“What sweats?” Nick kissed her, and she leaned against him until Angela showed her disapproval with her claws. “Lose the cat,” Nick said, and moved into the dining area. He dumped the bags on the table and started taking out cartons. “That’s great about Gina. Now, what was that about phone calls?”
Tess trailed after him. “I’ve started looking for Lanny and the manuscript. So far, I’ve got nothing, but I’ve got a couple of hot leads for tomorrow.”
“Okay.” Nick was obviously not enthused, but he didn’t push the point. “Is there anything I can do to help? Christine can make some of those calls for you, if you’d like.”
Tess dropped into a chair and pulled a carton toward her. “Who’s Christine?”
“My secretary.” Nick grinned. “Hell of a woman, Christine.”
Tess stopped, her fork frozen in midair as she scooped pepper steak from the box. “Is she?” she asked coolly.
Nick’s grin widened. “You’re jealous.” He collapsed into the chair across from Tess, beaming. “My life is now complete. Pass the pepper steak. I’m a happy man.”
“I’m not jealous,” Tess said stiffly. Then she put down her fork and slumped back in her chair and grinned back at him. “Yes, I am,” she said. “All right, if I’m going to be a jealous bitch, I’m going to do it right. Tell me everything about her, and I’m warning you, she’d better be eighty-eight and ugly.”
“She’s a brunette, about thirty, and she’s very good-looking.” Nick stopped to consider what he’d just said. “She’s just not very…human. She’s like one of those models in the magazines, the ones who look as if they’re having an out-of-body experience. Sort of…blank but still conscious.” He shook his head. “She really is good-looking if you can get past the blank part. Park’s been trying to date her since I hired her three years ago.”
Tess thought of Gina and her grin evaporated. “Is he still trying?”
“I suppose so.” Nick was so busy with the rice that he didn’t see her frown. “It’s not going to do him any good. Christine does not date her bosses.”
“And how did you find this out?” Tess asked, torn between protecting Gina and killing Nick.
“I asked her out,” Nick said. He scooped up some rice and then paused with the fork halfway to his mouth as he caught her glare. “Three years ago,” he added. “I asked her out three years ago right after I hired her. I didn’t even know you then.” When Tess’s scowl didn’t fade, he put down his fork and addressed her with great patience. “That was three years ago, Tess. And now I think of her as a sister. An extremely attractive, extremely efficient, extremely distant, extremely platonic sister.” He picked up his fork again. “This jealousy thing is a real ego trip for me, but don’t overdo it.”
“Do you ever get jealous of me?”
“No,” Nick said. “You are the straightest person I know. You’d never cheat on me.” He went back to his pepper steak.
“What about people from my past?” Tess asked him.
“Like who?”
“Like Lanny.”
Nick choked on his rice and steak, and Tess handed him a paper napkin. “Lanny?” he said when he recovered. “I thought you said—”
“Gina and I were talking and I started thinking I might be using him as a sort of…ideal,” Tess said. “She made me think that might be why I’m so hard on you all the time. Because you’re not Lanny.”
Nick pushed his food away.
“Don’t stop eating,” Tess said. “It’s just a dumb theory.”
“This Lanny. He was a big guy with brown hair and a brown beard and Abraham Lincoln ears, right?”
“Right. How did you know about the ears? I’d almost forgotten that.” She leaned forward. “Did you find a picture?”
“No,” Nick said. “I guessed.”
“You did not.” Tess pushed her own food away. “You did not guess big ears. You—”
“I guessed that because every one of those losers you’ve dated since I’ve known you has been a big guy with brown hair and big ears,” Nick said. “I used to wonder where the hell you found them. I had one theory that they were cousins.”
Tess’s mouth dropped open. “My God. You’re right.”
“Two of them had beards.” Nick pulled his food back in front of him. “So what does this tell us?”
“That I’m living in the past?”
“Maybe if I grew a beard…” Nick said.
“No,” Tess said. “I don’t want you to be Lanny. I love…the way you look.”
Nick’s head had jerked up on “I love,” and he watched her for a moment before he said slowly, “All right. No beard.”
