CHAPTER 3

“Oh, honey. ‘The word,’ boyfriend,” Dianna said aloud, sounding bold yet breathy. All sexy and alluring.

Of course, her come-on would have been much more effective if she’d said it about six hours ago when the man was still around. But no, here she was at home alone on a Friday night in her condo. Nothing new there. And she was not happy with herself. That wasn’t new, either. “Talk about your delayed reactions,” she fussed, punching an innocent sofa cushion. “The perfect and obvious comeback, right? But did I say that? No.”

Dianna puckered her expression. “God, I suck.” This hung in the air a moment before she added: “And apparently I talk out loud to myself, too, like crazy Aunt Minerva, who is about three hundred miles down the road to Nuthood. The woman thinks she’s Cleopatra. Why do all crazy women think they’re some queen? How come they never think they’re the handmaiden or the laundress?”

As if waiting for her tasteful yet decidedly inanimate furniture to answer, Dianna glared at it. Only a stubborn silence met her question. “Fine. And yet I’m still talking out loud to myself.”

Sighing, she sank down into the cushions of her couch and thought about how the rest of the afternoon had gone. So there they’d been, she and Chris … and just as he’d told her to say the word, his pants had beeped. On the line had been Ms. Prosecuting Attorney for the State. So Chris had pretty much handed the signed contract back to her and left, telling her he had to go and he’d call her tomorrow for a follow-up appointment. In her mind, Dianna again heard her own response, all chirpy like a bird. Okay. Talk to you then. No problem.

Problem: Tomorrow was Saturday. She didn’t work on Saturday. Neither did Mr. Filthy Stinking Rich, she’d just bet. So he’d probably spoken off the cuff, and she’d have to wait until Monday to talk to him again. Darn. Could she wait that long? Of course she could. She had to, if for no other reason than to prove to herself that she could. Feeling frustrated, Dianna ran her fingers through her hair, brushing it back around her shoulders. Maybe her gesture would wash that man right out of her hair. She whimpered, wanting to cry. This attraction she felt for Chris Adams was so not healthy, either emotionally or business-wise, and for the same reason: He was taken. His heart belonged to another woman.

Dianna narrowed her eyes. There is always another woman. He was probably with her right now. Someplace romantic. And look where I am. Frozen pizza, popcorn, and the boob tube. Yippee. Another wild Friday night at home. So she hadn’t got to interview Chris Adams or talk to him about his ideas for music and flowers and such. But he had certainly interviewed her. She knew hardly anything at all about him, except for the short answers in a neat script that he’d supplied to the questions on the form. But he, without any printed questionnaire at all, knew almost all the basics about her.

She looked down at herself in disgust. Basically, here I am, veged out in shorts and a too-big T-shirt. Curled up at one end of her comfy sofa, Dianna dipped her hand into the plastic bowl in her lap and pinched up a little wad of popcorn. She got it about halfway to her open mouth before her next dreamy thought had her hand pausing in midair.

Chris Adams. She stared straight ahead, looking at but not really seeing the framed art print hanging on the wall opposite the sofa and above the TV. So, what did she know about Chris Adams? He was gorgeous. Rich. Single. Dianna grimaced at the final irony here: It was her job to help him relinquish that single status. Could it be worse? she wondered. She didn’t see how. She was so attracted to the man. And yet too much that was important to her—business reputation, a sense of honor, integrity, and the fact that her parents had sunk their retirement fund in her business as a statement of trust in her, to name a few—would be lost, never to be recovered, if she acted on what she felt.

“Oh, God,” she all but whimpered, shaking her head and knowing she couldn’t live with herself if she betrayed her family, her ethics, and also her employees by doing the very thing she’d warned them against. Her next thought had her laughing at herself. “Oh, hell, look at me. I’ve already got myself in bed with Chris Adams. Who says he wants to go to bed with me?” Insulted now, Dianna’s expression puckered in her own defense. “Why wouldn’t he want to go to bed with me? What’s wrong with me?

“Only everything, apparently,” she assured herself, finally popping the corn into her mouth. Chewing absently, she focused on the TV screen—only to suddenly realize that the movie couple was in bed and seriously embracing. Dianna took it personally. “Is this a freakin’ conspiracy, or what?”

