She kept telling herself she had to forget Darius, but in truth, she hadn’t stopped thinking about him since the moment she met him.
And now this ad appeared. She had lied to herself to get herself here, telling herself she was only here for the job. After all, how much training did being a restaurant hostess take? She’d waited tables in high school and had done some cocktail waitressing in college. Surely that would qualify her to seat rich patrons in a fancy restaurant.
Besides, if it didn’t, she had a tailor-made excuse to talk with Andrew Vari.
She closed her eyes and rested her forehead on the steering wheel. She had been out here for half an hour. Either she went inside or she left.
And if she drove away, she had to promise herself that she would never contact Andrew Vari again.
She sighed, opened her eyes, and checked her hair in the rear view mirror. Then she opened the door and stepped outside.
It was colder than she expected. Chill air sent goose bumps up her nylon-covered legs. Her still-sore ankle complained about the high heels she wore, but she felt she had no other choice. She was very careful about where she put her feet. No sense tripping and reinjuring herself.
She closed the door and smoothed her green dress, thankful that it was made of some shiny wrinkle-proof material. She clutched a matching purse to her shoulder and saw herself reflected in Quixotic’s glass door.
She had put on weight since the summer—all that inactivity—but her muscles were still toned and firm and the dress flattered her. It wasn’t quite right for a job interview—a bit too cocktail party—but it was better than a business suit or a pair of jeans and a sweater, which were her other choices.
Ariel took a deep breath and grabbed the door’s wrought iron handle. It was cold to the touch. She pulled the door open and stepped inside.
No one manned the maître d’ station or the front bar. Some people wearing jeans and turtlenecks laughed heartily at a table in the corner. A man, looking sad and depressed, sipped from a tiny glass cup as he made large slashes across a yellow legal pad on the table in front of him.
Her heart was beating hard. Somehow she had thought Andrew Vari would appear before her, his pugnacious face drawn up in a frown, ordering her to leave. Once or twice, she had imagined the elegant Alex Blackstone—a man she had only seen in photographs—would stalk up to her and order her off the premises.
But she hadn’t expected to be ignored. She glanced over her shoulder at the glass door. Rain had started to fall, light rain, something Oregonians called a shower. Oregonians had a hundred names for rain, she’d learned, much as Eskimos had for snow.
She supposed it made sense.
It made more sense than her standing here, waiting to be rejected.
She was about to turn away when a woman came down a curving set of stairs. The woman was a petite blond who wore a bright red business suit. She seemed to be in her mid-thirties and had the kind of easy confidence that always made Ariel nervous.
Ariel couldn’t tell if the woman was a customer or part of the staff. She was smiling at Ariel, though, and Ariel couldn’t move away.
“Hasn’t anyone helped you?” the woman asked, as if someone had committed a crime.
Ariel smiled. “Not yet.”
The woman walked to the maître d’s desk. It was almost as tall as she was. “Table for how many?”
“None,” Ariel said. “I came about the job.”
The woman smiled. The smile made her seem very young, almost as if she were a teenager trapped in an adult body. “I’ll get my husband then. It’ll be just a moment. Go ahead. Make yourself at home.”
She turned away and headed toward the back.
Ariel didn’t move. The woman had to be Nora Barr, Blackstone’s lawyer-wife, who Ariel had read about on so many different websites. One of Portland’s most important attorneys, acting as hostess in her husband’s restaurant. How strange was that?
She probably wasn’t really the hostess. Just making sure everything ran smoothly.
Ariel glanced at her van again. She hadn’t given her name. She could still retreat. Drive away, pretend she hadn’t been here.
Take Andrew Vari’s hints, and never see Darius again.
She bit her lower lip, unwilling to make that choice. Instead she walked to the nearest bar stool and leaned against it, waiting to meet the famous Blackstone.
* * *
Darius was peering through the crack in the swinging doors. Ariel was standing in the restaurant, wearing a dress that made her look radiant. The green accented her eyes, made her skin into a lovely shade of ivory, and highlighted her auburn hair. She no longer looked like she needed a good meal, and the extra weight emphasized curves he hadn’t noticed before.
She was even prettier than he remembered.
Beautiful, actually. Even more beautiful than he remembered.
He groaned as Nora spoke to her.
Go away, he thought—he wished—he prayed. Please go away.
The Fates weren’t going to be that kind to him. They were going to make him find that woman a soul mate.
Dammit.
“Okay,” Blackstone said from behind him. “You have gotten stranger by the minute. What’s going on out there?”
Darius jumped and let the door close. He tried for nonchalance as he wandered back to his chair by the table. “Nothing.”
“Nothing? Nothing has you spying like a little boy who’s afraid his mom will discover that he was the one who put the frog down his sister’s dress?”
“I’m not real fond of little boy analogies,” Darius said, resisting the urge to go back to the door.
“Well,” Blackstone said. “it was the first one that came to mind. From the back, you could have been posing for Norman Rockwell’s version of it.”
“Then when I turned around, I’d be Andy Warhol’s parody of it.”
Blackstone grinned. He set down his knife and walked to the swinging door, peering through the diamond panes at his eye-level.
