Silent Fall

information to herself.
    "Any messages?" he asked.
    "Your father called earlier to confirm that you'll be having dinner with the family on Wednesday evening when they get back from their trip."
    Cole nodded. His parents, along with his aunt and uncle, had spent the past month touring Europe, and he suspected that his father and uncle, who served as chairman of the board and president respectively, were eager to catch up on what was going on with the paper.
    "I told him everything was running smoothly," Monica said. "You also had a message from your cousin Cindy, who..." Monica frowned as she stared down at the message slip in her hand. "I didn't quite understand what she was talking about, but it was something about a book review in last Sunday's paper. She said she'd call back. She seemed quite upset. She muttered something about family loyalty."
    "When she calls back, take a message. I've told her before that I leave the choices of books up to our book editor, and I don't want to get into another discussion about it. What else?"
    "You have a visitor waiting in your office. She insisted," Monica added with a disapproving glint in her eyes. "When are you going to find a nice girl to settle down with?"
    "Gisela is a very nice girl."
    "She's very something. Nice isn't the word I'd use."
    Nice wasn't the word he'd use, either, Cole thought as he entered his office. Hot, stunning, and sexy came to mind. Actually, his mind failed to function when Gisela brushed her well-endowed breasts against his chest and gave him a long, wet kiss.
    "I missed you, baby. Where have you been?" she asked in a little-girl voice that immediately dampened his enthusiasm. Why did women think that kind of talk was sexy?
    "I've been in meetings all day," he replied, stepping away from her.
    "You know what they say about all work and no play. It makes a man very boring." She gave him a flirtatious smile. She really was pretty, he thought, ash blond hair, dark brown eyes, curves in all the right places. He just wished they had more in common outside of the bedroom. Not that he wanted a long-term relationship. He'd given up on that idea years ago.
    "Ask me what I did today," she continued.
    "What did you do today?"
    "I went to a spa in the Napa Valley with Margarita. It was incredible. We had facials and mud baths, and they wrapped our bodies in seaweed..."
    Cole sat down at his desk as Gisela rambled on about her visit to the spa with a fellow lingerie model. He turned on the panel of television monitors that lined the opposite wall and skimmed through the tag lines on each news channel, catching himself up on the latest happenings in the world. Breaking news in war zones had taken on a new dimension in recent years with reporters embedded in battalions and marching into battle along with the soldiers. It was a dangerous but exciting time to be a foreign correspondent.
    "Did you hear what I said?" Gisela asked impatiently.
    "Sorry?" he asked, still distracted as he saw a breaking-news tag flash on the CNN screen. He couldn't quite read the words, but the raging winds and swirling waves suggested a hurricane heading toward the North Carolina coast.
    "Cole, this is ridiculous. You're not listening to me." Gisela slapped the top of his desk with her hand, a small ineffectual tap that would not have dared to chip her red nail polish, but the fact that she'd hit anything at all with those newly painted fingers told him she was truly irritated—which was par for the course. Gisela was a drama queen.
    Every minor annoyance in her life turned into a major problem.
    "What was the matter this time—not enough caviar in the body wrap?" he asked.
    "The problem is you."
    Cole sighed. He'd heard that one before—not just once, either. The comment was usually followed by, You don't spend enough time with me, or I don't feel like we really know each other. To which he often felt like replying, Do we need to know each other? Can't we just have a good time together, a few laughs, a lot of sex, and leave it at that? Not that he would ever actually say that. He knew better than to wave a red flag in front of a bull or an irritated woman.
    Before Gisela could explain exactly why she was upset, there was a knock at his office door, and Josh Somerville entered the room. Josh had a typical California beach boy look: a wiry, lean physique perfect for riding a surfboard, skateboard or any other kind of board, sandy blond hair that was never combed, freckles