Suzanne knew that Todd was contemplating asking her to become a full partner in his company. So far they’d only worked on the occasional contract together, like the Marissa Carson redecoration. But what they had done together had been spectacular and endlessly satisfying. Architectural Digest had taken note twice.
She was excited at the thought of joining Todd’s company. He had one of the most successful decorating firms in the Pacific Northwest and it would make her career overnight, not to mention boosting her income a thousand percent. But that’s not why she’d accept.
She’d accept because she couldn’t imagine anything nicer than working full-time with him, with a man who understood her. Understood her feelings almost before she knew them herself. A man she always felt comfortable with, not like…
If only…
She sighed.
“You’ve got a lot of thoughts circling around in that pretty head of yours. Care to share?” Todd drained his tea and leaned forward elegantly to put his cup down.
Suzanne poured more tea into his cup and then hers. “Actually, I was thinking what a great couple we’d make. Just think of it. We get along really well; we like the same things and have almost the same tastes. With just enough of a difference to make it interesting. I’ve learned a lot about antiques from you and I’ve dragged you kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. We never fight and…what?”
Todd was smiling and shaking his head. “Wouldn’t work, sweetie. Never in a million years.”
Suzanne rolled her eyes. “Well, I know that. I was just speculating—“
“No, it wouldn’t work not for that reason, but for another one.”
Another one? Suzanne straightened. “Well, why not? Except for the biggie, of course. I mean we really do get on, and—“
“Yes, we get along. Too well, in fact.”
Suzanne smiled and shook her head. “There’s such a thing as getting along too well? Wow. Have the divorce lawyers heard about that one? What does it mean—to get on too well?”
His head tilted, green eyes studying her, Todd was silent.
“What?” she asked.
“You really want to know this?”
“Of course I do. I want you to explain that thing—that getting-along-is-the-kiss-of-death thing.”
“You know what I mean already, without me spelling it out for you. It’s just that you won’t acknowledge it. And it’s the reason you haven’t lost your heart to anyone and the way you’re going, you never will. I know you haven’t dated anyone in quite a while but when I first met you, I watched you date some eminently suitable men. Men of discernment and class, who shared your tastes in music and theater. It got to be this pattern. You’d meet a man, enjoy his company for a few evenings and then—“
Suzanne shifted uneasily on the couch. What was this? So what if her love life had been undergoing a little slump lately? She’d been busy with work, after all. Todd didn’t have to make a big deal out of it. “And then?” she prompted, trying not to sound cross, trying to sound bored.
“And then, boom, you dump him. And start all over again.”
Well, that was rich, coming from Mr.-Love-Them-And-Leave-Them, the man who’d taken the one night stand to an art form. She pouted. “You make me sound…shallow. And impossible to please, and—“
“Restless. And unsatisfied. The men you were dating didn’t excite you, sweetie. And how could they? They were you. In male form. Talking about the Century Theater playbill and the new Scorsese film and how beige is the new black. You don’t need that. You get that from me and from Claire. You’re such a feminine woman, Suzanne. You need the opposite. Someone yin to go with your yang. Someone to stir your juices. Someone…someone really…male.”
Suzanne closed her eyes. She knew someone who had a lot of yin to her yang. Someone who whipped her juices into a froth. Someone really, really male.
“Someone tall, and dark and with shoulders out to here,” Todd’s baritone continued dreamily. “With short black hair just faintly silver at the temples, that early Gianni Agnelli look, you know? And eyes to die for. Yum.”
Suzanne’s eyes popped open at that and she glared at Todd, sitting smugly on his Sanderson cabbage rose couch. She would have thrown a pillow at him, but she might miss and tea stains were hard to get out of silk.
Todd smiled knowingly. “Food’s really good at Comme Chez Soi, isn’t it? It’s that new chef of theirs. But then how would you know? You didn’t eat a bite.”
Chapter Six
The taxi left her at her gate. Suzanne paid him then looked across the street. Her car was parked right there. On an impulse, she walked over and got in, resting her hands for a moment on the steering wheel. At the first turn of the ignition key, the car started right up without that choking, grinding roar she’d grown used to. It purred gently, powerfully. She sat there, pleased, listening to her car hum, healthy and whole.
Her car was back from the dead and better than ever, thanks to her tenant. Her sinfully sexy tenant.
She’d overreacted. Yes, they’d had sex and that was at least as much her fault as his. It’s not like he’d overpowered her or anything. The instant his lips had touched hers, she’d melted. And though it had been rough it had also been exciting. Certainly more exciting than anything she’d experienced in…ever.
Suzanne had no doubt whatsoever that if, instead of bolting in panic back into her apartment, she’d asked John in, he would have followed right on her heels and they would have spent the rest of the night…what?
