CHAPTER 15

Totally frustrated and a bit bewildered, Chris eyed Dianna as she sat across from him—as far away from him as she could get—at the big, round table and quietly ate. Damn, it just broke his heart to look at that black eye of hers. And yet, could this be more awkward? Dianna was very subdued, would hardly look at him or talk to him. But maybe that was because they weren’t alone in the surprisingly modern and well-equipped break room on the second floor of Popping the Question.

To Chris’s right sat the giddy Melanie O’Hara, who was full of talk of Harold-this and Harold-that. Whoever the hell Harold was. What had happened to the Japanese dentist? But if Melanie was happy … hey, okay. She was the only one who was, though. On Melanie’s other side sat Paula, who alternately ate and sent him withering glares. On Chris’s left was Mrs. Windhorst, who acted as if she’d been recently dipped in a cesspool. And across the table, isolated from them all by an empty chair to either side of her, sat Dianna.

It’d been a hell of a morning with Veronica, and now it looked like it would be a hell of an afternoon with Dianna. Damn. Chris exhaled and concentrated on his lunch, which was beginning to taste like ashes.

“This is very good food, Mr. Adams,” Mrs. Windhorst said, breaking into Melanie’s long-running Harold harangue. “Thank you for bringing it to us. How nice of you.”

Grateful for the innocuous opening that had nothing to do with black eyes or computers or Harold, Chris smiled at her. “You’re welcome. Glad you’re enjoying it. It’s from the French Quarter.” He looked at Dianna, who only briefly met his eyes. “I owed your boss a meal from there.”

“That’s not all you owe her, Buck-o.”

“Paula. Please.”

Chris looked from Paula to Dianna. Obviously she’d told her employee something, at least, of what had happened yesterday. While he certainly didn’t begrudge Dianna a confidante, Chris figured the last thing he needed was Paula on a warpath with his name on it. He didn’t think he’d like to see his scalp hanging from her belt.

“Oh, the French Quarter,” Mrs. Windhorst said a bit loudly. “I’ve never been there. I’ve heard it’s a bit pricey.”

Chris turned to Mrs. Windhorst. “It can be, I guess. But it’s worth it. You ought to go sometime. I eat there a lot because it’s in the lobby of the building where I live. And I don’t cook.”

“Could have used some snails,” Paula threw in, moving her crepes around on her plate. “I like snails. Or escargots, I should say, at these prices.”

“‘Escargots’ is snails?” Melanie looked a little green. “I didn’t know that.”

Ignoring her comment, Chris looked over her to Paula. “Sorry about the snails, Paula. Or the escargots. I’ll remember for next time.”

She captured and held his attention—not hard to do since she held a knife fisted in her hand. “There’re a lot of things you need to remember for the next time, mister.”

“Paula,” Dianna warned. “Please. That’s quite enough.”

And that was when Chris had had enough of this tension and innuendo. He flopped his paper napkin on the table beside his plate and pushed his chair back, standing. The women all stopped eating and watched him. “Dianna, do you think I could speak with you in private, please?”

“Of course.” She mimicked his actions … napkin, chair, standing. “Please,” she said to her employees. “Take your time. Enjoy.” Then to Chris, she said, “Shall we?” and gestured toward the open door to the break room.

“We shall.”

Then, much like soldiers marching in lockstep, Chris followed Dianna out of the door and down a short hall that led toward the front of the Victorian house. The old wood floors creaked and groaned under their weight. Chris had no idea where Dianna was leading him, but he knew he’d follow her anywhere. And right now, all he wanted was to be alone with her. At the end of the hall was a landing that had three doors set around it. Probably what had originally been bedrooms. Dianna turned left into one.

To Chris’s surprise, it was a pleasantly furnished sitting room done in earth tones and with the look of Ethan Allen about it. Clean lines, high quality, restful colors. Select pieces of furniture. Very comfortable and tasteful. Despite everything not said between him and Dianna, Chris led off with: “Hey, I like this room. Now, this is more like it.”

Dianna turned to him, looking surprised and maybe pleased despite herself. “Really? I did this myself.”

At least she was talking to him. “Nice. So all that Victorian stuff downstairs isn’t you?”