She grabbed up and tossed a handful of popcorn at the TV. It fell woefully short, scattering here and there, much as if it had snowed in the living room. Well, great. See what Chris Adams has done? Made me think about cheating, losing my business, becoming homeless—and now I’ll have to vacuum. Worse, I’ve lost the thread of this movie. And she’d really liked it, too. It was a period piece, set in Victorian times, about a female Pinkerton agent from Chicago who went to England because of a murder and then fell in love with the duke she suspected was the murderer. The hero was to die for. And the heroine was great. Totally kicked ass. A strong woman—

The phone rang right next to Dianna, startling her into yelping and jumping—and upsetting the big plastic bowl of popcorn balanced on her thighs. It went everywhere. “Ah, for—” The sentiment wasn’t worth completing. Really irritated now, she shoved the bowl aside, reached for the TV remote, aimed it, hit the mute button, dropped the remote, grabbed up the cordless phone, cheered herself with the realization that this could be an Olympic event—synchronized couch-potato multitasking—pressed the talk button and put the phone to her ear. “Hello.”

“Dianna? Dianna West?” It was a timid-sounding female voice.

And Dianna recognized it. Her heart sank. “Olivia, is that you? What’s wrong? What did Lenny do?”

The woman was sniffling. Was she crying, or just congested as usual? “Dianna, I’m calling from Tamborello’s. Lenny got down on one knee to ask me to marry him. It was so beautiful.”

Dianna exhaled her relief and sank back against the plump sofa cushions. “Whew, Olivia. You’re calling to thank me. Thank God.” Popping the Question’s success rate remained intact. Was she good or what? “I’m so glad it came off okay. Lenny and I rehearsed it this afternoon, but he was pretty nervous.”

“With good reason, it turns out, Dianna. Perhaps you shouldn’t have done that, making him get down on one knee.”

Olivia’s voice was so “little girl,” so sweet, that a body never expected to hear bad things come out of her mouth. So it took Dianna a moment to absorb what she was hearing. But when she did, her smile faded as her body tensed. “Why not? What’s happened, Olivia?”

“A lot, I’m afraid. You have to come, right now, to the restaurant.”

“I do?”

“Yes. You see, Lenny got down on one knee, like you showed him. Everyone was watching. But then—and this is the bad part—he fell over and knocked into a table next to ours. He hit it hard with his head.”

“No.” Dianna’s blood chilled. “Is he all right?”

“Well, he was … until the carafe of wine that this other couple were enjoying fell off their table—the one that Lenny knocked into—and it conked him on the head, too, and then spilled all over his rented tuxedo.”

The rented tuxedo. “Shit.”

“Actually, it looked more like blood all over his white shirt. I was so scared.”

Double shit. “I’m sure you were.”

“There’s more.”

“Good.” It was a fatalistic pronouncement, chock full of irony.

“The carafe broke on the tiled floor.”

“Well, there just isn’t any good news here, is there, Olivia?” Dianna had this sudden mental image of herself jailed over this somehow and fighting for her shoes and food and virtue in a women’s prison somewhere. “Let me guess. Lenny got cut, right?”

“Yes. Then, when he was almost up off the floor—three or four men were helping him—he overbalanced again and went to catch himself and fell again and his hand landed in a plate of four-cheese ravioli—”

“What in the name of Chef Boyardee was a plate of four-cheese ravioli doing on the floor?” Dianna rubbed at her suddenly throbbing temple.

“Oh, I see your confusion. I forgot to tell you that it had gone flying from yet another table when Lenny fell.”

“Yet another table? I’m lost, Olivia.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll try to be clear. You see, when Lenny fell the second time, he went over backward and his feet flew out from under him. He accidentally kicked this other table leg and upset it … as well as the people sitting there, too.”

“Oh, God.” Innocent civilians were now involved. “Upset how, Olivia? Are they upset angry or upset hurt?”

“Oh, um, the first one, I guess.”

Upset angry. Whew. “Good.” Totally numb, Dianna stared at the TV screen. She didn’t know what to say, what even to ask, so her distraught mind latched on to the movie she’d been watching. There the half-dressed hero and heroine were, out in a long hallway and staring horrified at the huge butler who was holding an unconscious woman in his arms. Some errant corner of Dianna’s otherwise freaked-out mind commented: So the butler did it? Just then she heard Olivia’s voice in her ear. “I’m sorry, Olivia, but what did you say? What happened next?”

“I said Lenny got stabbed in the thigh with the violinist’s bow.”