Making love, no doubt about it. In a bed. Instead of having sex. Against a wall. And in between bouts, they’d have talked. Maybe laughed a little, opened that bottle of Chablis she’d had in the fridge for weeks, finished the jar of contraband caviar a client had brought her.
John had flubbed it but so had she. She’d run from him like a scared rabbit.
And it wasn’t as if he’d blown her off the next day. He’d immediately acknowledged her, taken responsibility, said they needed to talk.
And the biggie—he’d dealt with Murphy for her and picked up her car. Which now purred beneath her hands. Pleased, she switched off the ignition and sat there, feeling a little foolish at her reaction to him.
A sudden vision of John Huntington formed before her eyes. His size, his strength, his intensity, his brute male power. Nope, she hadn’t overreacted. The man was formidable in every way.
She thought about what Todd had said as she opened her gate and walked to the door. That maybe the men she’d been dating had been too predictable, too bland, too…safe.
What was wrong with safe? She thought as she disconnected the alarm, opened the door, and then switched the alarm back on, just as John had made her promise to do. Safe was nice, warm, comfortable. Not words she’d ever associate with John Huntington.
He threw her for a loop.
He’d occupied most of her headspace all day. All day yesterday, too. Every second, in fact, since she’d met him, and that wasn’t good. She was a busy professional, just about to make that leap into the spheres of the very successful and she didn’t have time for obsessions. She barely had time to date, so what little time she had should be with men who would stay nicely in the background where they belonged and wouldn’t occupy her every waking moment.
Like now, walking warily into her own building. Wondering if he was in. Hoping he wasn’t. Hoping he was.
He wasn’t here. She paused for a moment in the hallway. He was a quiet man, almost eerily so, but she knew her building. It held the stillness of emptiness. And come to think of it, she hadn’t seen his Yukon parked outside.
From the sudden certainty of that, Suzanne realized that she’d been subconsciously looking out for his SUV and listening for signs of him. He’d said he’d be out of town this afternoon and would be late getting back. So she’d see him tomorrow. Which meant that she definitely needed a good night’s sleep if she wanted to face him with anything approaching equanimity.
To
get that good night’s sleep she had to put Commander John Huntington right out of her head. She had to get her life back.
Tomorrow. She’d get her life back tomorrow. Today had been much too exhausting. Marissa Carson had topped herself today, changing her mind about everything that had been decided upon up until now. Most of the furnishings had already been ordered. When Suzanne pointed out that she’d lose a lot of money, Marissa had tilted her lovely head back and laughed long and hysterically, saying she was soon going to be very rich.
Marissa had been feverish, jumping out of her skin. Suzanne imagined that she was having problems with Mr. Carson, whom she’d never met. But she knew what he looked like. Pictures of him, a handsome, blond, cold-eyed man, were pasted all over the apartment. Had been pasted. Now all the photographs of him had been either taken off the walls or placed face down on the coffee table. Clearly, there was trouble in paradise. That was confirmed by the tall, blond, cold-eyed man who’d nearly knocked her over as she was exiting Marissa’s building a few hours ago. He’d looked furious and Suzanne was sure that fireworks were in the offing.
It had been difficult to absorb Marissa’s hysteria while trying to deal with her wishes for her apartment, which changed hourly. They’d finally agreed to meet again in two weeks, when presumably Marissa would have a better grasp on what she wanted.
In the meantime, Suzanne had spent an emotionally exhausting afternoon and had had to skip lunch, which made her cranky.
Her evening ritual calmed her, soothed her. A hot bubble bath with lavender oil. A bowl of frozen minestrone heated up in the microwave, a glass of red wine, half an hour in bed with the latest Nora Roberts and lights out at ten.
Suzanne closed her eyes, savoring the clean linen sheets, the warm light eiderdown, and the stillness of the night. The weather forecast had been for snow and she’d opened the curtains in all the rooms because she liked snow. As she snuggled deep in her bed, sure enough, a few stray snowflakes were drifting down from the sky, visible in the halo of the streetlights. She could feel her muscles start to relax, feel that slow slide into sleep…
Which didn’t come.
Two hours later, the grandfather clock in her living room next door tolled midnight. She listened to the slow tock and whir of the mechanism, and then the solemn chimes. She counted twelve and sighed as she slipped her legs out of bed.
The night was beautiful. Low-lying fluffy white clouds, like a child’s vision of Christmas, hugged the tops of buildings. Fat, lazy cartoon flakes floated down, gently, as if they had all the time in the world.
Snow was kind to her street. It covered the ruts and cracks and potholes. It softened the buildings grown raggedy with age and neglect. It spread its gentle mantle over this part of town, abandoned and sometimes violent, full of unhappy, failed souls.
