CHAPTER 4

Late that next Monday afternoon, almost five o’clock, and as self-satisfied as if he’d fought some long and bloody battle to win a coveted prize—which he pretty much had—Chris triumphantly settled himself in one of the two well-padded chairs that fronted Dianna West’s desk. Getting here had not been easy. Chris eyed the seriously somber Mrs. Windhorst, who just now was closing the office door behind her. The secretary had put up a good daylong fight. But Chris had hung tough through his many phone calls to her, and the means had certainly justified the ends because victory was his. Well, sort of.

Meaning, Dianna was studiously ignoring him. Chris wasn’t worried. She had to talk to him. He was a paying client. Seated behind her desk, she busied herself fussing and flipping through a messy stack of manila file folders. Apparently she meant to locate a specific and elusive one. Watching her activity brought a reflective frown to Chris’s face. Now, why does her desk look odd? What’s wrong? What’s missing? He concentrated on the question until the answer came to him. There was no computer. And now that he thought about it, he realized he hadn’t seen any at all here.

Just then Chris’s mind pulled forward his conversation last Friday with Dianna. He’d talked to her about being on the Internet, and she’d freaked. Okay. Some kind of phobia working here? Who knew? There was one way to find out. Ask the woman. God knows, he needed to say something neutral. And soon.

But Dianna glanced up at him and stole his moment. “Just give me a minute here to collect my thoughts, okay? I need to see where I am with your file. In the meantime, why don’t you flip through this picture album”—she pushed a plush, satin-covered, three-ring binder toward him—“and see if anything in there gives you any ideas for your proposal? Those are all recent and successful scenarios we’ve done.”

Ever the cooperative soul, Chris pulled the album off her desk and onto his lap. “All right. I’ll take a look.”

But he didn’t. Chris ignored the album in favor of feasting his eyes on Dianna, whose attention was directed at her pile of work. No doubt about it: She looked great. All he could see of her now was her black jacket buttoned over a silver top. But when he’d come in a minute ago, she’d been standing at a filing cabinet. His reaction had been Wow. She had on a short black skirt with a slit up the thigh and black strappy sandals. His tongue had nearly hung out of his open mouth. Whoever made her outfit should have to pay her to wear it.

Down, boy. Chris shifted his gaze to more neutral territory … the picture window behind Dianna. Still the same gray and overcast spring day. It hadn’t rained, but it needed to desperately. The barometric pressure was brutal, making the sky feel too heavy, like a fat balloon overfilled with water but not quite enough to make it burst. Chris had felt pretty much the same way—bursting to get here. He’d actually caught himself whistling at one point. How could it be that his excitement seemed to have more to do with the anticipation of seeing Dianna again than it did with proposing to Veronica?

That thought caught Chris up short. Hey, come on, get over it. This is a simple thing. Dianna’s a great-looking woman. Why wouldn’t you get excited to see her? Who wouldn’t? And you’re not dead. Just about to get engaged. Feeling better for that bit of perspective, Chris broke the rather heavy silence between him and Dianna. “So,” he said, making a show now of flipping through the album’s pages and grinning at her to show he was just razzing her, “I can’t believe you wouldn’t give me a ride home last Friday night. That was cold.”

Dianna’s gold eyes held his gaze for one long, serious moment before she answered. “You deserved it. And don’t tell me you really don’t have any idea why I left you standing there at Tamborello’s.”

Chris chuckled. “Did it have anything to do with that ‘little friend’ remark?”

“Oh, yes. A lot.” Dianna sat back in her chair, crossing her arms under her very fine breasts. She still wasn’t grinning.

All righty, then. Chris sobered. Looked like he had some making up to do. “Hey, I didn’t mean to insult you when I called you my little friend, Dianna.”

“Veronica did.”

“I know. I guess I was acknowledging that I also thought she was out of line with her comment.” Chris waited, but in vain. Dianna’s silence effectively lobbed the conversational tennis ball back into his court. “All right, look, I don’t know what to tell you. She was just upset and jumped to conclusions.”

“A pretty darned big one.” Dianna tucked her shoulder-length hair behind her ears and leveled an accusatory stare on him.

Chris felt forced to defend Veronica. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t know what she saw from where she was standing, but I did have my hand on your arm.” And things were about to heat up. He managed not to say it out loud, but he knew the truth of it. He suspected Dianna did, too, even if she wouldn’t admit it. “So, anyway, she went with that ‘intimate moment’ thing.”

