CHAPTER 5

And were Veronica’s clothes in the closets? Her tooth-brush in the bathroom? Dianna continued torturing herself. Was the décor her taste? The music playing softly on the built-in stereo system—had she picked it out? And the flowers? The paintings? The bric-a-brac? Suddenly the absent attorney was everywhere.

And speaking of that hard-edged, possessive woman, Dianna wouldn’t have been surprised to discover there were hidden cameras throughout the place, right now busily recording her every word and gesture. She could just see that tape being played back in court while she sat in the witness stand, red-faced with shame. Shame? What shame? She hadn’t done anything wrong—

“What are you thinking about so hard, Dianna?”

Startled out of her thoughts, if not her skin, by the sound of Chris’s voice, Dianna jumped, nearly spilling her wine. Steadying it, she put her free hand over her heart and looked up to see him rounding the other end of the sofa. “God, you startled me. I didn’t hear your approach.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. Darned thick carpeting. Not my idea.” He sat down on the sofa with her, but at a discreet distance. His expression was open, friendly, the perfect host. Leaning forward, his elbows resting on his knees, he took a sip from the squat crystal tumbler in his hand and then held it out toward her. “Rum and Coke. You want one?”

“No.” She held up her goblet of white wine. “I’d better stick to this. I’m driving, you know. So, whose idea was it?”

His expression mirrored confusion. “For you to drive? Yours, I guess. Unlike you last Friday, I did offer you a ride tonight.”

A self-deprecating grin claimed Dianna’s lips. “All right, fine, you got me. And I should have taken you up on that ride, you know. I had a hard time keeping up with that machine of yours. But I meant the thick carpet. Whose idea was that?” His expression didn’t clear. “Just now you said it wasn’t your idea. So I was wondering if the place was already decorated when you bought it.” Good save.

“Oh.” He sat back, crossing an ankle over the opposite knee. He switched his drink to his left hand and rested his other arm along the sofa’s spine. Dianna spared only a glance at his fingers … long, supple, like a pianist’s … and remembered this pose from her office last Friday. “The carpet, like everything else, was the decorator’s idea,” he said.

The decorator! Not Veronica. God love the decorator. Dianna wanted to jump up and cheer—a world-class college football cheer. Pom-poms. Short skirt. Lots of spirit. Megaphone: Two, four, six, eight … who do we appreciate? The decorator! The decorator! Yah! This would be followed by lots of tumbling and maybe even an attempt at doing splits. Ha. Take that, Veronica Alexander.

Chris was still talking. “… I have no clue about these things. I mean, what kind of doorknobs do I want? I told her the kind that open the door when you turn them, what else?”

Dianna took a sip of her wine and eyed Chris. “Her?”

“The decorator.”

Rah, rah, rah! Sis, boom, bah! “What’s her name?”

“Her name? I don’t know. I forgot.” His expression somewhere between confused and bemused, Chris added, “But let me think a minute.” He frowned, staring trancelike at the carpet. Then he focused on Dianna, pointing at her. “Got it. Jayne—with a y—Van Ling. Why?”

Dianna shrugged her shoulders. “I just like her style.”

“You do?” Chris looked around his living room, frowning as if he’d never noticed it before. “So did Veronica. She worked with Jayne to get all this done. Dealing with the details would have made me nuts.”

Dianna felt the corners of her mouth pulling down. Darned, silly decorator. Couldn’t even work on her own. How good could she be? “Does, uh”—Dianna cleared her throat, striving now for cool and casual as she stared fixedly into her wine glass, much as if it were a crystal ball she was consulting—“does Veronica live here … by any chance? Already, I mean.”

When Chris didn’t say anything, Dianna forced herself to look over at him. His seriously contemplative expression said he was trying to divine what underlay her questions. “Is that important, whether she does or not?”

