by Lynn Kurland
“Odd that we find you here,” she said, wishing she’d had a Highlander or two behind her egging her on to ever greater heights of surliness. Then again, she had one right next to her, so maybe that was good enough for the moment.
“I don’t know why you would find it odd,” her father said. “I’m here to do business with Dexter MacLeod.”
“I was making conversation, Dad.”
“Too much time in menial jobs hasn’t done you any favors, Emma,” her father said shortly. He dismissed her with a look and turned to Nathaniel. “I understand you’re the MacLeod in MacLeod and Perkins in London. A fairly exclusive little boutique investment group, aren’t you?”
“We are,” Nathaniel agreed.
“Perhaps you’d be interested in discussing a little business over lunch?”
Emma looked at Nathaniel and wondered how his grandfather even thought that crossing him was ever going to end well. She’d seen him with a sword in his hands, which had been intimidating, but she’d never seen him wear that look that said he came from extremely old East Coast money and just who the hell did Frank Baxter think he was to pester him?
It was tempting to swoon.
She was tempted to make a hasty exit to the ladies’ so she didn’t have to watch the bloodshed, but Nathaniel put his hand over hers before she could. He didn’t, however, take his eyes off her father.
“We are extremely choosy about our clients,” Nathaniel said with frigid politeness, “and even more choosy about our partners. I’m not sure we’re looking for any joint ventures at the moment, especially with those who don’t have, shall we say, the pocket depth we’re accustomed to.”
Emma almost gasped. She had never in her life heard anyone insult her father that way, and she had heard all kinds of things said about him, behind his back and to his face.
Her father lifted his eyebrows briefly, then nodded. “Of course.”
Well, if there was one positive thing that could be said about her father, it was that he knew when he was beaten. It was unfortunate that the guy standing next to him practically hopping up and down with the need to be noticed didn’t possess even a hint of that same talent.
Emma looked at Sheldon, ignored whatever he was babbling about, then looked at her father. “Why did you bring Sheldon?”
“I didn’t bring him,” Frank said with something that might have been mistaken for disgust. “He was on my flight and talked the poor girl at the counter to death until she upgraded him out of a robust sense of self-preservation. I believe he’s here for his cousin’s wedding.”
“Then why is he standing here with you now?” Emma asked.
Her father frowned. “He followed me. I would say that showed initiative, but I’m finding it a bit unpleasant at the moment.”
Emma thought she might have a different word for it. She started to ask her father why in the world, then, he had been so thrilled to have her date that guy standing next to him, but decided there was no point. Her father’s motives were strange and inscrutable and she honestly didn’t care about them any longer.
“A pity we can’t linger for more of this fascinating chitchat,” Nathaniel said. “Must dash, sorry.”
Never let it be said she didn’t know when to bolt for the nearest exit. She ignored Sheldon, shot her father a cool look, then walked quickly with Nathaniel in a direction that didn’t seem to be leading to the front door. She supposed if anyone would know where he was going, it would be him.
“Back entrance?” she asked.
“Side exit,” he said, then he shot her a quick smile. “Sorry if that was rude.”
“It was perfect,” she said, feeling a little breathless. “That lesser-royal accent really leaves me feeling a little weak in the knees.”
He stopped suddenly and looked at her in surprise. “Does it?”
“A little.”
He drew her out of the main current of businesspeople. She leaned quite happily back against the wall to catch her breath. He put his hand on the wall next to her head.
“If that makes you a little weak in the knees, what does the native Scottish business do for you?”
“I generally need to find somewhere to sit down at that point.”
He considered. “What would happen, do you suppose, if I dispensed with accents and went straight for a discreet kiss?”
“Here?” she squeaked.
“It’s a nice hallway.”
She was beginning to wonder if the day could become any more filled with ridiculous things.
“I could hold you up,” he offered. “In deference to your knees.”
She attempted a scowl, but it was difficult in the face of all that charm. Well, and that accent. “I think you are far too convinced of your own impossibly irresistible appeal,” she said, grasping for the only reasonable thing she could think of.
He leaned closer. “It’s all an act,” he whispered. “I’m trying to make up for how off-balance you’ve left me from the first moment I sat down at your breakfast table.”
“That’s because of Lord Patrick’s excellent eggs.”
“Nay, darling, it’s because of your excellent self.”
She looked up at him standing there with his mouth approximately three inches from hers and tried not to swoon. “I should remind you that you quite recently wanted to get rid of me.”
“I wanted to keep you safe,” he said. “Different thing entirely.”
“Are you telling me you don’t want to keep me safe any longer?”
“I want to keep you safe, kiss you, and hopefully do both for an extended period of time, in that order—”
“Emmaline!”
She closed her eyes briefly, then looked at Nathaniel. “Can you kill both of them and make it look like they fell and bludgeoned themselves on the drinking fountain?”
“’Tis a bit crowded for that sort of thing, but I’m willing to try. As long as it doesn’t interfere with my plan to kiss you.”