Dianna jackknifed forward on the sofa. “Did you say ‘stabbed’? With a violinist’s bow? Is that even possible? Olivia, talk to me.”

“I am.” Her voice was tremulous. “When Lenny fell the second time, his one foot kicked the table leg and his other foot caught the poor little violinist behind the knees. He’s a sweet old man, the violinist. He’s very apologetic about stabbing Lenny. He said that had never happened before to him.”

“I guess not.” It was too much. Dianna’s brain shut down. No more incoming information will be processed at this time. She slumped back on the sofa, knowing her evening, if not her entire business and her life, was a total wreck. All because of Lenny Daschowitz. If the gods were crazy, Chris Adams would somehow be mixed up in this and then the debacle would be complete. “So, what do you want me to do, Olivia? Why are you calling me, instead of, say … oh, an ambulance?”

“We did call an ambulance. They’re sending two.”

Dianna’s hand tensed reflexively around the cordless phone she held. “Just to get Lenny?”

“No. The violinist, too.”

A sudden urge to burst out in tears assailed Dianna. “Why the violinist, Olivia?”

“Because when Lenny accidentally knocked his legs out from under him, the poor little man fell and cut his hand really bad on the broken glass from the carafe. He fears that he will never be able to play again.”

Instant anesthetized Jell-O. Cold and numb. That was Dianna. These events being relayed to her by Olivia had to be the most bizarre ones ever, outside of the plot of a Mel Brooks movie. Or maybe a Quentin Tarantino effort. This stuff just didn’t happen in real life. And that was when it hit her. “Hey, are you putting me on, Olivia? Did Lenny put you up to this? None of that stuff happened, did it? It’s a joke, right? Well, ha-ha, very funny. You crazy kids.”

Dianna waited, hoped, prayed. But only silence, dotted by the sound of Olivia’s congested breathing, greeted Dianna from the other end of the phone. She sobered. “This isn’t a joke, is it?”

“No.”

“Great.” Because she had no other choice, Dianna plunged on. “Okay, tell me again why I have to come to the restaurant, Olivia.”

“Mother Daschowitz said you do. She said this is all your fault. I don’t think it is, Dianna. I really don’t. But she’s here, and she’s very mad.” Olivia sniffed.

Dianna sat very still and quiet until she could absorb this daunting bit of news. “Lenny’s mother is there?”

“Yes. So is yours.”

All right, now that was just bizarre. “My mother is there?”

“Yes. With your father.”

“Why?”

“I suppose because she’s married to him.”

Dianna squeezed her eyes shut in a prayerful attitude. Give me patience now. She opened her eyes, resorting to speaking slowly and enunciating every word carefully. “Listen to me, Olivia. I’m asking you what are they all doing there on the night that Lenny is proposing to you?”

“Well, coincidence on the part of your parents, I think. But I’m glad they’re here. Your father is applying pressure to Lenny’s leg wound. And your mother wrapped up the violinist’s hand.”

“I see.” Tomorrow, no doubt, her sweet, sweet parents would cut her out of their wills. “And what about good old Mother”—Dianna mentally ran through her lexicon of every smutty word she could think of that could conceivably follow “mother,” got them all out of her system and finished with—“Daschowitz? What about her, Olivia? Why exactly is she there?”

“Oh. Lenny brought her. Wasn’t that sweet?”

And that comment on Olivia’s part, Dianna affirmed for herself, was what made Olivia Goldman the perfect woman for Lenny Daschowitz and his mother.

“So what do I tell Mother Daschowitz? Will you come down here, Dianna?”

What could she say? “Of course, Olivia. I’ll be right there.”

*   *   *

Tamborello’s was an Italian restaurant straight out of 1940s Hollywood. Intimate. Low lighting. Walls painted in earth tones. Little round tables with red and white checked tablecloths. Sitting in the middle of each table was a big, empty wine bottle plugged with a multicolored, dripping candle. Overhead, on the ceiling, a latticework trellis was woven with fake grape vines, meant to call to mind a vineyard. Rounded archways hinted at secluded alcoves for dining and romantic encounters. Murals depicting the Italian countryside graced the back wall. Very romantic. Again, very Italian.

So Dianna wasn’t surprised that the scene inside resembled a Roman orgy gone awry. Police taking statements. EMTs taking pulses. Food spilled and blood spattered. Spilled wine. Whining people. Lots of patients to go around. And even more impatient waiters and bus-boys milling about. Nobody was eating. Nobody was getting tips. Nobody was happy.

