Moira sighed. "I decided I wanted to marry your great-grandfather after only an hour in his company."
"That's hardly the same thing."
"True," Moira agreed. "Marriage is a much more serious matter. With much more serious consequences if you're wrong. But the basic principle is the same. Trust."
"Are you telling me you trust Zoe Moon?"
"Yes, I do. She appears to me to be an eminently trustworthy young woman."
"Good Lord, Gran!" Reed just barely managed to keep his voice at a reasonable level. One didn't shout at Moira Sullivan with impunity. Not if one wanted to get anywhere with her. "Didn't you hear a word she said this afternoon?"
"I'm not deaf, dear. Certainly I heard her. She has a lovely, soothing voice, don't you think?"
"Oh, lovely," he agreed with a snort. Soothing, however, it was not. Now, if she'd said arousing… He deliberately veered away from that line of thought. "But that's not what I meant, and you know it."
"What did you mean, dear?"
"'Women like you and your wealthy friends'," he quoted. "'All your lovely money…' 'With your money, you wouldn't worry about that…' The woman obviously came to tea today for one thing and one thing only."
Moira gave a little gurgle of laughter. "Well, of course she did! For goodness sake, Reed, I asked her to tea specifically to talk about the possibility of lending her the money to expand her business. I expected her to talk about it. That was the whole point."
Reed remembered Zoe Moon trying to tell him something along the same lines, out there on the sidewalk in front of the house. But he hadn't bought it then, and he wasn't buying it now. "It's the way she talked about it that I object to."
"The way?"
"As if it were a done deal and the money were already hers. Good manners, if nothing else, should have kept her from acting as if you'd already signed on the dotted line."
"Well, perhaps, but…"
Reed jumped on her hesitation. "Come on now, Gran," he cajoled. "Admit it. Didn't she sound like a greedy, money-grubbing little mercenary out to take you for all she could get?" And why was he attracted to her, despite that?
"Really, dear." Moira shook her head. "Isn't that a bit harsh?"
"A bit, maybe," he conceded, disposed to at least try to be fair now that he could see his great-grandmother starting to come around to his way of thinking. "But I notice you didn't deny it."
"She was nervous," Moira said. "It made her babble and say things awkwardly, is all. She's really a lovely, gracious young woman. And very sweet, too."
"Nervous?"
"Well, anyone would have been, with you glowering at them across the tea table."
"I don't glower."
"You're glowering right now, dear," Moira informed him. "If I were a sensitive young woman like Zoe, I'd be babbling, too."
"You've never babbled in your life," Reed scoffed.
She laughed softly. "Oh, I babbled a bit more than I like to remember in those early days with your great-grandfather." The laughter faded into a fond smile. "You're very like him, you know. It quite takes me back sometimes, just to look at you. He could be very intimidating, too, when he chose."
"Are you saying I made her nervous?" Reed asked incredulously. The mere thought was almost laughable. The bold, red-haired gypsy who'd looked him up and down with that provocative gleam in her big brown eyes didn't strike him as the nervous type. Lovely, yes, he'd grant her that. But gracious? Sweet? Nervous? His eyes narrowed. "Now wait a minute here, Gran. You're not suggesting…" He leaned across the mahogany table, his expression wary and accusing, wondering if he'd been right in his first assessment, after all. "This isn't some kind of crazy, harebrained matchmaking scheme, is it? Because if it is, you're barking up the wrong tree."
"Matchmaking? You thought I was matchmaking?" A soft gurgle of laughter bubbled up and was quickly suppressed. "Well, really, Reed." The look she gave him was full of amused indignation. "At least give me credit for having the sense God gave a goose. I know perfectly well Zoe isn't even remotely your type."
Placated, Reed leaned back in his chair. "I'm glad you realize that."
"Nor are you hers, I might add. Zoe is the kind of woman who would be drawn to someone with a little more…" one soft white hand fluttered through the air as if groping for the words "…joie de vivre."
"I enjoy life," Reed objected.
"Oh, I'm sure you do, in your own way. I don't mean to suggest otherwise. It's just that I'm afraid you're a bit, oh … staid, shall we say? … for someone like Zoe."
