Authors: Lisa Marie Rice
She tried to think of all the things Todd might find boring. “His tax write-offs.”
“Noooo. That was Tuesday’s date, with the CPA.” Todd shuddered delicately. “This is worse.”
“Genetically modified organisms?”
Todd laughed. “No. That’s actually sort of interesting. Try harder.”
“Republican politics.”
He held his hand up and waggled it. ”Close,” he said, “but no cigar. Dutch voting patterns.”
“Wow.” Suzanne sat back and thought about a date spent discussing a castrating mother and Dutch politics. “Pretty dire.”
“The whole evening was about as much fun as rolling in glass.” Todd sighed theatrically. “I’m going to give up dating for Lent.”
Todd, giving up dating. Suzanne laughed at the thought. “Lent’s not for another three months. And anyway, you’re not Catholic. I don’t think you get any brownie points for giving things up for Lent unless you are. Still, not dating for a while might not be a bad idea. Why don’t you give yourself a little rest? Maybe—I don’t know—maybe a week’s respite?”
“Maybe,” he answered, doubtfully.
Suzanne hid a smile. She knew Todd, and knew his romantic nature. He was perennially on the lookout for the man of his life. He was absolutely convinced that his soul mate was waiting for him at the next nightclub, or restaurant or cocktail party. Todd could no more stop dating than he could stop eating or breathing.
“So,” she said, putting down her cup of tea after taking a sip. Delicious, perfect tea, a special blend Todd had imported especially from England. Served in the perfect teacup. Villeroy and Boch’s Vieux Luxembourg. Set out on the perfect silver tray. Christofle. Placed on the perfect coffee table, made out of a 16
th
century monastery door. Working with Todd was a pleasure in every possible way. “Are we ready to face the Dragon Lady this afternoon? Tell you what. You bring the chair and I’ll bring the whip.”
“Sorry, sweetie.” Todd sighed. “I think you might have to go into the Dragon Lady’s lair all by yourself. My accountant says that if I don’t stop by his office today, he’ll report me to the IRS himself. So Marissa Carson is all yours. You can be the one to convince her that, no, that much red in the bathroom will make it look too much like an internal organ and that those 80 yards of blue shantung she ordered on special consignment from Beijing cannot be dyed yellow.”
“And that you can’t tear down a load-bearing wall because it bothers your—what’s that dog’s breed? Lapsang souchong? The one that’s all hair and yaps constantly?”
“Llhasa apso.”
“Right.” Suzanne winced, remembering trying to argue Marissa Carson out of that one. “And as much as you’d like sun in the sun room in the afternoon, which is when you get up anyway, the sun does rise in the east, has done so for many, many years and no, there’s not much you can do about that.” Marissa Carson was impossible. Suzanne turned to glare at Todd. Who was going to leave her alone with a woman not even Prozac could tame. “Thanks a bunch for dumping me. Who knows what crazy new idea Marissa’s hatched in the meantime?”
“She’s just back from New York,” Todd said contemplatively. “And crazy about the Met’s new production of
Aida
. I shudder at the thought. It probably means that now she’s into—“
“Elephants,” they said together and Suzanne laughed.
She sipped her tea, relaxed for the first time in twenty-four hours, and contemplated Todd. He was such a pleasure to look at. He wasn’t much taller than she was, beautifully made, with fine features, long silky blond hair and deep green eyes. He was so good-looking that people often underestimated him.
She smiled at him and he smiled back.
Todd was such a great guy. They got along really well and had done so since the moment they’d met. They meshed so easily that Todd could finish her sentences. He knew her decorating style so well all she had to do was give a vague word picture, make the most basic of sketches and he could see her entire decorating scheme complete in his head. He had a fine sense of irony that offset her tendency to be too serious and she in turn kept him grounded.
Suzanne knew that Todd was contemplating asking her to become a full partner in his company. So far they’d only worked on the occasional contract together, like the Marissa Carson redecoration. But what they had done together had been spectacular and endlessly satisfying. Architectural Digest had taken note twice.
She was excited at the thought of joining Todd’s company. He had one of the most successful decorating firms in the Pacific Northwest and it would make her career overnight, not to mention boosting her income a thousand percent. But that’s not why she’d accept.
She’d accept because she couldn’t imagine anything nicer than working full-time with him, with a man who understood her. Understood her feelings almost before she knew them herself. A man she always felt comfortable with, not like…
If only…
She sighed.
“You’ve got a lot of thoughts circling around in that pretty head of yours. Care to share?” Todd drained his tea and leaned forward elegantly to put his cup down.
Suzanne poured more tea into his cup and then hers. “Actually, I was thinking what a great couple we’d make. Just think of it. We get along really well; we like the same things and have almost the same tastes. With just enough of a difference to make it interesting. I’ve learned a lot about antiques from you and I’ve dragged you kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. We never fight and…what?”
Todd was smiling and shaking his head. “Wouldn’t work, sweetie. Never in a million years.”
Suzanne rolled her eyes. “Well, I know that. I was just speculating—“
“No, it wouldn’t work not for that reason, but for another one.”
Another one? Suzanne straightened. “Well, why not? Except for the biggie, of course. I mean we really do get on, and—“
“Yes, we get along. Too well, in fact.”
Suzanne smiled and shook her head. “There’s such a thing as getting along too well? Wow. Have the divorce lawyers heard about that one? What does it mean—to get on too well?”
His head tilted, green eyes studying her, Todd was silent.
“What?” she asked.
“You really want to know this?”