“No. Hardly. I couldn’t live with that clutter. That’s just for effect. I think I told you that.” Looking suddenly thoughtful, she swept the room with her gaze. “I like it in here the best of all the rooms. I come up here sometimes when things downstairs get to be too much for me, or if I just need a different perspective.”

“We can all use that sometimes.” Now that he was alone with her, and neither one of them had sat down, Chris didn’t know quite where to begin. Or maybe he did. “Dianna?”

She settled her gaze on him. That swollen black eye blotched with makeup tore at Chris’s heart and made him ache for her. After a moment, she said: “Yes?”

Chris fisted his hands against the urge to pull her into his embrace and hold her close and kiss her forehead and protect her from the world. Her manner and her expression were too forbidding at the moment to allow for such an intimacy, so he kept his distance. “What’s wrong? I mean with you today. With us. Me and you. I don’t know what’s going on. You’re not acting like yourself.”

“Well, Chris, for one thing I have the great-grandfather of all black eyes right now and it’s giving me a killer headache, you know. Talking hurts. Smiling hurts. Chewing hurts. And there’s no yelling allowed. I found that out.”

“Who were you yelling at?”

“Melanie, mostly.” She settled herself on the plump cushions of the window seat that overlooked the busy road outside.

Her positioning left Chris no choice but to stand in front of her and cross his arms over his chest. “I can’t imagine having to yell at Melanie.”

“I know. It’s like kicking a puppy. But I did—yell, not kick. Anyway, she thought she was going to resign over Harold.”

“And who is this Harold? What happened to her dentist?”

“He’s Harold.”

“Well, that explains that.”

“Yeah. Harold Yakahama. Who knew? And then there was Mrs. Windhorst before her who was going to resign over computers.”

“Ouch. That’s where I come in, right?”

“I guess. I mean, I don’t know.” Dianna lowered her gaze to her lap. She crossed her legs and picked at something on her tan slacks. “The deal was you couldn’t start all that until you were engaged or married.”

“I remember. But you didn’t say to who.”

Dianna raised her head to look into his eyes. Chris saw the question in them. “Dianna, Veronica is no longer a part of my life. She’s cleaned out and gone.”

Dianna blinked her one eye. The other one was swollen closed. “Oh. I’m sorry.”

Chris shrugged. “I’m not. And I’d think you’d know that.”

“I don’t really know much of anything, Chris. Not when it comes to us. It’s hard for me to even think there is an us.”

“And yet I’m hoping there is.” She was pulling away. A highly motivated impulse had Chris stepping over to Dianna where he squatted on his haunches in front of her. He took her hands in his, feeling their warmth and smallness, and raised his head so he could see her face. “I’m sorry about your eye, kiddo. That was a shitty thing Ronnie did. I had no idea she was capable of such an act. Or even that she’d go for you like that. If anybody is at fault here, it’s me.”

“How so? You were struggling to get into your pants.”

“No kidding I was. Totally off balance, one foot in, one foot out, when she jumps on the bed right on top of you. I didn’t think I’d ever see anything like that outside a pro wrestling ring.”

Dianna shrugged, looking brave and bruised. “Still, you did okay. You did some tag-team stuff. You pulled her off me and made her back off. And, you know, I even understand her. She was defending her territory, her man.”

Chris snorted his opinion of that. “Her pride is more like it.”

“Maybe.” Dianna’s mouth turned down at the corners. “I’m pretty mad at myself for not putting up a better fight, though. I mean, I have two older brothers, remember, one of them a cop who’s taught me some moves. She wouldn’t have got me with that sucker punch if I hadn’t been so, well, naked.”

Chris chuckled. “It’s okay, champ. You don’t have to beat anybody up for me to be proud of you. Besides, what could you do, tangled up like that in the sheet with a crazy woman on top of you? Damn.”

Dianna shrugged and looked at his hands holding hers. “Chris, I am so embarrassed. And mortified. I have never been involved in something like this. I can’t believe I have a black eye. I had to change an appointment set for today with Edward. Ohmigod, if he saw this? And Tommy? Please.”

