Bombshell (22 page)

I know, crazy right? Even crazier when I remembered that I had heard a man pull out the baby banter in bed. Michael. And that had been merely…pillow talk.

“So when are you going to see him again?” Angie prodded.

I looked at her, feeling that arrow of fear hit its mark. “I don't know.”

That was just it. It was too soon to know anything. Despite my realization that I was ready…for everything.

B
ecause I wasn't able to weave the kind of romantic fairy tale Angie tried to make out of my weekend with Jonathan without more to go on, I decided to take matters into my own hands and call him that afternoon. After all, the man had spent the weekend in my apartment—in my bed.

“Dr. Somerfield, please,” I said into the phone once I was seated behind my desk and grounded firmly in reality once more.

“Uh, just a sec,” came the youthful voice that answered.

“Dr. Somerfield speaking,” he said a moment later.

Feeling suddenly like the naughty schoolgirl about to lure the innocent professor to a dirty deed, I said, “Well, hello, handsome.”

“Grace,” he replied, his voice a mixture of surprise and, I sensed, anticipation.

I warmed inside and decided to take the leap. “I need to see you. Soon.”

He cleared his throat, becoming once again the befuddled professor I adored. “Well, let's see here,” he began.

I heard the shuffle of papers and realized he was likely looking for his calendar. I had lived through this sort of thing with way too many New York men. You know, the ones who are so busy they need a Palm Pilot to keep track of everything from their next meeting to their next orgasm. It was clear to me, from all that paper rustling around, that Jonathan didn't own a Palm Pilot. I only hoped he had time for his next orgasm this week. Because I really didn't want to wait till the weekend for mine…

“I have class until six, then I'm meeting with a student right after….”

Oh my, the man wanted to see me all right. Tonight.

He did have it bad.

As I did. “Why don't I drop by your apartment? I could pick us up dinner at Zabar's. Some wine…”

He hesitated, but only for a moment. “Why don't I just come by your place? I'll get dinner. Besides, I'm not sure how long I'll be.”

“That's fine,” I said, though his sudden change of venue made me realize why I had suggested his apartment in the first place. He had already seen my world. I wanted to see his.

Still, I didn't push it. The point was to see
him,
wasn't it? To verify that all that had happened between us this weekend might have a follow-up act.

So I told him, in a low, husky voice designed to raise his temperature a few degrees, that I would be waiting for him.

And I
was
waiting for him that night…and the one after that, too. It was as if we couldn't get enough of one another. We made love and we talked and it was good. So good, I wanted more. Not too much more. Just an invitation, really. To his place, as I explained to Shelley during our session that week.

“Maybe he's a private person,” Shelley said, once again becoming a fellow female with advice rather than the probing therapist she had been up until my little sob fest the week before. I think she saw the way I had opened up to her as progress. Because she seemed to be rewarding me with something that was starting to feel like friendship.

Of course, that didn't mean she stopped going where I didn't want to go.

“You're a pretty private person yourself from what I can see. The way you keep people at a distance,” she said now.

I would have argued with her, but I could no longer hide from the truth. I hadn't let my own parents in on anything that was really going on with me as of late. Like Jonathan. Or Kristina…

I cringed. Yes, I was private. God, I was practically living in a…cell, I realized. I didn't want to let anyone in. The only one who
had
gotten in lately was Angie, probably because she was always pounding on the door. And Shelley, whom I was paying to pound on that door.

And Jonathan…

I sighed. “You know, I have opened up to
him.
I told him everything about me, I think.”

“Yes, you probably did,” she conceded. “Everything, of course, except how you feel.”

 

I wasn't going to give Shelley that point. Because the truth was, I didn't know how I felt. Well, yes, I felt happy.
And positively lustful. But since I was overflowing with the possibility of more, especially given all the time Jonathan and I were spending together, I decided to pound on the door of
his
cell a bit.

“So what do you say we cook together on Saturday night?” I said, after we lay back on the sheets on Thursday, our bodies still buzzing from making love.

