Any Way You Want Me Read online

  PROLOGUE

  Riggs: You wanna get married, don'tcha?

  Lorna: Yes I do.

  Riggs: Why didn't you tell me?

  Lorna: Because I didn't want to put any pressure on you, Riggs. I mean, if you want to someday, that'd be great; if you don't, I love you. I'll take you any way I can get you, Riggs.

  Kiley slipped the last few kernels of popcorn into her mouth and sighed. She'd watched that scene from Lethal Weapon 4 at least a hundred times. It was one of her all-time favorites between a man and a woman in a movie. It was so pure, so sincere. Kylie's heart melted.

  Why aren't women free to love a man like that? she thought. Enough to say I'll take you any way you want me.

  "Because it's dumb," she could hear her best friend Katrina say.

  "Because you'll live to regret it," she could hear her mother say.

  "Because you give your power away," she could hear all the love gurus in books, magazines, on TV and the internet howl.

  "You are hopeless Kylie Andrews. Your friends are right … you're an absolutely, positively hopeless romantic," she laughed to herself. "And proud of it!" she said out loud.

  . . .

  "You know what your problem is?" Gatlin bit out. "You're too damn naïve. Not everything is a bed of roses, Kylie. Life is not all butterflies and sunshine."

  "And do you know what your problem is?" Kylie shot back. "You're too damn jaded. You wouldn't know what happiness was if it jumped up and bit you in the ass," she continued.

  "You're content being miserable — and I'm just going to leave you to that because it has no place in my world of butterflies and sunshine," she ended, snatching up her jacket and purse and storming past Gatlin.

  His arm snaked out and grabbed her. Crushing her to him, he found her lips and wouldn't let go.

  "Let go … of … me," Kylie bit out as she fought against her rising tide of passion.

  Gatlin's heat-seeking tongue melted her last bit of resistance. Kylie dropped her jacket and purse and dug into his thick, dark hair.

  Oh God I love him so, she thought as she returned his kiss.

  Her resistance melted, Gatlin slowed his assault on her mouth, moving to the golden column of her neck. He continued his trail of desire, unbuttoning her blouse and taking one enflamed peak of nipple into his warm mouth.

  "No, no, no … stop. Stop Gatlin," her words slowly penetrated his aroused state.

  "This doesn't solve anything," she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. It's never been our problem … and it won't be our salvation."

  Shaking off his desire to focus as best as he could, Gatlin responded, "It's a damn good place to start," and reached for her again.

  "Gatlin stop!" Kylie yelled. "Don’t you see? This is just another way for you to not deal with your real feelings. … I'm looking for real, lasting, soul-connecting love; not some casual fuck!"

  "You know you're not some casual … you mean more to me than just a roll in the hay," Gatlin said, not able to bring himself to use the "f" word in relation to her. "I really care about you Kylie."

  "I love you Gatlin. Hopelessly, desperately, completely. And I know it's not something a modern woman is supposed to say so early in a relationship. But there it is. And I don't expect you to do anything or say anything. I just wanted you to know where I'm coming from."

  "You see, in my world, love is not complicated. Difficult at times? Yes. But hard? No. It's not some pot-holed filled road to be navigated for miles and miles and miles on end. You're absolutely right, I do believe in butterflies and sunshine. I believe in love — and I won't let anybody make me feel bad about that or take that dream away from me."

  "And the thing is, I know you love me Gatlin, or you're on the verge of it. But you just won't let yourself trust that what we could have is real. And I refuse to spend my life trying to prove it to you or make you believe it. Life is just too short for that."

  . . .

  "I believe in love — and I won't let anybody take that dream away from me."

  Kylie's words reverberated over and over again in Gatlin's head as he lay in bed that night … and as he interviewed yet another perp for a story, as he turned up the police scanner to listen to the latest horrific crime to happen in New York.

  Had he become so jaded by his work that he'd forgotten that butterflies and sunshine did exist, as evidenced by this gorgeous spring day New Yorkers were currently enjoying? Or was there something deeper going on?

  . . .

  "Stop it. Stop hitting my mom!" Gatlin yelled, jumping in front of his mother to prevent his father from landing another blow.

  "This is between your mother and me boy! Move outta the way," his father said in his drunken slur.

  "Gatlin, go to your room. It's okay, honey. Mama's ok."

  "No you're not okay. You're not mom. I'm not leaving you," Gatlin cried, his seven-year-old voice cracking with fear as he did his best to drag his mom from the room.

  As his father's fist prepared to land on his mother again, Gatlin kicked his father in the groin. He doubled over in pain, shouting, "You miserable little piece of shit! I'll kill you for this! I'll kill you, do you hear me! I'll kill you!"

  Gatlin's mother ran to his father's side. "Honey are you alright? Are you alright?" she said, wiping blood from the side of her lip with one hand while she consoled his father, who continued to writhe in pain on the floor, with the other.

  . . .

