Neck & Neck (27 page)

Then she remembered Finn had seen her and Dean seated at the same table at the restaurant the other night, which might have made it look like they were on a date. But surely once he’d talked to Dean for, oh . . . a nanosecond, he’d realized what a jerk the guy was. He couldn’t possibly think Natalie would actually go out—voluntarily, anyway—with a guy like that, could he?

“You’re a guest, too,” she pointed out.

“Only by default,” he pointed out right back. But he turned to smile at her again when he said it, and this time, he didn’t look quite so perturbed. In fact, he kind of looked like he was sharing a joke with her, though, for the life of her, she couldn’t imagine what the joke might be.

He enjoyed another sip of his beer, then turned his entire body to face her. “Seriously, Natalie, I know I’m not who you and Waterman were expecting, and dinner parties aren’t up there on my favorite ways to spend an evening, anyway, so don’t feel like you have to give me special treatment. You can go hang with your friends. I’ll be over in a minute.” He shrugged a little self-consciously. “Like I said. It’s a nice view.”

She tried not to read anything into the fact that he was looking at her when he said that last, and not at the vista beyond the window. She mimicked his shrug and said, “I’d rather talk to you.” She glanced over her shoulder and then back at Finn. “Besides, they’re not my friends. They’re Dean’s.”

His expression changed to surprise at that. “You and he are hosting a party, and you don’t know any of the guests?”

Her back went up at the way he linked her and Dean again. And because of that, she couldn’t quite curb the bitterness that edged her voice when she told him, “Oh, I
know
all of them. I’ve known them since childhood. But they weren’t my friends then, either.”

FINN STUDIED NATALIE AS SHE STOOD IN A PUDDLE OF soft light, her words barely registering as she spoke, because he was too busy trying not to be overwhelmed by how incredible she looked. Somehow, this cool, collected, in-charge version of her was even sexier than both the va va-voom screen siren she’d been in the hotel lobby that day or the vivacious party girl she’d been the night she passed out in his arms. And he should know, since he’d spent the last few days remembering how she’d looked both times, right down to the last detail. Had he realized where he would end up this evening when Russell told him yesterday that he needed Finn to fill in for him at some function he couldn’t make himself—“one of those endlessly boring cocktail things where you can be in and out in less than an hour,” Russell had called it—Finn never would have agreed to come.

Not even if Russell had told him Natalie would be here.

Especially
if Russell had told him Natalie would be here.

The last thing he needed was to find himself in close quarters with her again, inhaling that delicate scent of her and stroking that soft skin, and thinking about how nice it would be to run his mouth over every last inch of her luscious—naked—body.

Like he was right now.

He pushed the thought away and focused on the conversation at hand. So Waterman’s friends weren’t Natalie’s, he thought. Even though they’d all gone to the same school and still obviously saw each other now. Interesting. People like Waterman and his cohorts were the type who generally came out of some tony private academy that produced king makers, chiefs of staff, and Enron executives. So if Dean’s friends hadn’t been Natalie’s, had she been the scholarship kid from the wrong side of the tracks who had never quite fit in? Who hadn’t come from the right sort of family or neighborhood to win acceptance from the other kids? Who’d been dismissed as unimportant because she didn’t come from money or good breeding stock?

In other words, had she been like Finn? Except that he hadn’t gone to a tony private academy, and he still hadn’t fit in.

Maybe that was why she was marrying Waterman. So she’d finally be a part of the society into which she’d never been welcomed. Not that Finn could see anyone in that society liking her any better or accepting her any more just because she changed her name and address. And who wanted friends that were only friends under those conditions, anyway? Especially someone like Natalie, who was pretty damned likable no matter where she came from?

“Not your friends, huh?” he echoed, more to keep the conversation going than because he really cared about anyone on the other side of the room.

She shook her head again, but said nothing, just turned to gaze out at the river.

“Then who
are
your friends?”

