Intent to Seduce & A Glimpse of Fire(70)
He hesitated for a long tense moment. “Is everything okay with us?”
“Yes. Absolutely.”
Tony approached carrying both their lunch pails. He pointed to his watch, she nodded and he headed back toward the job site. They had five minutes to clock back in. She couldn’t be late.
“Still there?” she asked, starting after Tony but keeping a safe distance so that he couldn’t hear her conversation.
“Yeah, how about tomorrow night then? Have you seen Aida? I think I can get decent tickets, and then we could have dinner afterward….”
She cringed. “I can’t.”
“Okay,” he said slowly.
“I promised a friend I’d help her move out of her apartment. Tomorrow evening is the only time we can do it so she can be out by Saturday.”
“Need a strong back?”
“Who? You?”
“Very funny.”
She stopped several yards outside the door so he couldn’t hear the buzz of electric saws and drills as she scrambled for something to say that wouldn’t put him off. He couldn’t meet Nancy. Tony was going to be there, too. Eric couldn’t meet any of them. Not yet.
She swallowed hard, hoping she wasn’t about to make the biggest mistake of her life. “How about Saturday? Want to go to dinner at my parents’ house?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ERIC HUNG UP THE RECEIVER AND THEN stared at the phone. They’d been going out for one week and he’d agreed to have dinner with her parents. This whole thing with Dallas could hardly get more bizarre. One minute he thought she was brushing him off, and the next she was asking him to meet her family. Not just her parents but her brother and sister—they were all going to be there. Was he ready for this?
“Hey.” Tom strolled into his office. “You going out today or eating in?”
“What?”
“Lunch.” Tom frowned. “What’s the matter with you?”
Eric picked up a paper clip and absently twirled it around his fingers. “She asked me to go to her parents’ house for dinner.”
“Who?”
Eric blinked at him. “Dallas.”
Tom sank into the chair opposite Eric and stared. “You’re still seeing her?”
“I took her to Horn’s reception last night.”
“No shit.”
“So?”
Tom snorted. “Unbelievable. This is serious.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Dinner with her parents? Right.”
“It’s not like that.” Eric got up to get a cup of coffee.
“This means you must have boinked her already, right?”
“You asshole. Get out.”
“Whoa!” Tom laughed and got up to follow Eric down the hall to the coffee room. “This is serious.”
Too late Eric realized he should never have said anything to Tom. Except how would Eric know he’d receive such a juvenile reaction? They’d never had a serious conversation about a woman in his life. Hell, there never had been anyone with whom Eric had considered having a serious relationship.
He made sure no one else was in the coffee room and then turned to Tom and in a low voice said, “Okay, this may be going somewhere, so you gotta lay off.”
Tom’s eyes met Eric’s and the laughter disappeared. Surprise flickered and then genuine concern. “Sure. I get it.”
“Good.” Eric got his coffee and headed back to his office, hoping like hell Tom didn’t follow. He didn’t expect his friend to give him a hard time, but he didn’t want to field any more questions either. Questions that would expose the embarrassing fact that Dallas had revealed so little about herself.
He got back to his office, and sure enough, right behind him was Tom. Sighing, Eric sat down. “By the way, I’m eating in today. I have a couple of important calls to make.”
Tom hovered in the doorway, a dozen questions in his eyes. “Anyone picking up a sandwich for you?”
“I’m having it delivered.” Eric picked up his phone receiver for added effect.
“All right, tomorrow maybe.”
“Sure. We’ll go over to Pete’s for a Philly cheese-steak.”
“You got it.” Tom checked his watch. “Better go. I’ve got a meeting in an hour.”
“See ya later.” Watching with relief as Tom headed for the lobby elevators, Eric replaced the receiver. He picked up his coffee and took a sip. Today he’d skip lunch. He wasn’t really hungry. If he wanted it later, he had a Snickers stashed in his desk somewhere.
The phone rang, and he muttered a curse when the sound startled him into sloshing coffee onto an expense report. He grabbed the receiver. Before he could greet the caller, Lawrence Horn walked into his office.