He spoke quietly. His dark eyes seemed to glitter in the low lighting as he raked his gaze over her. Though her mind whirred, looking for a safe way to answer him, Dianna felt certain her blood had stilled in her veins. She’d got herself into this corner. It was up to her to get herself out. She fell back on business. “It could be,” she all but chirped. “In other words, say you wanted to propose right here. We’d have to work fast and discreetly to get everything in place before she came home that evening. Wouldn’t want her to surprise us in the middle of set-up.” Or have her come waltzing in here right now because her trip was cut short.

Chris nodded. “I see. Makes sense.”

Dianna exhaled her relief. “So … does she?”

He chuckled. “You’re relentless. No. She doesn’t.”

Ta-rah-rah-boom-de-ay. Dianna smiled broadly and sincerely.

“She does have a key, though.”

Hold the fireworks. Stop the marching band. Kill the grin. “Oh. Of course. I would expect her to … I guess.”

Chris apparently chose to ignore that as he pointed at her slender goblet. “You like the wine? Believe it or not, there’s a wine cellar here, although it’s not really a cellar at all. More like a big, temperature-controlled brick-lined room with wine racks. Go figure.”

Dianna chuckled. “You sound as impressed as I am right now.”

“I am. And I don’t know the first thing about wine, which tells you the ‘wine cellar’”—he said it so hoity-toity, as if he were embarrassed by his riches—“was not my idea. But ask me about beer. Beer, I know about.”

Dianna grinned at him. “A total guy thing. Anybody who ever went to college knows about beer.”

“And yet I never went to college.”

Dianna pulled back, surprised. “Seriously? You never went to college?” She sipped at the really great wine he’d poured her, for someone who said he didn’t know anything about wine.

“You mean all this stuff?” He gestured in a broad sweep of the living room. “How would a guy who never had any higher learning ever achieve all this?”

“No.” Dianna felt chastised. “That would be totally snobbish of me. I didn’t mean that at all.” And yet she probably had. Her cheeks heated with her embarrassment. She could only hope the muted lighting hid her reaction. “Seriously, though. How’d you … do all this? Were you born with it?” Oh, like that was better? “Will you listen to me? I had no idea I was all ‘Let them eat cake.’”

“It’s okay, Marie Antoinette. Keep your head. But no, I wasn’t born with all this. Just the hair color and these eyes. And the brains, apparently. But not the money. As to how … well, call it good timing. Knowing when to get in and when to get out. A lot of people lost their shirts, but I managed to sell mine and move on before the bottom fell out of the business.”

“So-o I’m guessing, oh … the stock market?”

“Wrong. Bill Gates.”

Dianna stared at him. “Bill Gates? You know him? Microsoft Bill Gates?”

“Not personally. But long story short, more than a few years back I invented and developed something vital he wanted and wanted bad. Really bad.”

Excitement seized Dianna. “Ohmigod, you’re a dotcom millionaire. I should have known.”

“Really? How? Is there a computer chip embedded in my forehead?”

Very deadpan, she replied, “Yes, there is.”

“Oh, damn. That’s not supposed to show.” Chris rubbed hard at his forehead.

Laughing, and careful of her wine, Dianna leaned over to grab his arm. An appreciative part of her brain registered that someone had been spending some time at the gym. His skin was warm and his arm muscled. “Stop it. I’m teasing.”

Instantly serious, Chris looked from her hand on his arm to her face. He held her gaze. Naked desire radiated from his dark eyes. The man was two seconds away from kissing her and then some. Dianna’s breath caught in anticipation, but her brain raised an accusation: So, one word from him, or one heated look, and you’re ready to abandon your morals, your professional philosophy, and your Sunday-school upbringing?

Yes. No! Abruptly, Dianna sat back, thinking desperately how to lighten the moment. “I just mean, uh, wow, good for you. And this is really exciting for me, too.”

“Really?” Chris sipped at his rum and Coke and watched her over the rim of his glass … watched her like a hawk, piercing gaze and all.

Oh, God. “Uh, sure.” Keep talking, Dianna. “You know, you hear about dot-com millionaires all the time. Even read about them. But how many does the average person really know? I thought they—you—were like leprechauns. You know: little magical creatures of myth that everyone believes in but no one has ever seen. And now, here I am with an actual one.”