“Of course I do. I want you to explain that thing—that getting-along-is-the-kiss-of-death thing.”
“You know what I mean already, without me spelling it out for you. It’s just that you won’t acknowledge it. And it’s the reason you haven’t lost your heart to anyone and the way you’re going, you never will. I know you haven’t dated anyone in quite a while but when I first met you, I watched you date some eminently suitable men. Men of discernment and class, who shared your tastes in music and theater. It got to be this pattern. You’d meet a man, enjoy his company for a few evenings and then—“
Suzanne shifted uneasily on the couch. What was this? So what if her love life had been undergoing a little slump lately? She’d been busy with work, after all. Todd didn’t have to make a big deal out of it. “And then?” she prompted, trying not to sound cross, trying to sound bored.
“And then, boom, you dump him. And start all over again.”
Well, that was rich, coming from Mr.-Love-Them-And-Leave-Them, the man who’d taken the one night stand to an art form. She pouted. “You make me sound…shallow. And impossible to please, and—“
“Restless. And unsatisfied. The men you were dating didn’t excite you, sweetie. And how could they? They were you. In male form. Talking about the Century Theater playbill and the new Scorsese film and how beige is the new black. You don’t need that. You get that from me and from Claire. You’re such a feminine woman, Suzanne. You need the opposite. Someone yin to go with your yang. Someone to stir your juices. Someone…someone really…male.”
Suzanne closed her eyes. She knew someone who had a lot of yin to her yang. Someone who whipped her juices into a froth. Someone really, really male.
“Someone tall, and dark and with shoulders out to here,” Todd’s baritone continued dreamily. “With short black hair just faintly silver at the temples, that early Gianni Agnelli look, you know? And eyes to die for. Yum.”
Suzanne’s eyes popped open at that and she glared at Todd, sitting smugly on his Sanderson cabbage rose couch. She would have thrown a pillow at him, but she might miss and tea stains were hard to get out of silk.
Todd smiled knowingly. “Food’s really good at Comme Chez Soi, isn’t it? It’s that new chef of theirs. But then how would you know? You didn’t eat a bite.”
Chapter Six
The taxi left her at her gate. Suzanne paid him then looked across the street. Her car was parked right there. On an impulse, she walked over and got in, resting her hands for a moment on the steering wheel. At the first turn of the ignition key, the car started right up without that choking, grinding roar she’d grown used to. It purred gently, powerfully. She sat there, pleased, listening to her car hum, healthy and whole.
Her car was back from the dead and better than ever, thanks to her tenant. Her sinfully sexy tenant.
She’d overreacted. Yes, they’d had sex and that was at least as much her fault as his. It’s not like he’d overpowered her or anything. The instant his lips had touched hers, she’d melted. And though it had been rough it had also been exciting. Certainly more exciting than anything she’d experienced in…ever.
Suzanne had no doubt whatsoever that if, instead of bolting in panic back into her apartment, she’d asked John in, he would have followed right on her heels and they would have spent the rest of the night…what?
Making love, no doubt about it. In a bed. Instead of having sex. Against a wall. And in between bouts, they’d have talked. Maybe laughed a little, opened that bottle of Chablis she’d had in the fridge for weeks, finished the jar of contraband caviar a client had brought her.
John had flubbed it but so had she. She’d run from him like a scared rabbit.
And it wasn’t as if he’d blown her off the next day. He’d immediately acknowledged her, taken responsibility, said they needed to talk.
And the biggie—he’d dealt with Murphy for her and picked up her car. Which now purred beneath her hands. Pleased, she switched off the ignition and sat there, feeling a little foolish at her reaction to him.
A sudden vision of John Huntington formed before her eyes. His size, his strength, his intensity, his brute male power. Nope, she hadn’t overreacted. The man was formidable in every way.
She thought about what Todd had said as she opened her gate and walked to the door. That maybe the men she’d been dating had been too predictable, too bland, too…safe.
What was wrong with safe? She thought as she disconnected the alarm, opened the door, and then switched the alarm back on, just as John had made her promise to do. Safe was nice, warm, comfortable. Not words she’d ever associate with John Huntington.
He threw her for a loop.
He’d occupied most of her headspace all day. All day yesterday, too. Every second, in fact, since she’d met him, and that wasn’t good. She was a busy professional, just about to make that leap into the spheres of the very successful and she didn’t have time for obsessions. She barely had time to date, so what little time she had should be with men who would stay nicely in the background where they belonged and wouldn’t occupy her every waking moment.
Like now, walking warily into her own building. Wondering if he was in. Hoping he wasn’t. Hoping he was.
He wasn’t here. She paused for a moment in the hallway. He was a quiet man, almost eerily so, but she knew her building. It held the stillness of emptiness. And come to think of it, she hadn’t seen his Yukon parked outside.
From the sudden certainty of that, Suzanne realized that she’d been subconsciously looking out for his SUV and listening for signs of him. He’d said he’d be out of town this afternoon and would be late getting back. So she’d see him tomorrow. Which meant that she definitely needed a good night’s sleep if she wanted to face him with anything approaching equanimity.
To get that good night’s sleep she had to put Commander John Huntington right out of her head. She had to get her life back.
Tomorrow. She’d get her life back tomorrow. Today had been much too exhausting. Marissa Carson had topped herself today, changing her mind about everything that had been decided upon up until now. Most of the furnishings had already been ordered. When Suzanne pointed out that she’d lose a lot of money, Marissa had tilted her lovely head back and laughed long and hysterically, saying she was soon going to be very rich.