Winner Takes All (17 page)

Glancing down at her plate of eggs Benedict, she nodded. Eva watched this exchange with a relieved heart. Her plan was working. She just knew it was.

While they ate brunch, people trickled into the restaurant, but it never got crowded. When Ruth excused herself an hour later to use the bathroom, there was a couple standing by the door waiting for the couches to open even though there were dozens of unoccupied tables.

As soon as Ruth was out of earshot, Mark leaned over and took her hand. “How are you doing?” he asked, concerned for her. He didn’t like the way he’d left her last night: confused, disturbed and off-kilter.

Eva blushed. “I’m good. Really good.” She paused for a moment, took a deep breath and told him. “Cole came by last night.”

He blinked twice, amazed by this news. “Cole came by last night?”

“He dropped by to apologize. He felt bad about misleading me.”

“Cole Reed Hammond apologized?”

He seemed so confounded by the idea that Eva laughed. Everything made her laugh today. “He apologized profusely and then insisted I forgive him.”

“Did you?” he asked, already knowing the answer.

She nodded. “I had no choice. He was eminently forgivable last night around three-thirty
A.M
.”

“And what about now?”

“Hmm?”

“Is he still so forgivable at one
P.M.?”

Eva was quiet for a moment. She didn’t really have to think about the question—she knew the answer: Yes, he was equally forgivable in the cold light of day—but it was something she had asked herself, too. Because she didn’t want to regret a moment of her time with Cole. She didn’t know how it would turn out, although she could make a pretty good educated guess, so she wanted to enjoy it. Having had few adventures in her life, she knew enough to recognize one when it leaned on her doorbell at three in the morning.

“Yes,” she said softly. “Still very forgivable at one
P.M.”

He smiled, happy for her. “That’s excellent. It’ll give me something else to think about other than my own doomed prospects.”

Eva wasn’t having any of it. She’d never suspected when she took on this project less than a week ago that Mark Roberts, ace reporter, was such a drama queen, but she knew the truth now. There were no silver linings in his universe, only dark clouds that never stopped raining. “You can whine all you want, but I’m not listening anymore. All morning Ruth has been looking at you as if she can’t quite figure out who you are, and you know it as well as I. Nice job, though, covering it up with the French toast thing.”

“What French toast thing?”

“Like you don’t know.”

Mark was about to insist she tell him exactly what the French toast thing was when he saw Ruth walking toward them. She was still a good few feet away, but he panicked anyway, dropping Eva’s hand instantly. Then he scooted back to his side of the couch, practically sitting on the arm, and tried to avoid eye contact with everyone except the couple standing by the door. He looked guilty and embarrassed and as if he’d just done something very naughty. Ruth noticed and raised an eyebrow, but Eva only stared back at her uncomprehendingly.

This is almost too easy, she thought as she waved down the waitress.

Although she had few customers to tend to, the waitress was slow in tallying up the bill. She dropped it by ten minutes later while Ruth was asking Eva what she was going to do for the rest of the day. Since all Eva had planned was sitting on her couch, watching television and counting the minutes until she saw Cole again, she gave an evasive answer. She said something about running errands. Ruth nodded and looked away, and for the first time ever, Eva felt a fissure of concern. Her intentions were good, but she felt bad lying to her best friend. It wasn’t that she wanted to tell Ruth about her scheme to bring she and Mark together. No, it was that she wanted to tell her about Cole. But she couldn’t. If she were interested in Cole, how could she be having a torrid affair with Mark?

“What about you?” she asked to distract her guilty conscience. “What are you doing today?”

Ruth shrugged. “Nothing much. I thought I might go to the Met for the Avedon exhibit.”

“The retrospective?” Mark asked.

“Yes.”

He was so interested that he forgot why he was hugging the arm of the couch and leaned forward. “Would you mind company?”

Ruth looked sideways at Eva. “You don’t already have plans?”

Mark, as always, was oblivious to the implication. Eva wondered, like Ruth had wondered earlier, how it was possible that a crack journalist could have so little power of observation. Not that telling the difference between a Gucci dress and a Prada skirt would help him in a foxhole, but being able to discern what was going on right underneath his nose certainly would.

