

“What’s
likely to happen with you and Brant now?”
Serita’s
question took her by surprise.
 
“With
your personal relationship, that is.”

“I
don’t know,” Lindsay said sadly.
 
“For
awhile
he convinced me that he wasn’t trying to have an
easy fling with me, that he really cared for me.”

“Now
you have doubts?”

“He
treated me so coolly after the contest that I don’t know what to believe.
 
It could be that he felt guilty and irritable
after he and
Desi
exchanged harsh words and I picked
a bad time to approach him.”

“Try
to talk with him again.”

“No.
 
I took the first step in trying to save our
relationship.
 
If we’re going to continue
as a couple, Brant needs to make the next move.”

Serita
shook her head and chuckled, prompting
Lindsay to ask, “What’s so funny?”

“I
never thought I’d see you so rattled.
 
Of
all the people I know, you were always the one who had the most carefully
planned life.
 
Now you act as if you
don’t know which direction you should turn next.
 
Never under-estimate the powerful effects of
falling in love.”

“You’re
right.
 
My life was well-arranged until
Brant walked into it.”