DINNER WITH THE PATTERSONS was not amusing.
Tess had never liked The Levee. She wasn’t sure whether it was because all the waiters looked like Donny Osmond and acted like Prince Philip, or if it was because the decor was faux mint marble and real peach linen, or if it was because the menu read like a bad Martha Stewart special.
However, all of that paled beside the company she was keeping.
Kent Patterson was well built and graying, a man of distinction who knew he was a man of distinction. Several people genuflected when he walked into the restaurant and not all of them were waiters. The head-waiter called him by name. He returned the favor. The headwaiter swooned.
Melisande Patterson was not well built. She was skeletal and dry, like scorched paper, tanned to the point of leather, lifted and tucked until she looked like a mummy with platinum hair. Her suit was Chanel, and all she was missing was a Just Say No To Everything button. She surveyed Tess through her lashes and then looked away, as if the sight was too painful to bear.
“Get me out of here,” Tess said under her breath, but Nick pressed her forward.
“Kent, Melisande,” he said. “I’d like you to meet Tess Newhart. Tess, this is Kent and Melisande Patterson. The Pattersons have been like parents to me.”
“It’s been our pleasure, son,” Kent said heartily. He took Tess’s hand. “So here’s the little woman we’ve been hearing about.”
“I’m five nine,” Tess said, and Nick kicked her on the ankle.
“How amusing,” Melisande said, obviously not amused, and before Tess could retort, Park joined them with his date and they all sat down.
Corinne, of course, not Gina.
Tess drew a breath before she spoke to him, and it sounded like a hiss.
“Park!” Nick said hastily. “Great to see you. You’re looking lovely, Corinne.”
“Corinne always looks lovely,” Kent said. “Always has.” He beamed at her and patted her hand, and Corinne smiled wanly back, too reserved for emotion. “I remember when you were just a little slip of a thing, going to Miss Windesham’s with Park. Couldn’t have been more than five or six.” Kent fawned over her paternally. “Always wanted a daughter just like you. Of course it’s not too late to have a granddaughter just like you, is it, Park?”
“No,” Park said miserably.
“But there’s no need to rush into anything, either, is there, Park?” Melisande said evenly.
“No,” Park said, even more miserably.
Corinne seemed oblivious to the byplay but Tess was appalled. She turned questioning eyes on Nick, but he just shrugged. Evidently this was business as usual for the Pattersons. If Park hadn’t been such a son of a bitch, she’d have felt sorry for him.
“Corinne went to Radcliffe,” Melisande said to Tess, turning her fire to a new opponent now that Park was cowed. “We’re both alumnae. Where did you matriculate, Miss Newhart?”
Tess fought back the impulse to ask incredulously, “Somebody gave you a degree?” and smiled, instead. “Ohio State,” she said. “Liberal arts major.”
“Oh, a state school.” Melisande smiled archly and then looked at Nick, raising her eyebrows at him.
“Yes, a state school,” Tess said. “That’s why they call it Ohio State, instead of Ohio Overpriced and Pretentious.” She moved her ankle before Nick could find it with his foot.
Melisande blinked, and then Nick said, “Tess is a teacher. She’s thinking about joining the Decker Academy.”
“Teacher?” Corinne blinked at Tess. “You’re a teacher?”
“Yes,” Tess said gently, having nothing against Corinne except the fact that she existed. “What do you do?”
“Do?” Corinne repeated, confused, and Tess let it drop. The sad fact was that Corinne was perfect for Park. Neither one of them had ever had a coherent thought in their lives. And there was Kent, campaigning for incoherent grandchildren. It would be interesting to see who was going to win, Melisande or Kent. Whoever it was, it wasn’t going to be Park, and Tess felt a stab of sympathy for him. He was a rat, but he was a trapped rat.
Poor Gina.
“So you work for a living,” Melisande said. “How amusing.”
Tess opened her mouth to say something rude and then glanced at Nick. He sat beside her, his face resigned to having his career skewered, and she suddenly felt guilty. It wouldn’t kill her to behave, to help him out. He’d not only helped her out, he’d saved Gina, the other tenants and Angela. Stop being such a pain, she told herself. Then she turned to Melisande and smiled. “Yes. It’s very amusing. Almost like volunteer work. Do you volunteer, Mrs. Patterson?”
