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“Thank you. So do you.”
“It’s new.” Elaine pinched up the full skirt of her dress and curtsied.
“It’s lovely.”
“I can’t do slinky anymore,” she said wistfully, eyeing Talia up and down. “Is Jasper parking the car? Come in, come in so the mosquitoes don’t eat us alive. Drex, will you please tend bar?”
Talia drew up short just as she stepped across the threshold and spotted him lounging on the sofa. A great cat, having feasted on a fresh kill and lazing in the sun, couldn’t have appeared more satiated and indolent as he unfolded himself and stood up. “Hello, Talia.”
He was wearing dress slacks and a necktie, but the tie had been loosened, his collar button undone. She hadn’t yet braced herself to look him in the eye for the first time since last she saw him and was so taken off guard to find him here that the first words out of her mouth sounded like an accusation. “I thought you were meeting us at the restaurant.”
“He called and asked if he could come by early,” Elaine said. “And look what he brought me!” She pointed to the coffee table on which lay a rubber-banded manuscript.
“He had a copy made and asked me to read it and give him an honest assessment, which I swore I would do.”
Talia’s gaze moved from the manuscript back up to Drex. His smile was smug, his eyes glinting with insinuation, and she was certain he shifted them ever so subtly to the spot near her mouth that he’d touched with his thumb.
Before she gave in to the temptation to cross the room and slap him as hard as she could, she turned her back to him and addressed Elaine. “I’m sure he’ll benefit from your opinion.”
“He already has. He bounced several titles off me, and we decided on one just before you got here. Am I at liberty to tell her, Drex?”
“I’d rather keep it between us for now.”
Taking in the scene, Talia noticed that Elaine’s high-heeled sandals were l
ying on their sides in front of the sofa. Drex’s suit jacket was folded over the arm of a chair. Two half-filled highball glasses were on the coffee table. A gas fire flickered in the fireplace. It lent a romantic ambiance, but wasn’t radiating any heat.
Talia’s cheeks, however, were. She was furious over the way he had played her. It was an insult that he had asked Elaine to read his manuscript when he had soundly rejected her offer to do so. He was also playing Elaine in the very manner that Talia had warned him against.
“What’s keeping Jasper?” Elaine asked.
Talia hid her anger behind a rueful smile. “He sends his regrets.”
“He’s not coming? Why?”
“I would have notified you, but I didn’t know myself until we were due to leave. He waited until the last minute to tell me so I wouldn’t cancel on you. He insisted I come on. Besides, the plan was for us to drive you tonight. He didn’t want to stand you up. As it turns out…” She let the statement go unfinished except for a one-shoulder shrug and a backward nod toward Drex.
He said, “Why isn’t Jasper coming?”
She turned around to face him. “Tummy issues.”
“A bug?”
“The oysters he had for lunch.”
Elaine said, “I used to warn my husband against eating them raw.”
Neither Drex nor Talia contributed anything to that. He was still looking at her as though they shared an inside joke. A naughty inside joke. Spending an evening in his company would be intolerable.
“I hate to bail on you, too,” she said to Elaine. “But I really feel I should go home and make certain that Jasper is all right.”
Elaine stepped forward and hooked arms with her. “Nonsense. You know how men are when they’re sick. They’re either pitiful and want their mommy or they’re ornery. I believe Jasper would fall into the second category. Besides, I’m not about to let you waste that knockout dress. Drex, you don’t mind escorting both of us, do you?”
The dimple appeared. “It’ll be my pleasure. And I would hate to waste one of the desserts I took the liberty of pre-ordering.”
“Oooh, what?” Elaine said.
“Chocolate soufflé.”