Darius held his breath. He didn’t want Blackstone to see her. The reaction was partly defensive—he didn’t want Blackstone to know what was bothering him so—and partly reflexive—in the past, women flocked to Blackstone, and Darius didn’t want to see Ariel do the same thing.
Blackstone turned toward him, eyebrows raised. “A woman? You’re flustered by a woman? I thought you always flustered them.”
Darius shrugged. “I’m not flustered.”
Blackstone let out a low whistle. “Then I don’t want to be around you when you are flustered.”
At that moment, the door swung open and hit him in the stomach. He let out an oof! and stepped back.
His wife Nora came in and grinned at him. “I saw you spying on me.”
“Actually,” he said, apparently unhurt, “I was spying for Sancho.”
She looked at Darius. “You know that woman?”
“What woman?”
“The one that has you flustered,” Blackstone grinned.
“Has you flustered?” Nora said. “That’s not possible.”
“That’s right,” Darius said, hoping Nora wouldn’t press him farther. He had promised her years ago that he would never lie to her. “Not possible. I have none of the softer emotions, and therefore I have none of the embarrassment emotions.”
“Embarrassment emotions?” Blackstone said. “Is that what this is about? She embarrasses you somehow?”
“No,” Darius said, feeling as if he were digging himself into a hole he didn’t completely see, “flustering is an embarrassment emotion. One, I hasten to add, that I’m not having.”
Nora’s grin grew. She obviously thought he protested too much. And he probably was. “Well, one of you should have some kind of reaction. She’s here for the job.”
“Really?” Blackstone’s voice rose. “That’s your province, my friend. She’d make a pretty hostess.”
Ariel would. But then he’d have to watch her every day, and he’d kn
ow when that one man walked through the door, the one she was going to fall in love with.
“Tell her the job’s been filled,” Darius said to Nora.
Blackstone crossed his arms and pushed against the door, apparently having forgotten that he’d been assaulted with it just moments before. “Lie to her? I thought she meant nothing to you. I thought you didn’t know her. I thought she wasn’t giving you any softer emotions, and their related cousins, the embarrassment emotions.”
Darius didn’t look at him. He took a step toward Nora. “Please. Tell her that. For me.”
“What’s going on?” Nora asked. “Is she a friend of yours?”
He winced. “It’s just better if we don’t pursue this any farther.”
“I’ve never seen you like this,” Blackstone said.
“And if you ask her to go, you’ll never see it again,” Darius said.
“Tell me what’s going on and I’ll stay here,” Blackstone said.
“Alex,” Nora said, “if Sancho doesn’t want to see her, maybe we should respect his wishes.”
“I’ve known Andvari for a thousand years and I’ve never seen him like this. He’s been upset for the past few months. I think maybe I know why now.”
Darius shook his head. “Aethelstan, please. Tell her to go.”
“Tell me who she is.”
Darius took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to say any more. “No.”
“Why not?”
“Because she’s nobody.”
“Come on,” Blackstone said. “If she were nobody, then you wouldn’t be so upset.”
“Really,” Darius said. “We’ve only crossed paths once before and I just don’t want to see her again. That’s all.”
Blackstone peered through the door again. “It couldn’t have been that unpleasant. She’s beautiful.”
Darius held his lips together.
“She’d make a great hostess.”
“Alex,” Nora said again.
“I’m curious,” Blackstone said. “You both know how I get when I’m curious.”
“So,” Darius blurted, “buy me a dog.”
“What?” Both Blackstone and Nora spoke in unison.
“You heard me. Buy me a dog.”
“What does that have to do with the woman?” Blackstone asked.
Darius was thinking fast. He didn’t want to lie with Nora present, but he could mislead them if he was careful about it. “You said I needed a familiar. So buy me a dog.”
“Did your magic go awry around that woman?” Blackstone asked.
“I didn’t say that,” Darius said, but he had purposely implied it.
“What happened?” Nora asked.
“A dog. Something small, so that I’m not dwarfed—so to speak. And not a yappy dog. Something that’ll be friendly and is already housebroken.”
Blackstone studied him for a moment. “I’m intrigued, Sancho. And you know what happens when I get intrigued.”
“No, Aethelstan—”
But it was too late. Blackstone had already pushed his way out the door and into the main part of the restaurant.
“Oh, god,” Darius said. “I’ve got to leave.”
“Who is she?” Nora asked again.
“Someone I just can’t see for a while,” he said, glancing at the back door. But he couldn’t make himself go through it, not without looking at her one last time.
He went to Nora’s side, and together they peered through the crack in the door. Ariel was standing in front of Blackstone like a supplicant, and if anyone looked embarrassed, she did.
“She’s nervous,” Nora said.
“She’s not the only one,” Darius said, as he did a tiny spell so that he could hear the conversation occurring half a restaurant away.
* * *
Ariel hadn’t expected Alex Blackstone to be so imposing. He was tall, with long black hair and silver eyes. He wore black jeans, a white T-shirt over a broad chest, and cowboy boots. The outfit suited him.
He made her feel small. Men usually didn’t make her feel small, but he was the second one in a year. Darius had made her feel tiny as well.