“Why, yes.” Melisande blinked in surprise and then happily went into a lengthy discussion of the tribulations of organizing the annual Opera Guild open house. Tess nodded appreciatively at appropriate moments, and then, as the waiter brought the first course, Nick leaned forward.
“Thank you,” he whispered in her ear, and she shuddered with pleasure at the warmth of his breath.
“You deserve this,” she said. “Thank you. For Gina’s job and Angela and everything.”
“My pleasure,” he whispered back, and then he turned his wholehearted fawning attention to Melisande.
Oh, hell, Tess thought, and then she, too, smiled back at Park’s mother.
It was only for one night. What could it hurt?
BY FRIDAY of the following week, Nick was feeling fairly confident. Tess had adapted amazingly well to his social life, he loved coming home to her at night, and Welch was giving every indication he was ready to sign the contract. Tess still wanted to kill Park, and Park knew it— her palpable animosity toward him every time he showed up with Corinne was making him a nervous wreck—but she was managing not to physically harm him. For Tess, that was a major move toward maturity. Nick had even managed to talk her out of telling Gina about Corinne. At the rate he was going, Tess would be civilized in no time.
Nick was pleased.
Of course, not everything was perfect. They’d been out every night for the past week— including two dinners with Norbert Welch— not getting home until after midnight, and while Nick was making social points and solidifying his career with an amazing amount of help from the reserved, newly well-dressed Tess, he was also too tired to make love. The good news was so was Tess —the strain of being calm and polite night after night took its toll— but somehow, that wasn’t a comfort. Nick was grateful for her transformation into a dutiful wife-type person, but he was beginning to feel he might have lost something important.
And tonight, the one night they didn’t have a dinner date, they were stuck touring an old house for the benefit of the Opera Guild. All he really wanted to do was stay home and have Tess rub his neck, but the Opera Guild open house was important to Melisande Patterson, so they had to go.
Then Tess was late getting home from tutoring at the Foundation, which infuriated him. She changed into a black mini and a white shirt topped with a black vest. It wasn’t until he helped her out of the car at the showcase house that he realized the vest was one of his Armani suit vests. He was fairly sure the shirt was his, too.
“You look very nice,” he said tightly. “Feel free to wear anything in my closet.”
“I do,” Tess said. “Look, are you going to be mad at me for long? Because you knew I had to tutor, and I even left early to get to this stupid house thing so—”
“Don’t start,” Nick said grimly, and steered her to the door.
“Mr. Jamieson, how nice!” The starched matron at the door held out her hand graciously. “We were beginning to think you wouldn’t make it.”
“I wouldn’t miss it, Mrs. Tate,” Nick said. “I’d like you to meet a friend of mine, Tess Newhart. Tess, Mrs. Tate practically runs the Opera Guild single-handedly.”
“Oh, nonsense.” Mrs. Tate waved her hand and blushed and melted into a perfectly nice woman charmed by a perfectly nice man. Nick heard Tess sigh and looked over to see her smiling at him, acknowledgi
ng another snake-oil conquest, and he felt his own anger start to dissolve.
“It’s my fault,” Tess said to Mrs. Tate. “I was late getting home from work. Can we still see the house?”
“Oh, of course,” Mrs. Tate said, beaming at her. “In fact, this is a good time. There’s practically no one here now. You can take a nice leisurely tour.”
“Oh, good.” Tess leaned on Nick’s arm and smiled up at him. “Let’s see everything.”
His heart warmed at her smile, and he thought about what life was like with her and what it had been like without her. And then he thought about how he was growing surer and surer that he never wanted to be without her again—no matter how exasperating she could be. Hell, he probably exasperated her some of the time, too. Lighten up, he told himself. There’s such a thing as taking yourself too seriously.
“You look a lot better in that vest than I do,” he told her, and her smile widened and washed over him.
“Well, that’s what I thought,” she said.