Chris had sat through her paean to him with a bemused expression on his face. And with good reason, Dianna feared, hearing in her mind the echo of her words. She pasted a big self-mocking grin on her face and said, “Could I be more suave and sophisticated?”

Chris laughed. It made her feel good to realize that she could make him laugh. She’d bet Veronica couldn’t make him laugh. She’d bet Veronica wasn’t even funny. “Very suave and sophisticated. But what you’re not is an average person. Not by a long shot.”

Right then, something rang and something else buzzed. Dianna nearly jumped out of her skin. Dear God, it’s the alarm on the hidden cameras. The tapes need to be replaced. She looked to Chris. He grinned at her. “Saved by the bells.” He jumped up, drink and all. “Would you get the phone?” She nodded. “Great. Thanks. I’ll get the door. It’s probably our supper, and I’ll need to sign for it.”

The phone. The door. Thank you, Jesus. Weak with relief, yet ever cooperative, Dianna stood up, surprised to realize that her legs felt wobbly. Was that the effect of the wine? Or Chris’s effect on her? Maybe both? Not gonna think about that. She set her wine glass on a coaster atop the coffee table and looked around as Chris headed for the double front doors of the penthouse. The phone rang again. Almost out of the room and into the wide hallway that led to the gallery foyer, he pointed to his right. “The phone is right over there on the bar. Just ask whoever it is to hold on a sec, okay?”

“Okay.” Dianna’s reply was a soft one full of trepidation. No one had to tell her exactly who was at the other end of that line. A very jealous attorney, no doubt. Nevertheless, she turned to the bar—the dark granite bar with the big, impressive saltwater aquarium backing it—and spotted the equally dark, effectively camouflaged telephone. Dianna walked stiff-legged over to it, eyeing it warily. On its next ring, she finally picked up the receiver, putting it to her ear. “Hello.” No one said anything. “Uh, Mr. Christopher Adams’s residence?”

The woman at the other end finally spoke. “Just who is this?”

“Uh … Dianna West?” she answered.

“You don’t sound very sure of that, young lady. Don’t you know your own name? Or did you make that up?”

“No, I didn’t.” Okay, so it wasn’t Veronica Alexander. This was an older woman, by the sound of her voice. An older woman not too happy, for whatever reason, to hear Dianna’s voice at the other end of her phone. “I am most definitely Dianna West.”

She waited for the woman to identify herself.

“Where is my son?”

Dianna turned her eyes heavenward … or actually ceilingward … and mouthed a prayer of relief. Oh, thank you, for letting it be his mother, and not his girlfriend.

“Hello? Are you still there? Who are you? Understand, I’ll call the police.”

“No. Don’t do that. I’m not a burglar or anything. I’m an invited guest. I swear.” Dianna decided that this lady fell somewhere between Lenny’s mother and her own in attitude and personality. Dianna remembered what Chris had said about his mother last Friday, about how she rode his back just fine. Apparently, she was going to ride Dianna’s, too.

“You’re an invited guest, you say? So, is there a dinner party going on?” Highly suspicious she was, too.

Dianna thought how best to answer that. Well, there was Chris. And her. And supper at the door. “In a way, yes.”

“Why wasn’t I invited?”

Dianna began to sweat—and to soundly curse Chris Adams for not answering his own phone and for not inviting his mother. How reasonable was that? “I couldn’t say. It wasn’t up to me to invite people.”

“Veronica would have invited me. Is she there? Let me talk to her.”

Now Dianna was ill. This so was not going to end well. “I can’t. She’s not here.”

Oh, that was a deep, deep silence from the other end. “I see. So she wasn’t invited, either?”

In her head, Dianna heard the theme music from the old Dragnet TV series her father always watched. Just the facts, ma’am. “No. Veronica was not invited.”

“So you do at least know about Veronica?”

Where in the hell is Chris? What’d he do—go to Paris to sign for that freakin’ French food, for crying out loud? “Yes, I know about Veronica. About as much as I want to.” Ouch. Too late. It was out. Her eyes wide with guilt, Dianna clapped a hand over her mouth.

