Suddenly...Marriage!

by Marie Ferrarella

  If she was the least bit uncomfortable about this meeting, Grant thought to himself, she didn’t show it. He liked that.

  “So,” he began, “it’s settled. We should be gratefully thanking one another and call it a draw.”

  Her mouth curved a little. It was well known what O’Hara thought of people who tried to secure an interview with him. “Why don’t you reserve judgment on that until after the interview is over?”

  Grant inclined his head, bowing to her suggestion. At least she wasn’t promising him that she would be unobtrusive and that he wouldn’t even notice she was there. He valued honesty in a person. He also appreciated not being snowed.

  “All right, I will.” He looked to his left.

  As if on cue, the waiter produced two gold-edged menus, presenting one to each of them. Grant ignored his. Usually busy, he rarely had time for lunch unless it involved business, and even then he concentrated on the matter at hand rather than on what was on his plate. But he thought his interviewer might be hungry.

  “Nice trick,” she observed, nodding toward the waiter who popped up whenever he was needed.

  “No trick. I’m part owner. The staff likes to please me.” Cheyenne wondered just how far that button could be pushed.

  The waiter righted the two wine glasses on the table. “A little light wine perhaps?” Grant asked. “We have several excellent bottles in the cellar you might enjoy.”

  Cheyenne slowly shook her head. “Mineral water,” she requested.

  Grant held up two fingers for the waiter. Nodding, the latter disappeared. Grant’s eyes never left her face. “Don’t drink?”

  She lifted a shoulder and let it drop casually. “Don’t need to.”

  His eyes swept over the empty wine glass. “I never thought of having a glass of wine as a need.”

  She thought of her mother, and the solutions that had been searched for and not found at the bottom of a bottle. “You’re lucky. Some people do.”

  He studied the set of her jaw. It was almost imperceptible, but he could just detect a hint of hardening. Someone in her life abused alcohol. “But not you.”

  Cheyenne wondered who was supposed to be interviewing whom. She supposed there was no harm in O’Hara getting in a few questions of his own. That, too, might set him at ease.

  “Alcohol gets in the way.” Cheyenne passed her hand over her camera case. “I get high on my work.”

  She stroked that thing as if it was the arm of a lover. It went hand in hand with the passion he’d seen in her work. “Very fortunate for you.”

  “And Stan Keller,” she put in. When O’Hara raised an eyebrow, she added, “He likes my work.”

  The waiter reappeared to set down two glasses of mineral water and clear away the empty wine goblets. “And I like Stan,” added Grant.

  “So I gather. I also gather that’s why you agreed to this interview.” She smiled to herself as she recalled Stan’s exuberance two days ago when he’d called her on the phone. “I got him,” he’d cried. “I got the son of a bitch with an inside straight. He’s ours for the taking.” There’d been laughter on the other end. “I warned him I was lucky at cards!” They were both, Stan had added, unlucky in love, the only difference being that Grant had a much larger pool to chose from and be unlucky with.

  Grant shrugged noncommittally. “Stan and I went to school together.”

  Stan had never mentioned where he knew O’Hara from, and she hadn’t pried. “He’s older than you are,” she pointed out, muting her surprise.

  “Care for anything?” Grant indicated the menu, ignoring her comment.

  Cheyenne waved away the question. She was too caught up in planning her work to think about eating. “Thank you, I’m fine.”

  Yes, he thought, she certainly was. Grant dismissed the waiter and returned to her observation. “Stan also waited five years to earn the money to attend the university.” He had instantly liked the quirky journalism major he’d shared a room with. “I didn’t have that advantage.”

  Taking a sip of water, Cheyenne leaned back in her chair and studied the man sitting opposite her. Was he purposely creating an image for her? “Interesting choice of words. Most people would have thought of it as a disadvantage.”

  Grant had watched each of his four half brothers be swallowed up by the quagmire created by having vast amounts of money. He’d sworn that it wouldn’t happen to him. And it hadn’t. In his own way, Grant liked to think that he was as tough as their old man was. Just a lot less abrasive.

