Lessons Learned

she sat down and made space on the desk. “Now, give me what you have with the Times. ”
    A half hour later, Juliet was just finishing up her last call when Carlo poked his head in the office. Seeing she was on the phone, he rolled his eyes, closed the door and leaned against it. His brow lifted when he spotted the half-eaten roll of antacids.
    “Yes, thank you, Ed, Mr. Franconi will bring all the necessary ingredients and be in the studio at 8:00. Yes.” She laughed, though her foot was tapping out a rhythm on the floor. “It’s absolutely delicious. Guaranteed. See you in two days.”
    When she hung up the receiver, Carlo stepped forward. “You didn’t come to save me.”
    She gave him a long, slow look. “You seemed to be handling the situation without me.”
    He knew the tone, and the expression. Now all he had to do was find the reason for them. Strolling over, he picked up the roll of pills. “You’re much too young to need these.”
    “I’ve never heard that ulcers had an age barrier.”
    His brows drew together as he sat on the edge of the desk. “Juliet, if I believed you had an ulcer, I’d pack you off to my home in Rome and keep you in bed on bland foods for the next month. Now…” He slipped the roll into his pocket. “What problem is there?”
    “Several,” she said briskly as she began to gather up her notes. “But they’re fairly well smoothed out now. We’ll need to go shopping again in Chicago for that chicken dish you’d planned to cook. So, if you’ve finished up here, we can just—”
    “No.” He put a hand on her shoulder and held her in the chair. “We’re not finished. Shopping for chicken in Chicago isn’t what had you reaching for pills. What?”
    The best defense was always ice. Her voice chilled. “Carlo, I’ve been very busy.”
    “You think after two weeks I don’t know you?” Impatient, he gave her a little shake. “You dig in that briefcase for your aspirin or your little mints only when you feel too much pressure. I don’t like to see it.”
    “It comes with the territory.” She tried to shrug off his hand and failed. “Carlo, we’ve got to get to the airport.”
    “We have more than enough time. Tell me what’s wrong.”
    “All right then.” In two sharp moves, she pulled the clipping out of her case and pushed it into his hands.
    “What’s this?” He skimmed it first without really reading it. “One of those little columns about who is seen with whom and what they wear while they’re seen?”
    “More or less.”
    “Ah.” As he began to read from the top, he nodded. “And you were seen with me.”
    Closing her notebook, she slipped it neatly into her briefcase. Twice she reminded herself that losing her temper would accomplish nothing. “As your publicist, that could hardly be avoided.”
    Because he’d come to expect logic from her, he only nodded again. “But you feel this intimates something else.”
    “It says something else,” she tossed back. “Something that isn’t true.”
    “It calls you my traveling companion.” He glanced up, knowing that wouldn’t sit well with her. “It’s perhaps not the full story, but not untrue. Does it upset you to be known as my companion?”
    She didn’t want him to be reasonable. She had no intention of emulating him. “When companion takes on this shade of meaning, it isn’t professional or innocent. I’m not here to have my name linked with you this way, Carlo.”
    “In what way, Juliet?”
    “It gives my name and goes on to say that I’m never out of arm’s length, that I guard you as though you were my own personal property. And that you—”
    “That I kiss your hand in public restaurants as though I couldn’t wait for privacy,” Carlo read at a glance. “So? What difference does it make what it says here?”
    She dragged both hands through her hair. “Carlo, I’m here,with you, to do a job. This clipping came through my office, through my supervisor. Don’t you know something like this could ruin my credibility?”
    “No,” he said simply enough. “This is no more than gossip. Your supervisor, he’s upset by this?”
    She laughed, but it had little to do with humor. “No, actually, it seems he’s decided it’s just fine. Good for your image.”
    “Well, then?”
    “I don’t want to be good for your image,” she threw back with such passion, it shocked both of them. “I won’t be one of the dozens of names and faces linked with you.”
    “So,” he