“Didn’t she, though? You should be offended, too, by her implication. She as much as said she thinks you’re cheating on her.”

Chris nodded. “Yeah, I got that, and I was offended. I haven’t given her any reason to doubt me.” His conscience pricked him, saying that since he’d met Dianna, the possibility existed that he could very easily give Veronica many reasons to doubt him. Many.

“Well, I hope you haven’t cheated.” Dianna’s chuckle was unexpected—and proved to be at his expense. “I mean, you are going to ask the woman to marry you. I’d hope you’d be over other women by now.”

“Yeah. You’d think.” For the life of him, Chris couldn’t look away from her face, couldn’t disguise what he was feeling.

Dianna stilled, her features softened. The very air seemed to thicken. Chris’s chest tightened, and he could barely breathe. Dianna West was temptation personified. And he needed to get up and leave right now and never come back. Honor demanded it. Unfortunately, leaving was the last thing he wanted to do. Maybe if they got this thing between them out there, Chris reasoned, and talked about it, that would put it to bed. He suppressed a wince. Poor choice of words. Still, he’d come this far in his thinking. “Look, Dianna, there’s something going on here between us that we both—”

“No. Stop.” She held a hand up, palm toward him. “Don’t say anything more. Let me talk first. Where you were headed right now, Chris, with what you were going to say, is a pretty common reaction. I’ve seen this a lot.”

“I don’t know what you mean. You make it sound like I have a rash.”

She smiled. “No. It’s more like an itch. See, too many times I end up being an amateur marriage counselor. Well, more like a relationship counselor. Guys get cold feet. Have second thoughts. And apparently get this far—to the point of popping the question—and then suddenly feel a need to flirt with me because I’m … I don’t know … handy or safe or something. I think they feel a need to test themselves and what they feel for their girlfriends.”

“I see. So I have a predictable itch and you’re a convenient barometer. Attractive.” She was denying this thing between them. Disappointing, but probably for the best. Stung, Chris cooled his jets and went for the light touch. “Okay, so maybe you’re right. But it’s your fault for being so easy to talk to and for being pretty darned cute, besides. I guess it’s only natural I’d flirt with you.”

Looking uncertain, Dianna peered at him from under her eyelashes. “Thank you for the compliment, but I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings.”

She had, but Chris shrugged. “Hey, I’m a big boy. But you probably just did me—and Veronica—a big favor.”

“That was my sole intent, Chris.” Her smile was shy, charming. “But I didn’t like having to say it.”

Talk about your mixed signals. Chris’s body ignored the shy part and picked up on the come-hither. His nerve endings awakened, tingling and threatening to go erect. Striving for subtle, he gripped his chair’s wooden arms and held on, anything to keep himself from vaulting right over the desk and taking Miss West to the floor.

“So, what’d you do—take a cab?”

“A cab? Oh, you mean last Friday.” Chris relaxed his grip and chuckled. “Can’t stand suspense, huh? But, yeah, as a matter of fact, I did have to take a cab.”

“I’m sure the cabbie was glad for the business.” Dianna’s gold-colored eyes glinted with humor.

Chris grinned right back at her. “You’re cute when you’re sarcastic, you know that?”

“I’ve been told.” Dianna folded her hands together atop her desk and became all pleasant and business. “So, what are you doing here today, Chris?”

And there it was, the question he had for himself, too. It went like this: Given how this woman seated across from him was playing hell with his daytime thoughts and nighttime dreams, what was he doing here and feeding them? How could he explain his need to be around her? She’d just told him to knock it off, essentially. But it was like a physical something driving him—

“Chris?”

He blinked back to the moment and to the woman seated on the opposite side of the desk from him. “You’re still mad at me, aren’t you?”

He’d surprised her with that. She sat back, raising her chin one proud notch. “No. Mad at myself. And surprised to see you. Your name isn’t on my schedule for today.”

“Blame Mrs. Windhorst. She gave me the appointment.”

Dianna nodded. “That’s how it usually happens.”

“I’m a work-in.”

“Okay.”

They were treading water. Chris sat forward in his chair and plunked the mostly ignored album back onto her desk. “You just said you’re mad at yourself. Tell me why. What’d you do?”

She shrugged, giving him that shy look again from under her eyelashes. “I didn’t really do anything. It was what I wanted to do.”

“Really? What did you want to do?” And was I involved? He knew he had no right to pursue her like this, but that look she was sending him had his pulse racing.