“I wanted to give you a heads-up,” the receptionist said over the phone line. “Mr. Horn is on his way to your office right now.”
“Thanks,” Eric muttered and hung up.
“Poor girl, she did try to stop me,” Lawrence said as he sank into the chair Tom had vacated.
Eric didn’t even try to feign innocence. “What are you doing roaming around this side of town?”
“Oh, I thought I’d slum for a while.” Today he wore a royal-blue suit, cream-colored shirt and black tie. “See how the other half lives.”
Used to his harmless sense of humor, Eric paid no attention to the obnoxious remark. “Great party last night. Thanks again.”
“You left early.” Lawrence wagged a finger and grinned. “Although I can certainly understand why. She’s exquisite. Truly exquisite. I applaud you.”
Eric snorted, glad Dallas wasn’t here to hear that. “Wish I could take credit.”
“Oh, was I being politically incorrect?” Lawrence frowned thoughtfully, and then a sly smile curved his mouth. “You’ll both forgive me when you hear my offer.”
“Offer? What offer?”
“I want you to design an ad campaign around her.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.” Lawrence waved an impatient hand. “Her face haunted me all night. I even dreamed about her. Surely you can use her to link my companies or something. After all, Revlon and L’Oreal have models as spokeswomen or what have you.”
“They’re cosmetic companies. Of course they would use—”
“Oh, you sound like Bruce.” Lawrence muttered an expletive. “You’re supposed to be creative. Think of something.”
Eric shook his head. “She doesn’t model anymore.” Actually he didn’t even know if that was true. He didn’t know anything about her.
“She will.” Lawrence stood and daintily dusted off his lapels with his manicured fingertips. “Money al ways talks. For her and you.” He smiled. “I guess I’ll stop by the old man’s office on my way out. Haven’t seen him in ages.”
Eric recognized the veiled threat. Lawrence was going to fill Webber in. If Eric didn’t produce, Webber would be all over him.
Then again, maybe he was getting worked up for nothing. Maybe Dallas would be open to a modeling contract. Especially if the price was right. It still galled him that he knew so little about her. But that would change. Saturday night. She was finally going to let him into her private sanctum. Suddenly Saturday couldn’t come fast enough.
“YOU HAVE A DEATH WISH. YOU know that, right?” Wendy grabbed a handful of peanuts from the glass bowl the cocktail server had set on their table.
Trudie stopped sipping her margarita long enough to make a face at Wendy. “Why are you so negative?”
“Oh, please. Once he meets her parents, you don’t think they’ll be history?”
Dallas sighed, beginning to wish she hadn’t brought up the subject. “I think Wendy’s on to something. Maybe I do have a death wish.”
Both women looked at her as if she’d just told them she was pregnant. Dallas casually glanced at the guy at the table to the right of her, so close he might as well have been sitting with them. The place was crowded, every table taken, people standing four deep at the bar. Even the poor cocktail servers had trouble squeezing in between the tables bulging with yuppies in suits and loosened ties. She would rather have gone somewhere else, but it had been Trudie’s turn to choose the place.
Dallas leaned closer and spoke more softly. “I mean, maybe I want him to find out but I’m too chicken to actually tell him myself. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah, in a creepy Freudian sort of way.” Wendy took a thoughtful sip of her club soda. She saved her calories for peanuts or any other snacks the bar offered.
Dallas did the opposite. Her calories generally went toward alcohol when she was out. Trudie, on the other hand, had no boundaries. She simply indulged in everything.
Trudie licked the salted rim of her glass and then put it down near the peanuts. “Well, kiddo, if you want him to find out, this will be one hell of a good way.”
“Except I really don’t want him to find out.” Dallas sighed. “I don’t think.”
The other two exchanged sympathetic looks.
Wendy spoke first. “Okay, I hate to point out the obvious, but once you take him to meet the parents, it’s gonna be out of your hands.”
“First, this isn’t about meeting my parents. Second, they rarely talk about anything but themselves and what ever research they’re currently involved in, and when they don’t have the floor, my brother does. Since they dismiss my job out of hand, they never ask about it. In fact, I think they like to pretend it doesn’t exist.”