“I’ve been thinking. I’m sorry if I was…a burden this weekend.”
“You know that stuff you told me about how I turn into Dr. Jekyll and you hate it?” Nick said.
“Yes.”
“Well, sometimes you turn into Crusader Rabbit and I hate it. But sooner or later, you’re Tess again, so I just wait. Your dinner’s getting cold. Eat.”
Tess began to poke through the cartons, feeling ridiculously relieved about nothing in particular. “So where are the pot stickers?”
“You only get half, so don’t even think about pigging out on them,” Nick said, but he slid the carton across the gleaming ebony table anyway.
Tess watched him over the top of the carton as she fished out one of the dumplings. His shirtsleeves were rolled up and the muscles in his forearms flexed as he scooped out rice and beef, and that lock of hair fell in his eyes again. For once she was positive he didn’t know about it. She ate slowly, listening to his voice as he talked about his day, automatically answering his questions about the phone calls she’d made and watching every relaxed move he made. This was Nick at home, shoes off, being completely himself, scarfing down Chinese food at the speed of light.
He was the sexiest thing she’d ever seen.
“I’ll be right back,” she said when the last of the pot stickers was gone. She went upstairs to the bedroom to get a condom out of his night table. Then she went back downstairs and seduced him on the dining-room table with remarkably little protest from him, although he did point out later that it was a damn good thing he had expensive tastes in furniture or they’d have ended up on the floor with some serious splinters.
“I know, I know,” Tess said, curled warm against him on the table. “You’d rather be in a bed.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Nick reached over her to get a carton that had toppled onto a chair earlier in the proceedings. His body was hot against hers still, and she snuggled into him reflexively. He balanced the carton on her shoulder and fished out a fortune cookie. “At least this way, I don’t have to go downstairs for the after-sex munchies.” He offered her the cookie.
Tess took it and broke it open. The fortune read, “You are beginning a new journey.”
“Well, that’s true enough,” she said, and rested her cheek against his shoulder as he broke his open next to her ear. “What does yours say?”
“People who make love on dining-room tables screw up their knees,” Nick read.
“That’s not right.”
“The hell it isn’t,” Nick said. “I may never walk again. I was already wiped out from throwing three games of racquetball.”
“Racquetball?” Tess said.
“Don’t ask, it was awful.” Nick sat up on the table and rubbed his knee. “If you’re really set on this table business, I’m going to send Christine out for knee pads.”
“Forget Christine,” Tess said, and pulled him back down to her.
The fortune cookies ended up on the floor this time.
“CHRISTINE?” NICK SAID into the intercom the next morning. “Come here. Your master calls.”
Christine appeared in front of him, staring into space, probably planning a coup somewhere. He just hoped it wasn’t at Patterson and Patterson.
“Christine, I have a lunch date today with Mr. Patterson,” Nick began.
&n
bsp; “I know. I made it.”
“So I won’t be able to take care of a little problem I have,” Nick went on, smiling at her benevolently. “And I thought that since you did so well on the dress problem—”
“I get the afternoon off,” Christine said.
“Done.” Nick handed her a bag. “Replace these. Spare no expense. Then burn them.”
Christine pulled a bleach-stained green sweatshirt out of the bag. “This is Tess’s?”
“Yes. But not for long. Get rid of it.”
“This is a mistake,” Christine said.
Nick blinked. “You’re disagreeing with me? You have an opinion?” He looked interested. “Christine, this isn’t like you. Thank you for the input.” His eyes dropped back down to his desk as he opened a folder. “Now, butt out.”
Christine dropped the bag on the desk with a plop, and Nick looked up, startled.
“I like you,” Christine said with no expression whatsoever. “You’re a good employer. You’re simple, you’re efficient, you’re professional, and you’re easy to manage.”
“Simple?” Nick said, offended. “Simple, how?”
“Uncomplicated,” Christine said. “Because of this I’m giving you some good advice, although it’s my policy not to interfere in your personal life.”
“Good policy,” Nick said, but Christine kept on talking as if he wasn’t there.
