Woman to Woman (32 page)

“Of course.” He slid an arm under her elbow and they walked to the door. It felt nice to be accompanied, to have a man escorting her out, even if it was only for show. Richard’s absence made her feel so alone most of the time, as if she’d never have someone to hug and kiss again.

They walked slowly south along Lexington Avenue and Jo tried to forget her troubles and savour the sense of being somewhere totally different from home. The traffic jams of the afternoon were a thing of the past and now the streets were almost quiet by comparison, large sedans cruising along sedately with only the bright yellow cabs roaring up and down the streets at high speed.

The Fitzpatrick Manhattan was in an affluent area of Manhattan. Park Avenue was just one block over while Fifth Avenue was only another two blocks away. Welldressed people walked along the streets, rushing the way all New Yorkers did. But they avoided eye contact as they walked.

That was the big difference between many American big cities and Dublin, Jo felt.

On Jo’s last visit, Rhona had filled her so full of warnings on being mugged or staring people in the eye in case they turned out to be complete weirdos, that Jo had been in a constant state of anxiety. She’d even carried the ubiquitous ‘mugger’s wallet’, a purse containing

a few dollars to give to any prospective muggers until she’d relaxed and stopped worrying.

Now, walking at a leisurely pace with Mark she’d swear he was walking particularly slow for her, as if he knew she didn’t have the energy to walk quickly she wasn’t even slightly nervous. He knew New York, she felt safe with him.

“Here we are Mark announced, stopping at a brightly coloured cafe on a street corner. The Starlite Xpress Diner. He peered in the window at the board behind the chrome bar and read out the menu: “Arnold Schwarzenegger Burger, Dolly Parton Sandwich … Oh look, Jo. You can have a Cindy Crawford hot dog!”

“Probably lettuce and a minuscule bun.” Jo laughed, taking in the customers sitting at small tables with paper cups, cans of Coke and styrofoam burger boxes.

“I just thought you’d like to experience dinner in a genuine New York diner,” Mark said with a deadpan expression.

“And it’s only six dollars each.”

Jo eyed him speculatively. Was he kidding? Or was he serious? She didn’t know. If he wasn’t joking, he could have told her they were going casual and she’d have dressed accordingly. She certainly wouldn’t have wasted her lovely and very comfortable navy outfit on the Starlite Xpress Diner.

“Right.” she said, with a firmness she didn’t feel. Men. She’d never understand them. Mind you, Mark was so well off it was probably a thrill for him to eat in a diner instead of a ten-pounds-a-starter restaurant.

“Let’s eat.”

He took pity on her.

“Jo, you are so gullible. I’m joking.”

“Pig!” she declared, giving him a light slap on the arm.

He laughed and grabbed the hand that had slapped him. Jo felt a shock of electricity shoot through her at the touch of his hand. She would have pulled her hand away, but his grip was so firm, firm and warm.

“I’m sorry. Forgive me.” His grey eyes glittered and the corners of his mouth turned up into a disarming smile.

Silhouetted against the lights of the diner, he looked like a great big bear of a man. Jo had the strangest desire to feel those big arms wrapped around her. Get a grip, Ryan!

“You looked so lovely and dressed up, I just couldn’t resist teasing you,” explained Mark with a grin.

“I’ve actually had the Bill Clinton Burger here, and it was lovely but, like all his meals are reputed to be, absolutely huge. I couldn’t finish it.

We’re going somewhere much nicer than this.”

“What could be nicer than this?” demanded Jo in mock amazement.

“I’m mad for a Dolly Parton Sandwich but I hope they’ve got curried chips on the menu.”

“Curried chips! You can’t be serious!”

Jo tried to look offended.

“I love them, especially with onion rings and battered sausages. Oh yeah, and mushy peas.”

There was me thinking you were one of those types who live off crisp breads remarked Mark.

“I’ve never had to diet,” explained Jo.

“Never used to, anyway,” she added ruefully, thinking of how she’d been eating for three, never mind two, most afternoons when the morning sickness wore off.

“Come on, then,” said Mark.

“I’m starving.”

He tucked her arm under his and they walked on.

Jo felt a spark of excitement ripple through her body at his touch. She didn’t know why, but she wanted to slip one arm around his waist and feel him pull her in close as they walked.