  Gatlin had mentally catalogued hundreds of these types of memories from his childhood. But this particular one stuck with him more vividly than the others. And he wasn't sure why until Kylie had said to him, "I believe in love — and I won't let anybody take that dream away from me."

  When his mother had gone to his father to comfort him, instead of coming to him as a frightened, desperate 7-year-old, he realized the power that love had. His mother had loved his father beyond all rhyme and reason — even beyond her child, he thought.

  He didn't realize it, but that had been the moment he'd stopped believing in love. Love hurt. It was cruel. It wasn't kind. It wasn't loyal, or it was loyal to the wrong people.

  Sitting on a bench in Central Park on this sunny spring day, a butterfly landed close to him, providing a much-needed break from his tortured past. It flapped its colorful wings slowly back and forth, as if it was content to just enjoy the warmth of the sunshine.

  Gatlin stared at it. He'd never observed a butterfly before … ever. Just like he'd never seen and felt real love before. Ever.

  I can't lose her, he thought. I just can't.

  The butterfly took flight as he stood to leave.

  . . .

  Can Kylie trust that what's between them will blossom into real, everlasting love, or will Gatlin's painful past always be a barrier to their happily ever after?

  ###

  Chapter 1: That's Him!

  "That's him. That's the one I was telling you about, Katrina."

  "He's the crime reporter?" Katrina responded to her friend. "He's yummy. I can see why you fan yourself when you say his name. Even it's sexy as hell … Gatlin … Gatlin Matthews. I betcha he is a son-of-a-gun — in more ways than one," Katrina continued, going into dreamboat mode with Kylie as she did a word play on Gatlin's name.

  "Why don't you ask him out? You've been mooning over him for how long now?" Katrina queried.

  "He got hired a couple of years ago if I remember correctly. But when I first saw him, I was seeing someone. Then, I didn't see him for months; I heard through the grapevine that he had a girlfriend too."

  "But as far as I know, now he's a free agent. I don't see him that often and when I do, he always seems so pre-occupied. Besides, I'm not one to make the first move," Kylie said.

  "Oh that
's so old-fashioned," Katrina chided her. "If you like him, ask him out. Besides you said you two don’t see each other that much. Are you going to spend the next two years mooning over him?"

  "I don't care what anybody says, I think a boy should ask a girl out first …"

  Katrina interrupted her friend, saying, "That's your problem right there. You're acting like a teenager. You're right, a boy should ask a girl out first. But it's perfectly acceptable for a grown woman who knows what she wants to ask a man out."

  "Touché," Kylie said. "I've never thought about it quite like that. I'm a southern girl; ah, excuse me, woman — and the way I was raised is females don't ask males out."

  "Kylie Andrews, you mean to tell me that you've never, ever asked a man out on a date?" Katrina said, incredulously.

  "No." Kylie responded. "Truly."

  "And how old are you again?"

  "I'm 29," Kylie said.

  "I guess some women have it like that, because from what I see you definitely don’t lack from male attention. … Hell, maybe I should be taking advice from you instead of the other way around," Katrina laughed.

  Kylie joined in her laughter and replied, "You've given me something to think about though. I've had a thing for this guy ever since I first laid eyes on him. And I'm not getting any younger," she grinned. "Maybe I should pop my 'ask a guy out' virgin cherry on Mr. Gatlin Matthews."

  "Now that a girl! Er, excuse me, I mean woman!" Katrina said. "Come on. Let's get to this meeting. You know how Larry pitches a hissy fit when anybody's late."

  "Oh God yes," Kylie agreed, putting her daydreams about Gatlin Matthews on pause.

  The two women walked down the hall to the monthly meeting all reporters on staff at The City News, a popular online newspaper in New York City, were required to attend.

  Kylie was the entertainment reporter. Katrina reported the business news and Gatlin was a crime reporter. There was also an op-ed writer, an arts and culture journalist, a sports writer, a political reporter, and a fashion editor/blogger in addition to other professionals you'd expect to find at a growing, online news outlet, eg, a weather person, copy editor, proofreader, videographer, social media consultant, managing editor, etc.

  If not for these monthly meetings, the whole staff would never be present at one time, as the reporters in particular spread out to the nether regions of the New York City metropolitan area to research, interview, fact check and track down leads for existing and upcoming stories they were working on.

  Kylie loved her job. She'd always been an entertainment junkie and had known since high school that she wanted to pursue a career in journalism. She had had her heart set on being an entertainment reporter and nothing had stood in her way.

  She'd graduated from high school in her hometown of Athens, Georgia, a small town just over an hour outside of Atlanta, and applied to NYU school of journalism.

  Her parents had been proud when she'd been accepted, even though they'd hoped that she'd attend the University of Georgia, which was right in Athens and would keep their baby girl home — or at least close to it.

  Also, they were unable to help her with the exorbitant cost of the out-of-state, Ivy-league school tuition. If she'd stayed in Georgia, she could have qualified for quite a bit of state aid as a resident.