“I have no plans at all,” he said excitedly. “There’s some research I was going to do for a story, but I’d much rather go to the Avedon exhibit with you.”

“All right,” she said, turning over the check to see how much she owed.

Eva reached over and picked it up. “No, let me. You saved my life yesterday. It’s the least I can do.”

Ruth looked for a moment as if she was going to protest, but it quickly passed. Mark opened his mouth to speak. Eva forestalled him with a look. “Please, I couldn’t have gotten through last night without your help. It’s the least I can do to thank you.”

Mark waved his hand dismissively. “I got to go to a glamorous do with a gorgeous woman who refused to let me leave her side. Really, what do you have to thank me for?”

“You’re being very gracious, I know, but you’re whitewashing it completely,” Eva said, turning to Ruth. “He stood stoically next to me letting me cling to his arm for”—her eyes darted to his—“how long while you had to go to the bathroom?”

He shrugged, playing down the heroic nature of his actions. “It was only a half hour.”

“A half hour!” she said to Ruth. “And that was with two bottles of Bass in him. Please, I’m so paying for brunch. It really is the least I can do.”

Mark laughed and gave in.

A few minutes later they were standing up and putting on their jackets. The couple by the door inched forward, trying to claim their space without crowding them. A congenial group of four had just entered the restaurant and were making subtle moves in the direction of the cozy arrangement by the window.

Outside the air was fresh and brisk. Mark and Ruth walked Eva back to her apartment, leaving her there when she insisted that she didn’t want to go to the Avedon show. This was a lie, of course, an out-and-out prevarication. She would much rather have passed the day in the company of two close friends than alone in her apartment with the television on, but she wanted them to have this time alone.

Eva watched them disappear around the corner, then slowly climbed the sixty-two stairs to her apartment, where she had nothing to do except count the minutes until she went to dinner at Cole’s.

***

At 6:07, Eva stood in front of the white apartment building on North Moore Street. She looked up, counted floors and tried to figure out which windows were Cole’s. His had to be the ones with the wide dark-wood slat shades. He was a bachelor, after all—didn’t they all have apartments in brooding shades of brown and dark blue?

A woman walked by with a playful black Lab puppy on a leash. She glanced at Eva, who was standing in the middle of the street looking up, and asked if she needed help.

“Uh, no,” she said, lowering her head and walking toward the door. There was nothing to do but ring the bell and get the evening over with. Now that the moment was here—now that the waiting was over—she was nervous and confused and not quite sure she wanted to follow through with the date. She knew Cole had been sincere the night before. As he’d stood in her living room apologizing in that business tone of his, she’d believed every word he said. And she knew he believed it, too, but that didn’t help her as she contemplated the quixotic nature of emotions. He probably did want her more than any woman he’d met in his life, but that was just because he hadn’t had her yet. Once they followed through on the attraction, what would be left?

Regret, she thought cynically as she pressed the buzzer. Lots and lots of regret.

Cole let her in without bothering to ask who was there. She took a deep steadying breath, told herself she was a fool and climbed up the two flights of stairs. The door to his apartment was open and she strolled in after a perfunctory knock to announce her presence.

“Come in, I’m in the kitchen,” he said, calling from another room.

Eva stood on the threshold for a moment, taking everything in—the sleek modern couches, the colorful paintings, the warm touches dotted throughout the room. There wasn’t a black shiny vase or a walnut end table in sight.

She closed the door and followed the scent of roasting lamb to the kitchen. The room was large and airy, with giant windows that overlooked a terrace. Lemon trees were growing in a corner.

“Hey,” he said, smiling when he saw her, “it’s about time you got here.”

“Hmm?” she asked as she walked over to the windows to get a better look at his terrace.

“You were staring up at the apartment building for almost five minutes. I thought you were going to turn tail and run.” He walked to where she stood against the back wall and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m glad you didn’t.”

“I was judging you,” she explained as her heart flipped over. His lips were soft and appealing on her cheek.

“Judging me?” he asked silently amused. He walked over to the counter and poured a glass of red wine before offering it to her.

“Judging you on your dark-wood slat blinds.” She accepted the wine and took a sip. It had a nice subtle flavor.