She opened her mouth to answer him, then closed it again. Finally, she turned to look at him, but it was with an expression that was colored with confusion. “I never really thought about it,” she said. “I mean . . . every time I’ve ever gone to a party or something, all those guys”—she tilted her head toward the other guests—“have been there. And a lot of other people from the same group. I’ve always socialized with them. But I’ve never really thought of them as friends.”

Finn amended his opinion of her with that. She didn’t sound like the kid from the wrong side of the tracks now. Now she sounded like one of the society crowd, and probably had been since birth. Funny, though, how she didn’t seem like any of the other people he’d met from the town and country set.

So he repeated his question. “Then who are your friends?”

She seemed to give her answer some thought this time before giving it. “Well, I guess there’s Janice, the florist I use for some events. She and I usually meet over lunch to make arrangements.”

“That’s not necessarily a friend,” Finn pointed out. “That’s a business associate.”

“But we talk about cute guys,” Natalie objected. “And shoes. And the latest episode of
Bones
.”

“Okay, so maybe Janice would qualify. Who else?”

She thought some more. “Leo. My favorite caterer.” Before Finn could point out that Leo was also a business associate, she hurried on, “We e-mail recipes to each other all the time, and we always run into each other in restaurant chats online.”

Meaning she and her pal Leo doubtless had more interface time than face time.

“Anyone else?” he asked, even though there had already been a pattern established. It never hurt to have a little extra ammunition when one was about to make a point.

“Myrna,” she said. “She’s the graphic designer I use for invitations.” Hastily, she added, “We visit local galleries together all the time.”

“All the time?” he echoed dubiously.

“Well, once we did that,” Natalie conceded.

“And did you talk business during this trip to the gallery?”

“No, we did not,” she replied a little more defensively than necessary. “In fact, I only brought along those agreements I needed her to sign because I knew I wouldn’t be crossing paths with her for the rest of the week, and I needed them back right away.”

Finn nodded at that. “Natalie,” he said, “every friend you just mentioned you’ve made since starting your business.”

“So?”

“So how long ago was that?”

“Eight months.”

“And before eight months ago, you only had, as you call them, ‘Dean’s friends’?”

“Well, jeez, you don’t have to make me sound like some abject, unmitigated loser.”

“I wasn’t trying to make you sound like that,” he denied. “Just pointing out some facts, that’s all.”

“Yeah, so what’s your point?” she asked, turning to gaze out at the river again.

So Finn turned to look at the river, too. It was a nice view, he had to admit. What looked like a dinner cruise of some kind was setting off on an excursion, its cabin and decks dotted with tiny white lights. The evening sky was unbelievable, stained a deep orange, the clouds streaking across it a gauzy pink. Cars were streaming across the bridge in both directions, headlights and taillights both bouncing along the highway. And under it all, the river, rippling slowly and tossing back every bit of light and color it caught.

“So what happens after you marry Dean?” he asked as he watched the dinner cruise coast slowly downriver. “He doesn’t strike me as the type to tolerate a working wife. What will happen to all the friends you’ve met through your job after that?”

Natalie’s reply this time was silence. But there was something about it that didn’t lend itself to being the sort of comfortable, contemplative silence that a bride-to-be might make while reflecting upon her decision. No, this felt more like the sort of silence a deer in the headlights might make while reflecting upon her imminent death.

Finn discovered the reason for that when he turned to look at Natalie, because deer in the headlights was exactly how she looked. Along with appalled, disgusted, nauseated, revolted, and a host of other adjectives for which Finn would need to consult a thesaurus, most likely under the heading:
ew
.

“What do you mean, when I marry Dean?” she asked, her tone thick with her revulsion. “Who told you I was going to marry Dean?”

Her contempt for the suggestion heartened him way more than it probably should have. “Uh, you told me that.”

“Me?”
she asked incredulously, turning to face him fully now.

