Читать книгу The Playboy Assignment - Leigh Michaels, Leigh Michaels - Страница 7

CHAPTER TWO

EVEN as she raised her head to look at him, Susannah told herself it was impossible. The Marc Herrington she’d known hadn’t even owned a necktie, much less a pin-striped suit, and he was far more likely to flash a rude slogan on the front of a sweatshirt than his initials embroidered on a cuff.

Impossible.

She’d set herself up, that was what had happened. The walk through the cemetery had prompted her to think of Marc—and once those memories had been activated, all it took to set them spinning out of control again was a baritone voice and a chance monogram....

It was quite a coincidence, those initials. But the voice was easily explained; this man did sound a little like Marc—or, to be more accurate, her eight-years-old memory of Marc.

Susannah fixed a smile on her lips so she could properly greet a man who was not—who could not be—Marcus Herrington.

And she looked up into a pair of wide-set brown eyes, surrounded with a forest of long, dark, curly lashes. Eyes she had thought, once or twice, that she could drown in. Including that day eight years ago in the cemetery, when he had kissed her so long and so well that her scattered senses had allowed the worst idea of her life to look like a winner.

Marc’s eyes. It was impossible—but it was also undeniable.

“Well,” he said. In his rich baritone, the single word seemed to carry an entire encyclopedia of meaning. Or did it only seem that way to Susannah’s guilty conscience?

Not guilty, she reminded herself. She’d been foolish, yes—and impetuous and perhaps even idiotic—but she had nothing to feel guilty about.

She held out her hand to him and willed her voice to stay steady. “Marc.”

His hand was warm and firm and strong. Susannah’s fingers felt fragile and shaky in his grip.

Pierce stared down at her. Though he was obviously thunderstruck, he recovered in moments. “You know each other? But—but that’s wonderful! Old friends, I suppose?”

Prompted, Susannah stumbled through the introductions.

“Marcus Herrington,” Pierce said thoughtfully. “I don’t believe I’ve heard the name.”

“Oh, of course Susannah wouldn’t have mentioned me,” Marc said. Only the slightest emphasis set the last word apart, but there was no more doubt in his voice than there was humor in his smile.

Irritation surged through Susannah’s veins. His meaning could hardly have been clearer even if he’d come straight out and said they’d been lovers. Of course, if he had, she could not only have denied it, but any listener would have doubted his motives. This was far more cunning. The implication was perfectly obvious—she could see from the expression in Pierce’s eyes that he’d gotten the message loud and clear. And yet Marc hadn’t really said a thing.

“No, I don’t believe I ever brought up your name,” she said coolly. “You were hardly important enough.”

Marc lifted his eyebrows. “But of course, my dear. What else could I possibly have meant?”

That you were too important to talk about. Which was precisely what Pierce was thinking right now.

Susannah’s annoyance was mixed with reluctant admiration at the way he’d so neatly boxed her into a corner. The Marc she’d known had been as transparent as glass. Just when—and how—had the man learned to be so smooth?

Not that it mattered, Susannah told herself firmly, what Pierce—or anyone else—thought.

Marc had turned back to Pierce. “It’s rude of me to bring up ancient history. You shared Cyrus’s interest in art, you said?”

The tinge of irony in Marc’s voice was so subtle that Susannah almost doubted her own ears, despite the demonstration she’d just suffered at his hands. For an instant she wondered if he’d recognized Pierce’s name, and therefore doubted the casualness of his interest. But she concluded that wasn’t likely; the Dearborn was far from prominent as yet, and its director was hardly a household word across the country.

Then she followed Marc’s gaze over Pierce’s shoulder to one of Cyrus’s favorite and most recent acquisitions, and knew why he was feeling ironic.

“I find his taste—shall we say, interesting?” Marc went on. “Personally, I’d probably use that thing to wipe the mud off my shoes.”

Susannah braced herself.