Dianna could have died. This was a nightmare come to life, and she was right in the thick of it. Dressed in jeans now, instead of her baggy shorts from earlier, and a pink cotton sweater, she’d already given condolences to the ancient violinist and to Lenny. Then she’d endured as much of a chewing-out from Mrs. Daschowitz as she intended to listen to before having consoled Olivia over this aborted Big Moment. And now here she was trying to tell the nice policeman why she really wasn’t responsible for any of this, all while dodging the cleanup efforts of the restaurant’s staff and fending off her hovering parents’ unhelpful input.

“Uh, no, Officer. Not Olive. Olivia. She’s the woman over there who saw everything. And not Popeye. Popping,” Dianna told the big, unamused cop who had lots of muscles and a huge gun. “Popping the Question. The name of my business.” She watched him write it down in his notes.

“Your name?” He didn’t even look up at her.

She swallowed. “Dianna West.”

“Her middle name is Joan. After her grandmother on her father’s side.”

Yes, her parents flanked her, mom to the left, dad to the right. Dianna turned to pat her mother’s arm. “Thank you, Mom, but right now that’s totally irrelevant.” Then she leaned over to whisper: “This is all your fault, by the way. ‘Help Lenny,’ you said. ‘It would be a nice thing to do.’”

“I heard that. Don’t be fresh with your mother, Dianna.”

Stung, she pivoted to see her father’s face. “Dad, this is a nightmare. And I wasn’t being fresh.” He raised an eyebrow. She thought about what she’d said. “Okay, I was. I’m sorry. But I—”

“Could you focus on me right now, miss?”

Dianna faced forward. “I’m sorry, Officer. They’re my folks.”

“I gathered. So what’s your part in all this?”

Dianna thought about that, realizing there was no good, easy, or quick answer to that. “That’s a very good question. And it deserves an answer. But I really don’t know how to give you one because it’s hard to say how I’m involved.”

The policeman eyed her. “Yeah? Well, I got time. Try me.”

“Yes, sir.” Dianna swallowed. “Actually, I have no part in this.”

“Then why are you here, miss?”

“For the same reason you are, Officer. I was called.”

“Say, do you know my son? He’s a cop, too. Thomas West. We call him Tommy.”

The cop sighted on Dianna’s sweet little wispy-haired father in his red shirt, white golf sweater, and green-checked pants. “Yeah, I know a Tommy West. Out of Central Division?”

Thank God, and bless you, Dad. A comrade in arms. Dianna suffered no qualms over having family rank to pull. That was what it was for. If you had it, pull it.

“Yes, that’s him.” Her father was excited now, pointing and bright-eyed. “Tommy. Tommy West.”

Dianna grinned and nodded, blurting the obvious. “He’s my brother.”

Dianna’s mother tugged Dianna back so she could see her husband. “Now, calm down, Mel. Remember your heart.”

“My heart’s fine, Joy.” Mel West benignly waved his wife off. “I’m talking to the officer here.”

And that was apparently the officer’s cue. “Yeah, I know Tommy.” The policeman looked grim. “We don’t get along too well.” Which explained why he looked grim.

Dianna all but stomped her foot. Damn that Tommy. See? He never played well with others.

The West-family-hating uniformed officer turned to her. “Were you here with them when the incident happened?” He wagged his pen between her and her parents.

Now it was an incident. “No. They were here by themselves.”

“No, we weren’t. The Gundersens were with us.”

Dianna stared for long moments at her father. “Dad. Honey. Nobody cares.”

Her father got huffy. “The Gundersens do.”

“Yes, I’m sure they do. But the nice policeman doesn’t really care that you were here with them. He—”

“I can eat supper with whoever I want. It was a free country the last time I checked.”

Dear God. “And it still is, Dad. But that’s another thing. This is Friday, so I don’t get what you’re doing here at all. You’re always at the Hufnagles’ on Friday night.”

Her mother answered. “Not anymore. Those people are dead to us.” She was completely puffed up about it, too. Joy West held her purse tight against her little rounded body, as if she expected someone to make off with her oversized pocketbook. “We’re not speaking to the Hufnagles.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Mom, why not?”

“Mr. Hufnagle didn’t return your father’s garden hose.”

Dianna narrowed her eyes in thought and then remembered. “The one he borrowed last summer? Ten months ago? That garden hose?”

