“For God’s sake, come in,” Robin said. “Don’t leave the door open. It’s freezing out there.”
“California Boy thinks thirty-seven degrees is freezing.” Jules now came down the stairs, tying his tie, as Will came in and Dolphina reluctantly closed the door behind him.
Her cell phone rang, and she glanced at the number, immediately silencing it as she saw who was on the other end. Just what she needed right now—Mr. I Need to Talk to Jules or Robin Immediately, Regardless of the Fact That Neither of Them Wish to Speak to Me. Let him get bumped to voicemail, because no, she had not spoken to Jules or Robin yet this morning. It was one of the other issues she had intended to discuss with them—before Will had shown up early.
And before she’d received the mail.
“Will should come back later,” she told her two bosses, neither of whom paid her the slightest attention.
“It’s much colder than that with the wind chill,” Robin was defending himself to Jules as he moved to the little table by the front door and flipped through the latest stack of catalogues.
“Wait until January, sweetie,” Jules told Robin with a laugh. “Then we’ll talk about wind chill.” He headed for the kitchen and the coffee, even as Will took off his overcoat.
Oh, no. No, no. Leave that on. “I really do need you to come back later,” Dolphina tried speaking directly to Will.
Of course, this was when Robin glanced up. “He’s here now, what’s the big?”
The big is that your freaking father isn’t coming to your wedding, and someone—probably me—is going to have to show you that awful note that he wrote. Things not to say in front of a reporter. Dolphina gritted her teeth, and said, “We do have some business to discuss before you go.”
“How many Pottery Barn catalogues do two men need, anyway?” Robin mused.
Enough was enough.
“Reporter in the house!” Dolphina shouted at the top of her lungs, and both Will and Robin turned to look at her in varying degrees of surprise.
Jules even came back from the kitchen, no doubt to see if she’d completely lost her mind.
“Sorry,” she added at a more normal level, in that special tone she reserved for when she wasn’t feeling particularly apologetic. “But I just feel as if there should be some kind of warning—maybe a red light flashing when he’s here? Guys, he’s not your new friend Will. He’s a reporter for The Boston Globe. He’s here to write about you. Don’t say anything stupid.”
“You mean, like, Hey, Dolph, things got a little rambunctious last night and my pig mask broke. Will you be a sweetheart and order me a new one?” Robin said. “In fact, better get two.”
Jules cracked up as he went back to his single-minded coffee quest.
“Glad to see you have a sense of humor about that,” Will told Robin.
Who shot him a look. “Barely.”
“Where should I put this?” Will asked Dolphina—this being his coat.
“Back. On,” she said, even as Robin asked, “Where’s the rest of the mail?”
Oh, hell.
He went into the office before she could stop him or otherwise try to distract him—where was Jules when she needed him? But now her job was to get Will out of there before the mail hit the fan.
“I’ll take that.” She snatched his coat from him, tossing it over the newel post as she grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the living room. “Why don’t you go into the kitchen and get yourself some coffee?”
“Son of a bitch,” Robin expleted from the other room.
“Seriously, Will,” Dolphina said when he seemed more interested in Robin’s outburst than the coffee, hoping against hope that the man who’d been so kind to her on Thanksgiving morning was somewhere in those sneakers and that surprisingly soft green sweater. “Please go into the kitchen. Now?”
Will had no clue what was going on, but whatever he saw in her eyes made him nod, and head more rapidly in that direction.
But Robin came to the office door and stopped him. “Don’t go anywhere, Will.” He looked at Dolphina. He was trying hard to pretend that he wasn’t upset. He was good. The man could act his butt off, but she knew better. “What’s the point? Everyone’s going to find out sooner or later, anyway. I’d rather have it be a news item now, than on our wedding day.”
Oh, dear. She raised her voice. “Jules, could you please come here for a sec?”
Robin tapped the response card with one of his long, graceful fingers as he told Will. “My father’s not coming to the wedding.”
