He picked up her discarded tee and instructed her to raise her arms. She complied, and he put the shirt back on her. “You are a very wise woman.”
“I’m a foolish woman, Mr. Hammond,” she said, wondering how this can possibly lead to anything good. Disaster was only a heartbeat away. “If I were really wise, I wouldn’t have just been devouring you on my couch at three-thirty in the morning.”
A dangerous glint entered his eyes. “That’s the last one you get, Ms. Butler.”
“Last what?”
“The last Mr. Hammond. From now on it’s either Cole or Reed or even my darling, if you’d prefer, but no more Mr. Hammond in that cold detached voice. You accepted my apology. To go back on that only serves to make you look peevish.”
“Peevish?” she asked, as if she were trying the word out for the first time. “You think I look peevish?”
“No, I think you look devastatingly sexy,” he said, his tone no longer playful. “And there’s nothing I want to do more than to sweep you up in my arms and carry you into the bedroom and make love to you until we both can’t move to save our lives.”
Eva felt the breath leave her. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Say the right things to leave me weak. Although I suppose I shouldn’t wonder,” she said thoughtfully, answering her own question. “A man of your experience—“
Eva found herself being pulled rather violently into Cole’s arms. “Don’t throw my reputation in my face,” he said, almost angrily. “My past doesn’t matter. How can it matter? We hadn’t met yet. Everything I did before Tuesday of this week is irrelevant. Judge me by what I do now, by what I do to you and with you. Don’t make me apologize for things I did before I knew you existed. It’s not fair.”
She knew what he said made sense—it was entirely unfair to hold his past against him—but she couldn’t help doing it. The past was all she had to go on. No, a voice inside her disagreed, you have your instincts. Trust them. Eva smiled wryly. She couldn’t recall the last time she trusted her instincts. “All right.”
He loosened his hold. “All right?”
“All right. I’ll have dinner with you tomorrow night.” She paused a moment to think. “Or is that tonight? Do you want to have dinner Sunday or Monday night?”
“Tonight, as in Sunday night, with an option for Monday night if all goes well.” He started rebuttoning his tuxedo shirt. Eva’s fingers itched to help him, but she resisted the urge. It seemed too domestic, like something only a wife would do. “Why don’t you come by my place at six? I’ll cook.”
Eva had nothing planned for Sunday except maybe a late brunch with Ruth and Mark. A very late brunch, she thought, looking at the time. A quarter to four. “Sounds good. Is there something I should bring?”
Devil glinted in his eyes. “The red dress?”
“You’re out of luck. That’s going right back to the shop. I think the designer’s actually coming by in the morning to pick his baby up.”
His disappointment was almost palpable. “That’s a shame.”
“You’ll get over it, I’m sure. Is there something else I could bring?”
“Nope. I’ve got all the bases covered. Just your beautiful self,” he said, pulling on his black jacket. “Since I’ll be doing the cooking, is there anything I should know? Allergies? Foods you abhor? Things you refuse to eat on ethical grounds?”
“Raspberries, peanut butter and veal.”
“Well, there goes my specialty, scaloppini à la peanut butter with raspberry coulis.”
Eva laughed. “I’m sure you’ll muddle through. You seem very capable.”
He leaned in to kiss her good-bye. He meant only to lightly brush his lips against hers, but within seconds they were both breathing heavily. “If I don’t go now,” he said with regret, nibbling the side of her mouth, “I never will.”
Eva pulled away. “Go then, while I’m still thinking clearly.”
Cole opened the door and kissed her gently on the forehead. “There, I don’t think you’ll have trouble sleeping now.”
Eva watched him leave, only closing the door when his head had disappeared completely from view. She had been tempted to ask how he knew she couldn’t sleep, but she decided she didn’t want to hear the answer. A man of his experience knew very well the effect he had on a woman.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When the phone rang at eleven-thirty the next morning, Eva was still in bed. She was lying on her back with her eyes closed, thinking of Cole; his apology, his earnest sincerity, his wonderful, sensuous kisses. She wasn’t quite awake yet—her mind was busy darting dreamily from one image to another—but she heard the phone and picked up after the third ring.