Her mother raised her chin. “It came up again over bridge. We don’t talk to those people anymore. You’re not to, either.”

“Mother, for—” Cutting her off was the sound of a not-so-stifled laugh that had come from the policeman. Dianna rounded on him. “What’s so funny?”

Chuckling out loud, but not in a pleasant way, the man shook his head. “I see where Tommy gets it now.”

“Gets what?” Insulted, Dianna raised a pointing finger at the big, armed cop, ready to go to battle for family pride. But she got no farther than that before her elbow was grabbed—and she was unceremoniously spun around, only to find herself staring up into Chris Adams’s gorgeous, furious face.

Shock had Dianna drawing back, her mouth open. Surprise! Hadn’t she said to herself at home, less than an hour ago, that the final straw would be if Chris Adams were here? And now, here he was.

“What are you doing here?” he hissed right into her face.

A bit taken aback, Dianna responded in kind. “I could ask you the same thing.”

“I’m here having dinner with Veronica. And I don’t want her to see you.”

Dianna frowned. “And Veronica would be…?”

“My girlfriend, Dianna.”

Almost against her will, Dianna’s eyes narrowed in jealousy. So that’s her name. Veronica.

Chris was saying: “And if she sees you here—”

“But she doesn’t even know me, so what do I have to do with anything?”

The policeman chose that moment to butt in by wagging his pencil at her, even as he spoke to Chris. “I been asking her that myself. She says she has nothing to do with this. Yet everyone here seems to know her.”

“Not everyone,” Dianna felt it incumbent on her to say. “For example”—she looked around, finally pointing to a knot of disgruntled-looking customers over at a corner table—“I don’t know any of those people.”

His hand still gripping Dianna’s arm, Chris addressed the lawman. “Are you through with her, Officer?”

The man sworn to preserve the peace waved her away as if she were no more than a fly. “I’m done for now. Help yourself. And good luck.”

Dianna bristled. “Good luck? What does that mean? I don’t think you—”

“Never mind, Dianna.” Chris’s voice was singsong with caution. “May I speak to you over here, please? In private?”

“No. I’m not through—”

“Oh, but you are.” With that, Chris set them in motion, essentially pulling her along behind him as he threaded them around tables, diners, and waiters.

Dianna didn’t like this one bit. “Hey, let go of me! I will not be pulled along like this.”

Her protests fell on deaf ears. She risked a glance back over her shoulder at her parents. Still standing with the policeman, they looked like elderly owls, so wide were their eyes. “Mom, Dad, it’s okay. I know him. Get the Gundersens and go home. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

They seemed to understand. At least, they waved their good-byes. Dianna waved back at them and then concentrated on not knocking into the odd chair or table or diner as Chris rushed her out of the main dining room. He didn’t stop until he had her off around a corner that revealed a short, narrow hallway containing a pay phone, under which sat a decrepit wooden chair. At the other end of the space were two facing restroom doors. Other than that, she and Chris were alone … but not in a good way.

Chris turned her to face him and finally let go of her arm. Fists at his waist, his feet spread, his stance was pure The King and I. The Jodie Foster version. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

Dianna mimicked his stance. “Well, you know, and like I keep telling everyone, I was called here. There I was, sitting at home, minding my own business—” Stop! Don’t tell him you were home alone on a Friday night, no date or anything. “Getting dressed to go out partying with my friends—”

Chris held up a hand to stop her. “Dianna. Never mind. You have to leave before Veronica sees you.”

“No, actually, I don’t. See, it’s a free country. Just ask my dad.”

“Dianna. Please. Veronica is right over there in one of those private alcoves. If she sees you, my surprise for her will be blown.”

“Well, I don’t see how, Chris. She doesn’t know who I am.” That being so—and this attorney being one woman Dianna really wanted to see—she turned, intending to peek out in the direction Chris had indicated.

He pulled her back. “Hey, stop that. She’ll see you.”

Dianna stared up at him, trying her best not to be affected by his nearness or his good looks. Like that was working. “Chris, it’s okay. The only way your surprise will be blown is if you told her who I am. Did you?”

He shook his head. “Of course not. Right now you’d be the last person I’d introduce to her.”

Stung, Dianna raised her eyebrows. “Thanks.”

Chris exhaled, looking pretty ragged. “Oh, hell, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. You know that.”