Her smile secretive, she exhaled. “Let’s just say I broke a rule of my own making. A business rule regarding clients. And I’m not happy with me right now.” She moved some papers around on her desk, in essence signaling a change in subject. “So, let’s talk about you.” Her direct stare was challenging. “Obviously there was a happy ending over the weekend? I mean, with you and Veronica—I’m sorry, what’s her last name? We weren’t formally introduced.”

And there it was. “I would’ve introduced you, Dianna. But I didn’t know who to say you were, remember? I couldn’t think fast enough. Then it just didn’t come up again. But, anyway, it’s Alexander. Veronica Alexander.”

She ignored everything else and said, “Alexander. Thanks. So you and Ms. Alexander made up after your fight, I take it?”

“There was no fight.”

Dianna raised an eyebrow and her voice. “Oh? I guess I was mistaken. But … good. Great, in fact. So you still want to pop the question to her, I take it, or you wouldn’t be here?”

Chris sat back in his chair, held Dianna’s gaze with the weight of his own, and absently rubbed his knuckles over his lips. How to answer her question? Outside of her presence, the answer came easy. But the moment he was around her … not so easy. In the end, all he could say was: “Something like that.”

Dianna nodded and stared at him … too long. She blinked and started talking rapidly. “Well, good, then. Let’s see where we are here.” She flipped through a folder with his name on it. “Okay. So we didn’t get too far last Friday before you got beeped, did we?” She glanced up at him and smiled … polite, distant. “That means we need to start at the beginning and talk about how you see this coming off—the proposal itself, I mean.”

She crossed her legs, folded her hands together, and then leaned over to rest an elbow against her chair’s padded-leather arm. The professional in charge of the situation. “What do you want to happen here, Chris? Remember, this is your big moment.” She pointed to the album he’d been charged with looking through. “Did you find anything in there that you liked? If not, we have others—”

“I didn’t look through it.”

“Oh. Why not?”

“I wasn’t interested. I was watching you.”

Dianna inhaled slowly and then exhaled. “Chris, we just went through this. If you’re not here to talk about your proposal, then I don’t know what to say.”

She was right, too. If he didn’t want to ask Ronnie to marry him, then he had no business here. The hell of it was, he couldn’t honestly say that he didn’t love Ronnie and didn’t want to marry her, despite his obvious attraction to Dianna. Given that, he relented. “All right. You’re right. Let’s look through the books and talk about music and the ring and flowers and things like that.”

Dianna instantly brightened. Obviously relieved. Chris suppressed a chuckle at his own expense. Shot down. Rejected. All right, Adams. Keep it light. Keep it real. Time to be all business. “So, what’s first?” he said, getting up when she did. “Do we adjourn to the parlor or make a field trip, or what?”

“Adjourn to the parlor for now. The field trips come later when we’re scouting locations.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“It is.” She came around her desk and indicated the antique-looking sofa where they’d sat last Friday. “If you’ll join me over here, I’ll outline our various package deals for you, and then we’ll go from there.”

She sounded like an insurance salesperson. Or a funeral director. “Sure. But can you customize something?”

“Certainly. We do it all the time.”

“Money is no object.” Chris sat down exactly where he had last Friday.

Smiling, Dianna took up her position at the other end of the sofa. “I gathered.”

Chris took the album she handed him, a different one from the first one he’d ignored. “These are recent pictures, taken on location, of happy couples who were our clients,” she explained. “That’s always a good place to start for ideas.”

Chris nodded, positioning the album across his lap. He flipped through a few pages of snapshots, noticing the bright smiles and all that happiness and hugging. It was enough to make a guy sick. “Speaking of happy couples,” he said, fixing his gaze on Dianna, “what’s the latest on Lenny? You heard how he’s doing?”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes. From what my mother said, they’ve found mummies in Egypt in better shape.”

“Ouch. Not the pretty picture, huh?”

Dianna laughed. “No, but he wasn’t to begin with, either, the poor guy. My mother tells me that right now he looks enough like Frankenstein’s monster to scare small dogs and little children. Apparently, he’s on crutches and has stitches in his head and his leg. And lots of bandages all around everything.”

“His head? What’s wrong with his head?” Chris held up a hand to stop her from commenting. “Save it. I know the obvious answer to that. I mean specifically.”

“You don’t know? But you were there. I thought you saw everything happen.”

“Apparently I didn’t. I got up from the table at Tamborello’s when the commotion began and saw the stabbing part. But not the head part.”

“Oh. He bumped it when he first fell. And then a wine carafe conked him.”