“Hey, guapa, we’re rounding the corner now,” said Ruth.
Eva smiled. She’d had hoped it would be Cole—of course she had hoped—but Ruth’s cheery alto was a pretty darn good second best. “Rounding what corner?” she asked, as she put her left hand over her head and stretched. Gosh, she was feeling good: well-rested and relaxed and so full of optimism she might actually explode. She looked at the clock. Only six and a half hours until she saw Cole again.
“Your corner, silly. Now we’re passing the cleaners in the building next door. Here that?” The intercom in the kitchen buzzed. “That’s Mark. We’re standing on your doorstep now. Let us up. I want to hear all about last night’s triumph.”
Eva laughed and rolled out of bed. She was still wearing the red T-shirt from hours before. When she’d gone to take it off, she’d realized that it smelled like Cole. “I don’t know what stories Mark has been telling you, but there were no triumphs last night,” she said, sauntering into the other room to press the button. She leaned on it for a second, stepped away and opened the front door. She looked down the stairwell and watched her friends trudge up five flights of stairs.
“Mark hasn’t told me anything,” Ruth said as she passed the first landing. “I’ve spent a long frustrating morning trying to get details out of him.”
“I have given you details,” Mark protested. His voice echoed in the stairwell as well as over the phone line. He sounded so outraged Eva couldn’t help but laugh again. Luckily, Mark was too busy defending his honor to hear her. “I told you who was there and what was served and which papers covered the event. I told you the name of the band and how much money the organization raised and what was in the goody bag.” By the time he was done listing his achievements, they were at the fifth floor.
Ruth greeted Eva with an absent kiss, flipped her phone off and turned to Mark. “Yeah, but did you notice if Julianne Moore was wearing Givenchy or Versace?”
Mark stared at her blankly for several seconds. He couldn’t quite grasp what this had to do with anything. “No. But I listed the newspapers alphabetically.”
Ruth rolled her eyes. “Really, I worry about you sometimes, my friend. You spend your life in war zones dodging bullets and chasing after freedom fighters with a recorder in your hand. How can you possibly tell the difference between friendly and enemy forces when you can’t distinguish between something as basic as Prada or Gucci?”
He didn’t have an answer for that. Even though he knew the question was ludicrous, Mark couldn’t form a proper response, and Ruth, giving him a moment to offer some kind of reasonable explanation, brushed past him.
Seeing the dazed, besotted look on his face, Eva threw a comforting arm around him and led him into the apartment. “The plan is working. She just admitted to being worried about you.”
“The plan isn’t working—she just called me her friend,” he said softly. “I don’t want to be her friend.”
Eva gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Don’t lose heart now. The fun’s just beginning.”
“Yeah, fun,” he muttered.
“So, where are we going for brunch?” Ruth asked, her eyes lingering for a moment on Eva’s arm, which was still thrown possessively over Mark’s shoulder. And she hadn’t missed the kiss either. It
was harmless enough, on the cheek, but there was a familiarity about it that disconcerted her. She didn’t understand why it threw her off but it did—and she didn’t like that. Not one bit. “The brasserie on La Guardia has at least a thirty-minute wait. They’re lined up around the block like migrating wildebeests.”
“There’s a great place on MacDougal,” Eva said, disappearing into her bedroom to throw on some clothes. Her jeans were still lying in the middle of the floor and she put those on along with a clean shirt. She pulled her hair back into a loose ponytail and reemerged with sneakers in hand. She slid into them without bothering to undo the laces. “The food’s fantastic and for some reason it’s always empty.”
“Great, then let’s go,” said Ruth. “I’m starving.”
As expected, Thierry’s was empty. They had their pick of the small restaurant and settled on a cozy arrangement of couches near the front window. Eva took the cushion next to Mark on the love seat. Ruth sat adjacent in a large easy chair. She waited patiently as Eva scanned the menu, but as soon as her friend put it down, she was all over her for details.