The work was a long way from being her favorite. The artist—and she used the term loosely where Evans Jackson was concerned—had used a housepainter’s bush to smear three slashes of blood-red pigment on a huge white canvas, and then left it to drip. Susannah thought it looked like something from a butcher’s shop.

Pierce, on the other hand, considered the painting a master work. When he’d taken Susannah to the gallery to see Cyrus’s new purchase, Pierce had been shocked by her lukewarm reaction. He’d spent the next half hour instructing her on artistic genius and the intricacies of expressionistic symbolism—at least Susannah thought that was what he’d called it. Her eyes had begun to glaze only a couple of minutes into the lecture.

She couldn’t wait to see Marc’s reaction to that same speech.

Pierce, too, had turned to look at the painting. “Oh, well, that sort of thing,” he said tolerantly. “Cyrus would have his little jokes now and then.”

Susannah blinked in surprise, remembering the outlandish price he’d told her Cyrus had paid. Then the metallic taste of fear rose in her throat. She’d forgotten, for just a moment, Pierce’s implication that he only dabbled in art. Surely, she thought, he wasn’t crazy enough to continue that charade, now that he’d had a chance to take Marc’s measure...

“Not all the collection is so blatant,” Pierce went on. “Cyrus actually had a few pieces which aren’t half bad.”

A voice in the back of her brain told her to stop him, no matter what it took, before he offered to do Marc a favor by taking the problematic pieces off his hands. But she was mesmerized by the pressure of Pierce’s fingers on her elbow, and unable to protest.

“Blatant,” Marc murmured. “What an interesting choice of words.”

“In fact,” Pierce went on, “if you’re looking for someone to help value things for the estate—”

“That’s very thoughtful,” Marc said. “I wonder where Joe Brewster went. He’s the one who’ll handle all that.” He glanced around the foyer, his six extra inches of height giving him the advantage of being able to look over most of the crowd, and gestured to someone Susannah couldn’t see.

Joe Brewster. The name hit her like a rock. Brewster was Cyrus’s attorney—the one Pierce had talked to about the will. If Joe Brewster recognized Pierce’s name...

Pierce, however, seemed unconcerned. His smile was firmly in place.

A short, round man hurried up. “You wanted me, Marcus?”

“Joe, I’d like you to meet Susannah...” Marc paused.

Doesn’t he even remember my name? Susannah thought irritably. “Miller,” she said coolly.

“Still? Or again?”

Susannah felt marginally better. Marc’s hesitation made sense after all; there was a good chance that in eight years she’d have married—and perhaps divorced, as well. At least he hadn’t assumed she’d married Pierce; maybe she should award him a point or two for that. “Still.”

“What a shame,” Marc said softly. “I seem to remember you were determined to have a wedding. And with good reason, too.”

Fury rose in Susannah’s throat. And if he solicitously asks what went wrong with my plans, she thought grimly, I’ll strangle him!

But Marc had moved straight on to introduce Pierce. “He’s offered to help appraise Cyrus’s collection, Joe.”

The attorney stretched out a hand. “That’s very generous of you, Mr. Reynolds. Your opinion would be valuable. As the director of the Dearborn—”

Pierce’s fingers tightened on Susannah’s elbow; it was the only sign of surprise she could detect. “Actually,” he said casually, “I didn’t exactly volunteer my services. The time constraints which come along with my job prevent me from doing appraisals. What I meant to say was, if you’d like help valuing the estate’s art, I’m sure Susannah would be happy to pitch in.”

Susannah opened her mouth to protest, and closed it again. She felt like a balloon with a slow leak. Now she knew that tightened grip of Pierce’s hand hadn’t been due to surprise after all; it had been more in the nature of a warning. He’d had this planned all along.

She could feel Marc’s gaze drifting over her face, appraising every feature, every expression. “And Susannah is...qualified?” he asked.

She couldn’t stay silent any longer. “Pierce, I hardly think that I—”

“Nonsense,” Pierce said firmly. “Of course she’s qualified. Don’t underestimate your talent, Susannah.”

