Storm Ravaged (Storm Damages 2) (Storm Legacy) (18 page)

"Thus the need for a loan.” He smiles down at me, brushes a thumb across my throat. If he doesn’t stop touching me, I’m going to jump him. And I don’t care who’s looking. “Do you think he would go for a silent partner?”

My eyes widen. “A silent partner? I thought you were only offering him a loan.”

“I like this place. It has class and ambiance. Plus think about the cachet I'd bring every time I dropped in to dine. Not every restaurant in D.C. can boast a viscount for dinner, don't you know?" He says in his posh Brit voice.

I laugh. But he's right about the notoriety he can bring to the place.

“Or I could lend him the money, of course, if he wishes to go down that road instead.” His lips brush against my ear again, raising goose bumps all along my arm. All I want to do is make love to him right now.

Jeannie interrupts to announce our table is ready just as the waitress shows up with our drinks.

In the main restaurant area, Jeannie seats us next to another bay window, larger than the one in the bar. Outside I catch the shadow of Samuel and my other bodyguard blocking the view. They must be freezing. Casey has more secluded seating, where we wouldn’t be so out in the open. “Could we move there?” I point toward the back of the restaurant where a bunch of tables are jutted together into one long line.

She appears confused, looks at Gabriel, at me. “This is the table Casey said to to seat you. Or am I wrong?” She flips through the papers on her clipboard, her face clears up. “No, this is the one.”

“Thank you, Jeannie,” he says to her. “This is fine.”

The restaurant, like the bar, lies half empty. “Do you know what’s going on?” I ask her. “Usually this place is packed.”

“Well—” She looks around as if she doesn’t want anyone overhearing her— “Don’t tell anyone, but we got a call from that congressman who’s thinking about running for President. The one from Massachusetts.”

“O’Leary?”

“Yeah, that’s the one. Anyway, his office called and said he wanted to reserve a private room, but since we don’t have one, they reserved half the tables instead.” She glances at her watch. “They should be here any minute.”

As soon as she says that, a phalanx of very important looking people, about twenty of them, burst in through the restaurant’s front door. Jeanie deserts us and hurries to the hostess stand to welcome them. Excitement ripples around the room, and when the other diners recognize the luminary around us, applause breaks out. The congressman, who I recognize from television, flashes his Colgate smile. While Jeannie leads them to the long table, he puts his arm around a woman I assume is his wife and follows, waving to the crowd. Photographers circle him, snapping photos all the way.

Oh, geez. “Unbelievable. He’s got his own press following him around?”

“Look at the silver lining. The photos will bring publicity to Casey’s restaurant.”

“I guess.”

Even more paparazzi stand outside the restaurant, their cameras almost blinding me.

“What’s wrong with those people? They’re supposed to be taking photos of the congressman, not us.”

“We’re probably in the way. And they can stand outside and take as many pictures as they like. What with the United States being a free country and all.”

The waiter approaches to take our order. Gabriel surprises me by ordering the same dish I do, a spicy mixture of rice, ham, sausage, and chicken.

“Jambalaya, huh?” It’s the meal we shared the first night we made love. Is he remembering more?

“I’ve never eaten it before.”

Guess not. I’ve come to terms with his lack of memory, but once in a while I can’t help but resent he can’t recall us.

More cameras flash, snapping me out of my reverie.

“Honestly, how many photos must they take?”

“As many as they want. Ignore them. That's what I do.”

He might be a master at making believe blinding cameras don’t exist, but I'm not.

He presses my hand. “Can't you relax, love? I honestly just want to have a nice dinner with you at a lovely restaurant.”

Another flash goes off, and I practically jump out of my skin.

He heaves out a laborious sigh. “Right. We'll leave then.”

He’s trying so hard to be gallant, and I’m being such a bitch. I swallow back my nastiness. “It's all right, Gabriel. I'll ignore them, just like you say.”

Somehow, I actually do manage to ignore the paparazzi and focus on us. Not hard to do when Gabriel's being his most charming self.

When our entrees arrive, I tuck into mine with the zeal of a starving mommy-to-be. Dessert is crème Brule, another favorite of mine. Over cafe au lait, decaffed for me, his smooth patter dissolves. He reaches once more for my hand, and the cameras go crazy again. That’s when I realize, the paparazzi are reacting to us, not the congressman. “What’s going on?”

"Did I mention how beautiful you look?"

“Gabriel.” At the moment, last thing I want is more charm.

"There's a question I want to ask you."

Oh, God. No. He's doing this here? Now? Of course, he is. The prime seating, the cameras, the holding hands.

He retrieves a gorgeous blue box emblazoned with Tiffany & Co from inside his jacket. If I thought the cameras were blinding before, it's nothing to the flurry of light bursting around us now. The room grows silent as the diners cease talking, including the faux congressman, who I now recognize from a car commercial. The waiters halt serving, everyone stops what they're doing to stare at us.

He gets down on his knee. His bad one.

“Please don't. Your leg.” I can't imagine the pain he must be in.

“Hush, love. I have to do this right.” He smiles that devastating grin. “On the day we met, you captured my heart. And I find I can't live without you by my side. Everything that I am and hope to be is yours. Please, Liz, marry me.”

My stomach churns. I know my line. “Yes.” But I’m too stupefied by the whole scene to voice it.

“Nod,” he whispers.

I do.

“Now smile.”

After I obey him, he takes my hand and slips the ring on my finger. Knowing how much pain he must be suffering, I reach down to help him rise and somehow make it look like he's helping me from my seat. Once we're standing, he gathers me into his arms and kisses me. The kiss is everything it should be—lush, passionate, romantic. Too bad it's only for show.

As applause breaks out around us, Casey emerges from the kitchen to shake Gabriel's hand, kiss me on the cheek.

