“You sure sounded like the voice of experience.”
Natalie backpedaled faster. “I was just sympathizing. I mean, look who I date.”
“Lawyers, investment bankers and rich idiots your dad and sisters shove at you. I know. Still, who would have thought, with all the hot, amazing men I’ve dated, I’d lose it for a dumb soap stud?”
Natalie couldn’t help it; she lowered her voice and said, “Well, I can think of one or, well, multiple reasons why you might have.”
Liza sighed again, but in abject appreciation this time. “Yeah, well, there was that. A lot of that.” She laughed. “Maybe that’s why I’m crying.”
Natalie snickered, then they both lost it and laughed.
But Liza wasn’t one to be dissuaded from a mission. The considering look returned as soon as the laughter died.
Natalie held up her hand. “Please, we’ll do my love life next time.”
“So.” She folded her arms and leaned forward. “There is a love life. I’ve been wondering. You’re holding something back on me. I could hear it in your voice.” She leaned even closer and peered into Natalie’s face. “It’s in your eyes, too.” She grinned, obviously more than happy to shift the conversational target to her friend. “Spill it.”
Natalie had debated telling her friend. God knows, they shared everything else. Liza was the one person in her life she could tell anything to, including the fact that she’d heard her and Conrad at the end of that party. So what if she’d sort of omitted the fact that when she’d slipped out for coffee, it had been with Conrad’s childhood buddy, and they’d ended up in bed together?
It was so unlike anything she’d ever done. And now she’d done it twice. And it was still so amazing, so stunning to her…well, she simply couldn’t give that up for conversational fodder. Not yet, anyway.
“Well, the only exciting thing on the dating spectrum for me is another one of Sabrina’s charity balls,” Natalie said. At least it was the truth. “To make it worse, Melissa has managed to dredge up the one remaining eligible bachelor under the age of fifty that she hasn’t already shoved at me. At least, I assume he’s under fifty. I don’t think she’s gotten that desperate.”
Liza smirked. “Yet.”
“God help me when that time comes.”
“‘When’ is right. There is no ‘if’ with your sisters. When they set their minds to something, nothing so trifling as a twenty-year age gap would stop them.”
Natalie merely nodded, taking no offense, especially as Liza was absolutely correct in her assessment. In fact, Natalie was ever grateful for Liza’s take on her whole family situation. It made her feel less like an ungrateful spoiled brat and more like the intelligent woman she hoped she was—one who’d naturally run screaming from a family as controlling as hers.
“So, who’s the victim du jour?”
Natalie made a face. “Preston Albert Markwell III. Sounds about as dreamy as a tax audit, doesn’t he?”
“Only if he actually calls himself Preston Albert.”
Natalie grinned. “Probably does.”
Liza pretended a swoon. “Oh, Preston Albert, do it to me again!”
Natalie swatted her, but laughed all the same. Thankfully the maitre d’ came over and told Liza their table was ready, saving her. Natalie was able to turn the conversation to the menu, which then launched Liza into tales of the latest weird diet fads of some of her celebrity clients. All of which they discussed and analyzed as they wolfed down their filet mignon and cherries jubilee. Natalie would have to drag herself off to the gym as penance in the morning, but that was hours away. In the meantime, she dug in and enjoyed the time with her friend.
And tried like hell not to think of what Jake could do with those damn cherries.
“YEAH, DAD. I’ve worked through the probabilities schematic and I think I’ve got the shipping problem figured out. It’s not going to be cheap, but they stand to do pretty well if they can move the beef overseas more easily.” Jake flipped past the notes he’d been consulting and picked up the engraved manila envelope he’d tucked underneath. “I’m meeting with Ray and John this afternoon.” He turned it over, looking at his name in neat, black ink on the back. “Yes, they’ll go for it if they want to deal with us.” He chuckled. “Yes, Dad, I’m playing hardball just like you taught me. I expect to be out of here by six. I’ve already contacted the pilot, and he’s filed our flight plans.”
Company jets were an absolute luxury, but they were the one perk he’d guiltlessly accepted after too many years of cramming his six-foot-two body onto crowded commercial flights heading to points all over the globe. “Give Mom my love and tell her I’ll see her this weekend.” He hung up, still fingering the envelope, then finally gave in and pulled out the single folded piece of stationery that was inside.
He read the note for what was probably the twentieth time since it had arrived at his hotel the night before, then folded it and slid it back into the gold-edged envelope. Good thing he was alone. He had a permanent grin…and what he feared was a permanent hard-on. And probably would be until he laid eyes…and hands on the sender of that note.
“An art museum,” he murmured, shaking his head. A very public one, too, as it was the Art Institute in Chicago, where they’d both be doing business ten days from now.
Doing business. He supposed that was one way to put it. Best damn business meeting he’d ever had the fortune to look forward to. She’d taken two weeks to come up with something for their next rendezvous. But an art museum? What in the hell does she have in mind?
He laughed as all sorts of ideas popped into his way-too-fertile-of-late mind, but he doubted they were what she’d come up with. He sorted through a pile of folders on his makeshift hotel-room desk, trying hard not to think about what they’d come up with the last time they’d been together. One thing was for sure: he had a whole new respect for fruit as a major food group.
Still grinning, he tried like hell to get his mind back on the meeting he was to run in less than fifteen minutes. It really wasn’t like him to let a woman distract him this way. But he’d never met a woman like Natalie Holcomb.
His gaze drifted briefly to his laptop. He knew they weren’t supposed to talk about work or family or anything other than what they wanted to do with each other when they were together. But they hadn’t ever actually said they couldn’t explore a little when they weren’t together. So, one night shortly after their last encounter, he’d given up on trying to sleep with a raging erection, taken a cold shower…and booted up his lap top. If he couldn’t satisfy himself physically with her, he’d thought maybe learning more about her personally would assuage the need she’d so effortlessly roused in him.
He knew she came from a wealthy family with her talk of boarding school and family chefs. So he’d done a little digging into her family history and come across Holcomb Industries, which had started with Natalie’s great-grandfather as an investment firm. The young banker had cagily branched out just before the stock market crash. Now they were into a host of other things, all profitable and overseen by her father and brother. Many charitable works bore the Holcomb name, and the names of her two sisters popped up on a regular basis in all manner of social and charitable works attributed to the company. Their husbands, along with Natalie’s older brother, Chuck, also popped up regularly in the newspaper business news sections for one major deal or another.
None of those things struck him as unusual, as his own family’s background was similar, even if the industry itself was wholly different. The glaring difference was that he, along with his two brothers and one sister, were all involved happily in the family business with his father, mother, several aunts and uncles. Even his aging, retired grandfather still kept a hand in at board meetings.
Jake enjoyed his work, and loved working with his family, although his schedule kept him from seeing them every day. He smiled. Maybe distance was the key to family harmony in the workplace. He shook his head. Whatever the case, they each gave the business their all and took immense personal pride from its continued success. None of the Lannisters had ever felt like the world owed them anything, nor did they expect to get anything without working to achieve it.
Granted, it was a lot easier to work toward a goal when you had the bankroll to finance the education and whatnot to help get you there, but he’d never taken it for granted. His family was also heavily involved in philanthropic endeavors, one part of which he’d personally developed—grants and college scholarships. His siblings and parents devoted their time to their pet charities in addition to their other work.
Which led him back to the glaring omission from Natalie’s family history. Sure, he’d found out where she worked as an up-and-coming attorney with Maxwell & Graham, a law firm in Manhattan that handled everything from corporate to family to entertainment law. She was involved in the corporate side, although she’d been doing work for one of the new partners, who was their new entertainment specialist.