This could not be happening, she thought. She was three months pregnant with one man’s child, an absent man at that, and here she was getting all love struck over another one. Her boss into the bargain. Had jet-lag completely scrambled her brain?

“You’ll love the restaurant we’re going to,” Mark promised.

“It’s like stepping into a scene from Wall Street. The whole place is full of business types in button-down shirts and braces and women with those hard-looking hairdos. All they do is talk about shares, stocks and deals.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No, the men really do wear braces. And bow ties sometimes.

If you were into stock-market espionage, you could learn something here. Well, probably not,” he conceded. The tables are so close together that all the business types know that what you say in Smith and Wollensky’s at half nine at night will be around the city by the time the Dow Jones opens the next morning. So they probably talk in code.”

“It sounds marvellously high-powered,” said Jo in delight.

“It is.”

Smith and Wollensky’s was jam-packed by the time they walked in the door, but an advance call from the Fitzpatrick’s concierge meant that they’d skipped the queue. A table would be ready by nine, the maitre d’ assured them. Jo and Mark squeezed through the people crowded up against the long bar, managed to grab one bar stool for Jo, and ordered drinks.

“I always forget that they don’t measure spirits in this place said Mark with regret, looking at the massive vodka the barman was pouring into a solid glass tumbler.

“It’s like Spain,” Jo said. They don’t seem to have measures there, they just keep pouring until you say stop. If you don’t know the rules and don’t say stop,” she continued, ‘every drink is a hangover waiting to happen. I remember the first time I went to Spain, it was a press trip when I worked with the Sunday News,” she explained, ‘and the entire party spent four days fumbling for aspirin in the morning after the previous night’s party.”

There’s a real drinking culture to journalism, isn’t there?”

asked Mark in a slightly tense tone.

“Is getting drunk all the time part of the scene?”

Jo took a sip of her orange juice and stared at him. He looked stiff, anxious, worried somehow.

“Well, it used to be, years ago. We spent a lot of time in the pub when I started in journalism. Everyone drank a lot more than they do now.” Why was she justifying it? She’d had every right to be drunk and silly if she wanted to. She was only twenty-one at the time, for God’s sake!

“Why do you want to know?”

“No reason,” Mark said quickly, staring at her bottle of orange juice

as if he was memorising the ingredients. He picked up his drink and drained it.

“I think you’re right. I’ll stick to orange juice too. Do you want another one?” he asked.

The penny dropped. Mark thought she was off the booze because she’d been an alcoholic. What a howl! She’d certainly been to enough press receptions where people got pie-eyed, but she’d never been stupid about drinking. It had been years since she’d been plastered. In fact, she could remember precisely the last time it had happened.

“Mark,” she said hesitantly.

“I’m not an alcoholic, I’m not on the wagon, you know. When I started off in journalism, the only people I hung around with were journalists and they all drank like fishes. But not any more. I think we all got sense,” she said, thinking of how the office booze-ups had changed nine years previously. Cirrhosis of the liver had finished off one of the paper’s most talented reporters, a man famous both for his addiction to Scotch and his brilliant investigative journalism.

His death had shocked them all and they drank his health in one five-hour binge at the funeral. Jo said goodbye to the days of non-stop partying at that moment.

“I like wine and an Irish coffee now and again, and that’s it,” she said firmly.

“Well, good champagne is nice, but only if it’s good stuff, not the champagne cider they try and palm you off with at some press receptions.”

Mark stared at her intently. Jo considered the options for a moment should she tell him the reason why she wasn’t drinking? Or should she keep it to herself and have him constantly wondering why she wasn’t joining him for a glass of wine?

No, she decided. She’d keep her pregnancy to herself. Even though Rhona was an excellent editor who’d juggled pregnancies, Caesareans, teething and first days at school along with an incredibly demanding job, Mark mightn’t have the same faith in her doing it like that.

“I have this stomach problem, too much acid,” she improvised quickly.

“I can’t drink when it flares up because alcohol makes everything

worse. But I’ll be fine in a few weeks.” “I’m sorry to hear that you’re sick Mark said, sounding concerned and relieved at the same time.