She nodded that she did, but still … Like I’m the tawdry little mistress who’s shown up at the restaurant where my lover is having dinner with his wife, and I’m not good enough to be acknowledged, much less introduced. “Anyway, I don’t think you helped your own cause by grabbing me and hauling me back here. That’s got to make your girlfriend curious.”

Chris didn’t say anything. He just stood there, staring intently at her, looking as if he had something momentous to say, something he couldn’t get out, something that would be touching to her and—No, Chris Adams. Don’t you even do that, Dianna wanted to rail at him. Don’t you dare look so handsome and vulnerable all at the same time. She fought being caught up in him, but it was a losing battle. She wished he would say something. Anything. But he didn’t. And so the silence between them deepened.

Outside their little corner of the world, though, could be heard the commingling noises of dishes clattering, the low buzz of several conversations, and someone’s cell phone ringing. Dianna’s hearing also picked up the familiar sound of Lenny’s whining and of his mother’s answering shrill voice. But none of it mattered. All she cared about, darn it, was how close Chris Adams was standing to her. And how he was looking at her. And how delicious he smelled. And how his nearness, without even touching her, made her body tingle. She wanted so badly for him to kiss her.

As if she’d made her request out loud, Chris reached out to her and warmly clasped her arm. Dianna felt her heart surge and her pulse pick up. She had to stiffen her knees to keep from going to the floor. “Dianna,” he said, “I don’t know what to say. I mean, I don’t even know what the heck I’m doing. And you’re right: All I had to do was stay where I was. But I saw you, and I couldn’t … I don’t even know why I—”

“Excuse me. Am I interrupting something?”

Talk about your cold, arctic blasts of feminine outrage. Chris let go of Dianna as if she were hot to the touch and whipped around. “Veronica. What are you doing here?”

Veronica. The iceberg to their Titanic. Fear liquefied Dianna’s bones. Now they were in big, fat trouble. The lawyer was here. And she and Chris did not have their story straight. Who could she say she was? Maybe Chris would think fast and say. Dianna vowed she’d go along with whatever he came up with. That settled, her curiosity won out. She leaned to one side until she could see around Chris’s wide football shoulders. And there the woman was. Dang. Dianna’s eyes widened. Veronica could have been a cover model. She was beautiful, and she oozed class. Blond, curvy, and every sleek hair in place. Even her casual outfit was major top dollar. She made a perfect picture—but of a pissed-off woman.

“What am I doing here, Chris?” she was saying. “I came with you, remember? Still, I hate to bother you here during your intimate moment—”

“This isn’t an intimate moment, Veronica.”

Dianna stared accusingly at the back of Chris’s head. It might’ve been if she hadn’t interrupted.

“If you say so.” This was Veronica. “I just came to tell you that I got a call, and I have to leave. I have to go to the jail.”

“What’d you do—kill someone?” Dianna clapped her hands over her mouth, absolutely not believing she’d blurted that. Embarrassed shock heated her cheeks. Now she’d done it. She’d drawn attention to herself.

Sure enough, Chris slowly turned to face her. He looked mad. Dianna lowered her hands. Then Veronica stepped around her boyfriend to confront Dianna. The woman’s features were set in lines as hard as diamonds. “No, whoever you are, I didn’t kill anyone. At least”—dramatic pause—“not yet.”

Whoa. Dianna’s eyes widened. At this point, the blond attorney dismissed Dianna by turning to her boyfriend. Reduced now to silently watching the two together, Dianna was surprised to see the other woman’s features soften. She looked almost human as she reached up to stroke Chris’s cheek. Dianna wanted nothing more than to slap the woman’s hand away. How rational was that?

When Chris and Veronica began talking to each other in low tones, Dianna found herself the dictionary definition, complete with picture, of a third wheel. Watching the couple in profile to her—trapped as she was in the narrow hall between their bodies in front of her and the bathroom doors behind her—Dianna didn’t know what to do. This was too painful, and for many reasons. She needed to disappear. Her choices? Interrupt the lovers. Or hide in the powder room. Okay, she could have done that, but the doors—she sneaked a peek—were unhelpfully marked something like SIGNORE and SIGNORA. So which one was she?

She could just see herself making a huge mistake; some irate guy bellowing; the West-hating cop still here; he comes running. Thirty minutes later? Her having her mug shot taken downtown. No, being arrested as a pervert was not the topper she needed on this night. So, painful or not, she wasn’t moving. Dianna crossed her arms and shifted her weight to one leg. May as well watch the show going on in front of her … and eat her heart out while she did.

