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What, indeed? Sam shut her eyes and rubbed a finger across the bridge of her nose. If Demetrios Karas had figured out who she was, if he’d told either of her brothers-in-law about his—his encounter with her, she’d have known it. Rafe and Nick would have confronted her like the protective big brothers they’d become.
By now, her sisters and their husbands would have been all over her.
No, her family was clueless and they were going to stay that way. What had happened was history, and so was Demetrios Karas. Just thinking it made the day improve.
“Sam?”
“You don’t need a translator,” Sam said briskly. “It’s me. I need that caffeine you mentioned before I can carry on even a halfway intelligent conversation. I’ll see you at The Lazy Daisy.”
“Wonderful. I’ll reserve a table in the solarium so we can enjoy this gorgeous sunshine.”
* * *
But by late morning, the sun had gone into hiding.
The sky was a leaden gray when Sam hurried towards Hunter College for her appointment; by the time she left the college, it was raining. Fat drops pattered against the pavement as thunder rolled across the city. Sam eyed the traffic, but she knew better than to stand around and get wet in the futile hope of snagging a taxi. Someday, somebody would solve the mystery and figure out where cabs hid when the weather turned soggy. In the meantime, there was no choice but to make a run for the restaurant.
She was thoroughly drenched when she finally ducked under The Lazy Daisy’s royal-blue canopy. The captain hurried towards her as she stepped through the smoked-glass doors.
“I’m meeting someone,” Sam said, out of breath from the mad sprint.
“Certainly, Miss Brewster.”
She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirrored walls as he helped her out of her coat. What a mess! She had a faint resemblance to something left too long in the wet, but it didn’t matter. She’d already finished her business appointments. Neither Amanda nor Nick would care if she looked like something the cat had dragged in.
“This way, please, Miss Brewster. Her Highness is waiting for you.”
Sam fell in behind the captain and tried not to grin. She had no illusions about him remembering her from a visit nearly six months earlier. It was Amanda’s presence that had done it. Her sister didn’t actually have a title, not since Nick had renounced the throne of his homeland, but you couldn’t tell that to some of the world-class snobs who became New York head waiters.
Despite the rain, Amanda had taken a table in the solarium as she’d promised. The rest of the area was deserted. Evidently, nobody else wanted to sit inside a glass room while rain poured from the skies but the scene was cozy enough and Amanda looked warm and content as she sat in a candle-lit booth.
She waved when she saw Sam. “There you are,” she said happily, rising so they could exchange hugs. They sat down, smiling at each other, talking about Amanda’s children, Sam’s much-loved nephew and niece, pausing only when the sommelier appeared with a bottle of wine.
“I ordered a syrah,” Amanda said. “Is that okay with you? I figured red wine goes with cool, wet weather.”
“Uh-huh.” Sam smiled. “So does sitting underwater in a solarium.”
“Do you mind? It’s so private, and besides, there’s something wonderfully decadent about…Oh, Sam. Just look at your hair!”
“Fortunately,” Sam said dryly, “I don’t have to. You’re the one stuck with the view of me masquerading as Medusa.”
“I didn’t mean that, and you know it. All those curls…It’s glorious! You ought to wear it this way all the time. It’s so sexy.”
Gravely, the sommelier offered Amanda the cork. She smiled and waved it away. “I trust you, George,” she said. “Just pour, please. My sister and I are parched.” When the glasses were filled, she leaned forward. “How’d your appointments go?”
Sam sighed, lifted her glass and took an appreciative sip. “Let’s put it this way. It’s a good thing Nick has a job for me.”
“Nothing panned out, huh?’
“Well, the guy at the UN turned out to be the second assistant to the first assistant to….” Sam made a face. “Oh, what’s the difference? The bottom line is that he’s developed a thing for a secretary in the French delegation, and he thought it would be cool if I’d write maybe a dozen love letters for him.”
“He wanted you to write love letters for him?” Amanda stared over the rim of her glass. “As in, you’re Cyrano and he’s whoever the other guy was in that old play?”