She laughed a little, because she wasn’t quite sure if he was serious or not. Unfortunately, she realized she wasn’t going to have the chance to figure out which it was before their escape was thwarted. She wouldn’t have argued if Nathaniel had taken her hand and run, but apparently he was trying to be polite. He leaned his shoulder against the wall and looked at Sheldon, who had blocked his way and was currently babbling about what was probably one of his current investment projects. Nathaniel wore a slightly perplexed frown. She understood. That was the look most people generally got within three minutes of meeting the man.
Her father, though, was a different story entirely. She looked his way to find that he wasn’t watching Sheldon, nor was he looking Nathaniel over for weaknesses.
He was watching her.
She wanted to lay into him for possibly helping Sheldon find her in Scotland, then decided that when it came right down to it, she just didn’t care. She suppressed a yawn, then looked at her escort, who had been buttonholed by her former boyfriend.
“Do you ever shut up?” Nathaniel asked in exasperation.
Sheldon looked horribly offended. “Everything I say is of great interest to those around me.”
Nathaniel shook his head in disgust, then looked at her father. “If you’ll excuse us, we’re still late for an appointment.”
“Just one minute,” Frank said. “What is it you’re doing with my daughter?”
Emma was so surprised by the question that she was still trying to come up with something cutting to say as Nathaniel pushed off from against the wall and looked at her father. On the whole, it was a fairly respectful look, which was probably more than her father deserved.
“I’ve commissioned several paintings from her for the castle I’m restoring,” Nathaniel said. “After that? I thought I would date your daughter for a bit and see if she is open to the idea of anything
more permanent.”
Her father’s mouth fell open. “You want to marry her?”
“I believe that’s our private business.”
“But I’m her father!”
“And you pushed my Jag into the lake,” Emma put in. “I’ll let Mom know what I’m doing and you can try to get it out of her.”
Nathaniel took her hand. “Apparently she’ll let her mother know what she’s doing. Cheers.”
Emma walked with him out of the building, ignoring the squawking going on behind her until it faded into the blissful sounds of normal city life. She didn’t dare look at him until they were several blocks away.
“Are you restoring a castle?” she asked seriously.
“It’s on my list, right after taking care of my most pressing problem.”
“Hmmm,” she said, studying him. “Did you just ask me out on a date back there?”
“I believe I asked you out on a date earlier in the day. I asked you to marry me back there.”
“That was a proposal?” she asked faintly.
“A poor one,” he said. “I’ll try a better one in a more romantic spot.”
She stopped and looked at him. “You don’t have to do this, you know.”
He pulled her out of the press of people and under the shelter of an awning. “Is it the fact that I tried to get you to move that leaves me looking less than appealing,” he asked slowly, “or is it my second job?”
She would have smiled if her heart hadn’t hurt so much. “Neither,” she said. “I just don’t think you know me very well. I might snore.”
“Well, I wasn’t suggesting we pop into the jeweler’s right off,” he said carefully. “A few dates, perhaps. I’ll let you drive the Lamborghini and see what I think about that.” He flashed her a brief smile. “I’ll trot out whatever accent you like best whenever you like.”
“That is tempting,” she agreed.
His smile faded. “I’ll solve the other, Emma. I’ll make it so you can stay in Scotland as long as you like. You can see if you can bear the sight of me for more than a few days at a time, then we can discuss other things.”
She looked at his hand holding hers, then met his gaze. “I’m assuming that deal includes a little test spin in your Vanquish.”
He smiled, a more genuine smile that time, then leaned over and softly kissed her cheek. “We’ll see.”
“Deal’s off, then.”
He laughed, then took her hand in both his own. “Well, if you’re going to play hardball, then I’ll reconsider. Let’s go back to the hotel and look for a show. Would you mind if my brother came to dinner? He’ll make a list of all my failings for you, I’m sure. Important to know those before you get too much further into this, I imagine.”
“We could invite Sheldon as well,” she offered. “He can make a list of mine for you.”
Nathaniel snorted. “The only list I want from him is all the ways he can say I’m boring the hell out of you, aren’t I?”
“That could take a while.”
“We’ll leave him making it whilst we’re off for a lovely evening.”
She couldn’t imagine anything more useful for him to do than that.
• • •
A handful of hours later, she was starting to really get behind that plan.
Nathaniel had taken a suite for them in a very nice hotel, she’d had a lovely nap, then she had dressed for an evening that seemed more like afternoon given the time change. She was beginning to wonder, though, if she would exit any elevator in present-day Manhattan without running into someone she didn’t like.
Sheldon was skulking around in the lobby, obviously waiting for someone.
“Does he do this often?” Nathaniel asked mildly.
“Stalk?” she asked wearily. “Yes.”
“Perhaps it’s time you told him to stop.”
She looked at him. “And he’s going to listen to me?”
“Give it a try,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll be your second, as I promised. You might point out that you knew he was in the cab behind us the entire way to the hotel.”