“Do not interfere with this woman’s wardrobe,” she said. “Clothes are important to women. She will resent it.”
“Not Tess,” Nick said. “Tess is incapable of carrying a grudge. Her attention span isn’t that long. And she doesn’t give a damn about her clothes. Replace the sweats and then burn them.” He shoved the bag back over to her and turned to the work on his desk.
Christine picked up the bag. “This is a bad move.”
“They’re just sweats.” Nick looked up again, annoyed, but she had already gone, doing her usual silent fade. “And get yourself some tap shoes while you’re out,” he called after her. “You’re really giving me the creeps lately.”
“Nicholas?”
Park’s father appeared in the doorway. Tall and distinguished, with a patrician nose and a full head of gray hair, Kent Patterson looked like the perfect lawyer: wise, benevolent and just.
It was unfortunate that in reality he was a mindless, society-obsessed twit, but Nick had learned to deal with it.
“Kent!” Nick came around the desk to shake his hand. “I didn’t think I’d see you until lunch, sir.”
“Well, I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel that, son,” Kent said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Norbert Welch called me. Wants to talk contracts. Speaks highly of you. Good job there, Nicholas.”
Nick felt his knees grow weak. “We got the account?”
“Not yet,” Kent said. “But I’ll be clinching that at lunch. Leave it to me.”
Nick felt his knees come back. If Kent was in charge, they’d never see the account again. “Maybe I should join you, sir.”
“Nonsense,” Kent said. “You leave this in the hands of the master.”
Well, I’m trying to, Nick thought. But you won’t let me.
“You’re free for dinner tomorrow, aren’t you?” Kent asked.
“Of course,” Nick said automatically.
“Well, that’s good, because Melisande and I want to meet your fiancée.”
“My what?” Nick said, appalled.
“Norbert told me all about her.” Kent feigned a punch at Nick’s shoulder. “You old dog. Kept her under wraps, haven’t you?”
“Well, actually, sir—”
“Tomorrow at The Levee. Eightish. Just Melisande and I and Park and whoever he’s dating at the moment—” Kent rolled his eyes derisively. “—and you and your…Bess, is it?”
“Tess,” Nick said hollowly. “Me and my Tess. You bet.”
WHILE NICK WAS DEALING with Park’s father, Tess was dealing with her landlord.
“If there’s anything you want, you just holler from now on,” Ray Briggs told her. He stood on the front steps of the apartment building, his hands clasped behind his back over his ample rump as he swayed back and forth in his eagerness to please. His bald head gleamed through the six strands of hair he’d combed over it, and his normally mean little eyes had widened to the size of dimes in his efforts to look open and aboveboard.
It was so out of character for him that Tess was almost speechless.
“Well, actually I’m moving out, Ray,” Tess said finally. “My furniture—”
“You give me the address. I’ll have it all delivered,” Ray said. “No problem.”
“You’re kidding. Well, all right. Now, about the locks—”
“First class all the way.” Ray gestured to the door. “Here in front, on all the apartments, back door, too, just like the doctor ordered.” Then he laughed asthmatically. “Or the lawyer, I guess, huh? Come on, check ’em out.”
“Lawyer?” Tess said, but she already knew what had happened. She followed Ray through the building, checking to make sure that he really had replaced the locks, listening to grateful thanks from the tenants who assumed her protest had made them safe. When they were finally back at the front door again, she gave Nick’s address to Ray and then went down the steps to catch the next bus.
“Tess?” Ray called anxiously.
She turned back. “Yes?”
“You be sure to tell Mr. Jamieson now.”
Tess closed her eyes. “Count on it.”
NICK CAME IN THE DOOR a little after six, stripping off his tie. “We’re going out,” he told Tess as he headed for the stairs. “Get your black dress.”
“Hey,” Tess said. “Wait a minute.”
“Oh, right.” Nick turned back, grabbed her and kissed her, swiftly at first and then lingeringly. “I’m still getting the hang of this roommate thing.” He laughed in her ear as he held her close. “From now on, I swear I’ll say, ‘Hi, honey, I’m home.”’
