Susan glanced up quizzically, assessing the determined expression on Melissa’s face. She obviously came to the right conclusion.

“Do it,” she begged with a grin. “Oh, please do it.”

Melissa’s heart upped its rhythm. She swallowed hard, trying not to think about the career-limiting consequences of failure. If she promised the interview and didn’t deliver, she’d be in more trouble than Brandon.

Still, as Brandon yanked Seth’s door open, she tamped down her fear and made her move.

Her colleagues’ gazes hit her from all sides as she made a beeline for the editor’s office. Some probably guessed her plan. Others would be simply shocked to see her approaching Seth before he had a chance to calm down. His tirades were legendary. They normally sent the staff scurrying for cover.

Brandon peeled off to the right, studiously avoiding eye contact with anyone.

Melissa rapped on the still-open door. “Seth?”

“What?” he barked, without looking up, rustling through a pile of papers on his cluttered desk.

She took a couple of steps into the office, clicking the door shut behind her.

His round face was flushed all the way to his receding hairline. There was a sheen of sweat above his bushy brows. His white shirt was rumpled, sleeves rolled up. And his tie was loose and dangling in two sections over his protruding belly.

“I can get you the interview,” she stated outright, standing tall, her three-inch pumps giving her a slight height advantage. “What interview?”

“The Jared Ryder interview.”

“No. You can’t.”

“I can,” she insisted, voice firm with the confidence she’d learned facing down five older brothers. “I will. What’s the deadline?”

“Ryder left Chicago this morning.”

“No problem. Where’d he go?”

Seth glared at her without answering.