“‘Morning,” she muttered. “I didn’t know you were coming back already,” she added a touch too sweetly.
“I promised to bring Carly by for introductions.” He put a hand on the other woman’s arm in a casual way that shouldn’t have inspired any feelings of jealousy in even a real fiancée.
So why did she have the irrational urge to scratch out the other woman’s eyes? It was mystifying, and she forced herself to ignore the reaction as she extended a hand to take the proffered one from the Carly woman.
“I’m Carly Winters, and I’ll be coordinating your wedding.”
“Oh.” She was afraid she sounded sour, judging from the other woman’s startled expression, so she made an effort to sound more enthusiastic. “How lovely.”
Angelina led them to the kitchen, offering tea and busying herself preparing it. As she did so, she did her best to respond appropriately to Carly’s questions, though she had little interest in planning a wedding that was never taking place. She was surprised that Connor stayed, taking a seat at the table as well, and accepting a cup of tea from her a few minutes later with a nod of thanks.
She sat down across from him at the round surface, aware of the time ticking by as Carly seemed to ask a never-ending stream of questions. Her patience was growing frayed the closer it crept to ten a.m. She needed to be on the road by then in order to make it to her eleven o’clock appointment. The facility was located farther upstate, which meant she had to drive and wanted to allow plenty of time to reach her destination.
When Carly was just getting around to asking her preference for hors d’oeuvres, she started drumming her fingers on the table. “I’m sorry to cut in, but I have an urgent meeting for which I can’t be late. We’ll have to pick this up another time.” For her part, another time could be never, and she’d be perfectly satisfied. She was tempted to tell the wedding coordinator that she didn’t care what she did, because it wasn’t going to happen anyway, but the reminder of the deposit she had made just that morning, with the promise of more to follow, kept her silent.
“Of course, Miss Walsh,” said Carly with perfect manners, looking not at all offended or put out that she had been interrupted in mid-hors d’oeuvres survey. “I’ll leave my card, and you can call me to set up a time that’s more convenient for you in the next few days. We just have a lot to accomplish if we’re going to put the wedding together in a month.”
She nodded, taking the card and slipping it into her pocket as she walked them to the door. She was surprised to find Connor lingering and not stepping out with the wedding coordinator. She looked pointedly at him. “Doesn’t she need a ride somewhere?”
He shrugged. “She brought her own car, and I grabbed a cab since it was more convenient.”
“Well, as I said, I have to leave, and Mrs. Kearney from next-door is watching Kevin for me this morning.”
“I’ll come with you. That will give us a chance to get better acquainted, and we can suss out more of the details about where we met, and how our relationship evolved.”
She let out an annoyed sigh. “I don’t want you to come with me, Connor. I have to drive upstate to tour of facility for Kevin. It’s really not the sort of thing I could impose upon you to accompany me for.”
He gave her a small grin. “It’s not imposing on your fiancé at all.”
Out of tactful ways to make it clear she didn’t want his presence, she let out a heavy sigh and accepted that he was either thickheaded or stubborn as a mule and deliberately refusing to accept her subtle rejection of his presence. She supposed to she should just get it over with, since it would allow them to safely plot their history and agree on minor details without the fear of someone interrupting them. “
Well, come on then,” she said less than graciously as she reached for her purse and keys by the door, ensuring he was out on the porch before she slammed it behind her and locked the deadbolt. They lived in a fairly safe neighborhood, considering it was the Lower East Side, but she was still cautious.
It felt strange to get the car out of the garage, since it hadn’t been driven in a few years. Yvonne had been the last one to drive it, and she taken great pride in her old Ford Granada, so the car looked almost as new as it had been when it was purchased in 1975. Most of the time, it was far more hassle than it was worth to drive a car in the city, so other than being started on a regular basis, the car had set forlornly in the garage/storage area behind their condo.
Reflecting its continued maintenance, the ugly green car started with the first attempt, and she re-familiarized herself with the feel of being behind the wheel for a moment before cautiously backing out and finally merging into traffic. The streets were busy, and when Connor started to speak, she shot him a brief look. “Not now. Wait until I’m on the freeway. I can’t talk and navigate the road at the same time.”
He fell silent, as requested—or ordered, depending on one’s point-of-view and interpretation of her tone—until she was safely on the freeway. Once she had merged into traffic that was thick, but far easier to navigate since they were all going the same direction without random stops and fewer idiots crossing lanes dangerously, she let out a rough sigh and nodded her head in his direction. “Okay, what are you saying?” To make up for the way she’d snapped at him while ago, she made an effort to sound pleasant that time.
“I was just going to ask if you had any thoughts on how our relationship developed?”
“Since I’m the bad guy, I really don’t care how you spin it. Just tell me what happens, and I’ll play along.”
He was silent for another moment, and when he began to speak, his tone was faintly husky, almost seductive, and she was surprised to find herself enthralled by his words.
“I wanted you from the day I met you, of course. How could I not? You were so beautiful, and clearly nervous, when we met at the hotel bar for the interview. I could tell I’d unsettled you that day by insisting we meet for a drink instead of in an office.”
She nodded, keeping her gaze firmly on the road both as
a necessity and as a way to avoid looking at him when he was speaking to her that way. It didn’t matter that it was fake, because it sounded really good and almost made her wish his words were true. “I expected an office, not realizing at the time you didn’t have one.”
“I wanted to ask you out then, but I knew I’d be traveling too much, and I didn’t want to risk our working relationship. However, as the months passed, and the more I talked to you, the more I wanted to. Whenever I saw your face on Skype, it made me want to see the real thing in person instead.”
“Your voice was in my mind all the time,” she whispered softly, hoping he would believe it was just part of the narrative they were creating together. “When I started dreaming about you, I knew there was more to it than attraction or simple infatuation.”
“It got to the point where I couldn’t stand it anymore, so the next time I was in the city, I had to ask you out. I was as nervous as I was the first time I ever asked out a girl, and I was certain you would turn me down, but instead, you said yes.”
“I was afraid I’d lose my job if I didn’t,” she said with a hint of bite in her voice, trying to counteract the mesmeric effect of his words on her libido.
He laughed, but ignored her contribution otherwise. “I was thrilled you said yes, and I know you expected something different for me, perhaps the whole fancy restaurant and dinner in a limo, but I wanted to make it plain from the start that this was something different. Something special, and something I’d never felt before.”
“What did you do?” she asked, reluctantly drawn into the fiction and wondering what he would have done that was different from the expectation for their first date—if there had actually been a first date, of course.
“You seemed surprised when I took you to a Knicks game, where we stuffed ourselves stupid on hot dogs and drank too much beer.”