“Or your resources,” Marc added, very gently. “You know, Joe, I believe I just might take more of an interest in Cyrus’s collection myself—under the circumstances.”

His hand still on her elbow, Pierce guided Susannah across the foyer and into the broad hallway that led toward the dining room at the back of the house. Most of the crowd had moved on toward the buffet tables, and for a few moments, in the shadow of the staircase, the two of them were completely alone.

“I think that went very well,” Pierce said.

The note of self-satisfaction in his voice grated on Susannah’s nerves. “Then all I can say is that I’d like to see your definition of a disaster. The only thing that could have made it worse was if you’d offered to buy everything outright at some bargain-basement price.”

Pierce tipped his head to one side and considered. “It’s an idea. Herrington might actually have gone for it.”

Susannah went on ruthlessly. “But Mr. Brewster would know you were trying to scam his client, and then you’d be in the soup and the museum would lose all credibility.”

“That’s an interesting point,” Pierce mused. “Why he knew me, I mean—I didn’t mention the museum when I called about the will. Cyrus must have told him about me along the way. Susannah, do you really believe I’m so shortsighted I’d try to pass myself off as an amateur?”

“It looked to me as if you were making a pretty good. stab at it.”

“I did nothing of the sort. I simply didn’t boast of my position, my education, or my background. If the man wanted to draw conclusions—”

Susannah stood her ground. “You deliberately tried to convince him that the Evans Jackson canvas is worthless.”

“I was being diplomatic. Feeling out his tastes. Trying to establish a bond. All good gallery owners do that sort of thing, or they’d never sell a single piece. It’s no thanks to you, by the way, that I read him so clearly. Why didn’t you tell me you knew him?”

“Because I didn’t know it myself till it was too late to run,” Susannah admitted.

“You did look a little stunned,” Pierce admitted. “What was all that stuff about weddings, anyway? You didn’t marry the man, did you?”

“No.” Susannah’s throat was dry, her voice taut.

“That’s good. If you had, I’d really wonder about your judgment. I grant you, for a couple of minutes I was a bit unsure about him, myself. His clothes weren’t bad, not bad at all. And the name... I wonder how somebody like that ended up with such an aristocratic name.”

“Funny,” Susannah muttered. “My mother asked almost the same thing once.”

“But I knew as soon as he looked blankly at that magnificent Evans Jackson canvas that my first instinct was right.” Pierce shuddered. “The very idea of threatening to wipe his feet on it! I only hope Evans doesn’t hear what I said about his work.”

“I doubt the two of them hang around in the same circles.”

Pierce laughed. “That’s certainly true.”

“And all good gallery owners talk that way, don’t they, to gain the customer’s confidence?” Susannah didn’t even try to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. “Pierce, about this assignment you’ve saddled me with... Surely you don’t expect me to pass myself off as a staff member, because I won’t do it.”

“Oh, no. We’ll refer to you as—let’s see...”

She cut in ruthlessly. “We’ll call me exactly what I am—the museum’s public relations representative.”

“Actually,” Pierce mused, “that’s ideal. Because of your inexperience—”

“I thought you told Marc I was qualified.”

Pierce shrugged. “I didn’t say expert. So any errors can easily be passed off—”

“Are you saying you want me to make errors?”

“Susannah, my dear, you’ll have all of the museum’s resources to draw on. And I expect you to use all the expertise the Dearborn can provide. Including me.”

“I suppose that means you’ll make the errors? Never mind.”

“I’m still determined to end up with this collection, Susannah. So just remember—if you value things high, you’ll have to raise the money to pay for them and explain to the board why they’re worth so much.”

“And if I value them low, I’ll end up looking like a fool.”

“Oh, I doubt that,” Pierce said easily. “Didn’t you see the way he was looking at you—sort of like a hungry wolf? I imagine, if you play your cards right, you’ll be able to keep Marcus Herrington from asking any questions at all.”