“Sounds good,” he said, one hand going to caress my head as I laid it on his chest, probably to avoid his gaze, as I added, “at your place.”

His hand paused and I held my breath, realizing that all my suspicions had been right. He was afraid. Afraid of letting me in. Literally.

I closed my eyes, bracing myself for rejection. Which probably accounted for the avalanche of relief that washed through me when he finally said, in the softest voice I had ever heard come out of him, “Sure.”

I lifted my head, needing to see his eyes, to know whether or not his reply had come from politeness or some desire to take things a step further.

He gazed at me, and I saw sadness and worry and a bit of the usual bewilderment. But I also saw, shining beneath all that, hope.

 

“What's with
you?
” Claudia said as I sat across from her in the small conference room Friday morning, where we were finalizing our marketing plans for the consumer launch of Roxy D. We had been discussing the cost effectiveness of giving away a free sample of the Packs-a-Punch Pink lipstick with purchase and I had just turned away to start typing the financials into the Excel sheet on my laptop.

Lori paused in her note-taking and sat blinking at me, a smile tugging at her lips.

“What?” I replied, looking at them both.

Lori giggled. “Grace, you're
singing.
”

The chorus of P.J. Harvey's “This Is Love” had been buzzing through my head—God, had I actually started singing out loud? I almost laughed myself.

Buoyed by the memory of the man who had inspired this happy little tune, I suddenly blurted out, “I have a date tonight.”

The minute I confessed to my new relationship, I was sorry. Lori nearly bounded out of her seat with apparent joy. “Oh, Grace, what
fun!
”

Then, before she could leap into the next three questions that were clearly on the tip of her tongue—likely who, where and how—Claudia replied in a voice dripping with sarcasm, “Well, la-dee-da.”

I should have expected that from Claudia. I knew well enough that no one was allowed to show even a glimmer of happiness in her presence, especially when
she
was miserable. And Claudia had hit an all time low since the publication of that harrowing photo of her in
W
. In fact, the only thing that seemed to keep her afloat was that she had used her considerable connections to get an appointment with the best plastic surgeon in New York City.

“Well, come on,” she continued. “Out with it. Tell us all about this incredible new man you've managed to scrounge up from the muck.”

Instinct told me to clam up lest Claudia's bitterness contaminate the well of hope I was feeling. But I was unable to resist when Lori leaned in, eyes sparkling and asked, “What's his name?”

“Jonathan,” I said. “Dr. Jonathan Somerfield.”

“Don't tell me you've managed to land a
doctor?
” Claudia's eyebrows flew upward. She had always been impressed with my resumé of men. Probably because she herself had spent a solid six years landing her investment banker husband, only to have him drop her for a younger model.

“He's a Ph.D. In art history.”

“Oh,
that
kind of doctor,” Claudia scoffed. I suppose she figured a man who spent his day atop the intellectual heights didn't have anything to offer financially.

It occurred to me then that maybe Jonathan
was
relatively poor. Maybe that was why he didn't want to show me his apartment. Could he be…ashamed of it?

That was ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as the heady little refrain of “Love Will Keep Us Together” that wafted through my head.

 

I baked a cake that night. I'm actually quite a good little baker when I set my mind to it. Or, my heart, in this case. Because this wasn't just any dessert, but a rich chocolate layer cake I planned to drizzle with the freshly made strawberry sauce I also whipped up. At first, I told myself I was baking because I needed to do something to relax, and since Jonathan had insisted on doing all the shopping for the meal himself and I didn't want to show up empty-handed, I stopped at Zabar's for baking supplies on my way home. But as I whipped and stirred all those luscious ingredients together, I was forced to admit that my Betty Crocker act was more than the polite gesture of a prospective dinner guest. I liked caring for Jonathan—felt fulfilled by it in a way that I had never felt before.

Clearly I had sniffed a little too much cocoa, because
when the phone rang, I picked up the receiver and practically sang my hello into the receiver.

“Grace, sweetheart,” my mother sang right back at me.