The last of his anger disappeared, and he followed her lead as they toured, helping her make lavishly demented plans for redecorating his house in green velvet, pink faux marble and purple gauze. She laughed and darted from room to room, and by the time they reached the fourth floor, the week they’d been celibate loomed large in his mind, and he wanted her so much he wasn’t sure he’d make it home.
“I definitely think we should drape the bathroom in green velvet,” Tess said at the top of the staircase. “It holds in the moisture so nicely.” She leaned against him, and he put his arm around her and kissed her hair, and she laughed up at him, her eyes half-closed.
“Atmospheric,” Nick agreed absently. If they left immediately, he could have her in his bedroom in twenty minutes. “Well, I think we’ve seen...” he began but Tess was pulling him along to the next door.
“Oh, Nick,” she said, and he followed her in.
“Drapes again.” He surveyed the walls that this time were swathed in thick white satin. “What is it with these people and drapery?”
“This looks like your place.” Tess stood beside the black grand piano sitting solitary in the middle of the black-and-white-tiled floor and slowly turned around. The laughter was gone from her voice, and she seemed suddenly forlorn. “All black and white and empty.”
“Well, not exactly empty.” Nick watched her move through the room, her red hair floating like a fireball against the white satin. “There’s the piano and you.”
But Tess had stopped and was staring down at her clothes, appalled. “Even I match. My God, when did I start wearing black and white?”
“You look great,” Nick protested. “And trust me, with that hair, you don’t need to worry about black and white. You’re always in Technicolor.”
“Is this what you want?” she asked him suddenly. She spread her arms and looked down at her clothes. “Is this the way you want me to be?”
He stopped, taken aback. “I want you to be the way you want to be,” he said, confused. “The way you’ve been since you moved in. You mean the clothes? You look great in black and white.”
“That’s not what I mean.” Tess’s face creased in concern, and she turned away from him to run her hands down the keys of the massive grand piano.
“Tess—” Nick stopped as she bent to look at something on the keyboard.
“I don’t believe it,” she said, disgust thick in her voice. “They’ve made this into a player piano.”
“What?”
Tess spun around, indignant. “They’ve not only stripped all the color out of this room, they’ve stripped the people, too. You don’t even need a pianist. Just flip the switch.” She surveyed the room and then turned back to him. “I can’t stand it anymore. I’m starting to be this room. You flip the switch and I act all dignified and cold.” Her jaw clenched as she shook her head. “I don’t want to be this room, Nick. This room needs some excitement in its life. And so do I.” She walked to the side of the piano, and boosted herself up on the top, swinging her legs with sudden abandon and smiling at him evilly. “Come here.”
“Are you crazy?” Nick said, equally appalled and aroused. “Get down from there.”
“Come on, Nick.” Tess stretched out full-length across the piano on her back, letting her arms dangle over the keyboard, and Nick tried hard to keep his mind off her curves and on the get-down-from-there part. “Let’s strike a blow for humanity. Prove you’re not a robot. Come over here and make love to me.”
“Tess—”
“If you’re worried about me destroying a great musical instrument,” Tess said, tipping her head back to look at him upside down, “you can stop. Somebody already did that when they converted it. Can you believe they did that?”
“No,” Nick said, distracted as she rolled over onto her stomach and kicked off her shoes. “What are you doing?”
Tess propped her chin on her hand. “Did you ever see The Fabulous Baker Boys?”
“Yes. Get off that piano.” Nick went to the doorway and checked the hall. There was nobody for miles, which relieved his mind considerably. He turned around to see that Tess was off the piano, which relieved his mind even more. But then she reached under her skirt and peeled off her black bikini underpants, which relieved him not at all. She tossed the pants at him, and he caught them.
“No,” he said, feeling himself tighten as he watched her boost herself back up on the piano.
“How about Pretty Woman?” she asked him.
“No. Get off that piano.” He looked down at the scrap of black lace in his hand and then crammed it into his pocket before it gave him any more ideas than he already had.
Tess crooked her finger at him. “Come here. We’re going to reclaim this morgue in the name of human passion.”