  “Earning something makes you appreciate it all the more once you have it.”

  He sounded sincere, but there was no reason why the man couldn’t be a consummate actor as well as an astute businessman. Though it was early in the game, Cheyenne tried her hand at baiting him. “Is that hearsay on your part?”

  Grant took no offense. “Meaning, have I ever earned anything on my own? The answer to that is yes, I have.”

  She pushed it a little further. “By the sweat of your brow?”

  Cheyenne couldn’t picture O’Hara sweating, not even with her vivid imagination. He was too suave, too refined looking. Far more at home with expensive cologne dabbed on his brow than with sweat.

  It was Grant’s turn to smile. Broadly. “I sweat, Ms. Tarantino.” Saying the word nudged a question forward in his mind: what would she look like, her body covered with a sheen of perspiration rather than the glow from artificial candlelight?

  “I would have thought you would pay someone else to do that for you.”

  Did she think he had flunkies—people he paid to do all of his work for him? He’d never even considered it. Delegation was a route to take only when all others were exhausted. Grant had found that there was nothing more exhilarating than to be on the front lines, staying on top of everything, knowledgeable about every move. He thought of it as a perk.

  He doubted she’d believe him. “Some things you just have to do on your own. Otherwise, the meaning is defused and it loses its impact.” He watched her eyes as he spoke. They were very expressive, lightening and darkening as she talked. And thought. It was like being privy to a barometer of her soul.

  Cheyenne took a sip, letting the cool water work its way down her throat before she spoke. He wasn’t strictly referring to work anymore. She had the distinct impression that they were now waltzing around other topics as well.

  “So they tell me,” she allowed. “I’ve never had the option of considering having someone else do my work for me.”

  One of Grant’s best talents was being able to read people with relative ease. He was rarely wrong. He didn’t think he was this time. “Maybe it’s presumptuous of me, but I get the impression that you wouldn’t allow it even if you could.”

  Her eyes met his and she smiled slowly. It was, he thought, like watching the sun begin to climb up in the sky.

  “You’re right.” She laughed softly. “I wouldn’t. I enjoy doing things for myself.” For the sake of returning to casual ground, she enumerated, “Doing my own layouts, scouting out my own locations. Taking my own shots.”

  He’d been right about the independent streak he’d sensed. Grant wondered if he was right about other things as well. She was cool, classy on the outside. If that were peeled away, what would he find on the inside? An icicle? Or a raging inferno?

  “You don’t work with a crew?”

  As senior editor, she’d been offered a crew more than once by Stan, who had been surprised at her refusal. “I’m a loner, Mr. O’Hara. I work better that way.” Her smile continued to bloom. “Without a crew, there’s no one to get in my way. And conversely, no one to blame but myself if things go wrong.”

  Unless he missed his guess, she wasn’t the type to lay blame for her own errors on someone else’s doorstep, even if she had the entire population of New York City working for her.

  Grant casually laid his hand over hers. “Please, if you’re going to be my shadow for the next day, call me Grant.”

  Without m
issing a beat, Cheyenne slid her hand from beneath his. Her smile never faded. “Fine. And it’s two days, ‘Grant.”’

  He knew it was, but hoped that he could get her to accept the lesser time span. “Two?”

  The look of studied innocence didn’t fool her. Nor, she surmised, was it really intended to. He was too polished not to do better than that. “That’s the deal you made with Stan.”

  It was a friendly game of poker, one of the few indulgences he’d allowed himself recently. When it came to the final pot, Stan had been adamant about only accepting a marker for an interview in lieu of his forfeiting the hand. He’d thought it all in fun, even when Stan’s inside straight had beaten his full house—until Stan had called him on it.

  Grant laughed softly. “Remind me never to play poker without my checkbook again.”

  The sound rippled along her skin. Cheyenne wished there was a way to capture it on film. Sales would go through the roof. “Stan said it was a poker game, but I couldn’t quite get myself to believe him. You don’t seem the poker type.”