“That had to hurt.”

“No doubt.”

“So are you going to forgive me?” The question wasn’t a slip-up. He’d been thinking it and waiting for an opening.

Dianna stared at him as if he’d just plucked a rabbit out of the air. “Forgive you for what … exactly?”

“I don’t know. Maybe for everything since I first walked through your front door last Friday. I just get the impression that you’ve been upset with me since then, even before the Tamborello debacle, and I don’t like that feeling. Seriously. If I’ve hurt you or pissed you off, then I’m sincerely sorry and I hate me, too.”

She fought a chuckle and that heartened him. “I don’t hate you. And it’s not all that bad.”

“But it is bad, right?”

She quirked her lips and then gestured as if helpless. “Yeah. But it’s not you. It was … Friday night. You saw that. And the rest of the weekend was hard, too. It’s like everything was going along so well, and then it all fell apart. Now I’ve got insurance companies to deal with, and poor, sweet Mr. Tamborello lost business. And the violinist. God, he cut his hand and maybe can’t pursue his livelihood. I’m sure I’ll have to make restitution for that somehow, and—” She stopped talking and cocked her head at Chris. “Why am I telling you all this?”

“Because I’m easy to talk to.” The daunting thing was he wanted to fix everything for her that was wrong. Just charge in and slay all her dragons. And he had this big warm fuzzy feeling coming over him right now that made him want to reach over and hug her and reassure her. “So, keep going. I’m a good listener, too.”

“No.” She looked wary of him. “I think I’ve said too much already.”

“No, actually you haven’t said enough.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means my weekend was every bit as rotten as yours. I had a hell of a time with Ronnie being ticked—”

“I thought you said there was no fight.”

“There wasn’t. But there was a lot of silence, if you get my drift.”

Dianna grimaced. “Ooh. Never good. So put those two things together for me, Chris—her not talking to you and your being here today. What do you want me to do?”

“I don’t know. I guess I want you to put together something quick that can come off in the next couple days.” He’d had no idea he was thinking that until he said it. But now that he had, it sounded right. Just do it and do it quick. Get the scary thing over with.

Shock claimed Dianna’s features. “Days? You want this in days? Why so quick?”

“Two birds with one stone. Apologize, propose, have the ring, get it over with, all that.”

Some unreadable expression crossed her face. She wouldn’t quite meet his gaze as she picked at a thread in her skirt and then smoothed the material over her legs. “I see. Well. The next couple of days. Just get it over with. All right.”

“So you’ll help me?”

“Sure. If that’s what you want. I can … certainly help you get it over with.”

“Why do you keep saying that? ‘Get it over with’?”

“Because it sounds awful.” The words spilled out of her, catching Chris off guard. “I would hate for some guy to think he had to get it over with when he was thinking of me.”

“But I wasn’t thinking of you.”

Some emotion flickered in her eyes and was gone. “That is so not the point. Veronica deserves better than that, Chris. Better than just getting it over with. And I cannot even believe I’m taking her side, as nice as she was to me. But you guys just don’t get it, do you?”

Now it was “you guys.” “Get what?”

“Romance and the time and thought put into the effort. That’s the key. That’s what we women want. We want to know you cared to take the time to sit down and think about us and to come up with something that shows you really know us and that we mean something to you. You know, like spend at least as much time and thought as you put into a football betting pool. But why is it never any different? I just don’t get it. What is so hard about love that I have to have an entire business dedicated to getting two people together who are supposed to already love each other—”

“Whoa. Dianna. Hold up. Pull over to the side of the road a minute, okay?” Chris had a hand held out to her, as if he were the traffic cop and she were the traffic.

Breathing hard, impassioned by her subject, and looking confused or surprised at herself, she stared at him. “Ohmigod, I am so sorry.”

“I’m not. In fact, I would have paid money to see that performance.”

She laughed. “Well, in one sense, you already did. I mean, since you’re a client.”

“True. Add it to my tab. It was worth it.” Chris could not believe how comfortable, or how forgiving, he was with her. Hell, he’d seen her maybe a total of two hours in his whole life, but already he felt as if she were his best friend, only a whole lot more than that. Somehow, that was unsettling. Not the notion of having a female as a friend, but the nagging thing at the back of his mind that said he was missing some big, obvious point that he really should get—

“I need to say something else.”

Dianna’s voice cut through Chris’s reverie, bringing him back to the moment. Smiling, he shrugged. “Why not? It seems to be your day for that. Go ahead.”

