The One In My Heart

He’d taken my silence as my final answer, a firm no.

I was not going to be mixed up in his schemes. I was not going to disrupt the quiet rhythm of my even-keeled life. I was not going to open myself up to false pleasures that came with an expiration date.

And yet…

Could I really abandon him? It was obvious that, left to his own devices, he would continue to play the part of the blithe, uncaring son. He knew this. That was why he had wanted my help in the first place.

Without a firm kick in the pants once in a while, he would flounder. His plans would go nowhere. And all the changes he’d made, uprooting his entire life, would be futile.

“I’ll take that half mil for charity,” I said before I could stop myself. “I’ll come with you.”


HE DIDN’T SAY ANYTHING, ONLY looked at me as if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d heard.

Neither could I, exactly.

That silence lasted until we were in a cab, going uptown along Central Park West. We discussed logistics. On which day could I leave Munich? When was he setting out? And how long were we to remain in Italy?

Throughout it all, I was conscious of his gaze on me. His initial incredulity had worn off. Now his demeanor made me think of a mountain climber who had reached the Everest base camp, someone who knew that the easy part was over and the real trial was about to begin.

“I forgot to tell you,” he said as we e-mailed each other our itineraries. “I’m paying a visit to Mrs. Asquith on the way back. Would you like to come with me?”

“I would. But I bought my tickets a long time ago, and my return flight doesn’t pass through England.”

“I can take care of that for you, if you want, along with your ticket from Munich to Naples.”

“In that case, yes, thank you.”

When the cab stopped before my house, he asked the driver to wait and walked me to the door. “I owe you, Professor.”

“You’re going to be out half a mil, at least. I’d say you don’t owe me anything else.”

“I did promise to go down on you, frequently and attentively.”

Was it still January? Heat buffeted me from every direction. “That’s not why I said yes, so there’s no need.”

In the coppery light from the street lamps, his gaze was steady, curious. “Then why did you say yes?”

Zelda and I used to build houses of cards together. A well-made house of cards actually stood pretty okay on its own. But because the construction material was so flimsy, and nothing held the structure together except prayer and careful placement, any kind of disturbance could bring it down—someone walking by too fast, a fridge door slamming shut, and once, a moving truck rumbling down the street.

Bennett’s question was such a disturbance. Faced with its friendly directness, the lies that I’d told myself in the Russian café came crumbling down. I had not agreed to help him out of altruism. Or sympathy. Or even greed.

It had been fear, pure and simple.

He was consumed by his quest. If I turned him down, he would find someone else. Tonight, perhaps. Tomorrow at the latest. Maybe Damaris would get the call, maybe someone more restrained in her public demeanor. But no matter who, in two weeks’ time, when he arrived in Italy, he would have a woman on his arm.

And the thought suffocated me. I would rather face far worse heartache later on than go home tonight with this huge weight on my chest, unable to breathe for the foreseeable future.

It was, without a question, the stupidest decision I’d made in a long, long time.

“Because I finally remembered that a million has six zeroes to it.”

His gaze remained unwavering. “You deal some dope bullshit, Professor. I admire that.”

“A perk of being a materials scientist: My bullshit is well made on the molecular level.”

He laughed softly. Then he leaned in and kissed me, a kiss of only our lips, gentle, unhurried, yet unbearably sexy.

Swoony.

He pulled away, looked at me another moment, and tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear. “Thank you,” he murmured. “It’s going to be one hell of an adventure.”


I WOULDN’T GO SO FAR as to speculate that Zelda had been listening at the keyhole, but she did pop out of the living room with tremendous alacrity as I walked in. “How was your evening, darling? Tell me everything!”

I omitted any and all mentions of kisses, but otherwise gave a truthful enough account, up until our departure from the wedding reception.

“So it happened. They finally ran into one another. Yes, my brilliant scheme worked.”

“Your brilliant scheme?”

“Why do you think I’ve been encouraging you to take the Somerset boy to the reception?”

I felt like an idiot for not realizing this sooner: Zelda knew Bennett’s parents would be there. “And here I thought you just wanted me to date him.”

“That I can only want. This I can do something about. Now, tell me what happened afterward. Did the boy say anything?”