Tryad’s office, a converted brownstone not far from the green expanse of Lincoln Park, was quiet when Pierce dropped Susannah off early that evening. The same couldn’t be said of the rest of the neighborhood; since it was still mostly residential, the streets really came alive after work and school were over. And with the newly warmer weather to celebrate, kids were out in force.

Susannah dodged two roller skaters, paused to observe a cutthroat marbles tournament, finished teaching the two little girls next door a rope-skipping rhyme from her childhood, and stopped to study a hopscotch layout drawn in chalk on Tryad’s own front walk.

“You know,” she told the hopscotch artists, “this doesn’t make us look very professional, having big white-numbered squares drawn on the concrete leading straight to our offices.”

The girls looked stricken. “But we drew it as neatly as we could, Susannah,” one of them said.

Another chimed in, “And it’s only chalk, you know. It’ll wash off when it rains.”

The third added, “Maybe we could use colored chalk next time. It’d be prettier. Would that help?”

Susannah laughed, shook her head, and skirted the carefully drawn hopscotch field. The hopscotch craze would last only a few weeks; good neighbors—of any age—went on forever.

Almost automatically, she waved at the bay window of the house on the other side, the twin half of Tryad’s brownstone. She wasn’t surprised to see the white lace curtain flutter as if the corner had been hastily dropped. Mrs. Holcomb might be a recluse, but there wasn’t a move made in the neighborhood which escaped her.

What did startle Susannah was a glimpse of a hand behind the curtain, half raised in what might have been a hesitant wave. It was the first time Mrs. Holcomb had ever responded directly to any approach Susannah had made, and she was surprised at the surge of pleasure which swept over her.

Such a little thing a wave was, to cause such a reaction. And yet, for Mrs. Holcomb—who, so far as Susannah knew, had left her house only once in the three years since Tryad had moved in next door—it was a major overture of friendship.

Inside, the office was dim and quiet. A few rays of late sunshine found their way in through the stained-glass panel at the top of the main stairway, and security lights glowed here and there, lighting the way to the exits. The usual hum of copy machines and computers, and the muted chime of the telephones, had stilled into silence.

In the receptionist’s office, once the brownstone’s living room, Rita’s desk was neat, the blotter empty except for tomorrow’s to-do list. The in-basket marked with Susannah’s name was empty.

That was one minor miracle, Susannah thought. At least she was no farther behind than she’d been early this afternoon—it felt like a million years ago—when she’d left the office to attend Cyrus’s funeral...

Except, of course, for the job Pierce had dumped on her. Putting a value on an art collection was hardly a public relations job, but Susannah liked both art and research, and under other circumstances she might have found it an enjoyable challenge. If she had plenty of time, if she didn’t have a dozen pressing projects...

“Be honest,” she told herself. “If it didn’t involve Marc Herrington, you’d like the job a whole lot better.”

She climbed the stairs from the main level to her own office, at the back of the building. Her desk was in chaos, piled with papers and folders, just as it had been late this morning when the telephone calls started to come in. The project she’d been working on was due to be presented to the client tomorrow afternoon, but Susannah had no enthusiasm for facing the final details tonight. She’d come in early in the morning to finish.

She sailed her picture hat across the room toward the chintz-covered couch. The hat landed almost atop a calico cat, curled up nearly out of sight under the edge of a cushion. The cat opened one yellow eye and surveyed her warily. Susannah apologized and went on down the hall to Kit’s office, with its view of the street and the green expanse of Lincoln Park beyond.

The room was unnaturally neat, and Susannah thought the air smelled a bit stale after ten days of disuse. She wasn’t quite sure how that could happen, since the door had been open all the time. Perhaps it wasn’t staleness she felt, but loneliness.

She flung herself down on the chaise longue. She missed Kit. Missed being able to bounce ideas off her, to share frustrations and problems and triumphs.

“So what would Kitty do?” Her voice was loud in the silence of the office.