“I want to know everything,” she insisted. “Start with Loretta Hammond and work your way down.”
Eva didn’t know any more about fashion than poor Mark, but she knew how to fake it better. She was able to describe the details and flourishes that made a dress unique and had the sense to agree with Ruth whenever she speculated about who the designer was.
The arrival of brunch only interrupted the questioning, it did not end it.
“This is very good French toast,” Mark said to no one in particular.
Ruth looked up at him quizzically, as if not quite sure what French toast was. “Huh?”
“This French toast, it’s very good. See how it gives?” he asked, taking his fork and pressing down gently in the middle of the bread. “This is what French toast is supposed to do—bounce back. That means it’s moist. The bread should soak up the batter. Someone—I can’t remember who; perhaps Martha Stewart—suggests letting the bread soak overnight. Most places don’t bother and the result is toast—plain old American toast with a yellow cast. Nothing Frankish about it.”
Eva watched and suppressed a smile as Ruth fixed her hazel eyes on Mark. Her stare was part impatience—she had been seconds away from hearing all about the walk up the red carpet—and part fascination. Sometimes Mark said the oddest, most surprising things.
He picked up the maple syrup and drizzled some onto his plate, unaware of the sudden, unexpected attention being devoted to him. It was only when he put down the sticky bottle and wiped his hand on a napkin that he noticed. “What?”
Ruth shook her head, as if freeing herself from a trance. “Nothing.”
“It’s been a very long time since I’ve had good French toast,” Mark said, feeling compelled to explain. “The parts of the Middle East where I spend my time aren’t known for their gourmet fare. It’s a lot of meals on the run.”
Glancing down at her plate of eggs Benedict, she nodded. Eva watched this exchange with a relieved heart. Her plan was working. She just knew it was.
While they ate brunch, people trickled into the restaurant, but it never got crowded. When Ruth excused herself an hour later to use the bathroom, there was a couple standing by the door waiting for the couches to open even though there were dozens of unoccupied tables.
As soon as Ruth was out of earshot, Mark leaned over and took her hand. “How are you doing?” he asked, concerned for her. He didn’t like the way he’d left her last night: confused, disturbed and off-kilter.
Eva blushed. “I’m good. Really good.” She paused for a moment, took a deep breath and told him. “Cole came by last night.”
He blinked twice, amazed by this news. “Cole came by last night?”
“He dropped by to apologize. He felt bad about misleading me.”
“Cole Reed Hammond apologized?”
He seemed so confounded by the idea that Eva laughed. Everything made her laugh today. “He apologized profusely and then insisted I forgive him.”
“Did you?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
She nodded. “I had no choice. He was eminently forgivable last night around three-thirty A.M.”
“And what about now?”
“Hmm?”
“Is he still so forgivable at one P.M.?”
Eva was quiet for a moment. She didn’t really have to think about the question—she knew the answer: Yes, he was equally forgivable in the cold light of day—but it was something she had asked herself, too. Because she didn’t want to regret a moment of her time with Cole. She didn’t know how it would turn out, although she could make a pretty good educated guess, so she wanted to enjoy it. Having had few adventures in her life, she knew enough to recognize one when it leaned on her doorbell at three in the morning.
“Yes,” she said softly. “Still very forgivable at one P.M.”
He smiled, happy for her. “That’s excellent. It’ll give me something else to think about other than my own doomed prospects.”
Eva wasn’t having any of it. She’d never suspected when she took on this project less than a week ago that Mark Roberts, ace reporter, was such a drama queen, but she knew the truth now. There were no silver linings in his universe, only dark clouds that never stopped raining. “You can whine all you want, but I’m not listening anymore. All morning Ruth has been looking at you as if she can’t quite figure out who you are, and you know it as well as I. Nice job, though, covering it up with the French toast thing.”
“What French toast thing?”
“Like you don’t know.”
