Prelude to a Wedding (16 page)

"I'll go with him," said Paul, with another
glance at Bette. She felt the awkwardness from the moment before
lingering, and wondered if he wanted to escape. "Another white
wine, Bette?"

When she nodded, he, too, rose, following
Grady toward the jammed bar.

* * * *

"So you've gone and done it."

Paul stilled at Grady's words. "Gone and done
what?"

Grady placed their order with the harried
bartender, then tipped his head back toward the table. "Found
someone worth bringing into the family."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He wished he didn't know what the clutching
panic in his gut was about. It was the same fear that had kept his
heart from soaring right now out the window, past the Hancock
Center and beyond Sears Tower, when Bette said she'd go out with
him.

Go out with him? She'd agreed to more than
that.

They'd both acknowledged it in the heated
exchange of looks and desire across his desk. So why postpone the
moment? He'd dealt with other women this way, no promises made or
expected. Why not now?

"Whoa, don't take my head off, Monroe." Grady
pretended to back away. "I meant the family of your close
friends—you know, Michael and me. Tris."

"Stuff it, Roberts," he growled, but his
tension eased. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to
bring Bette together with the other people he— He stumbled on the
mental phrasing, realizing he was including Bette in the group.
That he cared for, he finally supplied.

"You've got to admit this is a novel
experience. I can't remember you ever bringing a woman to meet us
before."

Paul scowled at the echo of his father's
words from a few weeks before. Why was everyone making such a big
flaming deal of this? "So? You think everybody's like you, with the
passion of the second? You've introduced us to so many women you
must have a revolving door."

The blue of Grady's eyes seemed to flicker.
Paul wanted to kick himself. As he had with Michael not so long
ago, he'd lashed out and hit his friend where it hurt worst. What
the hell was the matter with him? He knew Grady wasn't proud of his
track record with women.

"No, that's just it, Paul. I don't think
you're like me. I think you've always recognized what I'm just
starting to figure out: quality beats the hell out of
quantity."

"Look, Grady, I'm sorry for that crack. I
didn't mean it. It's just . . . let's forget the whole thing,
okay?"

Grady's impatient shrug dismissed both the
apology and the effort to turn the conversation. "She seems like a
nice woman, Paul. A good person. Try not to be as stupid as the
rest of us. Try to make it work."

Paul stared, astonished by Grady's intensity.
They'd been friends since grade school, and he couldn't remember if
they'd ever had a conversation like this.

Handing money to the bartender, Paul felt
grateful for the mundane occupation. At least something remained
normal in a world developing more and more unfamiliar corners.

* * * *

Bette watched Paul weave through the crowd,
and considered this trio. Michael Dickinson, perceptive and rather
intense. Grady Roberts, accepting and trading on his charm. And
Paul. The man who said he believed in no strings and keeping his
options open, yet clearly the glue that held the three of them
together.

"They're great guys," Michael said, appearing
not to notice when her hand jerked, dragging the wine glass an inch
across the table. With an offhand directness that belied the
scrutiny he focused on her, he added, "Of course, Grady's a bit
spoiled from having things go his way so much."

Michael clearly liked Grady, yet had no
delusions. "Probably understandable when you grow up good-looking,
wealthy and smart and then add your own success," she said.

"Yeah, that'd do it."

She smiled. She liked his dryness.

He looked over to Paul and Grady at the bar.
"I guess it's understandable, too, that Paul's the way he is."

She felt her lips stiffen. "What way is
that?"

"Oh, sort of a fly-by-night character. Not
willing to be tied down long enough so anyone else can rely on
him."

"He is not." She tried to keep the hostility
out of her voice, but heard her own indignation.

"Isn't he?" His quietness didn't soothe
her.