Blackstone had a physical presence that she was sure women found attractive. But he didn’t draw her in the way that Darius had.
He stopped beside the maître d’s podium and rested his elbow against it. He smiled at her. The look melded his sharp features and gave her a sense of a searing intelligence in a man that she would never want to cross.
“I’m Alex Blackstone. My wife says you’re here about the job.”
Ariel swallowed hard. “I am.”
He tilted his head slightly as if he had heard something beside her words. “You sound uncertain.”
He had caught her. She let out a small sigh. “Well, that’s not the only reason I’m here.”
“Really?” He didn’t sound surprised. In fact, it seemed like he had already known. Maybe Andrew Vari had seen her and had warned him that she was a crazy woman, stalking him to find out about a man he swore he didn’t know.
“Really.” She threaded her hands together.
Behind Blackstone, the solitary man at the table stuck his legal pad in his briefcase, set the small leather folder with the bill inside closer to the bud vase centerpiece, and stood. He looked very disappointed.
“Then why are you here, Miss—?”
“Summers.” She had to force herself to concentrate on Blackstone.
The other man had caught her attention. He picked up the leather folder as if he couldn’t decide what to do with it.
“Miss Summers,” Blackstone said, and there was an implied question in his words. The question he had asked earlier, the one she kept failing to answer.
“I, um, met your assistant, Andrew Vari, in July.” Her voice didn’t sound as confident as it usually did.
The man slapped the folder against his hand. Was he waiting for someone to pick it up? Was service generally this bad in this famous restaurant?
“And what did you think of him?”
“He, um…” How to answer that question? These men were obviously friends. “He, um—”
“Is different,” Blackstone said, as if he were trying to help her out.
“Yes,” she said, “but that’s not it, exactly.”
The man walked toward the maître d’s desk. Blackstone turned, almost as if he had known the man was going to approach, even though he had moved silently.
“Mr. Tucker,” Blackstone’s voice had extra warmth in it, as if warmth were an ingredient that could be added, like oregano. “How was your lunch?”
The man, Tucker, raised his head and seemed to focus on Blackstone for the first time. “Probably the last one I’ll have here, Alex.”
Blackstone seemed surprised. Ariel moved away, so that she wouldn’t be perceived as part of this conversation. “Wasn’t the food to your satisfaction? You know I would have prepared another dish—”
“No,” Tucker said. “Those two people were my business’s last hope, and they weren’t buying. So no more expense account. No more business. I just wanted you to know that when I disappeared it was nothing personal. I just can’t afford this place any more.”
Blackstone studied him for a moment. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Tucker shrugged. “Things change. I’m sure I’ll get used to it in time.”
He handed Blackstone the leather folder.
Ariel wanted Blackstone to tell the man the food was on the house, but he didn’t. He took the money and, as he did, his fingers brushed Tucker’s hand.
For a brief moment, a tiny thread of light formed over Tucker’s knuckles. It disappeared so quickly that Ariel would have thought she imagined it, except for the reverse image it flashed against her retina—the way a camera’s bulb left images after the photograph was taken.
“Sometimes,” Blackstone said, “people just have bad luck. Eventually their luck changes.”
He opened the leather folder and removed an already si
gned credit slip.
“I’m going to void this,” he said.
Tucker shook his head. “There’s no need.”
“I’m sure you have better uses for the money at the moment.” Blackstone shrugged. “And the restaurant is doing well. I can afford to serve a meal on the house now and then.”
Tucker gave Blackstone a sad glance, almost as if he wanted to protest again but was afraid to push too hard. “Thank you, Alex.”
Blackstone nodded. “My pleasure. I want you to come back when you can, Mr. Tucker. There’re always ways to accommodate our very best customers.”
Tucker nodded, thanked Blackstone again, and made his way to the front door. He still looked defeated, but not quite as destroyed as he had a moment earlier.
Blackstone stared after the man. Ariel watched Blackstone. She hadn’t expected kindness from him. Somehow it put her at ease.
“Mr. Blackstone,” she said, while he was still staring at the door, “do you know a man named Darius?”
He turned toward her, a frown creasing his brow. “Darius? Darius what?”
She shook her head. “I never learned his last name. He’s about as tall as you are, with blond curly hair. He has a runner’s build, very blue eyes.”
“Darius?” There was something in the way he said the name, an incredulity, as if she were dredging a long-forgotten name out of his past.
“Yes,” she said. “He was staying at Mr. Vari’s house in the Idaho wilderness area, even though Mr. Vari denies it. He saved my life.”
“Mr. Vari?” This time the incredulity was real.
She shook her head. “Darius. I’d like to thank him. But Mr. Vari says he’s never heard of him. I’d just like a way to contact him.”
“So you came here to see Mr. Vari.”
She looked down at her hands. They were still threaded together. “I came for the job. I moved to Portland earlier this year and then my position got eliminated. When I saw the ad, I thought I’d apply. The fact that Mr. Vari’s here is icing on the cake.”
“Yet you brought that up first.”
“Actually, you did.”
His smile was gentle. “Have you worked in a restaurant before?”
She was a little startled by the change of subject. “Yes. I waited tables throughout high school and college.”
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