Unnatural Relations (Lust and Lies Series, Book 1) (4 page)

"Thanks, but it would probably be a waste of time and after putting in a ten-hour shift waiting on characters like that, I'd just as soon go home and put my feet up. If he bothers me again, I'll do something about it, but I doubt if he will. I would like to do something for you, though."

"Oh, no, uh, that's not necessary."

He looked so uncomfortable, she reached out and put her hand on his arm. "Please. I insist. At least let me buy you a cup of coffee. Or something stronger, if you'd like."

"No, um, coffee would be fine, but you said you've had a long day, and your thank-you was more than sufficient."

She smiled. His shyness was absolutely irresistible. "As long as I get off my feet, I'll be happy." In a dramatic fashion, she hooked her arm with his and headed him toward a deli she knew stayed open all night. "Come along, my knight in shining armor. Allow me to reward you for your heroism." That made him smile and with a nod of his head, he quit protesting.

"I'm Barbara Mancuso," she said as they began walking. "And you are?"

He cleared his throat. "Howard. Howard Hamilton."

She could tell he was still feeling awkward and she was determined to get him over it. "Well, Howard Hamilton, it is my extreme pleasure to meet you. Are you a full-time rescuer of maidens in distress or is it just a sideline?"

She watched him smile again and was glad he had kept a straight face in front of the bully. No matter how big he was, he wasn't the least bit frightening when he smiled. In fact, she decided, he had a very gentle demeanor about him, sort of like a huge teddy bear.

"I'm a student," he said much too simply.

"Where? What year? Major? Minor?"

"Harvard. Working on my master's. Business and finance."

She tilted her head up at him and wrinkled her nose. "Really? I would never have guessed that in a zillion years."

He gave a small shrug. "What would you guess?"

She pretended to be very serious as she studied his face and body. "I don't know. A football player? Bodyguard? Professional wrestler?"

"Some people say I resemble Hulk Hogan... when he was younger," he murmured self-consciously.

"Well... you're both big and blond, but he has a mustache and you're much better looking." He cleared his throat again, and she wished it was daytime so she could see if he was blushing.

"What about you?" he asked.

"I'm a student also... sometimes. Occasionally, I'm an actress. Most of the time, though, I'm a waitress. Here's the place."

Though there were a number of customers in the deli, plenty of tables were empty. The next few minutes passed with Barbara insisting Howard should eat something with his coffee. Again, she overrode his protests with little effort.

"So tell me, Howard," she prompted as soon as the waitress took their order. "What stroke of fate caused a Harvard graduate student to be on a New York sidewalk after midnight?" She watched his mouth relax into another one of his heart-melting smiles.

"I came down for the weekend to visit a friend, but he's had a nonstop party going on in his apartment since last night. I had to get out for a while."

"Hmmm. I know how that is. I tried living with a roommate twice and finally decided to rent a studio in a less prestigious neighborhood where I could afford it alone. Where's home?"

"Cambridge. I have an apartment off-campus."

"No, I meant
home,
as in where you go over Christmas vacation." When he didn't answer immediately, she figured she either overstepped herself or she had accidentally pushed a sensitive button. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be so nosy. I didn't mean to be rude, honestly, but I have a habit of looking at people as if they were jigsaw puzzles. Usually I can talk to a customer for thirty seconds and feel like I have all the pieces I need to construct that character. But once in a while, I meet someone I can't figure out and my curiosity takes over."

"I'm really not terribly complicated," he said with a shake of his head.

"On the contrary, my brave knight, I think you are very complicated." Leaning forward and arching one eyebrow, she continued in a bad German accent, "But if I have to keep you here all night, I vill eventually have zee entire picture. Does that frighten you
mein lieber
?"

He gave that a moment's consideration. "No. As a matter of fact, I rather like the sound of it."

The next instant, his sky-blue eyes met hers straight on for the first time and she felt as though someone had vacuumed the air out of her lungs. "Oh, my," she whispered, shocked by the impact. To her relief, the waitress arrived with their food and she was able to pull her gaze away from his. Only then did she notice how badly he was blushing and realized that he had been affected just as unexpectedly.

Her gaze dropped to his hands. They were large, like the rest of him, and showed no signs of manual labor or nicotine stains, but most important, there were no rings on his fingers or tan lines to indicate that he usually wore one.

After the response her body had to looking in his eyes, she couldn't prevent her mind from traveling to what it would feel like to have those hands on her.

She was no longer a virgin... technically... but she never experienced the magical sensations she'd read about. After two experiments with intimacy, she had concluded that sex wasn't worth the effort required.

She had also read thousands of paragraphs about love at first sight and heated gazes across crowded rooms, but she had reluctantly abandoned the belief that those things happened to real people. She stared at Howard's downcast eyes until he looked at her again. They weren't across a crowded room but if that wasn't a heated gaze, her name wasn't Barbara Mancuso.

"Are you going to help me out with your puzzle or should I just assume the worst?" she asked to break the tension.

He swallowed the bite of sandwich in his mouth. "What would you like to know?"

"Okay. How about your family?"

"My parents live in Boston," he said, answering her earlier question as well. "I'm an only child."

"Oh! So am I. Wasn't it great growing up without having to compete for attention?"

He looked at her curiously. "Great? I always wished I had a dozen brothers and sisters to take away some of that attention."

She instantly analyzed that comment. There was probably a domineering or overprotective parent in the wings.

"I'm rich," he said bluntly.

