Okay, she thought that was totally strange. She didn’t want to see a man she didn’t know well try on outfits. She wondered if he wanted her to pay for his clothing too.
She shrugged, hoping it was as elegant as his shrugs had been. “I got a bit of a chill. I need something warm. I’ll wait for you there.”
If he didn’t have money, he would say so now. Or he would back out of this whole thing.
Or she could back out if he got weird.
She waited.
Instead, he smiled ruefully. “Ground level it is. I’ll try not to take too long.”
And he walked away from her into the bright store, all decorated for the holidays. He looked like a model, someone who had arrived at the store to pose for one of the high-end holiday ads—the kind that try to encourage rich people to give their friends and families cars wrapped in giant bows.
She watched until he disappeared behind a gigantic Christmas tree covered with white fairy lights and lots of Bloomingdales’ ornaments. Then she took the escalator to the lowest level and walked into one of the more expensive coffee bars in all of Chicago. She was probably spending what she normally would have spent on lunch just for a cup, but she really did need the warmth.
The coffee bar smelled of freshly ground beans. Several shoppers sat at tables, leaning into each other and conversing softly over tasteful piano jazz versions of Christmas carols.
She ordered a cup of holiday mocha, pulled off her mittens, and stuck them into the pockets of her parka. Places like this always made her self conscious about her clothing. Her feet were cold and soaked inside her leaky boots, her parka had never been in style, and her mittens had been hand-knitted by her mom. At least she hadn’t been wearing the matching hat, although her short bob was probably messed up from the wind.
Here, it wasn’t fun watching rich people enjoy themselves, probably because they could see her spying on them and knew at a glance just how out of place she was. Here, she felt like her homeless teenage self, sneaking inside a place she didn’t belong just for a bit of warmth.
She sipped at her drink, but mostly used the ceramic mug to warm her hands. As she warmed up, she slipped off the parka, revealing the bulky, hand-me-down sweater she usually wore on days she didn’t plan to see anyone.
And of course, she was now shopping with the most handsome man she had ever met, a man who looked stunning in a tux, a man who had taken one look at her and decided to cast her in the best-friend role in a buddy comedy. She wasn’t sure why that made her feel sad. She wasn’t interested in him, was she? A man who was running away from a party, who hadn’t really said much to her as she ferried him to his destination?
He hadn’t even apologized for taking her time. The fact that she was annoyed about that one fact would have made her college friends from out of state laugh at her.
Overzealous apologizers, Verity had called Midwesterners. If you don’t start with an apology, you’re considered rude.
Raine’s cheeks heated at the memory. Her blush response was getting a big workout today. She smiled to herself. Verity had been right: the default apology actually meant something to Raine.
The fact that Niko North hadn’t done it was yet more confirmation that he was Not From Here.
“There you are.”
She looked up from her steaming mug.
Niko was standing beside her. She hadn’t seen him enter the coffee bar.
She had thought he looked good in a tux, but he looked even better now. He was wearing a pale blue, cable knit sweater that showed off his broad shoulders and flat stomach. He had tucked a pair of blue jeans into brown work boots. He had a heavy black coat draped over his shoulders. In his left hand, he held paper shopping bags with Bloomie’s special holiday logo emblazoned on them. They probably held his tux and shoes.
With his right hand, he set down a beautifully wrapped package in front of her. The wrapping was white, decorated with a sparkly gold ribbon tied in a magnificent bow.
The box was huge. It looked like one of the fake presents under the Christmas trees decorating every floor of this mall.
She swallowed. Verity would still laugh. The Politeness Dilemma, she would call it. How do you say no to a kindness without insulting the kind person? Verity would’ve been blunt, but blunt wasn’t coming to mind for Raine.
“I—um—what’s that?” She suddenly hoped she had made an incorrect assumption. She hoped he wasn’t giving her anything. She hoped he had bought a holiday gift for a friend or family member while he was here, and had simply set it on the small table in front of her.
The snobby rich people around her were watching surreptitiously from their tables. The conversations had trailed off, except for a pair of businessmen in the corner, discussing the day’s latest stock reports.
“I wanted to get you something for your trouble,” Niko said.
That blush that never entirely faded warmed her entire face. At least she wasn’t cold anymore (except her feet. She wouldn’t be able to warm up her feet until she got home).
She weighed her possible responses.
You didn’t have to was Midwestern for Thank you so much. You surprised me!
I can’t accept this was rude.
Thank you meant I’m thrilled.
So, she blurted, “It’s been no trouble.”
Even though it had been a little. She had gone out of her way to bring him here, and it had cost a parking fee and the stupid holiday drink, which she wasn’t going to finish.
Niko smiled softly. The change of clothing made him look younger, more accessible, like an actual person instead of a male model. Plus, his blond hair was slightly mussed from pulling the sweater over his head, and it gave him a just-out-of-bed tousled look.
Her breath caught. So she was interested. Which was wrong in so many ways.
He glanced at the package, then back at her. He seemed amused instead of offended.