Stupid question, of course. Susannah would have bet money that Kit—straightforward, uncomplicated Kit—had never had a secret in her life.- She’d even fallen in love so transparently that Susannah and Alison had known it- almost before Kit herself had.

Susannah sighed.

Alison, the warmhearted and practical, wouldn’t be much more help. She’d be sympathetic, of course, but Alison—who had X-ray vision when it came to predicting the outcome of a business decision—would never comprehend how, even at the tender and inexperienced age of eighteen, Susannah could have been so foolish, so impractical, so shortsighted.

The truth was, if she tried for a month Susannah couldn’t explain to Alison what had happened eight years ago between her and Marc—because she wasn’t certain she understood it herself.

And neither Kit nor Alison would be able to fathom why they’d never heard about Marc Herrington before. If he had once been an important part of Susannah’s life, they should have known all the details long since. And if he hadn’t been significant, why was she making such a fuss about meeting him again now?

No, Susannah decided, her partners would be no help whatsoever. She was in this one on her own.

The last rays of sunlight were still filtering through the hallway, but Kit’s office had dimmed slowly and imperceptibly till Susannah was sitting in darkness.

Maybe she was overreacting, she told herself hopefully. Despite what Marc had said about being involved in the fate of Cyrus’s art collection, perhaps he really had no intention of doing anything of the sort. Maybe he’d just been pushing buttons, simply to see what her reaction would be. She wouldn’t put that sort of behavior past the new Marc.

Besides, the collection was big, and with her lack of experience, valuing it wouldn’t be the work of a few days. The task could stretch over a period of months, especially since she couldn’t just drop her other obligations. Surely Marc couldn’t rearrange his life to leave room for that.

Marc wasn’t the sort to be without a job. He’d never been too proud to work at whatever came to hand, and Susannah doubted that had changed. Besides, hadn’t Pierce said something about Cyrus’s funeral being delayed because Marc was on vacation? A vacation surely implied a job, and also an employer—who would not be likely to look kindly on a lengthy absence.

But what kind of a job? she found herself wondering.

Once, Marc had been a welder in a factory which built farm machinery. She supposed he might have made the jump into management, pushing numbers instead of steel. As a supervisor of sorts, perhaps; his hands—though not calloused—had been hard, as if he still did physical work. She hadn’t realized till just now that she’d noticed.

But then there was the fit of his pin-striped suit. Susannah still had trouble reconciling that suit with the Marc she remembered.... Not that it mattered, she told herself firmly. It was a waste of time to speculate about a man from a far distant past. A man who could never be important to her again.

She’d do her job, and Marc would go back to his regular life, wherever it was. And whatever—and whomever—it involved.

In the end, Susannah was glad her presentation was scheduled for Friday afternoon, because it forced her to push the entire problem of Cyrus’s paintings out of her mind. Instead, she spent the day concentrating on how to carry off a widespread recall of child safety seats without creating a national panic, and—less important but perhaps even more difficult—how to present her strategy to the manufacturer without causing an uproar which might cost Tryad future business.

By late afternoon, she’d managed both, and she celebrated by taking a cab back to Tryad’s offices. The work was far from over, but with all the plans approved and in place, the rest would be relatively easy.

She’d actually forgotten Cyrus and the paintings until she reached into her handbag to pay the cabbie and her fingertips touched a small square envelope. Rita had handed it to her as she went out the door for her presentation, saying it had just been delivered by a courier service. Susannah hadn’t even opened it, just shoved it into her bag. But she knew what was inside; through the heavy paper, embossed with Joseph Brewster’s name, she’d been able to feel the shape of a key.

The key to Cyrus Albrecht’s house, no doubt. Well, Monday would be soon enough to figure out how she was going to handle the problem of setting a fair value on Cyrus’s art collection and keep Pierce and the museum’s board happy.

The good news, she told herself, was that by Monday, Marc Herrington would have gone back to—wherever it was he’d come from. In fact, she thought he was probably gone already, or Joe Brewster wouldn’t have sent her a key. Not that she was planning to check; she deserved a peaceful weekend.