“I figure they’d come after me. And I’d deserve every bit of it, too, for not taking better care of their baby sister. So what did you tell everybody had happened?”

She quirked her mouth. “I told them I walked into a wall. Original, huh? But not Paula. She was too quick for me. She knows.”

“I gathered that at lunch.”

Dianna raised her head and nodded at him. “If I were you I wouldn’t turn my back on her for a while.”

“Duly noted.” Reluctantly, Chris let go of Dianna’s hands and stood up. He stepped to one side of her and looked out the window without actually focusing on the view. He hooked his thumbs in his jeans’ front pockets and shifted his weight to one leg. Here we go. Might as well find out now as later. “So, what do we do from here, Dianna? I wouldn’t have to be a genius to see that you’re maybe having some second thoughts or regrets.”

“No, Chris, I’m not. Not really.”

His heart lurched. “Not really? Now, there’s a ringing endorsement.”

“I’m sorry. It’s all I can do right now. My face hurts. And I’m embarrassed. And confused. And I’m having to lie and duck people. And I guess I’m mad at me and some at you. But most of all, I feel so bad for you—”

“Me? Why?”

“Seriously? You just had a four-year relationship break up.”

“It was dead long before you came on the scene, Dianna. And I’m not unhappy about it being over, so why are you?”

“I guess I’m just waiting for reaction to settle in.”

“Reaction?”

“Chris, no matter what else you say, we both know you cared enough about Veronica Alexander—Ouch.” She cupped her hand to her face. “Just saying her name makes my face throb. Anyway, we both know you were prepared to ask her to marry you.”

“Yeah, but not for the right reason. I think it was more of a test of my own feelings for her, to see if I could or would. I pretty much knew all along that she would say no.”

“And yet she didn’t.”

“Yeah, how about that? But it turns out I essentially took it back, didn’t I? Ring and all.”

“She gave you the ring back?”

“Threw it back at me is more like it. I’ve already returned it to the jeweler.”

“So, was this morning pretty unpleasant for you?”

“No. A root canal is pretty unpleasant. This morning was a bitch.”

“Yikes. What happened?”

Chris eyed Dianna, suddenly knowing the rightness of this crazy thing that had just popped into his head. It was like this sudden big blazing revelation. Like seeing the aurora borealis. “Before I tell you, can I ask you something?”

Dianna shrugged and looked taken aback. “Sure. I guess. What is it?”

Chris didn’t move from where he stood. “Will you marry me, Dianna?”

*   *   *

Hers was a totally autonomic response. Dianna smacked Chris’s rock-hard thigh, hurting only her hand, and cried out, “No, you big jerk. What is wrong with you, Chris? You can’t ask me to marry you.”

“Why can’t I?” He gripped her by her arms and pulled her to her feet. “I want to marry you, Dianna.”

“Chris, this is insane. Do you just do this—go around asking women to marry you?”

“No. You’re the only woman I’ve ever asked to marry me.”

“And Veronica would be…?”

“I didn’t ask her.”

“You were going to.”

“Maybe. I’m not sure if I actually would have. No, that’s not true. In the end, I wasn’t going to ask her.”

“Still. You can’t just ask me the same day you blow her off.”

“If only it had been that easy. But why can’t I ask you? This isn’t as spur of the moment as it sounds. I’ve thought a lot about it lately. And I know what I feel for you.”

“No you don’t. How can you?” Overwhelmed and weak-kneed with surprise and emotion, Dianna wasn’t sure her legs would hold her up if Chris let go of her. “Chris, I’m telling you that you can’t just walk into my place of business and disrupt my whole life and say you want to ask some other woman to marry you and then come on to me and have me over to your place and then have a big fight with your girlfriend and make love to me and she beats me up and then you bring your fine French food here and want to work with us to put computers in and then ask me to marry you, Chris. No. You can’t do that.”

“Again, I say: why not? I’m not convinced yet.”

Dianna stomped her foot. “Chris, I could just do I-don’t-know-what to you. I really could. You big jerk.”

“You’ve said that before.”

“And I mean it. No. This is all wrong. All wrong.”

“Oh, that’s right. The down-on-one-knee thing.” He let go of Dianna and started to drop to one knee.