The night sky glowed, reflecting the bright lights of downtown off the low-lying clouds. The clouds shimmered and snowflakes danced. Suzanne watched for a few minutes, searching elusively for peace.
Like sleep, it wasn’t coming.
She felt edgy and unsettled, as if she had somehow crossed a divide without meaning to. Without even wanting to. Moved into a new part of her life where she didn’t know the rules.
Todd’s words kept coming back to her. It was true—she had always dated men with whom she knew she could keep the upper hand and it was also true that there was no question of her keeping the upper hand with John. He was a dominant male in every sense of the word.
Of course, they weren’t exactly dating. One evening out, one bout of sex… what was the word for that? Dating? She had no idea; it didn’t fit any of her neat categories. And to top it all off, they were living together. Or rather not living together, but living in the same building. Just the two of them.
John was like a tiger. A gorgeous, wild animal that needed to be approached gingerly because it could rip your heart out without even trying. You needed to keep your distance from beautiful, wild animals. How was she going to do that when she would be seeing him every day?
The silent night wasn’t offering up any answers, just gentle snowflakes slowly tumbling out of the shimmering clouds. A light played erratically against the low hedge of box trees, which ran along the side of the building, and Suzanne watched it flicker and glow against the dark leaves.
She peered more closely.
Why was it doing that? Where on earth was the light coming from? Not downtown, that was for sure. Not against her hedge.
And the light wasn’t a shimmer but a pinpoint glare. She frowned. A car? No, the beam was too small and it jumped around. And anyway it was coming from inside the hedge not from the street outside. At that angle, it had to come from…her house! From her office.
A fire!
Suzanne’s heart leaped in her throat as she ran to the door, ran through the living room and kitchen without bothering to switch on the lights. Each room had big picture windows and she watched the shiver and play of the light against the hedge as she went from room to room.
The little circle of light kept flickering on and off and she stopped, hand on the door that would take her into her office. Her mind was just catching up with her body.
What was she thinking? Was she crazy?
No fire would make that kind of light. A fire’s light would be steadier, and bigger. There was only one thing that would make a light like that. A flashlight.
And a flashlight meant…someone was in her office.
Thank God she was barefoot. She hadn’t made any noise. Whoever it was in her office can’t have heard her.
The door to the office was ajar and she carefully pulled her fair hair back from her face and peeped around the corner.
There was nothing to see at first, just the blackness of a large dark room. Then there was a bumping sound, like a human limb meeting a piece of furniture, and a soft curse. If she hadn’t actually had her head practically in the room, she wouldn’t have heard it.
Someone had broken into her house.
A man. The low pitch of the curse had been unmistakable. Then a dark form crossed the window, perfectly silhouetted against the brighter night sky and Suzanne’s heart stopped. Then started again, pumping hard. She had to clench her teeth to keep from gasping.
The intruder was tall, lanky, with longish hair brushing his shoulders, holding a pencil flashlight in one hand. The flashlight was the source of the light she’d seen spilling out the window.
In his other hand, he was holding a big black gun.
Oh God, oh God! She thought, taking an involuntary step backwards. Another curse, low and vicious came from the room. He had tripped over another piece of furniture.
Her office was complicated, almost over-decorated, which she’d done deliberately as an advertising tool, showcasing what she could do. It was almost impossible to navigate if you couldn’t see. The man was finding the furniture pretty much by touch. Or by banging his shins.
He had a gun. A burglar with a gun. Hadn’t she read somewhere that burglars don’t carry guns? That they know that the penalty for breaking and entering is much less than that for armed robbery. That they have a different psychological profile from other criminals and are basically non-violent.
All a burglar wants, the article said, is to get in, get as much of your expensive stuff as possible, and get safely back out.
Except he wasn’t doing that. The flashlight picked out her brand-new Bang and Olufsen, worth a lot of money—worth more, actually, than she could afford—then moved steadily on. It skimmed over her collection of antique silver frames collected by three generations of Barrons, which an appraiser date once said, was worth more than her new car. It lighted briefly on the original Winston Homer great-Granny Bodine had bought from the great man himself. Suzanne had used it as collateral for the mortgage.
The flashlight didn’t even linger over these items, but just kept roaming over the walls. Looking for something.
Looking for what? It was a poor part of town. There weren’t
many buildings containing what the burglar had just skipped over as unworthy of stealing. What else could he possibly be looking for?
And just like that, Suzanne knew.
The burglar wasn’t there to steal her hi fi or her frames or her paintings.
He was there for her.
He was armed and on the hunt. Hunting her. For some unknown reason this man with the gun wanted to kill her. That was why he’d broken into her house and why he was ignoring all the valuable objects he could steal without any trouble at all. He didn’t want them. He wanted her and he was going to get her because there was no way out of the building except past him.