“My family specializes in gifts,” he said. “We always give gifts, generally to people who never give us anything. It feels so good for me to give you something in return for your time. Please, let me do what my family does.”
How could she say no to that? This was turning into the strangest few hours of her life.
She gave him a weak smile. “Okay,” she said, and in that wobbly word, she could hear every doubt she’d ever had about him. He probably could too.
He set the bags down and pulled up the chair opposite her. He put his chin on his palm, tilted his head, and watched her fumble with the present.
It was bulky and a little heavy. She leaned back, and set her mug on the newly emptied table behind her, so she wouldn’t spill liquid on the present.
“It’s too pretty to unwrap,” she said, hoping she would get a reprieve. She could open this at home, or figure out a way to stuff the present back into one of the bags. (Okay, that was rude, too. She would never do that, either. She was rather appalled that the thought had even crossed her mind.)
“Presents are always about the possibilities, aren’t they?” he asked. “When they’re wrapped, they can be anything.”
Or nothing, she thought. She’d opened too many presents at the homeless shelters that had vouchers inside. She would rather have had the voucher directly, or in an envelope, than suffer through the anticipation of a present.
“But do open it,” he said gently. “The wrapping is a lot less important than what’s inside.”
Her stomach clenched. Was he transforming into creepy stalker guy, doing inappropriate things just because she was nice to him?
The entire shop had gone quiet. She gave him her most brilliant smile (which felt totally fake) and then slid the present toward her.
She carefully untied the ribbon and draped it over one of the empty chairs. If she were honest with herself, that ribbon was too pretty to crumple up and waste on a five-minute package wrap.
She would take the ribbon and the wrapping to her parents’ small apartment, the place they lived now that t
hey had gotten back on their feet. Her parents still saved the tiniest things.
She willed thoughts of her family out of her mind as she slipped her finger under one of the pieces of tape and released the side of the wrapping. She loosened the rest of it to reveal a large, solid, cardboard box inside. She couldn’t read the manufacturer’s name—she had opened it from the wrong side.
The blood had left her face for the very first time in hours as she caught an inkling of what might be inside. She hoped that the clerk or the temp employee or whoever had wrapped this lovely present had just used a discarded box, maybe one from Niko’s personal buying spree.
The box was for boots.
She unwrapped just a bit more, then slipped the box out of the wrapping, setting the paper on the seat of that empty chair. She peeled back the box’s lid to reveal expensive waterproof boots that went up to mid-calf.
“I couldn’t…” she started, then realized just how rude she was sounding. But she really couldn’t. It was an outrageously expensive gift, especially from someone she had just met.
“I guessed at the size,” Niko said, “but since we’re here, we can just go up and exchange them if they don’t fit.”
“I can’t…”
“You said your boots leak,” he said. “That’s just not acceptable.”
It wasn’t acceptable, but she couldn’t afford boots—especially not boots like this. Despite herself, she ran her hands over them. She could feel the waterproofing, the thickness of the exterior, the warm fake fur inside.
She wanted these. She wanted them more than she could say. They were perfect—and they were in her size.
“We just met,” she said so softly that, for a moment, she wondered if she had spoken aloud.
Niko let his hand drop away from his chin and sat up just a little. Then he added one of those eloquent shrugs. “I know. I acted on my culture’s customs, not yours. I did not mean to alarm you.”
His accent was a little stronger than it had been earlier. She wondered if that was deliberate.
“If I have upset you—”
“No,” she lied. What was wrong with her? He had been generous. And no one had ever done anything like this for her before. Was it normal among the rich? Was it charity? Or was it something else? “You didn’t upset me.”
His gaze hadn’t left hers. It felt like he could see inside of her, like he could see the lie.
There was no good way to say no to the boots. Except “no,” Verity would have said. And honestly, Raine didn’t want to refuse the boots. She’d had her leaky pair for two years. She often lined them with garbage bags, but she had forgotten to do that this morning.
She started, “It’s just that no one has ever—” and before she could finish, he was on his feet, and walking toward the counter of the coffee bar.
She felt disoriented. The fact that he left was even stranger than the gift.
“—done anything like this for me before,” she finished.
Although she wondered if that were true. Verity had essentially given her a car. But it had been a car that Verity—whose parents were filthy rich—would have either sold or traded in or abandoned in her second parking space.
Niko had bought Raine a gift—a thoughtful gift—on the basis of an hour’s acquaintance.
She moved the boots to the seat of the empty chair and stared at them. She felt off-balance.
Niko returned, carrying a steaming mug.
“Sorry,” he said, and for a very brief half second, she thought he was apologizing for the gift.
The overzealous apologizer in her felt satisfied with that, but another part of her felt disappointed. She didn’t want him to apologize, not deep down. She realized she liked the gift, the special treatment.
Jeez, she was being weird. She simply did not know how to handle this at all.
She was fretting so hard she almost missed the rest of what he was saying. “I didn’t mean to walk away, but that thing you were drinking looked so good that I just had to get one.”