“You should have told me you weren’t well, I would have got someone else to come to New York.”

“And there was me thinking that I was the only one who could help make the deal,” Jo said in mock misery.

“I think I’ll go home now that I find I’m expendable …”

“No you won’t,” said Mark quickly.

“I’m sorry. You are vital to the deal. I just didn’t want to think that you came because you had to, because I’d ordered it,” he finished slowly. He turned away from her and raised his glass at the barman.

“Another screwdriver and an orange juice,” he commanded.

He didn’t turn back, he kept facing the bar as though he was fascinated by the bottles lined up against the back of the bar.

The change in the atmosphere was palpable. It was as if he’d decided to close himself off, to put up the cool and aloof Denton facade again.

He thought she’d come because he was her boss and his word was law. Maybe it had been like that at first, she reflected. Of course it had. But now, everything was different.

She liked him, liked the warm and funny man who’d been kind enough to keep her mind off her fear of flying, the man who’d noticed her pale face when they were pushing through the airport and had taken care of her luggage. None of these things were the actions of a boss. They were the actions of a friend. She’d worked for him for three years and it was only in the last week that she’d got a glimpse of the sort of person he really was. It was suddenly vitally important that he understood that.

“Mark.” Jo reached out and touched his shoulder, feeling the soft fabric of his jacket under her fingers. Cashmere, she realised, her fashion editor’s instincts coming to the fore.

He turned and his grey eyes stared into her dark ones.

“Nobody made me come,” she said softly.

“I wanted to, and I’m glad I did because I’m really enjoying myself.”

He smiled, the tiny lines around his eyes crinkling up again in a way that Jo was finding unsettlingly sexy.

“Good.” Was it her imagination or was his voice deeper than usual?

The moment was charged with emotions. Jo didn’t know what to say. He held her gaze, then his focus shifted and he stared intently at her face, eyes moving over her flushed cheeks, full lips painted in a burnished bronze colour, eyes fringed with chocolate-coloured lashes.

“Your table is ready, sir.” The slight, Italian waiter broke the spell and they both came to their senses again.

“This way.”

Mark gestured for Jo to go first and she followed the waiter, weaving through a maze of small tables, turning sideways to pass between the gaps where diners had pushed their chairs out from the tables.

She was thinking so hard about the tall man walking behind her, and hoping she looked all right from the back, that she nearly cannoned into another waiter with a tray of shellfish held high above the crowded tables.

“Sorry.” she apologised, stepping aside clumsily. In an instant, Mark’s hand was on her waist, steadying her. It was like being touched by a burning poker, her flesh felt scorched by his touch.

“Madam,” said the waiter as he reached a table for two at the back of the restaurant. He held out Jo’s seat and she sank into the chair. Across the table Mark smiled at her, but said nothing as the waiter handed them menus and a wine list.

The waiter reeled off a list of specials, but Jo heard none of it. Although her eyes were fixed on the waiter’s face, her mind was racing back over the last few minutes, wondering exactly what had happened, what unspoken tension existed between them. She gazed down at the menu blankly.

“What do you think looks good?” asked Mark.

Choose something quickly, she thought. Scallops, yes, she’d have scallops. And melon and Parma ham for a starter.

The melon and scallops,” she said quickly.

The scallops are off the menu, or so the waiter said,” Mark pointed out gently. Jo felt herself blush, a warm flush of colour rising up her

cheeks. It was like being fifteen again. “Did he? I mustn’t have been paying attention she answered.

“Maybe I’ll have the grilled sole.”

“That sounds great,” Mark said. He flicked his wrist and the waiter appeared. Jo marvelled at his ability to summon people instantly. It was his presence, she decided, that made people jump to attention.

When the waiter had been dispatched with their orders, Mark leaned forward with his elbows on the table.

“We haven’t talked business all day he remarked.

“I know we should just enjoy ourselves, but we better discuss our strategy for talking to these people on Tuesday.”

Jo felt herself shrink in her chair. So that was it. The moment was over. Obviously the spark of electricity she’d felt between them had been one-sided. Or else he wasn’t interested and had decided to talk business to make sure she didn’t get the wrong idea. The boss didn’t mingle with the staff. She could take a hint.