“No, we’re not.” Nick leaned in the doorway, trying to be cool. “Forget it. Get dressed. We’ll go home. We can even stop and pick up a piano on the way if it’s going to have this effect on you, but no, not here.”
“Pretty please?” Tess touched her lips with her tongue and smiled at him from the piano, and he felt the heat turn his brain to mush.
No, no, no, no.
“No,” he said, praying his voice was firm. “We can’t. I don’t have any protection and—” He stopped because Tess had slipped two fingers into her vest pocket and pulled out a condom. “You planned this?”
“Of course not,” Tess said, dropping the condom on the piano. “But I’ve learned a lot from you. Forethought. Initiative.” She batted her eyes. “Drive.”
“Don’t do this to me,” Nick said, and then she began to unbutton her vest, and he went to her to stop her because somebody had to be an adult in their relationship.
He just hoped he could do it.
A LITTLE VOICE IN TESS SAID, “This is really stupid,” but it was drowned out by the louder voice that said, “You’re turning into a Corinne clone. Break away now.” The fear was real and so was the desire. She suddenly needed Nick’s weight on top of her, needed the warmth and the love and the emotion that seemed so faraway in Nick’s house when Nick wasn’t with her— and sometimes even when he was. He was standing in the doorway looking at her with that Jekyll face again, and she wanted the real Nick back. The room was so cold, and the real Nick was so hot, and she wanted him.
So when he came to pull her off the piano, she leaned into him, running her toe up his inseam and loosening his tie as she moved her mouth softly to his neck.
“No,” Nick said, trying to evade her mouth. “Come on, Tess, not here.” He looked over his shoulder. “Anybody could come in here.”
“Oh, please, Nick,” she said against his neck, and he said, “No. Stop it.”
Tess stopped moving her lips down his neck and rested her forehead on his shoulder in defeat. It wasn’t going to work. She had to face facts: if she wanted Nick, it was going to have to be his way. And that meant not just making love in beds, but in everything. She suddenly saw a lifetime of proper dinner parties
and Opera Guild open houses stretching before her, and the thought was so depressing her desire died.
“All right,” she said, and slid off the piano to stand beside him. “Let’s go home.” Nick looked at her, his forehead creased with concern, and she tried to smile up at him. “It’s all right. Let’s go. I was being dumb.”
He leaned down and kissed her gently. “You’re never dumb,” he whispered against her cheek, and then he kissed her again. This time his mouth was hot and sweet, and his tongue tangled with hers, and she felt the heat rise in her again. Then he put his arms around her, and she felt him hesitate as he realized that she didn’t have a bra on. The hesitation was brief, then he moved his hands around to her breasts and she leaned into him, moaning a little as the pressure from his hands eased the ache there.
“Oh, don’t,” she whispered to him. “I want you so much I can’t stand it.”
He kissed her again, his mouth gentle against hers as he tasted her with his tongue. “I can’t stand it, either,” he whispered. “I’ll never make it home.” He put his hands on her waist and boosted her back up onto the piano, catching her mouth with his again.
“Nick?” she said when she came up for air, and he said, “Don’t change too much. I appreciate this week, but don’t change too much.”
As her relief turned to lust, she pulled him to her, wrapping her legs around him and taking his hand to move it under her shirt. His hand was cool on her breast, and she closed her eyes at the pure ecstasy of his touch, and then he pushed her back and rolled onto the piano with her. She moved against his weight and let her head fall back as he pulled up her blouse and took her breast with his mouth. His mouth felt so good and she wanted him so much.
Oh, yes, she thought as the familiar dizzying heat flooded her. Then he shoved her skirt above her hips and pulled her tight against him. She moaned and it was part laughter because it felt so good to be pressed against him after such a long, cold week, and because the cold, hard surface of the piano made the hot, hard weight of him even more exciting. Then his fingers were inside her, and she moved against his hand until she thought she’d die. She bit his shoulder through his jacket and clawed at him while he fumbled with the condom, and he muffled her moans with his mouth, and then he was inside her, and she didn’t think at all anymore.
Strange Bedpersons Page 14