"He definitely is not." What sort of idiot
could be his friend for fifteen years and not see the truth about
Paul?
Why are you so angry at him for saying exactly the same
things you've said to yourself
? she wondered. "He's devoted to
his family and friends. Who's the one who keeps all of you in
touch? He's a well-respected professional, who gives his clients
honesty and impartiality. Plus he has the loyalty of the people
who've worked for him." At least the ones he wasn't trying to drive
crazy. "Look at Jan Robson. You don't have that sort of
relationship with an employee when you're a 'fly-by-night
character!' "

"Don't you?"

"No!"

"No," he agreed.

The mildness finally reached her. The
adrenaline surge faded and she examined Michael. His lips twitched
and a dimple appeared high on his left cheek.

"You're a rat," she informed him. "A tricky,
wily political rat."

The grin completed its escape. "I just wanted
to know if you'd seen through the Paul Monroe facade."

"Facade?"

"Mmm-hmm." He grew serious. "Not that he
doesn't believe in it—at least parts. That's what's such a
shame."

A skittering of panic trembled through her
and settled in the pit of her stomach. Michael reached across the
table to put his hand over hers. "He's not always the free spirit
he pretends to be."

She thought she understood what he was
saying: Paul did look beyond the moment—with people and
responsibilities—but he didn't want to admit it. And that
frightened her, because it gave her hope.

"Hey, Dickinson, get your hands off my date."
Paul clunked down two glasses with a mock glare, but in his eyes,
she saw something flare to life. A hint of possessiveness, of
claiming? "Find yourself your own woman."

* * * *

Paul Monroe was everything Bette could ask
for in a date. Funny, attentive, entertaining. He was also elusive,
unattainable and distant. He was driving her crazy.

They joked and laughed and talked. They had
long conversations on the phone when she should have been working.
He called to say nothing more complex than good-morning. He brought
Chinese food to her office for lunch. They met Grady and Michael
twice more that week for dinner. They pored over real estate
listings she had compiled, with Paul volunteering plenty of
opinions, most of which involved the idea that she shouldn't live
so far away—whether from him or her work, he never quite specified.
They saw a movie.

He never touched her.

Well, that wasn't quite true, she admitted to
herself. He touched her just enough to drive her mad. Just enough
to make her consider raking her fingernails along a brick wall to
get rid of the frustration of envisioning circumstances when she
would press them into his back, but never having the satisfaction
of doing it.

He looped an arm around her shoulders at the
movies, then never drew her closer. He brushed his fingers across
her collarbone while helping her with her coat, then never ventured
lower. He touched his lips to hers each night when he drove her
home, then never pressed the kiss deeper.

Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday.

Now it was Friday. In frustration she'd told
him she needed to work late to catch up, hoping to escape his
tormenting presence for one night, just long enough to regain some
control. He'd appeared at the office shortly after five and sat
patiently waiting for her, until she wanted to scream. Instead,
she'd given up and gone for a sandwich with him, and they'd come
out of the tiny deli to find the sky streaming a combination of
rain and snow.

"I don't think it's safe to drive
tonight."

"Paul, it's not even really snowing. Look at
the roads. It's more like slush." Spending dinner trying not to
fantasize every time she looked across at his mouth had left her
more than a little irritable.

"Slush," he repeated, shaking his head as if
verifying his worst suspicions. "Slush can be very dangerous. You
know, they don't even make slush tires. That's because no tire in
the world can help you in slush."

"You're right," she agreed, abruptly changing
tacks. Maybe she could at least cut the evening short. Go home now,
spend a few hours alone, try to regain some sanity. "You've been
driving way too much. I've tried to tell you it wasn't necessary to
take me home every night, and I'm glad you're finally being
sensible about this."

He grinned, but she saw that his eyes were
heating in a most dangerous way. She needed to get away from him.
She needed a respite from this constant arousing of her desire with
never any satisfaction.

"I'll take the train."

"The train!" He looked thwarted for a moment,
but quickly gathered himself. He gave her a long, considering look.
"The train's the very worst thing you can do. Do you know what
slush can do to train tracks? Make them a veritable death
slide."

"I've never heard that before."

