7 Days and 7 Nights Read Free Page A

woman’s greatest obstacle to happiness in five words or less, and she’d made headlines by doing it in one. “Men,” she’d said.
    Then she’d rethought her answer and added the word “sex.” Those two subjects, and her willingness to tackle them on the air, had sent her ratings soaring.
    Olivia had no intention of being railroaded into making a remark she’d regret. Nor did she intend to let Matt Ransom destroy her again—personally or professionally. If she kept her head, she could come out of this interview with her dignity intact and maybe even an advantage in the coming battle.
    â€œNo comment, Dr. Moore?”
    Olivia set her napkin on the table and pushed her plate gently away. She met the wolf’s eyes and raised a queenly eyebrow in return, speaking clearly and calmly for the benefit of the small tape recorder sitting on the table between them.
    â€œWhile I have great respect for Mr. Ransom’s show— what little I’ve heard of it—if he ever decides to tackle weightier subjects like real life and relationships, I might be able to help him out.”
    The wolf’s fangs disappeared into a pleased smile. He stopped eating, picked up his notepad, and started scribbling.
    Olivia knew when to make an exit. Slipping her purse over her shoulder, she thanked her host for lunch, slid her chair back from the table, and stood. Pausing with her hands on the back of the chair, she nodded toward the notebook and tape recorder and flashed her best smile. “I do hope you’ll feel free to quote me on that.”
    â€œThis is
Guy Talk
, where a guy can be a guy. And it’s 11 P.M. on a Freefall Friday, which means no topic and no rules. Give me a call at 1-555-GUY-TALK. I
always
have an opinion. It’s a guy thing.”
    Switching his microphone off, Matt Ransom leaned back in his chair, put his long legs up on the table in front of him, and clasped his hands behind his head to wait out the five-minute commercial break. With just an hour to go before midnight, the station was close to empty, which made it just the way he liked it.
    Two minutes later, he tossed a Nerf ball at the basketball hoop duct-taped to the wall and smiled when it swished through. He shot the next one left-handed, the one after that with his eyes closed.
    Satisfied, he reached for the mug of lukewarm coffee more from force of habit than from a need for caffeine. He was a night owl, always had been, and preferred working late, when things were looser and less structured.
    At one minute until air, he made a few notes about a topic for next Monday’s show and let his thoughts wander to the previous night’s program. He’d begun by posing the question, “Why can’t men and women share a TV remote?” planning to segue into a discussion of the elemental differences between males and females, a topic custom-made for his particular brand of humor.
    Instead, the show had digressed into a trashing of couples’ counseling, which had led to another caller’s caustic evaluation of therapy in general, which had ultimately led to the topic of WTLK’s very own Dr. Olivia Moore.
    Even he, who normally had no problem following the flow, had been a little surprised at how quickly her name had come up and how strongly his callers, mostly male, felt about her. In loud voices they objected to her pro-female stance and the male bashing that often accompanied it, but they couldn’t seem to stop talking about her.
    He was fairly certain he wasn’t the one responsible for bringing up Olivia’s sex life, or the imagined lack of one. But once the subject was raised, he’d had a devil of a time getting off it. He winced as he remembered the jokes and innuendo.
    Almost as bad as his callers’ fixation with the earnest Dr. Moore was the way they kept trying to get him to rehash and counter her advice. Hell, even if he had the least bit of respect for or