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name of your gossip columnist.”
    A nervous bubble of laughter floated up from Georgia’s midsection. She clamped down on it and stared at her hands. She’d forgotten to take off her mauve polish, and it clashed with the fuchsia emergency cardigan.
    “Ms. Whitcomb?”
    Her chin shot up, and adrenaline flooded her midsection. She was fifteen and back in Madame Beaufort’s French history class. Except Peter, even coldly livid, was by far a sexier alternative.
    “Yes?”
    “Do you have a name for me?”
    Memories of the madame paralyzed her brain, but not her mouth. “Gigi Montrose.”
    Sid gasped. Not a single employee would’ve uttered the name she’d just given. Even if they had known the truth. Professionals one and all, they wouldn’t reveal someone who gave information, or who wrote factually, on the condition of anonymity.
    Peter’s protracted silence made Georgia look away.
    “You’re telling me Gigi Montrose is your gossip columnist?”
    “No. I mean, I think my friend Gigi knows her name.” Words tumbled from her tongue, bypassing her brain. Sid’s sigh buoyed Georgia’s confidence, and she continued, the nasal stress she put on her vowels forcing her to speak with deliberation. Normally she supposed she sounded mostly American. At the moment she needed to be certain she sounded nothing at all like her alter ego. “Gigi might be a…go-between?”
    Technically, the last part wasn’t a lie. A shadow fell across Georgia’s face. Peter laid his palms on the conference table and captured her eyes. Her gaze never wavered as he stared her down.
    “Really?” His lips mesmerized her, and she almost didn’t register the sardonic warning in his question.
    “Really what?” Georgia whispered as images of passionate kisses in this man’s arms shorted out her senses. Despite what she knew about him—had witnessed him doing—it had been all she could do to shut him down the night he’d attempted to speak with her. And now…now she wished she hadn’t.
    “Really, you expect me to believe that you and all of your colleagues, including the woman I just purchased this business from, have no idea who has been writing your most successful column?” He leaned in closer until she felt the heat rolling off his torso through the wool of her sweater. “The column that kept this long-dead paper on life support six months longer than it should have been sustained?”
    “Mrs. Templeton sold you the paper?” Her voice went so high she choked, then gasped, “But—”
    “Hey,” Sid cooed in mock sympathy. “I know you’ll miss her, but Mr. Wells has some great ideas. And you do want to see the paper turned around, right, Georgia?”
    She gaped at them both.
    “Six months.” Peter straightened and swung his gaze to Sid. “Like I said before Ms. Whitcomb arrived, in that time I’ll help you all build a real news organization.”
    Georgia sucked air in through her nostrils. She’d begged for two years to be allowed to implement a number of changes to increase circulation, but Mrs. Templeton never wanted to take the chances the ideas involved. Who was this man that he thought he could walk in here and take over her dreams? As if he had a right to own them?
    Pacing at the front of the room, Peter withdrew a silver pen from his pocket and toyed with it between his index fingers. “Before your tardy entrance, I made your coworkers an offer. I’ll repeat that offer for you. In six months, if I’ve done as I promised and turned this place into a going concern, someone here will give me the name of the person who wrote this”—he jabbed the pen in the direction of a newspaper lying open on the table—“so-called article.”
    A vein in Georgia’s temple jumped. The silence grew strained as Peter leaned on his palms at the head of the table, the dark slash of his brows riding low over his eyes. She jutted her chin, unable to avoid stabbing him with her mutinous glare.
    “And if no one comes