“I see, young lady. Well, Chris likes Veronica very much.”

“I’m certain he does. She’s a…” Dianna had to swallow hard to get the words out. “A lovely woman.” And so is Medusa, her sister.

“So, who are you to my son, Miss West? If that’s actually your real name.”

“Ma’am, if it were possible right now, I could show you any number of photo IDs as proof that I am Dianna West.”

“So you keep saying. Oh, wait. Hold on a minute. Someone is on my other line.” With that, she clicked over, not giving Dianna time to respond.

So she stood there holding the receiver, thinking that if the phone had been a cordless one, she would have already gone in search of Chris. But it was just as well, she decided, that she was anchored here. For one thing, no way was she abandoning her post, only to have his mother maybe come back on the line before she could get Chris over here. What would the woman think? That Dianna had just wandered off like an idiot? Or that she was the burglar she’d said she wasn’t and was even now ransacking the place? She could see his mother calling the police. Oh, good. Let’s have them show up. Maybe it will be that cop from last Friday night. Wouldn’t he be happy? Or—

Stop it. Focus, Dianna. Something else is very wrong here. Think. It was more a feeling than a physical thing that was wrong. Just something that nagged at the back of her mind. Dianna struggled to understand what exactly it was. Finally, she came up with it. Okay, first Veronica had jumped to that “intimate moment” conclusion last Friday. And now, here his own mother was pretty much accusing him of cheating, too. So, Dianna wondered, is finding Chris in compromising situations the norm?

She slumped, making a grumpy face. No. Please. Come on, don’t let it be true. Not him. This so wasn’t good. The women in his life, the very ones who knew him best, apparently didn’t trust him to be faithful. How deeply disappointing was that? She’d thought he was different. He seemed like such a great guy. But wait a minute. This new thought pulled her upright with self-awareness. I have no right to be upset. Chris Adams is my client, and nothing more. If he’s a cheater and wants to ask his girlfriend—a barracuda woman who already knows how he is—to marry him, then fine. More power to them both. Not my concern.

But it was, and she didn’t mean professionally. No, the truth was she was very taken by him. Smitten. Infatuated. All of that. But beyond that, she realized she also just plain liked him. He was charming, he made her laugh, had nice manners, and was very helpful when called upon (i.e., Lenny). Was it too much to ask him to live up to all that? I just don’t want his personality to be a lie, to be a façade. And I don’t want him to be the kind of man who cheats.

Unless it’s with you? her conscience asked quietly. Well, yes, Dianna admitted, caught off guard. Instantly appalled, she changed her answer. No! Not with me. What an awful thing to think. But was it? After all, when Chris had been in situations that had raised those suspicions in his girlfriend and now his mother, who exactly was the other woman he’d been with both times? Hello. “Oh, God. Me. I’m the other woman in his life.”

Just then, Dianna heard those little clicks from the phone that meant the other party was coming back on the line. “I’m back. That was Myrtle Espinosa. She never shuts up. Say, you didn’t hang up on me, did you, young lady?”

“No, ma’am. I wouldn’t do that.” See? It was a good thing she’d hung on.

“Well, at least you have good manners … for an intruder who doesn’t know her own name.”

Dianna gave up. This whole affair—more like a non-affair—was just silly. She resorted to her last line of defense: humorous resignation. “Thank you. I’ll tell my mother you said so.”

“You do that. Now, where were we? Oh, yes. You were about to answer my question about who you are to my son.”

Dianna was ready for her now. “I’m a professional acquaintance.”

“Oh, really?” The woman cheered up considerably. “Well, that’s different, then. What’s your profession?”

Dianna froze. Uh-oh. She couldn’t say “proposal planner.” That would give everything away. That he meant to ask Veronica to marry him was Chris’s news, not hers, and she had no way of knowing if he’d divulged anything yet to his mother, despite his saying she rode his back. Maybe he hadn’t meant over this specific situation—

“Hello?”

“Oh. Sorry. I’m here. I’m, uh, well, a professional woman, I guess you could say.” Dianna made a face at her own answer. A professional woman? What the hell is that?