“I’m so sorry,” the blond Nordic goddess was saying, her voice intimate, apologetic, as she stared up into her lover’s eyes. “I know this keeps happening, but I have to leave, Chris. I can’t help it.”

Chris covered his beloved’s hand with his, kissing her fingers. Dianna’s heart lurched painfully. Only this afternoon she’d wanted to do that to him. Still did, too. “Don’t worry about it,” Chris said. “The evening’s ruined, anyway. I’ll drive you over, if you want.”

“No.” The word was a sigh. Veronica moved back, pulling her hand away from Chris’s touch. “You don’t need to do that. Anyway, we came in my car.”

“Oh, that’s right. Then I guess I’m going with you.”

“No, don’t. This thing could take a while, and waiting all that time wouldn’t be fair to you. Maybe your little friend here could give you a ride home?”

As one, they turned their attention to Dianna. She blinked, cocking her head much like a curious dog. His little friend? Does she mean me?

Chris turned to his girlfriend. “She’s not my little friend, Veronica.”

Dianna slowly raised an eyebrow. I better not be.

“Will you please be reasonable?”

Chris’s raised voice popped Dianna back to the moment. He was talking to the ice queen, and Dianna realized that she’d missed something. The temperature had definitely chilled between the couple.

Sure enough, the blond lawyer retaliated. “Reasonable? Me? You”—she pointed a red-lacquered nail at his chest—“darted out of our booth and went directly to this woman”—that fingernail sought Dianna’s chest; she drew back a safe distance—“and then hauled her off to this corner and left me sitting out there, Chris. I was humiliated. Then I come over here and find you looking as if you’re about to kiss her.”

Chris and Veronica both turned to Dianna and stared accusingly, silently at her. As if this were all my fault. Still, a hot thrill of embarrassment flitted along Dianna’s nerves. Feeling defensive, she crossed her arms under her breasts and divided her challenging gaze between them. One more “little friend” out of either one of them, she determined, and someone was going to know exactly how she felt about being called that.

The moment of silent contemplation of Dianna broke, and the argument recommenced, with Chris firing the first shot at his girlfriend. “I was not about to kiss her or anyone else, Ronnie. I was—”

“Please.” Ronnie held up her long-fingered hand, palm toward Chris. “Can we talk about this later? I’m sorry, but I really have to go. I can’t help it.” As evidence, she held up her cell phone and sent him a pleading look.

For long moments, Chris stood there like that big dark monolith thing in 2001: A Space Odyssey. But then he relaxed. Slumped. “I know you can’t. Go. Don’t worry about me. I’m a big boy. I can get myself home.”

“You sure? I mean, about me going on?” The ice queen started to thaw out, maybe even melt a degree or two. “You know what? Never mind. I can call Joe. He’ll cover—”

“No. Really. It’s okay. You’ll just fret and pace if you don’t go yourself.”

Suddenly the attorney was soft and feminine, her blue eyes beseeching. Dianna wanted to puke. “You know me so well. But are we okay, Chris? I mean really?”

Chris took the blond woman in his arms, hugged her to him, and kissed her forehead, all very tenderly. Dianna sniffed, almost moved to tears. Not because it was a beautiful sight, but because it wasn’t her he held. She was so darned tired of being alone. Of being the onlooker. The bridesmaid. The loser. Big L on her forehead. The little friend.

Veronica the lawyer withdrew from Chris’s embrace. The lovers stood there, staring into each other’s eyes. Deciding this was where she’d come in, Dianna lowered her gaze. Then a rustle of fabric and the sound of feminine heels clicking on the tiled floor told her that the lawyer was leaving. Dianna looked up, expecting to see Chris’s back as he perhaps escorted his beloved to the door or to her car.

But no. He was standing right there in front of her, staring at her. His hands were in his slacks pockets. He could not have been more handsome, more mesmerizing, despite everything. “Hi,” he said simply enough.

“Hi, yourself.”

“Look, I’m sorry for everything I said earlier, but mostly because you had to witness my … domestic upheaval, I guess you’d call it.”

Dianna shrugged. “No need to apologize. But I wouldn’t say ‘upheaval.’ It wasn’t all that bad.” In fact, it had been worse. More like a poke in the heart with a sharp stick.

“Good. So, little friend,” Chris said conversationally, grinning at her, “can you give me a ride home?”