He made a scoffing sound. "Of course not. You
think the railroads would let you know a thing like that? They'd
lose all their commuters for the whole winter." He perked up, as if
seeing the possibilities in the vision he'd created, and she
wondered again at his ability to make her see humor even while he
was making her lose her mind. "In fact, commuters by the droves
would stay home all winter. No more driving, no more taking the
train, just settling in for the winter at home in front of the
fireplace and next to a good woman."

"Or man."

He tilted an eyebrow at her. "I'm not making
judgments, but that's not my style."

"I meant," she explained severely, "that a
lot of the commuters are women."

"Oh. Yeah, of course. I was speaking from a
personal point of view."

"Uh-huh," she said with disapproval. But it
hadn't been such a bad point of view. With a little imagination,
she could visualize herself snuggled next to Paul Monroe in front
of a fire, maybe with soft music in the background, a glass of
wine, and without too many clothes. Settling in for the winter.

Tipping her chin up, she looked at him more
closely in the eerie glow of streetlights diffused by sleet.

Four days ago, she'd reopened the door she'd
earlier tried to close. But it hadn't led into a new stage in their
relationship the way she'd expected it to. On Monday, the day she'd
crossed that emotional threshold, she'd been braced for the
consequences. She wouldn't have been particularly surprised if he
actually had taken her right then and there in his office. When he
invited her to dinner with his friends instead, and left her at her
front door with a near-chaste kiss, she'd thought he was showing an
unsuspected tenderness, almost a delicacy.

But after Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday,
she was inclined to say the hell with delicacy.

She'd made her decision. Why wait for winter?
Waiting wouldn't change who he was, and it wouldn't give her any
guarantee of safety for her heart. Nor would it change how much she
wanted him. It was time to fly. Now.

"So where shall we stay?"

"What?" His eyes met hers. Confusion showed
for half a second, then only a blaze of instant fire. Like being
struck by a bolt of lightning, one moment there was nothing, the
next unadulterated sizzle.

She'd never been so happy to be singed. As
much as she'd tried not to, she'd wondered about the reluctance
she'd detected in him. But that look, that one flash in his eyes,
vaporized her doubts.

"Since you're not going to drive me home
tonight, and taking the train would be such a reckless thing to do,
what are we going to do for accommodations tonight?"

"I know just the place," he said. She figured
that now he'd explain how his apartment in Evanston would be a safe
choice, since it wouldn't mean as long a drive in the "treacherous"
slush. "There's a great little hotel not far from here. You hardly
notice it from the street, but inside, the lobby's all polished
wood and plush furniture. The rooms look like a spread from some
magazine on English country homes. The perfect place to wait out a
slush storm."

Surprise opened her mouth to the first thing
in her mind.

"How do you know about this place?" she
asked

The glint in his eyes looked positively
devilish in the eerie light.

"Not how you're thinking, you suspicious
woman, you. I can tell you with a totally clear conscience that I
have never waited out a storm, slush or otherwise, with a woman at
that hotel. In fact, the only times I've been there have been with
a man— Michael. It's where he stays when he's got business
downtown."

"I wasn't asking for explanations. I didn't
think—"

He cut off her protest with a kiss on her
nose. "No, of course you didn't." He looped his arm more securely
around her shoulders and guided her footsteps. "It's not far," he
said, mentioning an address off Michigan Avenue.

"What if they don't have a vacancy?" she
offered halfheartedly.

"Michael said they cater mostly to
businessmen, so weekends should be pretty quiet."

"Oh."

They'd gone almost two blocks—in a direct
route this time, she noticed with some satisfaction—when she
stopped short. "Wait a minute. We can't go to a hotel, Paul. We
don't have any luggage. It'll look like . . . like . . ."

Her voice wound down. It would look like
exactly what it was—two adults deciding to spend an impromptu night
together at a downtown hotel. He would surely tell her it didn't
matter what anyone else thought. And deep down, she really
didn't
care what anyone else thought; being with Paul was
right for her. Still . . . she cringed at the idea of going into a
hotel without luggage. It seemed such a blatant announcement of
something that should be private.