“Traitor,” I whisper behind clenched teeth.

Casey doesn't take offense but grins at the camera clicks as if he does this every day of the week. No surprise he's so happy. The photos will bring a world of publicity to his restaurant.

Before I have a chance to say anything else, Gabriel sweeps me out of the restaurant and into the limo where Samuel stands by the open door. I scurry to the far left of the seat. Gabriel slides in but maintains his distance on the right. Good. In my current mood, I’m likely to tear a chunk out of him. “Those people in the restaurant—”

“Actors hired by me. They’re grateful for the job, and they’ll get a nice meal out of it. I rented the restaurant for the night.”

Knowing Casey’s usual Friday night take amounts to roughly eight thousand dollars, the extravagance of Gabriel’s gesture staggers me, especially when he could have proposed in private. “Why did your orchestrate such a public proposal?”

“Those pictures will appear in British newspapers, American ones as well. The internet. Unless, I miss my guess, they will portray a couple very much in love.”

His getting down on his bad knee to propose would be seen as evidence of his love for me. And my face would have shown my concern for his pain. The kiss had been everything a proposal kiss should be, so yeah, I don’t doubt the pictures will reflect exactly what he wishes. And that, as he explained earlier, is important to him.

I can’t help but wonder, has he done the same before? “Did you arrange for those pictures of us last weekend too?’

His brow scrunches. “No.”

I clench my hands on my lap. “I don’t believe you.”

“I’ll have Jake investigate. He’ll find out where those pictures came from.”

“Don’t bother. Jake works for you. I’m sure he’ll ‘discover’ a source with no ties to you.”

His hand clenches on the car strap, the one he’s been holding since he got into the car. I’ve touched a nerve. Good.

“What would I gain by us going public, Liz?”

“Oh, please.” I roll my eyes. “You chafed at the secrecy.”

“I did. But I was willing to put up with it for your sake. Surely you see there’s no longer any need for it. Your firm won’t fire you. Not now when I’m one of their clients.”

“No. They didn’t fire me when they found about us. Instead, they reassigned me to Litigation. You know how boring that work is. All I do is dock pleadings and shuffle papers.”

“Why did they do that?”

“To avoid a conflict of interest. They put up a Chinese Wall between me and every client who deals with your company. Worse of all, they removed me from the Storm Industries team.” I can’t help the hitch in my voice. “And I was really looking forward to working on your legal issues.”

“I’m sorry. Maybe if I talked to them, they would assign you back.”

I shake my head. “That won’t happen. They’re not doing it just for kicks, Gabriel. Every law firm has the same policy in place.”

For a few seconds, neither of us breaks the silence. “There’s an easy solution to the problem, you know. If you’re so high on Storm Industries, you can work for me.”

“Really?” For the first time this evening, my spirits lift only to fall again. I can’t work for him. In London he turned down my suggestion to work for Storm Industries. He believed I’d betrayed him by handing copies of his confidential documents to my boss. He may not recall that conversation, but if his memory returns, he won’t be so eager to have me as his employee. But now I have a gut feeling Brian Sullivan stole those documents. So as long as I prove it before Gabriel gets back his memory, it might be okay. “You would hire me?”

“Yes. I’ve seen your efforts. You’re brilliant, Liz.”

He thinks I’m brilliant? “Where? When?”

“Your analysis of our proposal. You managed to encapsulate our offer in a few succinct pages and suggest ways to sweeten the deal for your client. How long did it take you to put that together?”

“About three hours.”

His left brow arches in that sexy way of his. “I’m amazed. It would take longer than that just to read our proposal.”

“I was familiar with the general details, so I only had to write the summary. And I’d thought about ways to improve the transaction for our side. So it isn’t that amazing.”

He captures my hand, squeezes it. “No one I know could have done what you did in such a short period of time.”

“But how did you get a hold of the analysis?”

“It was included among the due diligence documents your law firm provided.”

A mistake, for that document was confidential. Something else to investigate. “So what would I do if I came to work for you?”

A grin pops up on his face. “Look at you.”

“What?”

“You have stars in your eyes. If I had known all it would take was a job offer, I could have saved myself hours of shopping for the perfect stone and choosing the right setting.”

He spent hours choosing the ring?
“It’s lovely, Gabriel. Thank you.”

“How would you know? You’ve barely glanced at it.”

“I have too.” I look down but, before I can examine the ring, he covers my hand with his.

He quirks a grin. “What’s the shape of the diamond?”

Darn. I can’t recall, but I’m not about to admit it. So I punt. “Which one? It has several.”

“The biggest one.”

“Round?”

“Nope.”

“Oval?”

“Not even close.”

Not being a jewelry shopper, I haven’t a clue as to the different cuts. But I give it the old college try. “Square?”

He lifts his hand. “It’s an emerald cut.” He sounds peeved. And why shouldn’t he be? I hurt his feelings.

Hoping to make amends, I climb on his lap, cuddle into him. “It’s beautiful, Gabriel. Truly.”

He tweaks my chin, drops a kiss on my lips.

“So what would you have me do at Storm Industries?”

“Legal work, obviously. You could be stationed at our New York office or in London.”

“I can’t be employed in London as an attorney. I wouldn’t be licensed to practice there.”

He threads a hand through my curls, pulls back my head, drops a kiss on my throat. “Yes, you could. If you obtained a dual degree.” His voice’s turned gravelly, and I’m going up in flames.

When I scoot off his lap back onto the seat, he narrows his eyes at me. He didn’t like my move. But if I stayed where I was, I wouldn’t get any rational words out of him. “What do you mean?”

“Your school and King’s College in London have a dual degree program. It would qualify you for admission to the bar examinations in both the United Kingdom and the United States.”