by Olga Bicos
“I was hoping you’d introduce me around,” he said.
“I don’t know any of these people. This is Dan’s gig. I’m just the hired help.”
“Really? I hope he pays well.”
She gave him a look, catching his tone. “Meaning?”
“Oh, I don’t know. The way you keep looking at him and my sister…” He gave a shrug. “I thought he should make it worth your while, that’s all.”
She crossed her arms over her chest so that the nearly transparent material pressed against her skin, making his eyes wander again, making him think she’d done it on purpose. She was drinking one of those froufrou drinks. She must have really been watching him close, because she knew the minute he stopped staring at her breasts and noticed the drink.
“It’s called a Platinum Blonde.” She toasted him and took a healthy sip. “And how am I looking at Dan and your sister?”
“How to put this delicately? My sister isn’t moving in on your territory.”
“No shit? And I’m suppose to listen to a punk-ass jerk like you about Dan?”
“You get a kick out of that? Shocking people?”
“Is it working?”
“Better than you want.”
She had these clear green eyes. And man, could they show hurt. Which was a problem because Harris had a soft spot for damsels in distress. It had gotten him in a world of trouble long before tonight.
You’d think a man could learn a lesson, buckle down, get the job done. But not Harris. No siree. Right then and there, he could feel himself slipping, seeing her point of view.
“Hey. I’m sorry. Okay?”
She gave him a real smile this time, the kind that comes from somewhere deep inside a person. Watching him, she drained the glass and whispered, “Thanks,” as she walked past…but not before he saw her tears.
“Wait a minute. Hey, wait!”
Emma was a tiny thing, making a nice job of cutting through the crowd, while he had to fight his way past, making elbow contact with the Mighty Wedding Cake, who looked like he could take Harris in a smackdown any day.
She’d already grabbed her wrap from the cloakroom by the time he reached her.
“Look, you don’t strike me as the shrinking violet type,” he said, coming up alongside her. “I’m sorry if I offended you. I was just trying to figure something out.”
The tears were long gone, replaced by a hard look of suspicion. “Like?”
“Like if you’d want to have a drink with me. Or if there’s already a prior commitment.”
The words came from his heart, which shocked him. It had been a long time for him, precisely because he’d discovered his ability to make mistakes. He thought he might be making one now.
“Okay,” she said, keeping those surprises coming. “But not here. There’s a bar. It isn’t far, but we’re taking a taxi because I can’t walk in these stupid heels.”
He opened the door for her. “I like a woman who takes charge.”
He waited there, with the door open, wondering where this could possibly be going, telling himself to be careful. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d blown something over a pretty face.
But the worst part was seeing her turn around and case the room before she stepped past, getting in that last glance at Daniel hanging on Holly’s every word.
The guy didn’t see her. Didn’t catch her dramatic exit with another man. Didn’t even know when she left.
Emma thought she could make it all right again. Satisfy his curiosity, make him go away. She’d been too scared just to let him stay curious. So the last thing she’d expected was to be sitting here enjoying herself.
The club scene still thrived in San Francisco despite the dotcom bomb. Emma liked the Red Room. Small, dark and boozy, the place had an edge. It was easy to get lost here. A person could just slip on down the leather banquette, megamartini in hand.
Tonight, the alcohol steadied her nerves. And something else. Sitting on the edge of the stool, the grunge bar blessedly free of slumming yupsters and AMWs (actress-model-whatever), she found herself flirting with Harris.
The alcohol made it okay to do that. And Harris. That smile of his. He wasn’t half bad with the banter, either. Looking at him through the blur of her drink, she could almost forget the sight of Daniel drooling over Holly.
“Don’t drink so fast.” He stopped her hand as she raised the martini glass. “It makes me think you’re in a hurry.”
“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea,” she told him. But again, she was flirting, saying it with a smile.
“Pain in the ass, am I?”
She leaned forward as if giving him a serious looking over. Dark hair, melt-you-down brown eyes. Tonight he’d dressed in a white guayabera shirt that somehow managed to scream straight boy when it wouldn’t on most men.
“You’re not too bad for an old guy,” she told him, playing it up.
He grinned. “You into that, then? The old guy thing?” he asked, knowing that Daniel was even older than him.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, feeling the mood slip. She stabbed the olive inside the martini glass with her toothpick. She told herself she wasn’t trying to make Daniel jealous by leaving the party with Holly’s brother. Just because he’d fallen all over Holly the minute he laid eyes on her didn’t mean Emma needed to worry.
Just because it hurt like hell to watch him eat her up with his eyes didn’t make it okay for Emma to get drunk and find some other man to make her feel special.
She poked the olive again. “Don’t date dinosaurs,” she told him, focusing her anger on the olive, trying not to slur her words. “Very uncool.”
“Why do I suddenly feel like checking my pockets for a Sen-sen?”
“A what?”
“Right.” That smile again. “Dinosaur status confirmed.”
Daniel had explained how tonight with Holly was just business. A little joke on Ryan, okay? The shit deserves it. But the way Holly had looked made everything go fuzzy in Emma’s head. It was kind of spooky, like looking into the past and seeing everything in vivid Technicolor.