"Staid?" he murmured, vaguely insulted by the word.
"Dignified. Proper," Moira clarified with a fond smile. "You're a credit to the Sullivan name, Reed. I've always thought so, ever since you were a baby."
"Well, thank you. I think," he said, wondering why he suddenly felt like a priggish, self-satisfied boor. His great-grandmother had just complimented him, hadn't she? "Now, if you don't mind." Reed rapped a knuckle against the papers on the table. "Could we get back to the subject at hand?"
"Certainly." Moira folded her hands on top of the table, like an eager little girl at lessons. "What's the next step?"
Reed sighed. "Do you really mean to pursue this, Gran? No matter what I say?"
Moira nodded. "I do."
"And if I refuse to have anything to do with it?"
"I'll be disappointed, of course. But I'm sure I can find someone else to handle the paperwork for me."
"Not at Sullivan Enterprises, you won't," he warned her, his financier's scowl firmly in place. "Not if I advise against it. And, be assured, I will."
But Moira Sullivan wasn't easily intimated, especially not by her own great-grandson. "Well, then, I'll just have to go outside the family business, won't I?" She tilted her head, giving him a considering look from under her lashes. "I've heard young Andrew High-tower is making quite a name for himself in financial circles these days."
Andrew Hightower was Reed's ex-fiancée's youngest brother. A nice enough kid, but… It galled Reed to realize that the mere mention of the Hightower name struck a sore spot he hadn't known he had. "You wouldn't."
"Yes," Moira said. "I most definitely would. I intend to arrange for Zoe Moon to have the funds she needs to expand her business. I'd like for you to help me find the best way to do that, so that everyone's interests are properly looked after. But if you can't or won't, well…" she lifted her shoulders in an eloquent little shrug "…I'll find someone who will, be it Andrew Hightower, or someone else entirely. Or maybe I'll just give her the money outright," she said consideringly. "It might be simpler all around that way."
Reed knew when he was beaten. "All right, Gran. You win. I'll see what I can do about getting Miss Moon her financing."
* * *
It was nearly nine-thirty that night before Zoe heard her next-door neighbor banging around outside in the hallway. Zoe put down the glass of pink grapefruit juice she'd just poured for herself and rushed toward the front door, nearly bursting with the need to vent.
A petite, slender young woman with a short, sleek cap of dark hair and even darker eyes looked up and smiled as Zoe all but exploded into their mutual hallway. "Ciao, Zoe. How's it goin'?"
"Gina! I thought you'd never get home. Where on earth have you been this late?"
"Same place I've been every Wednesday night for the past couple of months. That new client with the arthritis, remember? I told you about him." She set the edge of her massage table on the floor and let go of the handle, tilting it toward Zoe. "Hold on to this for a minute while I get the rest of my stuff. I left it at the bottom of the stairs."
"You aren't going to believe what happened today," Zoe hollered at her friend's retreating back. "I had tea with Moira Sullivan. Remember, the woman I told you about? The one I met at The Body Beautiful on Monday?"
"The one who's going to lend you the money for New Moon, right?" Gina said as she came back up the steps with her equipment bag slung over one shoulder and a bulging sack
of groceries in her arms.
Zoe leaned the massage table against the wall and reached for the grocery sack, freeing Gina so she could unlock her front door. "Well, she was going to lend me the money." Zoe's lush mouth screwed up in a grimace. "But I think we can kiss that idea goodbye."
"Oh, no." Gina turned in the open doorway, automatically reaching out to offer comfort. "She turned you down, after all? I'm so sorry." She squeezed Zoe's arm, her sympathy swift and sincere. "I know how much you were counting on this."
"Oh, she didn't turn me down." Zoe moved past her friend into a small studio apartment that was the exact duplicate of her own floor plan, except in reverse, and dropped the grocery sack on the kitchen counter. "He did."
"He who?"
"Mr. Stuffed Shirt Reed Sullivan IV, that's who."
"Her husband?"
"Her great-grandson."
"What does he have to say about it?"