“No! Don’t!” She tried desperately yet futilely to stop him. Too late. The man was on one knee in front of her. She was so mad at him she could have pushed him over—and thought seriously about doing just that.

Chris took her hand in his and repeated his question. “Dianna, will you—Wait. What’s your middle name?”

“Joan. But that’s not relevant—”

“Dianna Joan West, I am down on one knee in front of you. Will you marry me?”

“God, no.”

“Why not? What’s wrong this time?”

“Chris, if you knew how much like Lenny Daschowitz you are right now, you’d be insulted.”

“I already am, just hearing his name in the same sentence with mine.”

“I swear to God, get up.”

“I can’t. Swear to God.”

“Don’t be funny. I’m serious.”

“So am I. I can’t get up because you haven’t answered me yet.”

Dianna tsked her impatience. “I did, too. I said no. Now, get up.”

“You’re turning me down?”

“Twice. I already did.”

“You better think about it. I won’t ask again. I’m serious.”

Dianna looked down at the man on bended knee in front of her. He was magnificent. She met those dark, melting-chocolate eyes of his and saw earnestness and raw emotion in them. He was serious. So why was she saying no to him? He was everything she’d ever wanted. She knew somewhere in her heart that if he were a poor beggar, she’d live happily with him in that cardboard box under a bridge that she’d suggested to Lenny for him and Olivia. But this wasn’t right. Not like this. It was too quick. Too soon.

And he’d never said he loved her. And she wasn’t sure if she would believe him if he did. Only a few days ago he’d thought he loved another woman. And what was the rush on his part? Did he just not know how to be alone? She couldn’t help thinking about his own mother’s suspicions regarding him and cheating, and Veronica’s, too. Well, okay, they’d both been right, but she certainly couldn’t judge him because—how well she bore the mark of this—she was the other woman he’d been with. All she could think, and maybe unfairly, was if he’d do that to Veronica, wouldn’t he do it to her, too?

“Okay, Dianna, honey, maybe I wasn’t specific enough. When I said think about it, I meant today, while we’re young. I don’t mean to rush you but, see, I’ve counted to one hundred, and my whole leg is going to sleep.”

Dianna closed her eyes … well, her eye. Tears wanted to squeeze out past her eyelids. Her heart was breaking, if only he knew it. She opened her eyes, looked down at him, and cupped his strong, smoothly shaven cheek and jaw. “Chris, my answer hasn’t changed. I’m sorry. It’s still no. You might think you’re serious and that you know your heart right now, but I just don’t see how you can.”

His expression suddenly haggard, like someone had let the air out of him, Chris nodded slowly and then rested his forehead against her hand. To Dianna, they resembled a picture she’d seen of a young queen bestowing a knighthood on a handsome courtier. She fought hard not to complete that picture by resting her other hand on his black hair. This was killing her, this rejecting him. She knew this man’s moves, his particular masculine scent, the sounds he made in bed, the way he laughed, what his temper was like. She knew what he liked to drink, how he lived, where he lived. But she didn’t know his heart—not really, not where she was concerned.

“All right,” Chris said into the quiet that had settled over them. He let go of her hand and smoothly rose to his feet, though he did stomp his foot and wiggle his leg, thus verifying that it had gone to sleep. “Can’t be much more clear than that.”

Dianna put a hand out to touch him but pulled it back. “I’m sorry, Chris.”

“No. Don’t be. You were right to say no.”

“I was? Why?”

“For all the reasons you said. But don’t expect me to stand here and tell you even more reasons why you should reject me. And even though you didn’t ask, my decision—the one I wouldn’t tell you last evening—was to tell Veronica, no matter her decision, that I didn’t want to marry her. Not that it matters now, but I just wanted that said.”

Dianna lowered her gaze away from his. “I’m so sorry, Chris. It’s not that I don’t care. I do. I really do—”

“Dianna. Stop before you get to the part where you think of me as a friend and nothing more—”

“I wasn’t going to say that. Besides, that’s my line. And my life.”

“Only because you want it to be.”

“That’s not fair.”