She looked askance at him, but carried on. “Well, it’s nothing dire or soapboxy. It’s just that we have a new policy here as of this morning. I sent around a memo.”

“Sounds ominous.”

She shook her head. “Not so very. Anyway, new policy. Because of last Friday night’s debacle, and only in those cases where we suspect there might be a problem—like in Lenny’s case where he’s so, well, Lennyish—we’re giving our clients the option of having us attend their actual proposals at no extra charge. You know, just be there to smooth over the rough patches. And discreetly, of course. And only if you agree.”

Chris raised his eyebrows. “Only if I agree? So now it’s me? Are you saying you think I need help to do this? That I’m like Lenny in some—or any—way?”

“Oh, God, no. Not at all like Lenny.” Dianna kept shaking her head. “No. Don’t be offended. We’re telling all our clients of the new policy. Or maybe I should call it an offer. That’s what it is, essentially, and you can certainly say no.” She picked up his file from off the sofa cushion. “But before you decide, let’s look at your case. Your lawyer—”

“My girlfriend.”

Her gaze met and held his. “Right. Your girlfriend. She’s pretty much a perfectionist, I’m guessing. And impatient. Expects top-level performance at all times. Wants excellent service and things to go smoothly.”

Damn, that sounded cold … but true. “Yeah. She does. But who doesn’t?”

Dianna nodded. “I suspected as much. So I think Melanie should be there when—”

“What? Wait a minute. Melanie? Miss Gone with the Wind? What’s she got to do with this?”

“You’re right. Not Melanie. So you’d prefer Paula?”

“Not without a shot of Valium, one for each of us. What’s going on here? I thought I was your client. I signed a contract saying I was.”

Dianna lowered her gaze to her lap. Chris watched her thunk-thunking her pen softly against his file. Dark waves of hair fell forward to frame her face. Though it totally was not germane to the moment, he couldn’t help noticing that she had such delicate bone structure. Finally, she looked up at him, quietly asking, “Then you still want me?”

Those words, the way she said them … some primal thing rippled through Chris’s body, leaving the hair standing up on his arms as his belly muscles tightened. Was she kidding? Did he still want her? Did people in hell want Popsicles? “Yes, I do want you,” he managed to say, relieved to hear himself sound so rational. “In fact, I insist on it being you. If I’m going to pop the question, I want you there and no one else.” Chris heard how that sounded. “Well, except for Ronnie, of course. She’s pretty essential.”

Again Dianna said nothing, but her gold eyes darkened with some emotion or thought. Absolutely mesmerizing, they were. Made Chris want to howl like a wolf. Hungrily, he watched her, wondering if the last forty-eight hours showed on his face. They’d been hell, and he’d been crazed until he could get here this afternoon to see her. All he wanted was for it to be okay between them. And all he knew, or was willing to admit to himself, was that it was important.

“Well, in that case, then,” Dianna said, finally breaking the silence, “since you … want me to be there, we don’t have a problem.”

“Oh, hell, I’ve been had, haven’t I? That was pretty slick, Dianna. Okay, so you got yourself invited along. Fine. But we still might have a problem.”

Her expression gave nothing away. “How so?”

“Well, after last Friday night, and thanks to my not thinking, Veronica will recognize you.”

Dianna shook her head. “No she won’t because she won’t see me.”

She looked so “little girl” smug that Chris couldn’t resist teasing her. “So I’ve got this all wrong? I’m picturing this cloak-and-dagger thing. Hat pulled down low over your face, the trench coat on, you hiding behind potted plants, sneaking around, spying on us. She might notice that. And here’s more: Your just being there, and my knowing it, well … it might give me performance anxiety.”

He’d meant to make her laugh and he had. Her face even turned red. “I promise not to give you … performance anxiety. And, no, I won’t be hiding behind potted plants. But, still, she won’t see me. I’ll make sure of that. You just worry about you. Concentrate on how you want to”—she paused to inhale deeply and then exhale slowly before finishing—“propose to your girlfriend.”

Now, that pause of hers was interesting. “You always have that much trouble with that word?” Or is it just when you apply it to me?

“No, of course not. I just had to … clear my throat, that’s all.”

So she wasn’t going to rise to the bait. Damn. Not that he should even be out fishing. He had Veronica to think about. Yet his thoughts were consumed with Dianna. To make things worse, on the way over here, he’d heard on the radio that Lovin’ Spoonful golden oldie about guys tom between two women and needing to make up their minds. The hell of it was, Chris assured himself, he’d thought he had.