Jules, of course, heard him as he came back out of the kitchen. “Oh, sweetie,” he said. “I’m sorry to hear that.” He looked at Dolphina to verify. “We finally got his response?”
She nodded, reaching to take his mug of coffee from him as he went to Robin’s side. “He wrote a note, too,” she warned him, and as she saw a solid oh, no in Jules’s eyes, she nodded. It was bad.
“Apparently, we’re making a mockery of the sanctity of marriage.” Robin laughed. “Jesus. This is the man who’s filed for divorce seven times due to ‘irreconcilable differences’—which translates into him wanting to have sex with someone else. Then he gets married again—until he gets bored and divorces her. Which he can do easily, since he always makes them sign a prenup.” He shook his head, talking now to Jules. “We shouldn’t have invited him. I knew he’d do something like this.”
But he’d hoped otherwise.
Robin turned back to Will. “Why don’t you write one of your columns on the fact that Jules and I don’t have a prenup? He wanted to, but I refused. You can tell everyone that I’m marrying him because I love him, because I want to share my life with him. And it’s only fair that he gets to share the good stuff, since he’s also forced to endure this kind of bullshit that I bring with me to the table.”
Jules gently took the response card out of Robin’s hand and tore it in half. “We don’t need this.”
Dolphina leaped forward to take it from him, and he smiled his thanks even though his eyes were sad.
“May I state for the record,” Robin still had more to say, and Dolphina crossed her fingers, hoping that he remembered this really was on the record, “that in just a few weeks’ time, I’m marrying this man because I want to be with him forever.” He looked at Jules. “We do this, and I’m never letting you go. This is not some two-year experiment, a la Dad. This is it. We make it work. Even when bad shit happens—we don’t quit. I’m not going to quit.”
“I’m not either,” Jules said evenly. “I’m in this forever, too.”
And there they stood. Looking at each other, gazes locked. Dolphina wasn’t sure what Jules silently said to Robin in that moment, but whatever it was, it took the edge off his anger. Which maybe wasn’t such a good thing, at least not with an audience, because without it, Robin couldn’t hide his hurt.
“Come here,” Jules said as he pulled Robin with him toward the privacy of the office. “This note from your father…it’s really just…terribly sad. He’s obviously tried so hard to find happiness. But it always escapes him because he still doesn’t have the slightest clue what love really is.”
“I know that,” Robin said. “I do. It’s just…You have such a great family, babe. All I’ve got is Janey. And Cos, and his mom, sure, but…”
“Well, now you’ve got me, too.” As Jules closed the door behind them, Dolphina heard him say, “And you know that my mother adores you.”
She could hear the halting murmur of Robin’s voice in reply as she turned to Will. “Let’s get some coffee.” In the kitchen. Way on the other side of the house.
He nodded. “Okay.”
He followed her in silence, watching as she tossed the torn-up response from Robin’s father in the kitchen trash. She could tell he wanted to see it, but he managed to restrain himself from diving in after it. In fact, he didn’t even move from where he’d propped himself against the far counter.
“Coffee’s self-serve,” Dolphina said. Best to t
each him the house rules now. “Mugs are in here. Sugar’s over here, if you need it. Milk’s in the fridge.”
“Thanks.”
She glanced at him as he came to her side of the kitchen, waiting while she poured her own mug of coffee.
“I’m sorry,” Will said, “that I, um, made that more stressful for you.”
She looked at him again, this time letting him catch and hold her gaze. He wasn’t kidding. He was truly apologetic.
He smiled slightly. “That must’ve sucked—opening the mail to find that?”
Dolphina nodded. She wasn’t sure what kind of reaction she’d imagined Robin would have. And all she could think now was thank God Jules had been home.
Will was thinking along the same lines. “He’s really good for Robin, isn’t he?” he said. “Jules.”
“Yes, he is.”