She did so with such speed and vehemence that a tendril of hair freed itself from the severe way she’d styled it, the silky gold tress tumbling down to her jawline. His fingers itched to tug free whatever was holding the rest of her hair in place, so that it could flow down over her shoulders like it had that first day he’d met her and again the other night at the hotel.

Instead, Natalie herself tucked the strand behind one ear and demanded, “When did I tell you I was marrying Dean?”

“Monday night,” he said. “At dinner.”

Her brows arrowed downward as she tried to remember. Which, okay, might be a little difficult to do, considering her state of intoxication at the time.

So he added, “When you came out of the ladies’ room. You and I were talking, and you said you were marrying Dean.”

She started to shake her head before he even finished talking. “That’s impossible,” she told him. “I’d never say that.”

“Yes, you did,” he insisted, wondering why he was being so adamant about this when he should be rejoicing in the fact that the woman he thought was bound to another man was suddenly free for the taking. His taking. Taking in a way that had nothing to do with driving her somewhere. Except maybe driving her wild.

But her insistence that she would never say she was marrying Waterman made him go back and replay their conversation in his mind. And when he did that, he recalled that her exact words hadn’t been that she was marrying Dean.

“You told me Dean wanted to marry you,” he said. “And that your mother was already planning the wedding.”

“Dean does want to marry me,” she agreed. “And my mother’s been planning my wedding to him since she made him my escort at my debut without even consulting me.”

Debut,
Finn repeated to himself. He didn’t know a lot about high society, but he knew that if a girl had a debut, it meant she came from money. Probably a lot of money. Having that fact confirmed, he wasn’t sure what to think. It seemed like yet another reason for him not to get mixed up with Natalie Beckett. The two worlds they’d grown up in couldn’t be farther apart. The night she was walking down the stairs at some country club in her white dress and tiara, he’d probably been stealing
Playboy
and a Colt 45 tallboy from the local drugstore before heading out for a night of petty mischief.

“But there’s no way I’d ever marry Dean,” Natalie said adamantly, bringing Finn back to the present. “Okay, look. Let me explain what happened Monday night before you and Mr. Mulholland arrived at the restaurant, and why I was in the shape I was in that night.”

This ought to be good,
Finn thought. “I’m all ears.”

She hesitated for a moment, as if she were thinking hard about how to arrange her words. “I admit I was kind of waiting for your employer—”

“You were stalking him, you mean.”

She toddled her head back and forth impatiently. “You say
potatoes
, I say
potahtoes.
Anyway, I was waiting in the restaurant because I figured sooner or later, he was bound to eat dinner there.”

“You planned to do this every night until you ran into him?”

“If I had to, yes. Fortunately for me,” she continued hastily, “I didn’t have to wait long.
Un
fortunately for me, however, I ran into Dean before I ran into Mr. Mulholland.”

“You really can call him Russell, you know,” Finn said. “He hates being called Mr. Mulholland.”
Especially by beautiful women,
he added to himself. But there was no reason to make this story last any longer than it had to.

“You have to understand something about Dean and me,” she went on as if Finn hadn’t spoken. “Ever since we were kids, he’s been adamant that someday, he was going to marry me. When I was a kid, the thought of being married to Dean was, like, totally grody. As an adult woman, the thought of being married to Dean is, like, singularly revolting.”

Finn tried not to smile too big at that.

“By the time you and Russell saw me Saturday night, I’d been playing a drinking game to make my proximity to Dean more tolerable. Every time he said something stupid, I took a drink.”

Okay, there was no way he couldn’t smile at that. “And how long had you been playing when Russell and I showed up?” he asked.

“About fifteen minutes.”

He arched his brows in surprise at that. “You got that drunk in fifteen minutes?”

“Finn. I had to take a drink every time Dean said something stupid. It’s amazing I lasted as long as I did.”

Good point.

“So if you think Waterman is a jerk,” he said, “and if his friends aren’t your friends, and if the only reason you’re here tonight is because you thought Russell was coming, and now you know Russell
isn’t
coming . . .”