She supposed it wasn’t attractive to gape at him. “Was he? How did you know?”
Nathaniel shrugged. “Sixth sense honed by time spent in other places. That and he seems like a very predictable sort of bloke. I assumed first, then verified next.” He smiled. “Keeps me head atop me shoulders, aye?”
She looked at him in his quite lovely suit and shook her head. It was far too easy to forget what else he did with his days besides show up to boardrooms. She put her shoulders back and walked across the lobby, her second hard on her heels. Sheldon caught sight of her and drew himself up.
“Get lost,” she said, before he could gather enough wind to spew anything out.
“You have my White Album,” he snarled.
She took a deep breath. “No I don’t.”
“I want it back! Besides, you damaged the cover.”
“Prove it,” she said, realizing at that moment exactly how close she could be to never having to talk to him again.
“I’ll sue—wait, who’s your attorney?”
Emma gestured elegantly to Nathaniel. He cleared his throat and stepped up beside her.
“I say, old bean,” he drawled, reaching out to pluck a bit of nothing from Sheldon’s suit coat, “I believe you’ve become somewhat trying to my client. I suggest you withdraw before I’m forced to alert the authorities.”
Emma couldn’t help but gape at Nathaniel. The only thing that surprised her was that he wasn’t wearing a tweed tam on his head and sporting a shotgun folded over his shoulder. She looked back at Sheldon.
“What he said,” she agreed.
Sheldon glared at her. “I have no intention of walking away from this. You have things of mine that are mine!”
Emma watched Nathaniel pull out his phone and dial. He smiled briefly at her, then fixed Sheldon with a polite but somewhat steely gaze.
“Alex?” he said. “Aye, I know what time it is. I need your particular services—aye, the usual business of digging into all kinds of things that were never intended to see the light of day, of course.”
“I won’t tell you my name,” Sheldon said, starting to become a little red in the face.
“Sheldon Jedediah Cook,” Nathaniel said. “He’s vexing my girlfriend and it’s beginning to annoy me. See what you can find, won’t you?”
“You won’t find anything,” Sheldon spluttered as Nathaniel ended the call. He shifted. “Nothing interesting.”
“Then you have nothing to worry about, do you?” Nathaniel asked smoothly. “Come along, Emma, and let’s leave Master Sheldon to his ruminations and the quick call to his attorney I’m certain he’s going to make.”
Emma looked at Sheldon and shrugged. “What he said.”
Sheldon began to yell, but she felt absolutely no compulsion to stay and listen. She walked away with Nathaniel toward the front doors. She looked at him.
“Who’s Alex?”
“Former client of my attorney’s brother. He does some discreet investigating in the UK these days.” He shot her a look. “He’s a terrible snoop. You’d like him.”
She smiled. “I imagine I would.” She walked with him outside, then looked at him as they waited for a cab. “Girlfriend?”
“I thought it might terrify you less than fiancée, though we could just skip right over that part and go straight to wife.” He took her hand. “You know, you could handfast with me. You’d have a year and a day to decide if you want to keep me or kick me to the curb.”
“What would be my relationship to the Lamborghini if I agreed to that?”
He shot her a look. “You have an unhealthy fascination with my cars.”
“I’m deflecting.”
“So I imagined.” He opened
the back door of a taxi, then piled in after her and gave the driver an address. He sat back and looked at her. “Did you really trash his White Album?”
“Of course not,” she said with a snort. “He left it out in his office and spilled coffee on it. I had nothing to do with it.”
“Is there anything else you feel you need to confess?”
She laughed a little in spite of herself. “I didn’t do anything to him,” she said. “Someone else might have gone through his mint-in-box Hot Wheels collection, unsealed each one in turn, removed a single wheel, then engaged in a little-known technique used by terrible people everywhere to stick the backs of the packages on again.”
He smiled. “And the thug?”
“My brother, Arnie.” She looked at him solemnly. “He owed me.”
“Arnie?”
“Arnold,” she clarified. “My other brother’s name is Jack.”
Nathaniel flexed his fingers. “I’m starting to feel an unwholesome affinity with your father, seeing as how he has so wisely chosen golf legends for reference in naming his sons.” He smiled. “You didn’t really do all that to Sheldon’s cars, did you?”
She sighed. “To be perfectly honest, we only defaced the ’67 Jag, but the package was already opened because he used to roll it across the counter to bug me.”
“What a prat.”
She added that to the mental list of insults she was going to have to memorize at her earliest convenience, but nodded just the same because he’d said it with disgust.
She realized he was studying her and it made her a little uneasy. “What?”
“I don’t think you’d put up with that now.”
“I don’t think I’d do anything but take the handle of my dirk and flatten his toy,” she said, feeling extremely fierce. She looked at him. “I have friends in Scotland who taught me all about that.”
“I have the feeling I’d best tread lightly,” he said. “I don’t think I particularly want to tangle with your lads.”