He broke their eye contact, looking down into his empty mug. “When I got married, I thought it would be forever. She, um, had other ideas about what marriage meant.”
He looked back at her, and now it was Dolphina who couldn’t meet his gaze. “Maggie told me about your divorce.”
Will laughed. “Of course she did. Did she tell you…?” He answered his own question. “All the gory details. She is so dead.”
“What’s so awful about the truth?” Dolphina asked, unable to keep from laughing, too, at his mock outrage. “You were the injured party.”
His smile faded, and for the briefest moment, she saw something uncertain in his eyes. In that instant, he seemed vulnerable, and about ten years younger. “I was the fool.” He said it quietly but absolutely, and something twisted in her stomach.
Because she knew exactly how he felt. And yet, she felt compelled to disagree. “For believing in forever?” she asked him.
“Do you honestly think it’s possible?” he countered.
“For Robin and Jules?” Dolphina asked. “Absolutely. In fifty years, I am going to be organizing their golden anniversary party.” She finally relinquished the coffee pot, giving him space to pour.
He laughed. “If you survive whatever catastrophe the rest of today brings.”
Dolphina shot him a look. “It’s not always so dramatic around here.”
Apparently, Will, too, drank his coffee black. He continued to gaze at her as he took a sip. “Why don’t I believe that?”
“How is Maggie?”
“Changing the subject,” he mused. “All right. She’s great. In fact, she wants to know if you want to have dinner with us. Maybe some time this week.”
Maggie wanted to have dinner. Dolphina gazed back at Will. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Oh, come on—”
“I actually try to relax during dinner,” Dolphina informed him. “To be honest, when I’m around you, I’m…on my guard.”
She’d obviously surprised him. “It’d be off the record.”
She shot him a disbelieving look. “And if something I say during dinner shows up in one of your columns…? Which it will. Then I’ll be furious and this truce we’ve managed to form will be over, and the next few weeks will be a living hell. For both of us.”
He nodded, because he knew she was right. “Have I mentioned how much I hate this assignment?”
“Friday,” she said. “On the phone. Yes.” He’d gone into some detail, in fact.
“I hate it even more today.” Will snorted. “I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.”
“Next topic,” she said, putting her mug down on the center island, and pulling over a pad and pen she’d set out in anticipation of this discussion. She’d jotted down a short list of matters to discuss, and she quickly reviewed them now. “I’d like to read your columns in advance of your submitting them.”
“Read?” he asked. “Or censor?”
“Read,” she repeated. “Fact check.”
No way. She could see it clearly in his eyes as he pretended to consider it, gazing into his coffee. “No, but thank you,” he said, as if she’d offered to do him a favor. It was remarkably diplomatic. “I’ll check my own facts. I’ve already handed in today’s piece—it’s a reworking of my original article. I managed to squeeze two days out of it, so I’m good until Wednesday.”
Dolphina didn’t try to argue. She just crossed it off her list. “Next topic. If you give me a list of possible subjects for future columns, I can help—”
“Steer me toward the ones that are least problematic for you,” he finished for her. “Sure, why not? But I already know one thing I’m going to be writing about. It’s occurred to me that with the President attending the wedding, the entire guest list is going to have to be screened by…who? The Secret Service or the FBI?”
Great. If Dolphina had made a list of topics that she, Jules and Robin most didn’t want Will to start nosing around about, that one would’ve been right at the top.
“I’m afraid I can’t discuss that,” Dolphina said, as her cell phone rang.
Oh, double great. The number two topic of discussion that Dolphina most didn’t want to have with a reporter was calling her again. Again, she silenced her phone.
“So what do you have to do in this situation, call everyone up and get their social security numbers?” Will asked. “That’s kind of invasive and awkward, isn’t it? Anyone refuse?”
“Yes, it is,” Dolphina agreed, “and no they haven’t. Which reminds me, I’ll be needing yours and Maggie’s. Unless you want to see what happens when you refuse…?”