“Hello, darling,” came my father's tenor to her soprano.

“Mom, Dad,” I said, skittering back from my merriment as guilt stabbed at me. I had never returned their call after the message they had left on my machine last week. I guess I had been a little…preoccupied.

Not that they noticed. Or if they had, they had forgotten in light of what was currently preoccupying them.

“The Chevalier arrived,” my father said happily. “Just this afternoon.”

“Oh, Grace,” my mother said, practically on a sob. “I'm positively overwhelmed by all you've done.”

I smiled. “It was all Dad's doing, really.”

“Please, I've already let him know just how insane it was of him to spend all that money. And how romantic. I've never been so—” She broke off, and I realized she was crying.

Which made me want to cry. With the same kind of happiness I sensed had caused her own tears.

When my mother finally recovered, I said, “I have to say, it was really something for me to finally see that painting,” realizing, even as I said the words, how much of a something. If I hadn't gone to that opening, I wouldn't have met Jonathan….

As if my father picked the thought of that man right out of my head, he asked, “Have you spoken to Dr. Johnny? I really must thank him for his hand in all this.”

I bit back a smile, almost wanting to say that I had already thanked him—over and over again. But, of course, I couldn't share that with my parents.

I could, however, share something with them, I thought,
remembering my most recent session with Shelley. “Actually, I'm seeing him tonight.”

“Jonathan Somerfield?” my mother asked, clearly delighted. “Oh, Grace, how did that come about?”

“We've been dating a bit,” I said hesitantly, not sure how much I wanted to reveal.

“Is that right?” my father asked, a smile in his voice.

“Oh, Grace, that's
wonderful,
” my mother breathed. “He was always such a nice young man.”

Remembering that he had likely been a married man when my parents knew him, I asked, “Dad, why didn't you tell me he'd been married?”

My father paused. “I guess I didn't think of it.”

I smiled, in spite of my chagrin. Of course he didn't think of it. He was a man. Did men ever think about these things? Especially men like my father, who spent most of his life studying world events, not personal ones.

“That was a few years ago, wasn't it, Tom?” my mother said now. “Such a tragedy…”

Her words brought all my fears to the surface once more. It
was
a tragedy. The kind of thing that might mark a man's heart forever.

As if my mother felt my anxiety over the phone line, she continued, “I think it's wonderful, Grace. He's wonderful. For you.”

And as I lay in bed that night, bathed in the scent of chocolate that permeated my apartment, I thought he was, too.

 

This didn't stop me from feeling somehow less than wonderful myself as I readied myself to go to Jonathan's apartment the following evening. I changed my outfit no less than six times. It's tricky business, dinner at a man's house,
especially when you know you'll be staying the night. I wanted to look casual yet sexy. Which would have been easy enough to do, if it weren't for the whole undergarment dilemma. And since the undergarments were likely going to have a starring role this evening, they needed to be good. But this is the problem when your bra size is a 38-C. No one seemed to cater to it except for those bra companies known more for sturdiness than sex appeal. If I wanted seamless support, I had to live with a bra that looked like it had been pulled from my grandmother's boudoir. Or was downright boring, which was what I usually had to resort to for everyday wear. Not that I didn't own better. I had a whole drawerful of the kind that generally were best worn when you were certain your man would be tearing it off you within minutes. A pretty little demi was out of the question, unless I wanted my breasts to enter the room before I did. And my lacy push-ups made the most unflattering lines under all my formfitting tops. And though I could have gone the bulky sweater route, I needed to have some sort of sex appeal
before
that sweater came off….

Finally I settled on stretch lace in black with a sexy French-cut brief, beneath a black sweater with a very deep v-neck that clung to me just enough to flatter my supremely female form while only hinting at what might be layered below. Of course, I paired this with an equally flattering pair of wool pants.

I topped it all off with my coziest cashmere coat. And, carefully fitting my cake into the baker's box I'd purchased, I tucked the cake, the strawberry sauce and a bottle of wine into a shopping bag and headed out the door.