“I hate parties,” she said. Hated watching Holly all dressed up, feeling guilty and furious at the same time to see Daniel’s arm permanently attached to Holly’s waist. “Parties make me nervous.”
“That explains it.”
He lifted her hand in his. Her fingers were shaking.
She stared at her hand, so much smaller and whiter than his. She glanced up, saying, “It could be the company.”
“Don’t I wish.”
Taking her hand away, she said, “What makes you so sure?”
He looked as if he wasn’t going to answer, but said, “Right now, sitting there, killing that olive, I’m betting it’s not me you’re thinking about.”
With a final blow to Mr. Olive, she dropped the lot into the glass. “This conversation is getting boring.”
“Is it? I’ll try harder. Will you go out with me tomorrow night?”
Inside her chest, her heart did a swan dive. He’d surprised her again, putting her off balance, because she wanted to say yes in the worst way.
It would be for all the wrong reasons, she told herself. Because she was mad at Daniel. Because she was thinking too much about the past. Because of Holly Fairfield.
He’s her brother, for God’s sake.
If she wanted to teach Daniel a lesson, she couldn’t have picked a worse choice. Or a better one.
“Why is it,” she asked, “that the minute a guy thinks you’re not interested, he immediately needs you to be?”
“Wow.” He sat back on the bar stool. “Usually, my crash and burn takes more than—” he made a show of looking at his watch “—thirty-eight seconds.”
He had a talent for disarming people with humor, something she found hard to trust. Or resist.
She picked up the drink again, the alcohol making her willing to take a chance. “Change of subject.” She really liked his smi
le and tried to drum up one of her own. “Why a bartender?”
“Why a chef?”
She shook her finger at him. “I asked first.”
“Because it’s easy.” The quick comeback. “And I needed that for a while.”
“So. What was it before, rocket scientist?”
He smiled, as if he liked the sound of that. “You never know.”
He wasn’t going to say, which only made her more curious. Something to hide…
“Come on,” she coaxed. “You can tell me the truth.”
“Is that what you want?” he asked. “Honesty?”
She blinked. Just like that, he’d switched everything around again. They’d been laughing, having fun, then, whammo, he’s trying to pry some confession out of her. What was he, some sort of spy? Grilling her like this?
She stood, the room suddenly swimming. She’d come here to show Daniel, make him jealous. Well, you showed him, didn’t you?
“I gotta go.”
He stopped her, grabbing her hand. “I said the wrong thing. I do that sometimes. But I have a good learning curve. I can keep it light. Don’t leave. Not yet.”
How long had it been since a man had sounded that desperate for her? How utterly seductive to hear that emotion in his voice.
“No, I…I have an early morning tomorrow,” she said, pulling away.
But even running for the door, she knew it was too late. The way he’d looked at her, how he’d made her feel—it was like she’d tripped a switch in her head, getting it. The reason she’d gone back to the bar the other night, wanting to talk to Harris, why she’d left the party with him just now…
All along, she’d been telling herself it was for Daniel’s sake. She was watching his back, just like he’d done for her when she was a kid.
But they weren’t kids anymore. What she was feeling right now had nothing to do with Daniel. He wasn’t even in the picture. And maybe that scared her most of all.
10
In a way, Holly was relieved to see him again. He was standing just outside the club, the first person she saw when she stepped out the door, ready to call it a night. He’d obviously been waiting for her, wasn’t bothering to hide. She hadn’t seen him inside, but she thought she’d sensed him there. She’d felt that funny tingling at the back of her neck again.
Tonight he could give Daniel a run for his money with the fashion sense. Saffron shirt, three-button dark charcoal suit, hair in stylish disarray. She tried not to be intimidated, walking right up to him, heels clicking on the cement as her heart sped up to another beat.
She’d spent all night watching the frenetic crowd at the club, anticipating that tap on the shoulder, disappointed when it never came. Half the time, Daniel had called her on it—Holly, baby, you still with me?—knowing she wasn’t paying attention.
“I’m glad you’re here. Really.” She laughed, the sound coming out like a release. “It was driving me crazy, that waiting.” She took a breath, settling. “Now we can get this over with.” Because she knew there was something there, something they needed to settle.
“What do you suggest?” he asked almost lazily.
“You said you’re not following me,” she blurted out. “But I know you are—I mean you were. And it actually surprised me when you stopped. And then, I knew that you hadn’t, because tonight I felt you there, at the club.”
He covered her mouth with his hand.
She took his hand away. “The thing with the talking again. Maybe you could explain your aversion to speech?” And when he played the statue, she nodded as if she understood, as if anything about this man came close to making sense.
She considered all the possible angles, but nothing seemed to explain that first time at Cutty House and the look on his face when he’d seen her. What could it mean to have a man stare at her with that much longing? And the question she wanted most to ask: Why me?
Only, she wasn’t getting her answers. Not tonight, anyway.
“All righty, then.” She gave him a salute, going for the better part of valor as she turned and strutted down the street, swinging her purse from its chain.
