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17
They spentthe rest of the ride discussing Nina’s impressions of the suburbs after living there for nearly twenty years, her move to the city, her new job at the Stockholm Gallery. He listened with intense interest, asked questions that went far beyond casual conversation, that probed at parts of her psyche she hadn’t yet probedherself.
What was your greatest expectation when you gotmarried?
How did your husband failyou?
What’s your first memory fromchildhood?
It was both disconcerting and exciting to be studied so intently, to be the object of someone’s total interest. That’s how Jack looked at her — like there was no one else in the world, like he wanted to know everything, to excavate all the secrets she didn’t even know she’dburied.
There was no time to be coy. No time even to be deliberate. Not with his dark eyes piercing her armor, an urgency in his questions that made it clear he didn’t want her tothink.
Maybe for Jack thinking, like comfort, wasoverrated.
She tried steering the conversation toward him several times without avail, asking about his work, where he lived, whether he traveled a lot. His answers were short, a necessary pit stop on the way back to his dig in the sandpit of herconsciousness.
All the while an electric charge ran between them. He was careful not to touch her, not to let his fingers so much as graze hers when he took her empty champagne glass, when he returned it, full, to herhand.
It only exacerbated the physical tension between them. They were somewhere on the Manhattan bridge when she realized she was damp with arousal in spite of the fact that he hadn’t so much as touchedher.
At some point he grew quiet, his expression unreadable. She turned her face to the window of the limo and watched the city pass by on the other side of the glass. They were in the financial district, stopped in a line of traffic that had grown increasingly thick with limos, when he spokeagain.
“Don’t mind thepaparazzi.”
“Excuseme?”
“The paparazzi. They’ll take your picture and shout questions at you. Just keep walking,” hesaid.
She barely had time to get her head around what he’d said when the car inched to to a stop at the curb in front of Cipriani. Beyond Jack’s window, flashbulbs lit a red carpet with bursts of light, the murmur of the crowd gathered around the restaurant overruled by shouted statements andquestions.
She reached out and clutched his arm, the barrier between them falling in herpanic.
His hand came down over hers. “Ignore them.” For once she could define what she saw in his eyes: sympathy, and maybe even concern. His presence was a force field. She had the sense that nothing could hurt her, that he could — that he would — shield her from the rest of the world. “We’ll be inside before you knowit.”
The thought gave her no comfort. She had a feeling the situation would be no less surreal insideCipriani’s.
“Take off your coat,” he commanded, shedding hisown.
“What?”
“They’ll want to see your dress,” hesaid.
In this new world, the world where Nina attended a red carpet event with Jack Morgan, where she was wearing a dress worth thousands of dollars, where photographers were waiting for her to step out of a limo, this somehow madesense.
She worked the buttons and swiveled in the seat. He slid the coat from her shoulders and tossed it onto the seat next to her along with his own overcoat. Then the door opened — Nina hadn’t even noticed Reggie getting out of the car — and a burst of flashing bulbs and murmuring voices invaded the formerly quietinterior.
Jack stepped out of the car and turned back to reach for her hand. It was the first time they’d touched since leaving the apartment, and for a split second, the crowd disappeared, leaving her in a universe with no one but the enigmatic man holding herhand.
She swiveled her legs onto the pavement and rose to her feet, trying not to stare in shock at the spectacle of photographers and reporters and celebrity watchers clamoring behind the velvet ropes holding them back from the redcarpet.
Jack bent his head to her ear and her entire body seemed magnetized to his as she leaned closer to hearhim.
“You’re not here for them — you’re here for me. Onlyme.”
His voice was full of steely possession. She almost believed he already ownedher.
They started up the carpet to Cipriani’s. Flashbulbs nearly blinded her on both sides of the carpet, blocking out portions of the crowd so that their questions were disembodied, voices shouting from theether.