"How nice," Barbara said with a laugh. "It's a little tough going to Harvard without money."

"You don't understand. I'm very,
very
rich. My father is the Hamilton of Hamilton-Greene," Howard explained in a matter-of-fact, almost embarrassed tone. "My mother is the last of the Greenes, which leaves me as the sole heir to the combined fortune."

"Good Lord," she muttered, realizing the immensity of his inheritance... and responsibility. "I bet half the products in my kitchen have a Hamilton-Greene logo."

"Half might be a bit high," he said, playing with the last French fry on his plate.

"Wait a minute. I think I have most of the puzzle now." Before she could offer her deduction, however, the waitress came back to clear the dishes and take their dessert order.

As soon as the woman walked away, she said, "Here's how it looks to me. Very simply, you had your entire life planned out before you were born. Unfortunately, you aren't terribly happy with the role you've been given to play, but being the good son, you would never rebel. So you're majoring in business, as expected, instead of..."

She gestured for him to complete the sentence, but he looked confused. "I'm betting there's some other career that would make you happier than taking over the leadership of Hamilton-Greene."

He began shredding his paper napkin. "I never gave it any thought."

"I don't believe that. There must be something. Tell me this—what did you want to be before they told you who you were?" His napkin was quickly becoming a small pile of strips. "Okay, we can come back to that one. Why did you tell me you were rich? I would never have asked."

He shrugged. "It's the one piece of information that explains everything about me. It seemed more expedient to get it out of the way. Now you can start telling me about
you."

Though she felt there was still a piece missing from Howard's puzzle, she was temporarily satisfied with what she did have. Since he hadn't asked any specific questions, she told him some stories that gave him glimpses into her happy childhood, her turbulent teen years in Dayton and how her dreams of stardom had brought her to New York two years ago.

The big city was a hell of an eye-opener for most people. For an eighteen-year-old Ohio girl, it was like being dropped on another planet inhabited by flesh-eating aliens. Reality set in swiftly and without mercy.

The talent her high school drama coach had raved about was actually mediocre. The Italian coloring, pretty face and cute little figure she'd been complimented on back home were no more than average for a would-be actress. There simply wasn't anything exceptional or unique about her.

But Barbara had more persistence than many other hopefuls. She registered for classes at NYU to improve her acting skills and volunteered to work for free backstage at an off-off-Broadway theater.

It was at that theater that she had landed a small part in a briefly successful show six months ago, but nothing else had come through before or since. According to her plan, she should be preparing to leave for Hollywood soon.

However, the prospect of moving to the West Coast and starting from scratch no longer held any appeal. She had carved out a pleasant life for herself in New York and had even registered for some business classes at college with thoughts of upgrading her primary income source.

Though she accepted the fact that, short of a miracle, stardom was out of her reach, she still put in time at the theater and auditioned for roles she had a shot at. She loved it too much not to hold on to a piece of her dream.

Howard was much more at ease once the focus was on her, and his obvious fascination had her entertaining him much longer than she'd intended. It wasn't until she caught him stifling a yawn that she checked her watch.

"Good grief! It's after three. I was only kidding about keeping you here all night."

"Believe me, I have thoroughly enjoyed my captivity," he said with a grin that made her heart go thump again.

There was a brief tug-of-war over the check, which she won mainly because she knew the waitress, but he won the battle over accompanying her to her apartment in Queens in a cab rather than her taking the subway.

"Have you had enough time to think about it?" Barbara asked after they were on their way.

Howard narrowed his eyes in thought. "I seem to have forgotten the question."

She doubted that, but repeated it anyway. "What career would you have chosen if you were Howard Jones instead of Howard Hamilton?" He didn't move a muscle, but she sensed his mental squirming. "Be honest, now."

"You're going to laugh."

"Only if you do first."

He turned his head away and murmured, "I draw a little."

"What kind of drawing? Like an architect or an artist?"

"Um, I, uh, like to draw cartoon characters and I do some caricatures. I'm pretty good."

She gently brought his face back toward her. "I bet you're better than pretty good. What would you do with your talent if you had the chance? Animation or comics?"

When he saw she was truly interested, his eyes sparkled in response. "I think animation. When I was very young, I imagined being the creator of my own animated super-hero series."

She could almost hear her mom warning her against what she was thinking. She and Howard were barely acquaintances, let alone close enough friends for her to meddle in his life. And yet, she couldn't stand to see someone give up his dream without even trying. When they reached her apartment she said, "Come in with me. We have work to do."

It wasn't until she closed and locked the door behind him that she realized she had better explain so that he didn't misunderstand why she'd invited him in. The words she was about to say caught in her throat as she turned around and saw him standing in the middle of her efficiency apartment, looking much too large for such a small room and looking entirely too appealing for her to be alone with him so soon.

The instant their eyes met, however, she could see that he was more nervous about the situation than she was.

"Please sit," she said, pointing to a chair instead of the trundle bed that doubled for a sofa. She located paper and a pencil; then she sat on the bed with her legs crossed Indian-style. "Draw me something. Anything. I want to decide for myself whether you're
pretty good."

With a slow grin, he began scribbling. When she tried to watch him work, he covered the drawing with his hand. About five minutes later he tore off the sheet of paper, but he immediately started another drawing on the next sheet. She was at the edge of her patience by the time he completed a fourth drawing without letting her have as much as a peek.

"All right," he finally said. "But understand, I did these rather quickly, so they're not my best—"