Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Greg pulled into the driveway at seven on the dot. The convertible Jaguar F-Type gleamed under the porch light, and so did Greg.
He’s a good-looking guy. The dark hair silvered at the temples in a way that suggested distinguished rather than aging, and the blue eyes that turned toward me were warm and appreciably admiring.
“You look beautiful,” he said, and managed to make it sound both sincere and not like a line he’d used a thousand times before.
“Thank you.” I’d changed into a leather skirt and a designer label blouse that had cost more than my first car, back when David was still alive and spending money on me. I hadn’t been on a date since the last time Greg was in town, and a little effort seemed warranted.
Behind me, Edwina let out a mournful whine from her position just inside the door.
“I know, girl,” I told her through the glass. “I’ll be back soon.”
She gave me a look of betrayal before turning and stalking back into the house, her stub of a tail held at a displeased angle.
Greg smiled. “Uh-oh. Someone’s in trouble.”
I assumed he meant me and not Edwina. “She’ll get over it by the time I get back.”
I dropped my keys in my purse, then let Greg guide me to the passenger side of the Jaguar with a hand at the small of my back. His palm was warm through the thin fabric of my blouse.
“Let me help you with your coat.”
He took it out of my hands and shook it out.
I had left it off partly to give the impression that I hadn’t been standing there ready and waiting—just grabbing the coat on my way through, you know, because I’d been so busy up until he drove up—and partly to give him a better look at the goods.
Since I had already made the impression I had hoped to make, I let him wrap it around me before handing me into the car.
His hands lingered for just a second on my shoulders, unless I imagined it, of course.
Greg settled into the driver’s seat and started the engine, which purred to life with the kind of sound that probably cost extra.
“So,” he said as we pulled away from the curb, “how have you been? It’s good to see you.”
“Likewise,” I told him. “How was the trip?”
He had texted me throughout his sojourn, so I knew the part before the return home had gone well, but it was only polite to inquire.
“Exhausting,” Greg said cheerfully. “The Italian leg was particularly good. Florence, Rome, Milan—God, Gina, you would have loved it. The food alone was worth the jet lag.”
He launched into a description of his time in Italy that was both entertaining and clearly designed to make me wish I’d been there.
The hotel in Florence with the rooftop terrace overlooking the Duomo.
The restaurant in Rome where they’d served him the best carbonara he’d ever tasted, made by a grandmother who’d been cooking it the same way for sixty years.
The bookstore in Milan where the owner had insisted on closing the shop so they could have espresso and talk about American crime fiction.
I listened and made appropriately appreciative noises, because it really did sound wonderful. Greg had a way of telling stories that made you feel like you were there, probably the reason why people kept buying his books.
“You should come with me next time,” he said, glancing over at me. “I think you’d love Venice. It’s tourist-infested and overpriced and absolutely magical.”
Next time. The presumption in those two words sat between us like a third passenger.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Greg. Of course not.
He was nothing but likeable: successful, solvent, and sophisticated.
Charming and age-appropriate. He had no criminal record, no secret family, no history of embezzlement or affairs.
He was attentive without being clingy, interesting without being self-absorbed, and he seemed to genuinely care about me and my life rather than just be on the lookout for arm candy or someone to warm his bed during those cold Wyoming winters.
He was also coming on quite strong.
Not in a bad way, necessarily. There was nothing aggressive about it, nothing to make me feel uncomfortable.
But he was determined, as if he had decided I was the one and he was prepared to pursue that conclusion to its natural end.
It should have been romantic, and maybe it was.
If we’d been on the same page, I dare say it would have been.
I just wasn’t sure I was ready for another relationship so soon after getting rid of David.
We’d been separated when he died, yes. And he’d been a bastard, true.
I had no fond feelings for him, even if I appreciated, at least to a degree, what eighteen years with him had gotten me.
But it had also been almost two decades of sharing my life and home and bed with one man. Two months of downtime didn’t seem like quite enough before I made another attempt at being someone’s wife.