“Good,” Tess said, wrapping her arms around him more tightly. “This isn’t actually what I meant, but I like it, so let’s keep it.” She kissed his ear. “I think that makes my line, ‘How was your day, dear?”’
“Annoying as hell,” Nick said, letting go of her and turning back to the stairs. “And we’ve got drinks at seven and a dinner date at—”
Tess grabbed his arm. “Not so fast, buddy.” She pulled him over to the couch, pushed him down and then curled up beside him. “I talked to my landlord today,” she began, absentmindedly rubbing her hand along his neck, just for the pleasure of touching him.
“God, that feels good,” Nick said. He let his head drop forward. “Don’t stop.”
Tess began to knead her fingers into his neck muscles as she went on. “All the apartments have new locks. The tenants are very happy. Isn’t that amazing?”
“Mmm.” Nick let his shoulder slide down the back of the couch as she rubbed. “Do that harder.”
Tess rolled to her knees so she could reach him as he slumped away from her. “So you called my landlord and threatened him with something ugly and legal, didn’t you, Batman? Had to be a hero.”
“Are you mad about that?” Nick mumbled. “Not that I care. Keep rubbing.”
“No, I’m not mad. How was racquetball yesterday with Nordstrom?”
Nick’s face was practically in a pillow by now. “Nordhausen. It was awful. Why?”
“You got Gina that job.”
“Look, Tess—” Nick began, trying to sit up.
Tess pushed him back down. “You’re my hero, you know that?”
“I am? Good. Keep rubbing.”
“And that’s why I’m going to put on black crepe and act like a Stepford wife for you and your career tonight.” Tess gave his neck one final rub and slapped him on the back. Then she stood up and headed for the stairs. “Who are we impressing tonight?”
“Drinks with Park and his date, dinner with Alan and Tricia Sigler,” Nick said, his voice only
partly muffled by the pillow. He moved slowly against the cushions and then slumped back down, evidently too comfortable to get up. “God, that was great. Let’s get married and you can rub my neck forever.”
“The Siglers?” Tess said, coming slowly back to him. “This is for me, not for the law firm?”
“Be nice to her tonight—your career is on the line,” Nick said, still facedown in the pillows. “Could you do my neck again, just for a minute?”
“Possibly for the rest of your life,” Tess said, sinking down beside him.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Tess said, and went back to work on his neck, feeling an odd little glow take hold of her as she moved her hands across his muscles. It wasn’t exactly sexual, but it was visceral, and she felt warmed by it and absentmindedly dropped a kiss on his neck in acknowledgment of it. This isn’t bad, she thought. This is good. This is comfortable.
I like this.
The glow lasted all the way out of the house and into the restaurant bar where they were to meet Park and Gina.
Park was standing by the bar, as relaxed and handsome as a model in a liquor ad. But standing next to him was a brunette with blond streaks in her hair, and it took Tess a moment to realize that she was with Park, that she was Park’s date and that Gina was still back at the apartment, waiting to be stood up.
“What’s wrong?” Nick asked her.
“Say goodbye to Park,” Tess said, making a bee-line for the bar. “I’m going to kill him.”
Nine
Nick grabbed her arm and swung her around before she could get close enough to Park to attack him. “What the hell are you doing?” he whispered, dragging her to the other side of the bar as several people turned to stare.
“He’s standing Gina up,” Tess spat. “She’s home expecting him to pick her up and he’s with this…this…”
Nick closed his eyes. “Oh, hell.”
“You’re not surprised,” Tess said, dumbfounded by the discovery. “I thought you’d be defending him, but you’re not surprised at all.”
Nick pushed her gently onto a bar stool and trapped her against the bar by putting a hand on the rail on each side of her. “I was afraid of this. Look, Tess, Park can’t say no to anyone. He’s a nice guy without much backbone. The one thing he is absolutely rock solid on is not defying his father. And his father will never buy Gina as any part of Park’s life. So Park will not be seeing Gina. I’m sorry, it’s lousy. I think Gina is a great kid, but there it is.”
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