  He liked the fact that he wasn’t easily pigeonholed. Nothing irritated him more than being stereotyped. He supposed that was the real reason behind his agreeing to the interview. He wanted to clear away the misconceptions.

  “It relaxes me. Except for the last game.” He flashed a smile.

  There was no other word for it, Cheyenne thought. Flashed. A blinding flash. She should have brought her sunglasses. “And now that I’ve seen his prized photojournalist, I might reassess my feelings about that.”

  She wondered if O‘Hara was being this charming for a reason. If he meant to get her to back away from the interview, he was going to be disappointed. And she knew he wasn’t going to back down on his own. Stan assured her that O’Hara never reneged on a promise.

  “I’m the magazine’s photojournalist,” she corrected him lightly, as if she was brushing a stray hair from his lapel. “Not Stan’s.”

  Grant recalled that though he hadn’t referred to her physical attributes, her boss’s eyes had had a certain glow when he spoke of Cheyenne. “The way he went on about you, I thought there might be something—” Grant let his voice trail off, letting her fill in the blank.

  She did. “There is. He likes my work and I respect his acumen. It makes for a good relationship.” The conversation was getting a little too personal for her, but she knew all about heat and the kitchen—and she wasn’t the type to get out.

  What was she like in a relationship, he wondered. A real one. Was there fire beneath those smoky eyes of hers? “My dear Ms. Tarantino, that doesn’t begin to make for a good relationship. Not a personal one.”

  Turning a conversation was second nature to her. Time to get to work. Cheyenne brushed her hand casually along the column of her throat. “Speaking of relationships, why have yours never ended in marriage?”

  Touché, he thought. “Is that the sort of question you’re going to be asking me?”

  That, and a lot more probing ones if she felt like it. It all depended on the tone of the interview as it unwound. She saw no reason to lie. “If the situation is such that it arises.”

  “An eye for an eye,” said Grant.

  It was a little too biblical and austere sounding for her, but Cheyenne smiled. “Something like that. I will get as personal as I feel I should and I’ll gauge that on the signals you give off.” It was as honest as she felt she needed to be. “I’m very good at gauging signals.”

  She was very good at her work as well. Her interviews relied heavily on that camera of hers and less on the written word. “I’ve seen some of your work in other magazines. And the show you had in Newport.”

  His home ground. Still, it surprised her that he had gone. For a moment, pleasure nudged aside professionalism. “You saw that?”

  “Stan thought I should. To eliminate any lingering doubts or concerns I might have. He knew it would be the deciding factor.” And it had been. Friend or not, Grant wouldn’t have gone ahead with the interview if he hadn’t felt her work was fair-minded. “You’re very eloquent with your camera.”

  The naked sincerity caught her off guard. “Thank you.” She looked away. His eyes were too warm, too much like her camera. Seeing things. “At times, it’s better at seeing things than I am.”

  Modesty, genuinely displayed, was an appealing attribute, thought Grant. “I doubt that. Inanimate objects are only as good as the people utilizing them.” He sat back, his eyes sweeping over her. This was going to be interesting. “Do you want to get started now?”

  Somewhere in the distant recesses of her mind, a starter pistol fired. “Yes, but not here.”

  He looked around, trying to view the room through her eyes. What did she see that he didn’t? “Why? I spent a million dollars just renovating the restaurant alone.” And with good results. It was quickly becoming the in place to dine in New Orleans.

  He didn’t seem insulted, but she detected a slight touch of proprietorship in his words. Was he like that with everything he owned? Or was he on the level about feeling a part of things he worked with?

  “It’s very nice,” she allowed, “but I think that you command a better backdrop than a restaurant. Especially since today is Mardi Gras. What do you say we get started just before dusk?” Her eyes lit as she warmed to her subject. “Perhaps somewhere along St. Charles Avenue,” she said, knowing it was one of the major parade routes.

  Grant liked the enthusiasm he saw. “You’ve been here before.”

  Cheyenne nodded. She’d done her first piece here, covering the funeral of a jazz great. Her heart had been won by New Orleans with the very first shot she had framed. It was a completely different world from the one she knew—alive even in grief. “It’s the most colorful place in the country.”