“You’re a prostitute? I’ve been talking to a prostitute—”

“No! Not a prostitute. Not at all. That’s not what—”

“I do not approve. And what is my son thinking, taking advantage of a poor, downtrodden trollop like this? You should go to school, you know, and become a secretary or something else decent.”

“But I am decent. And I did go to school—”

“Then why are you a hooker?”

That word coming out of Chris’s mother’s mouth was just so wrong. “I swear to God I am not a hooker.” Dianna rubbed at her temple. Too many years of being kind and patient to her parents’ elderly friends forestalled her being unkind and impatient now, even in the face of Mrs. Adams’s … well, forthrightness. “Okay, look, Mrs. Adams—”

“Mrs. Eve.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m Mrs. Eve. I remarried, but then the poor soul died … not that it’s any of your business. I just tell you that to clarify for you exactly who it is you’re dealing with, young lady … and I use the term loosely in this instance.”

Despite everything, Dianna suffered the crazy thought that if the woman hyphenated her last name she’d be Mrs. Adams-Eve. Too bizarre. Too unreal. And pretty darned funny, really. Dianna chuckled. “Look, I think I’ll just let you hold on a minute for your son.”

“Does he have his clothes on?”

Shock widened Dianna’s eyes to approximately the size of dinner plates. “He’d better.”

“Because I won’t talk to him if he’s naked.”

“Neither will I.”

“And where did you say Veronica is through all this?”

Dianne searched her memory. “Oh. Boston. She’s doing some legwork.”

“Don’t you be crass with me, missy. Legwork, indeed. Veronica Alexander is a respected attorney.”

“And I, Mrs. Eve, am not a—”

“Mrs. Eve? Oh, Christ.” The phone was grabbed away from Dianna. Chris to the rescue. “Mom? What is going on?”

Evidently listening to his mother’s reply or harangue or whatever, he rolled his eyes at Dianna and mouthed I’m sorry. She grinned and shook her head, waving away his apology.

Sure, she could have been insulted and angry, but she’d sipped enough of that wine to be mellow. Besides, right now she was too happily tri-cornered by Chris’s body in front of her, the bar at her side, and the wall at her back to care too much which little old lady verbally abused her. And he smelled so good … so earthy and warm and masculine. And he was such a man. Tall and muscled. Dianna stood there, grinning, gazing up at him, reveling in his nearness—and listening to him trying to reason with his mother.

“Hooker? There’s no hook—You mean Dianna? Oh, God, tell me you didn’t—” He made a face at Dianna, his expression an exaggeration of shock and embarrassment. Dianna could only grin up at him as she wondered what he looked like with his shirt off. “I say it, Mom,” he continued, “because she isn’t. She is not. ‘A professional woman’ doesn’t necessarily mean—No, I’d know, wouldn’t I?”

Chris pulled the handset away from his ear, covered the mouthpiece with his other hand, and said, “I cannot tell you how sorry I am about this. She’s like a barking Pekingese when she gets started on something. Listen.”

He put the receiver to Dianna’s ear. Sure enough, Mrs. Eve’s sermon continued unabated. Dianna pulled back, laughing, and held her hands up in defeat. “Hey, what can I say? You saw my mother in action last Friday night, remember?”

With the phone still held away from his ear, with his mother still yapping in that tinny way it sounds over the phone lines, Chris frowned as if trying to get a mental image of her mother. Suddenly, his expression cleared. “Ah. Got it. Looks a lot like my mother. Short. Big purse. Apple cheeks. Right?”

“Exactly. It’s like a club they belong to, isn’t it? They all get to look like that after a while. Even Lenny’s mother.”

“Yeah, I saw her. She looked sane. But she’s a nightmare.”

“Yes, she is.” Dianna pointed to the phone in Chris’s hand. “Maybe you ought to say something to your mother.”

“I don’t think so.” He held the phone out to her. “Maybe you’d like to?”

“No. She won’t want to talk to me. I’m a hooker, remember?”