“How’d I do?”

“Defied expectation.”

Cole smiled. “That sounds promising.”

Eva thought about that for a moment. It did indeed sound promising. “So, what’s for dinner besides fabulous-smelling lamb?” she asked to change the topic. Promising was good, of course, but it was also disconcerting.

He poured himself wine and considered her carefully over the glass. “Recognized the scent, did you?”

“I had lamb at least once a month when I was a little girl. I’d go over to my grandparents’ house every Sunday for dinner,” she explained, recalling the chaotic family dinners with kids running around the dining table and tramping up and down the stairs to the warning call of
ready or not, here I come
. “My cousins would be there, too, and it was always loud and raucous.”

A timer somewhere in the room buzzed, and Cole put down his drink, opened the fridge and took out a tinfoil-covered oven dish. “Are you an only child?”

“Yes,” she said with a grim expression.

He slid the dish into the oven and reset the timer. “Didn’t like it?”

Eva shrugged. “It was never loud and raucous in my house,” she said simply. “What about you? Did you like it?” Everyone knew that the Hammond heir was an only child. All the write-ups in print and online mentioned his uncontested claim to power.

“It worked for me,” he explained. “I was a demanding little monster and enjoyed being the apple of my parents’ eye. I don’t know how well I would have handled sibling rivalry. I guess it’s better I never had to find out.”

“When I was five, my mom got pregnant but had a miscarriage. It’s one of those memories I have but don’t have, if you know what I mean,” she said, wondering how he possibly could. She was speaking nonsense.

But Cole nodded. “When I was four, I guess in some sort of day camp, I overheard my counselors talking about how they were going to have a shaving cream fight after class, and I started crying because I didn’t want to get sprayed with shaving cream. I can picture the moment in my head and yet I’m not sure it happened. Sometimes it seems more like a reflection of someone else’s thought than my own.”

“Yes, yes,” she said, her voice full of wonder, “that’s exactly what it’s like.”

“Which is to say, I know exactly what you mean. In addition to the lamb, we’re having beet and walnut salad, roasted new potatoes and sautéed asparagus.”

“Sounds wonderful.”

“Dinner will be followed by a wonderful goat cheese I picked up from the shop around the corner. It’s called Montegro and it’s made by an eighty-five-year-old Spaniard. He’s the only person in the world who makes Montegro, so when he’s gone, it’s gone,” Cole said. “And then, if you’re still hungry, I have a humble apple pie for dessert. I prepared everything myself except dessert, so feel free at any time to express your admiration.”

Eva laughed. “I’m actually very impressed. I assumed your housekeeper would prepare dinner. Do you cook often?”

He shook his head. “Don’t have the time. And the truth is, I rarely eat at home.”

“Right, of course not,” she said, suddenly embarrassed by the naiveté of the question. Imagine—a man of Cole’s rank and position throwing together a meal from whatever was in the cabinets! Yeah, and maybe then he ate it on a tray in front of the television.

How idiotic!

Cole stopped tossing the salad. He put down the utensils and walked over to where she stood against the back wall. “Don’t do that.”

Despite being large and airy, his kitchen suddenly felt small and stifling. His presence was that imposing. “Don’t do what?” she asked, looking everywhere but at him.

He put a finger under her chin and raised her eyes to his. “Frown. Your smile is too beautiful to be hidden behind cross eyebrows.”

Eva’s heart jumped at his words. He was smooth. Too smooth. “You’re good with a line,” she said, wishing she could take a step back, but she couldn’t. There was nowhere to go.

Cole saw the trapped look in her eyes but ignored it. He didn’t know what was going on here—these emotions were as new and confusing for him as they were for her—but he was willing to find out. He was a man who knew that the important things never came easily. “Yes,” he conceded softly, “but this isn’t a line.” His voice was a mere whisper on her cheek before he kissed her.

Eva knew it was coming—he hadn’t tried to hide his intentions—and yet she still wasn’t prepared. His lips on hers were warm and soft and inviting. She stopped trying to sink into the wall and leaned into his embrace. Some things were inevitable, she thought, as his hands pressed against her back.