"Plenty, apparently." Zoe leaned back against the counter and crossed her arms, waiting while Gina deposited her equipment bag on the sofa bed and retreated back into the narrow hall to retrieve her massage table. "And none of it good," she said, when the other woman came back into the room and deftly slid the folded table into its accustomed place behind the sofa.
"Tell me what happened while I put my groceries away," Gina said, moving toward the kitchen area without bothering to close the front door.
Directly across the hall, Zoe's door stood wide open, too. Theirs were the only two apartments above the family-owned Italian restaurant on the first floor. The bottom of the stairway was protected by a tall iron security gate that blocked any unauthorized access to the second floor apartments.
"Out." Gina flapped a hand at Zoe, waving her away as she began to help unload the groceries. "It's too crowded in here with two of us."
Zoe moved to one of the two stools on the other side of the counter and plopped down with a dejected sigh. "Things were really going great at first," she said morosely, watching Gina as she moved around the tiny kitchen. "Moira Sullivan is a wonderful old lady. Very charming and elegant, but really sweet and down-to-earth, too. Not snobbish or stuck-up in the least. She was interested in everything I'd brought her and was talking about what I could do when I had the money, not if. And asking how much and did I think it was enough. And then he walked in."
"He being the stuffed shirt?"
"Yes. And right from the first … from almost the second he walked in and saw me sitting there next to his great-grandmother … I could tell he didn't like me."
Gina turned to face her, a package of spaghetti in one hand, eyes rounded in disbelief, her lips parted in astonishment. "He didn't like you?"
"Nope."
"But, Zoe, men always like you. They can't help it. It's—" she extended her free hand, palm up, moving it in an expressive gesture that encompassed the half of Zoe's body that was visible above the counter "—hormonal."
"He didn't."
"Well. My goodness," Gina murmured, momentarily at a loss for words. She opened a cupboard and put the package of spaghetti away, then turned around with a thoughtful expression on her face, her hand still on the cupboard door. "Is he gay?"
"Definitely not," Zoe said, shivering a bit as she remembered the way he'd looked at her, and the spark, or whatever it was, that had sizzled between them. She'd had a good long time to think about it, sitting alone in her apartment, fuming, as she waited for Gina to get home so she could discuss it with her. The conclusions she'd drawn left her almost as angry as she'd been when she'd stomped away from him that afternoon. Almost. "I'm pretty sure he's got the hots for me.
"The hots? Well, then…" Gina's eyebrows rose into spiky bangs on her forehead. "You've lost me."
"He likes my body—a lot—but he disapproves of me."
"Aaah." Gina nodded her head knowingly. "One of those."
"Yes, definitely one of those. He practically undressed me with his eyes. Oh, very politely, of course—the man could give etiquette lessons to Miss Manners—but his eyes were anything but! Polite, I mean," she clarified when Gina just stood there, staring at her. "They're like blue laser beams. Very cool on the surface, but intense underneath, like a volcano. Very focused, you know? He gave me this one look that practically scorched me all the way to my toes."
"Scorched?"
Zoe chose not to respond to the question in Gina's voice. "And then he had the nerve to call me a con artist—me! a con artist!—and accused me of trying to swindle that sweet old lady out of a fortune."
"In front of her?"
"No, not in front of her. Well," she amended, "the hot looks were in front of her, but I don't think she noticed. She's ninety-two, you know. He waited until we were outside before he started calling me names. That's when he called New Moon a fly-by-night operation—" her voice rose indignantly at the remembered slur on her company "—and said I could just forget getting any money from his great-grandmother to finance my little enterprise." She curled her upper lip, giving the word the same unsavory implication he had.
"Jeez." Gina folded the grocery sack and bent down to put it under the sink. "That sounds a little extreme, even for the repressed type. They usually content themselves with blaming you for arousing their libido, and let it go at that." She reached for the bright red teakettle on the stove, then hesitated, head tilted as she considered her friend. "Wine or espresso? I've got some plain biscotti that would go with either."
"Espresso," Zoe said. "Wine would only make me get all weepy and maudlin."