“Good idea, but no. My editor told me to play nice.”
Showing up two hours early was his idea of playing nice?
“Has anyone on the guest list been red-flagged yet?” Will asked. “And if so, how do you handle that? Uninvite them?”
“No comment,” she said. “Seriously, Will, I’m asking you to go in a different direction, please.”
“You’re kidding, right? This is one of the few interesting stories here,” he countered. “What is the protocol when the President attends your wedding and crazy Uncle Frank gets red-flagged?”
It was a very good question, and one they were currently dealing with, since one of Jules’s very good friends, a man named Davis Jones, had come up on the President’s private “no fly” list. So to speak.
Dolphina didn’t yet know how this problem was going to be solved, but knowing Jules, he was far more likely to uninvite the President than uninvite his very good friends Dave and Molly Jones.
“I’d like to talk to Jules about this,” Will said. “As an FBI agent, he’s surely got some insights. And I want to set up a time to talk to Robin about the new series he’s working on with Art Urban. Plus, I’m going to need some fairly regular blocks of time to sit down with both of them, together. Please let them know I’ll be taking pictures at those times.”
“You’ll be taking them? Doesn’t the Globe usually send over a real photographer?” Dolphina glanced up from the notes she was taking, and the look he gave her was cryptic.
“I am a real photographer,” he finally said. “At least I am now. I guess Maggie didn’t give you all the gory details about my divorce. My ex was my photographer. And after…I just…now prefer working alone.”
“It’s hard to trust anyone after getting hurt like that,” Dolphina agreed.
“Spoken like someone who’s been there, done that,” Will mused. “So who exactly was this Simon guy?”
Dolphina laughed her surprise. “Maggie does have a very big mouth, doesn’t she?”
“Yup, so who was he?”
“It’s not like he’s dead,” Dolphina protested.
“Is implies you’re still hung up on him,” Will pointed out.
“I’m not.” She was not talking about this with him. She tapped her pen on her pad. “Next topic?”
“That’s why you were so pissed when you thought I was what’s-his-name,” Will realized. “Kuhlman. Robin’s real estate agent. You thought you were getting hit on by another married dickhead—No, that must ha
ppen to you a lot…” He laughed as he figured it out. “You were pissed because you thought you were attracted to another married dickhead.”
Dolphina couldn’t believe him. “You have an incredible amount of nerve—”
“Oh, come on,” he scoffed. “What, you want to just pretend it doesn’t exist—this crazy chemistry between us? I’m very attracted to you, too. Very.”
The heat in his eyes made her take a step back, and he laughed.
“Don’t worry,” he continued. “I’m not going to kiss you. But, for the record, it’s not because I don’t want to. I want to make that absolutely clear.”
Dolphina found her voice. “This is…inappropriate.”
“No, it’s not. Inappropriate would be me kissing you again, the way I did in my apartment. God, that was sweet. I could’ve kissed you like that for hours…” His voice trailed off. “Next topic?”
He was mocking her, she knew that, but she desperately wanted to change to a safer subject, so she looked down at her pad, which didn’t help because she was suddenly unable to read her own handwriting. God, that was sweet… Dear God, indeed.
“Oh, you know what else I was thinking?” Will said, snapping his fingers, as if their conversation hadn’t just swerved, hard, into the danger zone. “For one of my columns? I thought it would be interesting to talk to what’s-his-name.” He took a little leather-bound notepad from his back pocket, flipping through it. “The actor. Wyndham.” He found the page he was looking for. “Adam. I did some research last night, and I read an interview he did where he said that he’s Jules’s ex—that’s how he got the audition for the part in that movie he was in with Robin. American Hero.”
Dolphina tried to hide her horror, which was hard, because she was still so distracted by…“I’m not sure Adam is a good candidate—”
“Are you kidding?” Will said. “He’s perfect. He knows them both, probably quite well…”
All Through the Night Page 12