Before he sat down again, he grabbed her drink and put it back on the table. He glanced at the boots, and she wondered if he was going to comment on where she had set them. She hadn’t even tried them on.
“I’m getting hungry,” he said. “Is there somewhere around here where we can have a good dinner?”
Her expression must have changed for a very brief moment, because he frowned just a bit.
“Dinner had been part of the bargain for you bringing me down here,” he said. “I offered to treat, if you’ll recall.”
“But with these boots…” she said.
His gaze slipped away from hers. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.”
And she was making a bigger deal out of it than he was, apparently.
She felt stupid, but also odd. The boots had made her realize the risk she had taken driving him down here. He seemed nice—he seemed nicer than nice. He seemed too nice, if there were such a thing.
Maybe it was her problem (hell, it was her problem), but she’d read too many detective stories, watched too many true crime programs on television, and listened to stories from too many women she’d interviewed for the serious news stories she’d done before she got her “real” job.
Stalkers often started this way. They were too attentive right from the beginning. They found women like her, women who had had too many hard knocks, and then they treated that woman like gold. The problem was, they wouldn’t leave her alone, even if she wanted to be left alone.
And instead of meeting Niko when she was at her work or even at her best, she had met him when she’d been peering at a party in a mansion, like a little kid who’d been forbidden to mingle with the grown-ups.
“I’m…afraid I’m going to pass on dinner.” Raine just couldn’t handle it. Yes, he was gorgeous. Yes, he was nice. And yes, he was odd. She was too cautious—too paranoid—to deal with odd.
(Or maybe she was too screwed up to deal with nice. She had to examine that as well—later, when he wasn’t staring at her with those intense blue eyes.)
A tiny frown appeared just above his nose, adding to his attractiveness, weirdly enough. He didn’t understand.
She didn’t expect him to. She wasn’t going to explain herself. They had just met, and things had gotten weird, and she—
Oh, heck, they’d started weird. I’m about to run away. What was that all about?
“I’ll drive you anywhere you want,” she said, “but I’m not comfortable with…”
She was going to finish with the word “you,” which was half a lie, because she was comfortable with him—at least her body was. She leaned toward him, she thought he was attractive, she liked him.
But her brain and her survival instincts wouldn’t let her go any farther. Too many red flags. And she didn’t want to say that, because he’d bought her the boots. Because she found him attractive. Because she had the sense that he was nice.
“It’s all right.” He put his hand over hers. His fingers were warm and strong. “I understand.”
Yet he said it in one of those tones that implied he didn’t understand at all. Not that she blamed him. She wasn’t sure she understood all of it either.
Just like she didn’t understand why she wasn’t pulling her hand away. She was sending mixed messages, and she felt vaguely guilty about that.
He took his hand off hers a half a second before she pulled away.
“And,” he said, that accent still strong. “It’s all right. You do not have to drive me. I will take a cab.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I do,” he said. “I have made you uncomfortable. For that I am sorry. We do not really know each other, do we, and I presumed.”
He inclined his head. The apology was there, and it was almost enough to get her to change her mind. She would have too, if there weren’t butterflies gathering in her stomach.
“Thank you,” she said, and stood. She wasn’t certain if she was thanking him for be
ing understanding, or thanking him for the boots, or thanking him as a reflexive gesture—the flip side of that Midwestern politeness: if in doubt (and I’m sorry isn’t appropriate) say Thank you.
She stood, folded the wrapping paper and ribbon and placed them inside the boot box, and then slipped on her coat. She gathered the box against her chest.
“It was really nice to meet you,” she said lamely.
His smile was sad. There were no eloquent shrugs to go with it. “It was nice to meet you as well.”
She turned away before she could change her mind, and hurried out of the coffee bar. For a brief moment, she toyed with going back inside and trying to explain herself, but she didn’t.
She rode the escalator up to the level where she had come in, wondering if she should return the boots and tell the clerks to refund his credit card. That would be the smart thing.
But she needed boots, and she had almost no money, and she decided that she could suck up her pride for this one thing, even though it felt odd.
Although she knew she would think of him every time she put on the boots, and she would wonder if she’d handled this entire situation correctly.
Maybe someday, she might even know the answer.
4
THE NEXT MORNING, she drove back to Lincoln Park. The press conference was being held in the reception room of the large mansion she had spied on the night before.
The mansion was open to the public in the holiday season, just so that the unwashed could see what kind of decorations someone with money could slather all over a ten thousand square foot home. Raine had gone once, years ago, with her college friends, who’d oooed and ahhhed over each little bauble.
She hadn’t oooed or ahhhed. She had walked through in thin-lipped silence, noting how much clothing (or food) each doodad could have bought for children like the one she had once been.
She had a hunch she would be even less happy to be here this morning. In addition to the expensive doodad Christmas show, the press conference was bogus make-work, just like most press conferences she attended for the Life and Style section. This press conference was being held by an international conglomerate with the cutesy name of Claus & Company. Some corporate bigwig was making an announcement about Claus & Company’s new gift-giving program for people in need.
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