  None of this phased Kylie. She'd always known that New York City was the place for her, even though she'd never stepped foot in the city until she got accepted to NYU and came to live in the dorms.

  To pay tuition, she'd had taken out student loans and grants, and applied for every scholarship she even thought she qualified for. She'd worked two — sometimes three jobs in the summer — to make ends meet in expensive New York City while she was in school.

  Upon graduation, she was more than $100,000 in student loan debt, but had never been happier. An internship in her third year at university had turned into a full-time job offer upon graduation, at this very paper where she now worked.

  Although the initial pay wasn't great, it wasn't horrible either. And now, seven years later, she was turning into a kind of Barbara Walters of the news outlet — landing interviews with big-name celebrities, which were picked up and ran by the larger news outlets from New York to LA.

  Several well-known newspapers and television affiliates had tried to lure her away from The City News, but her gut had told her to stay put. And Kylie had learned as a young girl to listen to her gut. Her father had ingrained this in her when she'd almost been bitten by a rattlesnake when she was 10.

  She was picking blackberries near a clump of bushes one day in her parent's large back yard. Something had told her not to go near a particular bush, but she'd disobeyed the instinct. Listening to music on her iPod, she hadn't heard the rattle of the deadly serpent and had nearly got bitten.

  When she'd told her father what had happened, he'd hugged her and said, "Let that be a lesson Kylie Marie — always listen to your gut."

  From that day forward, the lesson had been cemented. It was the same gut instinct that had pushed her to pursue journalism, to specialize in entertainment and to come to New York City.

  At 29, Kylie's gut had never led her wrong, so it was second nature to her to trust it, just like her daddy had told her to.

  . . .

  "Kylie, I want you to take the entertainment lead on this," her managing editor was saying. "And Gatlin, you cover the crime angle, of course. And I want you all to leave right now. This is a major, young star who just died — and we need to get ahead on this."

  "Work your sources, see if you can find out what's behind the spin her PR machine is already putting on this. And don't hoard your territory on this one. Collaborate with each other; share notes, sources, whatever you can. I want every angle of this thing covered 90 ways to none because my gut tells me that there is something that's not being told. And, I want our readers to be the first to know what it is. Go! Go! Go!" Larry said, shooing them out of the meeting.

  . . .

  "Since you're the entertainment reporter, what can you tell me about Anna Maria Bocelli," Gatlin said on the way in the cab to the apartment building where the young movie star had been found dead a few hours earlier.

  "Well, other than the obvious …"

  "Start with the obvious," he said a bit wryly. "I don't know anything about her other than the last movie she did. And the only reason I know that is because the writer who adapted it for the screen happens to be someone I know rather well."

  "Oh," Kylie said. "Well, she was 27. She started out as a model, then dated a super-agent who turned her into a superstar. She made her mark as comedic actress; you know, playing dumb-blonde types. But this last part as an addict in that drama had Hollywood rethinking her. Apparently, it wasn't too much of a stretch from real life."

  "Some speculate that the newfound fame caught her off guard, and she went back to her old friend — cocaine. She'd just completed a short stint in an intensive rehab clinic in Switzerland. Of course, her people spun it, saying her time away was a much-needed vacation she was taking before considering her next role."

  "And then of course, there was the abusive ex that she was apparently obsessed with. The current boyfriend is a cover. Word is, he's on the down low, so they both get something out of staying together. She gets to keep her reputation as a wholesome, on-the-rise, young thespian intact, and he gets to stay in the closet."

  "You seem to know an awful lot that's off the record about her," Gatlin remarked.

  "Well, it's kinda my job," Kylie said.

  "You're damn good at it," Gatlin responded, quite impressed. As a crime reporter, he'd never given entertainment reporting a second thought. But to get the 'inside' goods on a company, person, subject — especially rich and/or famous ones — wasn't easy, he knew.

  "You'd be surprised at what isn't reported on the rich and famous, even in this day and age of video phones and the internet," Kylie said. "And thank you very much for the compliment."

  There was much more to this t
his entertainment reporter than meets the eye, Gatlin thought.

  "I know we each know who the other is, of course, but I don’t think we've ever been formally introduced. … I'm Gatlin, Gatlin Matthews," he said, extending his hand as the cab turned onto a street which was a mish-mashed mob of police, photographers, security and emergency workers.

  "I'm Kylie. Kylie Andrews. Pleased to finally, formally meet you Mr. Matthews," she smiled with a hint of her southern drawl.

  Man, how had he ever missed that smile and her accent, which caught him off guard.

  "Gatlin, call me Gatlin please."

  "And you must call me Kylie," she said, her smile becoming even wider.

  "Well, Kylie, are you ready for the mayhem? I'm sure you can teach me a thing or two about dealing with paparazzi. In my line of reporting, I rarely have to deal with them," he said, surveying the crush they were going to have to navigate to start on their respective stories.