“All right, maybe it isn’t. I’m sorry. Anyway, we might have a bigger problem.” Clearly upset now, his jaw set in a rigid line, Chris moved away from her, pacing around the room and rubbing his forehead.

Dianna’s heart sank. “A bigger problem? Such as…?”

He stopped and turned to face her. “Veronica is talking lawsuit.”

The word sent a cold chill, like a knife’s blade, down Dianna’s spine. She sat down abruptly on the window seat cushions behind her. “A lawsuit? What’d she do—hurt her hand when she hit me?”

Chris’s chuckle was fatalistic. “That’s good. But no. Much more serious charges. Alienation of affection, fraud, and anything else she can come up with on short notice.”

“This is awful, Chris. Just awful. What am I going to do?”

“Look, I don’t want you to worry about it right now. I don’t think she’ll really go through with it. She’s just pissed. Doing that ‘woman scorned’ thing. I think, in time, she’ll settle down and get over it. I sure as hell gave her plenty of reasons why she didn’t want to go down that road—”

“Okay, stop. That’s enough for now.” Dianna felt certain her throat was closing. “Chris, this cannot be happening. Why is all this happening? I’m a nice person. I try to do the right thing. I mean, sure, yesterday evening was wrong—”

“Don’t say that.” Again, Chris hunkered down in front of Dianna, on his haunches, balancing his weight on the balls of his feet. “Please don’t say what we did was wrong.” He took her hands in his, rubbing them with his thumbs. “Dianna, being with you, even though it ended like it did, was the most right thing that I’ve ever done. Don’t tell me I’m alone in this.”

Completely overwrought, afraid she was going to lose it, Dianna shook her head. “You’re not, Chris. I’m sorry. I’m just such a mess today. Yesterday, what we had, what happened between us—pre-Veronica—was beautiful, Chris. In and of itself, it was. But that’s as far as I can go with it in my head right now. It’s everything else that’s wrong.”

Tears welled up, and she began to cry.

“Oh, no, honey, don’t.” Chris immediately gathered her into his arms, holding her, kissing her uninjured cheek, her hair, rubbing her back. “Come on, baby, don’t cry. You’re breaking my heart. We can beat this thing, OK? We can. I’ll talk to Ronnie and get her to drop everything.”

“No,” Dianna sobbed, angry and adamant, her voice muffled with her face pressed to his shoulder. “I don’t want you around her. She’s mean and evil and I hate her.”

Chris made a surprised chuckling sound. “Okay, bad idea. I don’t have to do that. We’ll just wait and see what happens.”

“No we won’t. I’m going to kick her ass. I hate her.”

“Point taken. Don’t blame you for feeling that way. But I don’t think that would be a good thing—”

“Chris, I want to go home.”

“You want to go home?”

Dianna nodded. She hadn’t realized she was going to say that, but now that she had, she knew that was exactly what she needed to do. She raised her head and clutched at his arm. “Will you just take me home, please? I can’t be here today. I can’t. Look at me—I’m falling apart. I’m talking about kicking a lawyer’s ass, for God’s sake. And everyone except Paula wanted to quit today. And I can’t even let my family see me. I can’t talk to clients. I don’t care if they want to get married or not. And then you come here and ask me to marry you. And how stupid am I? I say no.”

Dianna stopped and stared at Chris for a long moment. Then, solemnly, she said, “You have to take me home. I don’t even think I can drive.”

“Of course I’ll take you home. You shouldn’t have come in today, anyway.” He stood up, helping Dianna do the same. “Come on, I’ll take you right now.”

“First I have to tell Mrs. Windhorst and Paula and Melanie. They’ll have to cover things for me today.”

“Sure. Whatever you want to do. I’m all yours.”

“Don’t say that, please.” Dianna distractedly rubbed her forehead. “Will you stay with me, Chris? I’m sorry to ask you and I’m usually stronger than this, but will you please just stay with me? If only for a while? I feel as though I need someone with me who knows everything that’s gone on, so I don’t have to explain myself—”

“Hey. You don’t even have to ask, Dianna.” Chris pulled her to him and held her tightly, kissing her forehead. “Of course I’ll stay with you. For as long as you want me.”