But none of that meant that I couldn’t enjoy tonight. And, I reminded myself, I also had other reasons for wanting to go to Sambuca Ristorante, aside from Greg’s company. I couldn’t lose sight of that.
As he pulled into the parking lot and found a spot near the front entrance, I pushed all thoughts of David and marriage aside, and gave him a beaming smile.
The interior of Sambuca Ristorante was exactly as I remembered it: aggressively upscale but in a way that suggested old money and older traditions.
The walls were exposed brick and dark wood paneling, hung with black-and-white photographs of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and other Rat Pack luminaries.
The Hollywood equivalent of the 1950s kitsch at the PI office, and probably for the same reason.
Jacquie would have been appalled. Sinatra’s voice crooned from hidden speakers, platitudes about summer wind and autumn leaves.
The lighting was low and golden, casting everything in a warm, romantic glow.
The ma?tre d’ greeted Greg by name—of course he did—and led us to a table in the corner that was probably the best in the house.
White tablecloth, real silver, a small arrangement of white roses in the center.
Our waiter appeared almost immediately, a distinguished-looking man in his sixties with a thick Italian accent that might or might not have been genuine.
“Signore Newsome, so good to see you again. And signorina, welcome.”
I managed not to roll my eyes at the ‘signorina.’ At forty and a widow, I’m well past that particular label, although if the waiter knew Greg, he probably also knew that we weren’t married, and in that case, the ‘signorina’ was at least accurate.
Greg ordered wine—in fluent Italian; a Barolo that probably cost more than my electric bill—and the waiter disappeared with promises to return shortly.
“You must come here often,” I said, “if everyone knows you by name.”
“Often enough.” He smiled. “It’s my mother’s favorite for special occasions. The food is excellent, and Luigi takes good care of me when I’m in town.”
Of course.
He added, “I hope you don’t mind that I ordered the wine without asking. If you’d prefer something else—”
“Not at all.” I love wine, and I’m familiar enough with most of it that I know what’s good and what isn’t. Not that anything they served here wouldn’t be expensive enough to have lost that edge of battery acid, anyway.
Now that I was here again, I remembered more clearly the previous time I’d had the pleasure, if you want to call it that.
We’d been wining and dining some prospective client David had been trying to woo away from another financial advisor, along with the client’s wife.
I couldn’t remember their names anymore, but I could recall that the evening had been interminable.
We’d sat in a booth on the other side of the restaurant, one that was currently occupied by two gentlemen in suits, one older and one younger, and their dates.
There was enough of a resemblance between the two women that I pegged them for mother and daughter, so probably a family occasion of some sort.
A birthday, maybe, or an engagement celebration.
Whatever it was, it seemed happy. Everyone looked like they were getting along far better than I had with the rest of the party in my scenario.
I’d been a decade and a half younger than anyone else at the table, and I’d had very little in common with any of them, even my own husband.
David and the prospective client had bonded over golf—handicaps and club memberships and some tournament at Pebble Beach—while I’d been stuck making conversation with the wife, who’d been old enough to be my mother, and who must have known that David had left his first wife for me, because she had given me the beady eye all through dinner and refused to talk about anything other than her children and grandchildren, almost as if she were afraid I’d be going for her husband next and she had to make sure I knew what a strong marriage they had.
David had been furious with me on the drive home.
I hadn’t been charming enough, hadn’t connected with the wife in the way I was supposed to, hadn’t helped him seal the deal.
It didn’t matter that the wife and I had absolutely nothing in common, or that David flaunting me in her face was a reminder of her own vulnerable position rather than the opposite.
I was supposed to be an asset, not a liability.
The bastard.
I pushed the memory away and focused on Greg, who was looking at me with concern.
“Everything all right?”
“Fine,” I said. “Just remembering the last time I was here. It wasn’t a particularly pleasant evening.”
“With your ex?”
I nodded. “Trying to woo some old guy with a lot of money, and his wife. It didn’t go well.”
“That’s a shame,” Greg said, reaching across the table to cover my hand with his, “but hopefully tonight will be better.”