“So, it occurred to me that I don’t know a thing about you, Chris. And I really need to, if we’re going to do this right.”

“Then go out with me. Tonight. Be with me.” Shit. It was out before he even knew he was thinking it.

Dianna’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

Chris thought fast. “I just meant … it’s so late already. Mrs. Windhorst said I was your last appointment. Let her go home, and we can do this interview thing somewhere else.” That sounded good. “You know, in a little more laid-back location. Like that field trip thing. Maybe talk over our drinks or do an early supper. Put it on my tab. Totally about business. You can ride with me or take your own car and follow me. Then I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” He grinned, hoping it would seal the deal.

She shook her head. “Oh, I don’t think that’s a good idea at all. Your attorney girlfriend wouldn’t like that.”

Edgy excitement pushed Chris forward in his chair. He had to make her say yes, that was all he knew. Just the prospect of an evening with Dianna, no matter how innocent … well, he wanted it. “She won’t know. She’s in Boston today and tomorrow doing some legwork for a case she’s been assigned.”

Dianna sent him a penetrating stare. “I see. But what I meant was she wouldn’t like us, as in ‘me and you’—or you and anybody else, I’d bet—out on the town for any reason. It just smacks of, I don’t know, cheating.”

“Cheating? Oh, hell, no. Not like that. I’m talking business. A meeting between client and proposal planner.” Chris sat back, trying to look sincere and as if he believed himself. “I am allowed to move freely about the city, you know, Dianna. Besides, we’d be doing it for Veronica’s benefit.”

Bemused skepticism laced Dianna’s expression and her chuckle. “I would love to see you try to sell that one to her.”

Could this be harder? “All right, look, if she finds out somehow, I’ll just tell her what’s up, ask her to marry me, and she can ruin her own surprise. But I’ll still pay you. So, see? No risk.”

When Dianna didn’t say anything, Chris took it as a positive hesitation—she was at least thinking about it—and so employed his proven, surefire, hundred-watt, broad, sexy grin. “Come on, Dianna, haven’t you ever heard that the customer is always right? Besides, the risk here is mine, not yours. So what do you say? You up for this? You wanna do it?”

*   *   *

Do I wanna do it? Yeah. Like rabbits wanna do it. That darned Chris Adams. He’d made this adventure sound so innocent and like so much fun. Could the man be more persuasive? Not humanly possible. After all, here she was at his place. Yes, his place. Very smooth of him, no? And, apparently, where he was concerned, she was very willingly led. If she didn’t stop kidding herself, Dianna knew, this could be big trouble.

Again she saw herself sending Mrs. Windhorst—along with her very suspicious and disapproving expression—home; heard her own babbled explanations to the woman about a business dinner; saw herself locking up and then following Chris’s world-class Beemer—like a lamb to the slaughter—right to his place. If she could forgive herself, Dianna reasoned, it would be on the basis of her not having known where they were headed until they got here. And then, when he’d pulled up in front of this building, she’d seen a neon sign for a really classy restaurant on the first floor. What was there to suspect?

So here she was. Dianna looked around. A dark and stormy Monday evening. The rain had finally come. But who cared? She was in an honest-to-God penthouse apartment. So coolly elegant that it made her heart take a staggered beat. Not one amenity had been overlooked. And here she sat on his sofa. She ran her hand over the rich fabric. Nice. Her jacket, which he’d helped her remove, now lay folded over the sofa’s arm. She’d kicked off her shoes, too, when Chris had told her to make herself comfortable. But that was as far as she was going.

Oh, and she had a drink in her hand. Was this guy suave, or what? Dinner, he’d informed her after a phone call to the French Quarter—the exclusive restaurant on the first floor—would be delivered to the door. Dianna was so totally impressed that she was in danger of being swept away. And about this penthouse … she could do this, she told herself while looking around. Admiringly, she catalogued the furniture, noting that it was contemporary but done in soft earth tones. Several select pieces were set around the room in intimate little conversation groupings, one even around a two-sided fireplace. Was the other side in his bedroom?

Don’t go there. Okay, not going there. Desperately she looked around, finally sighting on the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows in front of her that gave a panoramic view of Baltimore at its best. Now, this was nice. Viewed from this height and through the veil of the softening rain, the city appeared to have slipped into something more comfortable … an Impressionist painting, to be exact. Watery. Evocative. Alive.

Of course, the mood killers here, the splashes of cold water in the face, were the big questions. Things like, oh, did Veronica live here, too?