“Uh-huh. He couldn’t believe it when I said thanks but no thanks, that I was a translator, not a Miss Lonely Hearts who wrote letters for the lovelorn.” Sam drank some more of her wine. “So, then I went to see the guy with the poems. Only it turned out he doesn’t have poems.”
“No?”
“No. He has a poem.”
“A poem, as in one?”
“Yup. A sonnet. Fourteen lines, written by some obscure Spanish poet in the nineteen twenties. How long would it take me to translate it? he asked. How about you ask someone in the Spanish department? I answered. Better half a minute of their time than mine.”
“Do I detect a touch of bitterness?” Amanda said, arching a delicate eyebrow.
Sam dug into her purse, took out her appointment list and tore it in half. “Two meetings. An entire morning. And what do I have to show for it? Nada. Niente. Nichts.”
Amanda winced. “It’s a good thing I’m buying lunch.”
“It’s even better that you have a job to offer me. Do you know any of the details? I mean, if some bozo’s going to push a memo under my nose, ask me to translate it…”
“No, no. I’m sure it’s more involved than that. Nick said this might take weeks, even months, something about an international conglomerate. French money, Italian money…Who knows what?” She sat back, smiling, as their waiter handed them oversize menus. “Sounds as if it’s right up your alley.”
“The man’s a friend of Nick’s?”
“Uh-huh. Mmm. What’ll we have? The duck is wonderful here.”
“Foreign?”
“I don’t think so,” Amanda said, her eyes still on the menu. “Isn’t the best duck usually local? From Long Island?”
A chill tiptoed up Sam’s spine. Her sister was up to something. The only question was, What? “Amanda?”
“Yes?”
“Why won’t you talk about this man?”
“I told you. I don’t have details. Ah. They have seared scallops. I just love—”
“You must know something. Is he an American? Or is he a foreigner?”
“Both, actually.” Amanda lifted the menu higher. All Sam could see of her sister was the top of her head. “Which shall I have, the duck or the scallops? Decisions, decisions.” Her tone was artificially bright. “I know,” she said, folding the menu and waving for the waiter. “We’ll get both, and we can share.”
Sam paid no attention as her sister placed the order. Why should she suddenly think of Demetrios Karas? She’d thought of him before, far too often, but always when there was time to relish how he’d looked when she’d dropped his jacket into that stall. Why think of him now, in the midst of what was going to be a pleasant lunch?
“Well,” Amanda said briskly, “that’s done. Now tell me how you’ve been. And what you’ve been doing, who you’ve been seeing—”
“Answer the question, please. Who’s the man who needs a translator?”
“I told you. A friend of—”
“Am I supposed to believe that he’s nameless?”
“Sam.” Amanda leaned forward. “Cross my heart and hope to die—”
“That’s what you always said when we were kids and you were about to tell me a lie.”
“For goodness’ sake,” Amanda said with indignation, “we aren’t kids anymore. Besides, you made it perfectly clear that night at Carin’s that the last person in the world you wanted to bother with was Demetrios Karas, so why on earth would
I try and set you up with him again?”
Sam stared at her sister. “I didn’t mention Demetrios Karas.”
Amanda blinked. “Didn’t you? I could have sworn you just said—”
“I didn’t,” Sam said flatly.
“Well.” Amanda smiled, picked up her glass, then put it down. “Well, you said you thought I was trying to fix you up. And I guess I just thought of the last time that happened. And—”
“Actually,” Sam said softly, her gaze fixed on her sister, “I didn’t say that, either. I simply asked who it was that needed a translator. You were the one who started babbling about not fixing me up with the highly esteemed Mr. Karas.”
“Really, Sam—”
“Really, Amanda. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. For goodness’ sake, here I am, trying to give you some good news—”
“What does it have to do with that man?”
“What…Ah. Here’s our lunch.”
Deftly, Amanda divided the scallops and the slices of duck breast. Sam watched her through narrowed eyes.