His expression that of a man mortified, Chris said, “I am so sorry. Damn. This is new, even for her.” Then he smiled down at Dianna, his eyes warm, his closeness intoxicating. “Thanks for being such a good sport. Really. Veronica would have hit the roof.”

Dianna shrugged. “Yeah, well, I’m not Veronica.”

Chris roved his gaze over her face. “No, you’re not. I’m very aware of that fact.”

That look on his face … she knew that look. Dianna’s breathing became stunted. Oh, God, he’s going to kiss me. And, oh, God, I’m going to let him.

*   *   *

The phone in one hand, his other braced against the bar, Chris knew what he was doing, but at the moment he couldn’t seem to muster much guilt or self-recriminations. He meant to kiss Dianna West. It was that simple. Yeah, that wrong. But also that simple. He lowered his head, angling ever closer to the sweet anticipation of her full lips, painted the color of strawberries. No doubt her kiss would taste of the wine she’d been sipping. Edgy anticipation seized Chris, tightening his belly muscles. Surely, as his lips molded themselves to hers, he’d also taste those strawberries. Sweet summertime—

“No.” Dianna pulled back, shrinking away from him, her hands pushed against his chest. Chris jerked to a startled stop. His gaze met hers, and he saw Dianna’s eyes. Dark gold, they looked wild as she shook her head no and hissed out her words. “Your mother, Chris. And Veronica. We can’t. No. Don’t. Please.”

Damn. His breath left him in an exhalation of frustrated intentions. Even though he knew she was right—they really couldn’t kiss—it took him more than a few mere seconds to hogtie his libido and engage his brain. Then, with sudden clarity, he saw the situation as it was. Christ Almighty, he actually had Dianna in a corner, wedged between the wall at her back, the bar at her side, and his body in front of her. What the hell am I thinking? He hadn’t pulled antics like this since his smooth and suave yet pimply days in middle school.

“Dianna, sorry.” He kept his voice down, too, because his mother’s radar ears didn’t miss a thing. “Let me get off the phone, and we can … talk, okay?” She raised her eyebrows suspiciously. “I mean it. Just talk. Business talk, I swear. And food. We have food. Lots of good, hot food. It’s in the dining room. Go check it out.” Please don’t leave. Just … don’t leave.

She shook her head, dashing his hopes. “No. I’m sorry, Chris, but I just can’t do this. I can’t stay. I was wrong to come here. And you were wrong to bring me here. But, believe me, I blame myself as much as I do you for this.”

“Dianna, seriously.” He was losing big time now. “There’s no blame. It just happened. Or almost happened—”

“Let’s don’t lie, Chris. This didn’t just happen. This has been looking for a place to happen since we first laid eyes on each other. We both know that.”

Well, he sure as hell couldn’t argue with that. Or tell her she was wrong. Defeated now, but a good loser—a lot of hard-hitting soccer had taught him that—Chris, still with the phone in his hand, shook his head, grinning apologetically. “All right. When you’re right, you’re right. If you want to go, I certainly won’t stop you.”

To prove it, he stepped aside, stretching the phone cord taut as he raised both hands in a hands-off gesture meant to reassure her. She immediately took him up on his offer, flitting by him as if she thought he’d reach out at the last minute and grab her back to him. Chris gripped the phone harder to keep from doing exactly that. Still physically agitated, he ran his other hand through his hair and exhaled a puff of breath.

With no other choice, tethered to the phone as he was, Chris silently watched Dianna walk stiffly over to the sofa. All right, so, yes, being male, he checked out her long legs and her cute butt. Again … wow. But the fun ended when she stepped into her shoes, grabbed up her short black jacket, and then her purse. Chris wanted to call out to her but couldn’t or, more accurately, didn’t think he should.

Dianna turned to face him. Chris didn’t know what he expected to see in her expression. Maybe anger; or outrage; or a my-next-phone-call-will-be-to-NOW look. But none of that was there. Instead, and surprising him, he found regret in her eyes. Simple yet profound regret that said she too wished it could be different.