  She wasn’t just paying the city lip service because she knew he had a home off the coast, he thought. “Especially during Mardi Gras,” he agreed. “All right, we’ll get started tonight.” Hearing himself, Grant shook his head. What was he agreeing to let himself in for? He was too busy for this. The sensible thing was to beg off. But a promise was a promise, and a bet was a bet. He had always lived up to his word.

  Grant saw the question that rose in her eyes. “Part of me still can’t believe I’ve agreed to this.”

  Part of her couldn’t, either. This was a coup, no doubt about it. “You’ve made Stan very happy.” She raised her half-filled glass to toast the assignment. “To no regrets.”

  That was something he could drink to. He didn’t believe in having regrets. “To no regrets.”

  And he intended to see that he had none.

  Chapter Two

  Grant studied the woman sitting opposite him over the rim of his glass. There were more layers to her, he decided, than had first been evident. There was the slightest hint of vulnerability in her eyes. It wasn’t a constant thing, just something that appeared for less than a heartbeat and then was gone again—living only long enough to arouse a feeling of protectiveness in the beholder. He wondered if she was aware of it.

  Very carefully, Grant set his glass down in front of him. “Have you ever been to New Orleans during Carnival, Ms. Tarantino?”

  “I’ve been to New Orleans,” Cheyenne qualified, “but never during Mardi Gras.”

  She probably thought the word encompassed the entire celebration. Outsiders made that mistake. Though he lived in California, Grant had been to New Orleans often enough to think of himself as a native. He loved the color, the festivity of the city, especially around this time of the year. It made him feel alive and, for a little while, allowed him to put aside his responsibilities and just enjoy himself.

  “Carnival,” Grant corrected casually as his fingers skimmed up and down the long stem of his glass. “Mardi Gras is just the last day of the festivities, a frenzied celebration before the world tightens its belt and does nonstop penance and fasting for forty days.” His eyes meeting hers, he smiled at his own assessment, gleaned verbatim from one of the hi
story books he’d been forced to read and retain in his youth. “Or so the custom once was. Now, of course, it’s just an obliging excuse for a huge party.”

  He warmed to his subject. Grant always enjoyed introducing a newcomer to the local customs. He loved this time of year, with its energized insanity that was such a complete contrast to the daily life to which he was accustomed. That was why he always made it a point to be here, at least for the last of it, no matter what the demands on his time might be.

  “Carnival refers to the entire eleven days of heightened celebration. Actually,” he corrected himself, “the whole thing starts on January 6th. Twelfth Night,” he elaborated, then stopped. He wasn’t quite sure how to read her expression. People humored him all the time—the ones who didn’t know him—thinking it was the fastest way to get on his good side. She hadn’t struck him as the pandering type. “You’re smiling. Have I said something to amuse you? If I have, I’d like to know so that perhaps I can repeat it from time to time. As long as it’s not at my expense.”

  If she squeezed his hand too hard, would it ooze charm all on its own? Probably. The man seemed to embody charm. Even the way his fingers lightly played along the stem of the glass managed to create a sensual feeling. It was almost as if she could experience that sensation by proxy.

  It took her a moment to rouse herself.

  One smooth operator, Grant O’Hara, she mused. She could almost picture him as a modern-day Don Juan, charming women out of both their panty hose and their assets in one flawless maneuver.

  “I’m not here to do an interview on Mardi Gras, or Carnival, Mr. O‘Hara. I’m here to do you.” The smile on O’Hara’s lips widened. Too late, Cheyenne realized that her choice of words wasn’t the most judicious. Without missing a beat, she added, “On paper and film.”

  He liked her, Grant decided. The lady could think on her feet, or, in this case, on her very shapely posterior. “Any way that pleases you,” he allowed.

  If he looked very closely, he could detect just the tiniest bit of squirming going on beneath that polishedlooking veneer. The lady was not nearly as aloof and world-weary as that stylish outer casing would have led him to believe. He was intrigued.