Then she pivoted around, coming back at him, because the man was beginning to haunt her. It was as if he knew some secret about her but wasn’t telling.
“Look—” She stabbed a finger to his chest. Oh, I’m a scary little thing, aren’t I? Giving him what for. “I don’t claim to be good at this sort of thing, confrontations, but if there’s a problem—”
He grabbed her hand and whispered, “There’s a problem. But here’s the thing. I’m wondering if you know what it is. Are you in on it with Daniel or is he just using you?”
Like that made any sense? But in a way it did, mirroring her brother’s fears that there was something behind Daniel’s generosity. Too good to be true.
She tugged her hand free, but she didn’t move away. She thought about what Emma had told her. Ryan could be unstable. The way he followed her around, he most likely was. Still, she stayed where she was, looking up at him, evaluating. She might not have Harris’s talent for reading people, but she just couldn’t see violence in him. And that connection she felt? She couldn’t admit she had that with a killer.
She hugged the expensive wrap closer. She tried to focus on her words, going for a different tactic. I show you mine—you show me yours….
“I know certain things,” she said, being purposely vague. “At first, I thought, why me? But I pieced it together,” she said, not wanting to add, I know about that poor woman, your fiancée.
“Cutty House.” She raised her chin. “You don’t want the restaurant to succeed,” she guessed, throwing out the most likely motive. “Not with Daniel at the helm. And somehow, you believe I might be part of that success.”
“Why did you let him dress you like that?” he asked.
It had been a long night, wearing dangerously high heels, and now this? The man made her head spin. “Suddenly, haute couture is a crime?”
“You make it sound as if you don’t know what’s going on, but you cut your hair, you wore his clothes. I hate it, by the way. Your hair. The clothes.”
That prickling at the back of her neck was doing a rumba. “Again,” she told him crisply, “I speak English. Very well, actually. But I don’t get you.”
“The charity tonight. Daniel knew I’d be here. That’s why he brought you, showing you off. To me.”
As if she were Daniel’s own Helen of Troy?
But Ryan only stepped closer, sending up rocket flares as he violated all sorts of personal space. “God, if you don’t know…”
Looking up at him, she thought of all the things she did know—the car accident, the murder inquiry. And the things she didn’t know: Why exactly Daniel had hired her. For the first time, she allowed the possibility that she was a tad underqualified and significantly overpaid.
She whispered, “All right. Fill me in.”
Ryan rocked back, needing the distance to take in the whole picture of her, checking her out, head to foot. He smiled and shook his head. Whatever he’d been about to tell her, she could see he was backing off.
“I think I’ve come to like Daniel’s game,” he said. “Maybe that was Dan’s idea all along. Why the hell not?” He said it as if coming to a decision. “He went to a lot of trouble to find you.”
“Is that a question?”
He smiled. “Not for you.”
“I have a job to do,” she said, going on the offense. “That’s why I’m here. You can’t stop me.”
“No?” It was very much a question.
Somewhere, in the back of her mind, this little voice was screaming: You’re standing alone with a possible killer! Only, she didn’t want the conversation to end. Didn’t want to spend the next week looking over her shoulder wondering when he might show.
Ryan had a different idea. He jogged out into the street and hailed a cab. She thought he was leaving. She wanted to shout something provocative to stop him, something t
hat would make him stay and explain. You think you look hot in those clothes, but…okay, you do.
But when the cab pulled over, he surprised her by holding the door open and waiting there beside the car. She didn’t see any option but to take him up on his genteel offer.
Slipping inside, she remembered what Harris had told her. Seduced by all the goodies. She considered the worst-case scenario, that the attentions of a handsome and mysterious man might just be the biggest goody of them all. The crime of the lonely.
“So now I just run away again?” she asked, looking up at him. “How many times do we do this?”
He gave the cab driver directions to her apartment and smiled. “As many as it takes.”
Shutting the door, he sent her on her way.
Half an hour later, Holly sat on the couch with her back to the window, the living-room lights off and a glass of red wine at the ready on the coffee table before her.
She was remembering her trip to the grocery store that morning. She’d been standing in line buying orange juice and sourdough bread—a San Francisco favorite—when her eyes happened upon the caption of a popular fitness magazine. Get Bulge-free Knees! (In only 20 minutes a day.) She remembered wondering, Now I have to worry about my knees?
In front of her on the conveyor belt, a six-pack of beer had ambled toward the cashier as the man ahead of her asked for Marlboros, “hard pack, please.” She remembered some smart-aleck remark popping in her head like: What was beer without cigarettes, after all? Breakfast of champions.
Only later, inside the dark and empty apartment, she’d thought the man had the right idea. Why not self-medicate? With that brilliant idea in hand, she’d headed for the kitchen and opened a nice California Merlot. She’d set the glass untouched on the coffee table like a work of art.
She’d eventually run out of random thoughts, like the man and his beer, trying to forget about the Ryans and Daniels of the world. But it was a bit like that joke when someone tells you not to think about pink elephants, so that, of course, absolutely nothing else but comes to mind.