In seeming warp-speed time, Chris’s gaze locked with hers. Barely daring to breathe, fearing it would break the spell between them, he stilled, slowly straightening up. He wanted her. And she wanted him. He couldn’t look away from her, and she didn’t walk away from him. So there it was. Pretty damned simple, huh? Tense with anticipation, with desire, Chris swallowed … and waited. The next move was Dianna’s. And if it was the right one, the one he wanted her to make, then he was prepared to go all the way with whatever this thing was that was between them—

Wait. This is crazy. Totally nuts. Startled by his own conscience’s belated awakening, Chris pulled back physically, abruptly. The spell was broken. Reality raised its ugly head. What the hell am I doing? I’ve got a thing going on with Veronica. A very serious, heavy thing. And what the hell ever happened to such things as integrity? Suddenly I have the values of an alley cat? Still, his gaze rested on another woman, Dianna West. And this moment remained one of those that he just somehow knew he would see for the rest of his life. It had that kind of dreamlike quality, one fraught, unfortunately, with a busload of regret.

Dianna raised a hand in a slight wave to signal her good-bye.

Chris slumped, not so much visibly but emotionally. Then it was done. Over. Outta here. Dead in the water. Good-bye. Kaput. Could this please just suck more? And while we’re at it, could it also be harder? Sure, he could call out to her. He could call her back, probably stop her. But what would be the point? So they could get it on hot and heavy tonight and have real regrets tomorrow? So he could feel like a heel and she could feel used? No. Wrong. Totally wrong. Things like honor had to mean something.

Dammit. With everything hammering at him like it was, with his heart and his head at war, Chris did the only thing he could. Totally aware that he still had the phone in his one hand and his mother on the other end of the line, no doubt with a thousand questions for him, Chris raised his hand to Dianna in a good-bye gesture of his own.

Across the way, standing in the dimmed lights and with the rain-washed image of Baltimore revealed behind her in the bank of picture windows, Dianna smiled softly. Hell, she didn’t want to go any more than he wanted her to go. Stay was on his lips, but he couldn’t speak it. He had no right to, not as long as Veronica was his reality. Chris exhaled, realizing his chest was tight with mixed and jangled emotions.

Abruptly, Dianna turned away from him, as if she’d had to force herself to do so. Yet she resolutely walked away, heading for the foyer. The thick carpet spared Chris the sound of her retreating footsteps.

The hallway swallowed her up, denying him the sight of her. He muttered a particularly spicy four-letter word that had, more than once, got his mouth washed out with soap when he’d been a little kid. At long last, and with nothing else to be done, Chris put the phone to his ear. “Mom? I’m sorry I kept you waiting, but—”

Stopping his words was the realization that all he heard was the flatlining dial tone. His mother had hung up on him. Just then, from another part of his penthouse, he heard the front door close. And Dianna was gone. Great. Unhappier than he knew he had a right to be, Chris hung up the phone and slowly walked over to the picture windows.

There he stood, feet spread apart, his arms folded over his chest. He stared out into the night, his gaze absently tracing the city’s skyline. He’d thought he had it all with Veronica. They’d been going strong for years. Hell, he was about to ask her to marry him. And, yeah, he knew about temptation, about other women attracting him. He wasn’t dead; he was in a committed relationship. Committed. That word meant, among other things, that he was to keep his distance from other women. And he’d done that successfully … until Dianna West came into his life.

Chris exhaled, wishing his doubts and all this upheaval could be as easily whooshed away as his breath was. After a while of thinking, Veronica or Dianna, Veronica or Dianna, it came to him that maybe he shouldn’t be with either woman. Maybe he didn’t know his own heart well enough right now to be any good to anyone. After all, something was causing this restlessness, something that he should probably explore. Too bad it couldn’t be done in the Australian outback. But it wasn’t that kind of exploring. Chris scratched irritably at his neck, wondering if all men went through this. Was he just getting the famous cold-feet syndrome? He shrugged. Maybe. Could be.

Then it became too much for him, all this indecision and soul-searching. Guys didn’t do that. Oh, hell, I don’t know. But the Lovin’ Spoonful are right. I have to make up my mind. And soon.