And the sudden drop in spirits she was suffering at the moment was an aftereffect of hard work and stress, of relief, of worry about how she was going to pull off this assignment. It had nothing to do, she was certain, with whether or not Marc Herrington. was still in Chicago.

She handed the fare over to the cabbie and reached for the door handle, only to feel it slide away under her hand as the door was opened from outside.

Another commuter, she thought, anxious to pick up a cab at rush hour. At least he could wait till I’m out!

But the odds were that anyone hailing a cab in this neighborhood was a client of Tryad’s, so she swallowed the tart comment she’d have liked to make and smiled instead. “I’m glad I happened along just when you needed the cab,” she said sweetly, and planted one foot on the curb.

“Perfect timing, in fact,” a rich baritone answered.

Susannah’s heel went out from under her and she tumbled back against the cab’s seat.

“Except that since you’re here, I don’t need a cab,” Marc went on reasonably. “May I offer you a hand, Susannah, since you seem to be having trouble getting out on your own?”

Today he looked more like the Marc she remembered—his jeans worn to pale blue and clinging to narrow hips, his pullover shirt emphasizing the breadth of his shoulders and the strength of his arms. Without apparent effort he almost lifted Susannah out of the cab, then stood with a hand still on her arm as if to steady her as he waved the driver away.

“What are you doing here?” As soon as the words were out, Susannah wanted to bite her tongue off; as opening gambits, that was about the worst she could think of.

“Don’t you think we have a few things to talk about?”

Pierce had said something yesterday about Marc looking at her like a hungry wolf. Susannah couldn’t see anything of the sort, herself. And she could detect nothing suggestive about his voice; his tone was perfectly level, and in fact he didn’t sound particularly interested. The combination made her feel a great deal more sure of herself, and she attacked. “I can’t imagine what we’d have to discuss. If you happen to be wondering what makes a public relations person qualified to appraise an art collection—”

“Oh, nothing so dull as that,” Marc said. “Besides, who am I to question your aptitude for the job? Growing up in such a privileged family, one of the Northbrook Millers—I imagine you absorbed more about art with your infant formula than I know now.”

A privileged family. For a moment, she wondered if there was the smallest hint of sarcasm in his tone. But Marc didn’t know. Marc couldn’t know...

He added, very gently, “I left a message for you with your receptionist, that I just wanted to talk over old times. She seemed to think you’d be disappointed to have missed me.”

Just my luck, Susannah thought, to have caught him on the way out. If I’d been five minutes later—just five minutes...

The white lace curtain on Mrs. Holcomb’s bay window next door didn’t just flutter as it usually did when anything of interest happened on the street outside. This time the lace was actually folded back, and Susannah didn’t think she was imagining the shadowy face which appeared behind the glass.

And if Mrs. Holcomb could see this very interesting conversation, so could Rita and Alison—if they happened to look out the window. And if Susannah walked into Tryad with Marc Herrington in tow, she might as well issue engraved invitations to a grilling, with herself on the barbecue spit.

She sighed. “There’s a little restaurant around the corner. How about a cup of coffee?”

“I thought you’d never ask. Shall I carry your briefcase?”

Susannah surrendered it, and pretended not to notice when Marc offered his arm. She spent the couple of minutes’ walk debating with herself. Had he always been a gentleman, or was that, too, something new? At eighteen, in the midst of a revolt against her parents’ values—a rebellion which had come a little later but no less violently than that of most teenagers—would she even have noticed such things as courtly manners?

The same waitress who had been working at breakfast hour on Monday brought their coffee, and dimpled when Marc thanked her.

Susannah stirred cream into her coffee and said, “Old times, you said. All right—you go first. What have you been up to for the last eight years? What are you working at these days?”

“I’m still in manufacturing.” Marc stretched out his hands—long fingers arched, each knuckle tensed. It was a gesture Susannah remembered seeing often, though the reason for it was less vivid in her mind. She vaguely recalled that he’d said something about the need to keep his hands flexible, for the work he did...