Gina nodded and turned on the faucet, her gaze lowered as she watched the kettle fill. "What on earth made him think you were some kind of con artist?"
Zoe shrugged. "Beats me."
Gina lifted her gaze from the kettle to Zoe's face.
"Honest, I have no idea why he would think that."
"You want to look me in the eyes when you say that?"
Zoe sighed, knowing she was caught. "Okay. So maybe I, um … influenced his opinion in that regard. A little."
Gina set the kettle on the stove and turned the heat on. "Influenced?" she murmured encouragingly.
"Well, he made me so darn mad. Staring at me as if he were imagining me naked one minute, and then looking down his nose at me the next, all superior and disapproving, as if it were my fault he was having lewd fantasies in his great-grandmother's parlor. But I swear, Gina, I didn't do one thing—not one darned thing—to encourage him. Not at first, anyway," she admitted, making a clean breast of it. Gina would know if she bed, anyway, just by looking at her. "It was only after he made me so mad that I, well…" She shrugged. "You know how I get sometimes when I lose my temper."
"I know, sweetie, and it's not your fault this time. Some men are just pigs," Gina said sympathetically. "You aren't responsible for what goes on in their tiny little minds." She reached across the kitchen counter and patted Zoe's hand. "So, tell me what you did to make him think you were after his dear old granny's fortune."
"Well, Moira had told him she wanted to lend me the money for New Moon, and he was looking at me like he thought I was going to steal the silver on my way out or something, so I sort of—" she shrugged, her lips turning up in a little shamefaced grin "—lived down to his expectations, you might say. You know how I get sometimes, putting my mouth in gear before I've engaged my brain."
Gina nodded sagely. "And what did he do then?"
"He clamped his hand around my arm and hustled me out of there so fast you'd have thought the house was on fire. And then he called me a con artist and said New Moon was a fly-by-night cosmetic company and accused me of trying to bilk—bilk!—his great-grandmother out of a fortune."
"Cazzone cafone."
"Yeah, well, he was kind of a jerk, but…" She shrugged again, and the shamefaced look was back. "I guess I can't really blame him completely."
"Zoe! He acted like a pig."
"Oh, I blame him for the pig part," she assured her friend, "but not what came after. I mean, at the end there, I
did act like all I was interested in was the money. And you can't really blame a guy for trying to protect his sweet old granny from being taken to the cleaners."
"I can," Gina said loyally.
Zoe smile at her. "I appreciate that. I really do. But I've got to face facts. I lost my temper and blew it, big time. There's no way Moira Sullivan's going to be investing in New Moon. Not if her great-grandson has anything to say about it. And it's my own darn fault."
"You'll find another investor. There's bound to be someone out there who has the vision to see what a great investment New Mo—" Gina cocked her head, listening. "Is that your phone?"
* * *
Zoe was back in her friend's apartment less than ten minutes later. "You'll never guess who that was."
Gina didn't look up from the tiny cups she was filling with thick, black espresso from the coffee press. "Who?"
"Mr. Stuffed Shirt himself."
Gina put the coffee press down. "And?" she said carefully, her eyes on Zoe's face.
"And he apologized for what he said this afternoon." A big grin turned up the corners of Zoe's mouth. Her eyes sparkled with anticipation and renewed hope. "He wants to meet with me as soon as possible to discuss investing in New Moon."
* * *
4
« ^ »
"Which one's the stuffed shirt?"
Zoe brushed the blowing tendrils of her hair out of her eyes with one hand, scanning the rugby field as they approached the sidelines. "There," she said, unerringly zeroing in on him among all the identically clad men. "The tall one with the dark hair in the second row of that huddle." She pointed at him with the straw sticking out of the top of her iced latte. "On the red team with the number five on his shirt."
"Scrum," Gina corrected, standing on tiptoe to get a better look. "It's a scrum, not a huddle." She sank back onto her sneakered heels as the men lowered themselves into an interlocking mass of humanity and started to move like some kind of giant multiheaded crab as they scrambled for possession of the football. "You didn't tell me he was gorgeous."
UNINHIBITED Page 4