The Tycoon's Marriage Exchange by Elizabeth Lennox Page A

for whatever event she’d be attending with Hector that night.  The few nights he was out of the country were wonderful because she was able to simply fall into bed and sleep until she had to wake up the following morning. 
    Both the investigation and the wedding were finally coming together.  She had some good leads and she was going to have to bring in the police soon , but she wanted more evidence since everything she currently had on the drug shipment sources was hearsay from her contacts .  She worked with her editor to figure out what she needed and when it would be a good time to bring the information to the police, but even he thought she should hold off for now. 
    “In the meantime,” he chuckled one morning several days before the wedding , how about doing an article on the challenges of organizing a wedding?” He tossed her a file folder and Kallista’s face turned red as she looked at her face on the various articles about her upcoming nuptials , her nights out on the town with Hector.  She’d had no idea that she and Hector had been in the news so often lately. 
    “Why have you been collecting all of these?” she asked, noticing that neither she nor Hector looked very happy in the pictures.  It actually tugged at her heart that she was making him so miserable. 
    She pushed her concerns about Hector out of her mind for the moment and looked up at Torrance , her editor.  The man was a little taller than she was with a receding hairline and always looked like he’d slept in his clothes.  She often wondered if the man emulated his dress code from Hollywood movies since he always looked like the gruff, frazzled editors from the silver screen.  “What did you have in mind?”
    “Just the usual fluff piece that you do so well,” he answered, then shifted some files around on his desk.  “And if you want to include how much your wedding will cost, that might be an interesting factoid to include.”
    She was already shaking her head.  “First of all, I don’t know how much everything costs .  I show up for the consultations and point to what I like or what I think Hector would appreciate,” she explained, blushing when her editor looked up at her with a raised eyebrow at the last part of her statement.  “But furthermore, you know how private Hector Christophe is.  I doubt he’d want it known how much his wedding will cost, much less any of the details of the event.”
    He pulled away from shuffling the papers and files on his desk to glare at her.  “So convince him!  Isn’t that your job?  What the hell do I pay you for if not to break the tough guys down and get them talking.” 
    Kallista sighed and shook her head.  “You don’t understand the situation,” she countered.  “This isn’t really a…normal wedding.”  She even hated telling Torrance that much, feeling like she’d just violated Hector’s trust. 
    The silence that greeted her reply forced her eyes to look up and her heart clenched with fear at the bright interest that was now on her editor’s face.  “So what’s so unnormal about this wedding?” he asked, his voice softer, almost coaxing.  He slid his hip onto the side of his desk and looked down at her as she shifted uncomfortably on the plastic covered chair, the only one not filled with stacks of files and older editions of the newspaper the man refused to throw away for some reason. 
    She pulled back and shook her head. “ Torrance , there’s no way you’re going to start interviewing me.”
    He laughed and moved closer.  “So, how did the great and powerful Hector Christophe convince the lovely little lady to marry him?”
    She rolled her eyes at his description, only of herself because Hector really was powerful.  Spooky, scary powerful, she thought.  Not only powerful over his own businesses and financials, but he seemed to have a great deal of power over her as well.  Just one little look or a soft, passing touch and her mind