Mark was about to insist she tell him exactly what the French toast thing was when he saw Ruth walking toward them. She was still a good few feet away, but he panicked anyway, dropping Eva’s hand instantly. Then he scooted back to his side of the couch, practically sitting on the arm, and tried to avoid eye contact with everyone except the couple standing by the door. He looked guilty and embarrassed and as if he’d just done something very naughty. Ruth noticed and raised an eyebrow, but Eva only stared back at her uncomprehendingly.
This is almost too easy, she thought as she waved down the waitress.
Although she had few customers to tend to, the waitress was slow in tallying up the bill. She dropped it by ten minutes later while Ruth was asking Eva what she was going to do for the rest of the day. Since all Eva had planned was sitting on her couch, watching television and counting the minutes until she saw Cole again, she gave an evasive answer. She said something about running errands. Ruth nodded and looked away, and for the first time ever, Eva felt a fissure of concern. Her intentions were good, but she felt bad lying to her best friend. It wasn’t that she wanted to tell Ruth about her scheme to bring she and Mark together. No, it was that she wanted to tell her about Cole. But she couldn’t. If she were interested in Cole, how could she be having a torrid affair with Mark?
“What about you?” she asked to distract her guilty conscience. “What are you doing today?”
Ruth shrugged. “Nothing much. I thought I might go to the Met for the Avedon exhibit.”
“The retrospective?” Mark asked.
“Yes.”
He was so interested that he forgot why he was hugging the arm of the couch and leaned forward. “Would you mind company?”
Ruth looked sideways at Eva. “You don’t already have plans?”
Mark, as always, was oblivious to the implication. Eva wondered, like Ruth had wondered earlier, how it was possible that a crack journalist could have so little power of observation. Not that telling the difference between a Gucci dress and a Prada skirt would help him in a foxhole, but being able to discern what was going on right underneath his nose certainly would.
“I have no plans at all,” he said excitedly. “There’s some research I was going to do for a story, but I’d much rather go to the Avedon exhibit with you.”
“All right,” she said, turning over the check to see ho
w much she owed.
Eva reached over and picked it up. “No, let me. You saved my life yesterday. It’s the least I can do.”
Ruth looked for a moment as if she was going to protest, but it quickly passed. Mark opened his mouth to speak. Eva forestalled him with a look. “Please, I couldn’t have gotten through last night without your help. It’s the least I can do to thank you.”
Mark waved his hand dismissively. “I got to go to a glamorous do with a gorgeous woman who refused to let me leave her side. Really, what do you have to thank me for?”
“You’re being very gracious, I know, but you’re whitewashing it completely,” Eva said, turning to Ruth. “He stood stoically next to me letting me cling to his arm for”—her eyes darted to his—“how long while you had to go to the bathroom?”
He shrugged, playing down the heroic nature of his actions. “It was only a half hour.”
“A half hour!” she said to Ruth. “And that was with two bottles of Bass in him. Please, I’m so paying for brunch. It really is the least I can do.”
Mark laughed and gave in.
A few minutes later they were standing up and putting on their jackets. The couple by the door inched forward, trying to claim their space without crowding them. A congenial group of four had just entered the restaurant and were making subtle moves in the direction of the cozy arrangement by the window.
Outside the air was fresh and brisk. Mark and Ruth walked Eva back to her apartment, leaving her there when she insisted that she didn’t want to go to the Avedon show. This was a lie, of course, an out-and-out prevarication. She would much rather have passed the day in the company of two close friends than alone in her apartment with the television on, but she wanted them to have this time alone.
Eva watched them disappear around the corner, then slowly climbed the sixty-two stairs to her apartment, where she had nothing to do except count the minutes until she went to dinner at Cole’s.
***
At 6:07, Eva stood in front of the white apartment building on North Moore Street. She looked up, counted floors and tried to figure out which windows were Cole’s. His had to be the ones with the wide dark-wood slat shades. He was a bachelor, after all—didn’t they all have apartments in brooding shades of brown and dark blue?
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