“Welding must be paying better these days,” she said crisply, “for you to afford to dress like that. The suit you were wearing at the funeral yesterday—”

“Did you like it? I bought it just for the occasion.”

“Is that why the funeral was delayed—to let you go shopping? Nice that you thought that highly of Cyrus.”

“I didn’t, particularly. I never met the man in my life.”

That much didn’t surprise her, but it chipped away at her original theory that Cyrus’s mysterious heir was also his son. To the best of Susannah’s recollection, Marc had had a perfectly serviceable set of parents... “I must admit I’d like to know how your mother met him.”

“I’ll have to ask her sometime. As long as we’re talking about families, how’s your daughter, Susannah?”

The question came at her like a curve ball, hanging just out of reach for an impossibly long time, taunting her. She wasn’t shocked, exactly; she’d been half expecting something of the sort. Why had he fixed on a girl? “I don’t have a daughter.”

“Really? It seemed a perfectly reasonable conclusion. A professional office probably wouldn’t provide hopscotch layouts on the front walk for clients’ children—at least, not the sort of firm yours obviously is. And since hopscotch is not only a little girl’s game, but is most fascinating to girls exactly the age yours would be...” -

“Very logical,” she admitted. “Very reasonable. And very wrong. The neighborhood girls like to play there. It’s the widest and flattest walk around.”

“A son, then?”

“Sorry to disappoint you.”

Marc was stirring his coffee. “Oh, I couldn’t be any more disillusioned with you than I was eight years ago. I must admit, however, I’d like to know what happened. I expected, after you told me that you hadn’t married after all, that you’d still be trying to convince the world your child was also mine, and I’d been too much of a bum to marry you. Naive of me, wasn’t it, to think that? Of course the Northbrook Millers would figure out a neater, easier way. What was it, Susannah? A convenient miscarriage?” The spoon didn’t stop moving in concentric circles as his gaze lifted to meet hers. “A very private adoption?”

“As you pointed out yourself, it’s none of your business.”

“Perhaps I should ask Pierce.”

“He doesn’t know.”

“In that case, it might be even more interesting to compare notes.”

“Be my guest. Is there anything else you wanted, Marc?”

“Oh, I could think of a few things.”

Susannah took that with a grain of salt. “Then I doubt I’ll see you again.”

“What makes you think that?” Only mild interest spiced his voice.

She shrugged, but the gesture turned out, despite her best efforts, to be more like a shiver. What was there about his gentle, even voice that scared her so? “I assume you’ll go back to your life. There must be things you can’t walk away from.”

“You mean things like the job, the mortgage, the wife, and the kids?”

Wife? Kids? But why shouldn’t he have married? Susannah could think of no good reason.

Her gaze went straight to his left hand, cupped easily on the plastic surface of the table. He wore no wedding ring, and there was no telltale pale band where one might have rested in the past....

Marc followed her gaze. His eyes narrowed, and he stretched out his hand toward her. “So you still have wedding rings on the brain. Sorry to disappoint you.”

“I see,” she said. “The machinery you work around makes a ring dangerous. Catch it wrong, and it could tear off your finger.”

“True,” he said. “Besides, it makes a handy excuse not to wear a ring. I think you’ve misunderstood, though. I’m not going back for a while. The wife—well, you know how these things go. A break sounds like a very good idea. And as for the kids—I don’t know why you’d assume that one can’t walk out on children, Susannah, considering your own record.”

She was too numb to be shocked.

“And as far as the job and the mortgage—well, it’s such a large inheritance, you see, that neither of those things matters much just now. Or at least it should be a tidy sum, if it’s properly looked after and not left to a bunch of vultures.”

“Meaning me?” Susannah managed to keep her voice steady, but it took enormous effort.

“Now why would you jump to the conclusion that I was talking about you?” Marc’s tone was soft, almost caressing. “Right now, it just makes sense to stick around and keep my eye on things—and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”