She felt unnerved by the unexpected attention, intimidated by the microphones thrust in her face. There was even a television camera, for heaven’s sake. She longed to appear on TV but not like this.
Instinctively she moved closer to Tom and the haven of his broad chest. She snuck a glance up at his face. Her heart thudded into overdrive. Yep, that strong profile was a ten out of ten. Maybe even a twenty out of ten. But gone was the charming smile and the dimple. Back in full grim mode, he was standing rigidly to attention and glaring at the gathered media over the top of Brutus’s scruffy little head.
“Don’t say a thing,” he hissed, without looking down at her.
“I don’t know wh—” she started to reply before being bombarded with questions.
“Hey, Maddy, what was your relationship to the late Walter Stoddard?” called a reporter.
“And how does it feel to be a millionaire?” asked another.
How did they know her name? That fact registered among the barrage of questions. And hadn’t Tom said the will wasn’t public knowledge? She blinked at a camera’s sudden flash.
“I . . . uh . . . I’m not a millionaire. It’s . . . it’s Brutus who—” she stuttered but Tom cut her off.
“Ms. Cartwright has no comment,” he said, bundling Brutus into her arms and holding out both his hands to ward off the photographers.
“Could I have your name please, sir?” asked a reporter from a daily newspaper. “And what is your relationship to Miss Cartwright?”
Tom snorted in disgust but did not reply. Brutus struggled to get down, scrabbling with his claws. He started to bark, urgent, yapping barks. Maddy held his squirming little body tightly but she couldn’t manage to quiet him.
“Hey, the dog’s talking instead,” said a smart-aleck reporter from a radio station, thrusting a microphone toward the little dog. “Anyone here understand dog speak?”
Brutus bared his teeth and snarled, an effect more comical than threatening. The reporter chuckled, “Guess I don’t need a translation for that.”The other reporters laughed.
Maddy found herself wanting to laugh, too. Especially at the way Tom was glowering. Did he have to take everything so seriously?
She still felt bewildered by the presence of the press. And she had no intention of discussing anything about Walter’s will with them. But personally she didn’t have anything against the media.
Heck, she had a degree in journalism and was part of the media herself—though working as a food editor on a glossy women’s magazine hardly qualified as hard-core news reporting. Someone had tipped these people off and they were following up the lead. Her journalist colleagues would do the same.
She petted Brutus in an attempt to soothe him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jerome making his elegant way toward a sleek Jaguar parked nearby.
She felt a little miffed that he hadn’t made any attempt to talk to her again after being so attentive before the church service. But he didn’t turn back, didn’t seem curious at the unexpected media intrusion.
Suspicion shot through her. She remembered his call on his cell phone. Could he be responsible for this melee?
The reporters started throwing questions again. “About the will, Ms. Cartwright? Does it—?”
Tom cut them off. “Ms. Cartwright has no comment,” he repeated. Maddy felt a surge of irritation at the way he seemed to be taking over.
“I can speak for myself,” she hissed to him in an undertone. Then—taking a deep, steadying breath—she spoke to the reporters. “Guys, I know you’re trying to do your job, but this is a funeral. Please, show some respect.”
Grasping Brutus tightly she walked down the final steps from the church and went to walk around them. “I have nothing to say to you. If you’ll excuse me, I have to get to the cemetery.”
There was a rumbling of dissent. “I have no comment,” she said, walking away.
“So why did you have to be so nice to them?” Tom muttered as he strode along beside her, so close his shoulders brushed hers. Too aware of his maleness, she neatly sidestepped away.
“Because I’m not in the habit of being rude to people,” she said between clenched teeth.
“They’ll hound you now.Won’t let you alone.”
“And I’ll keep telling them I have nothing to say.”
“They’ll dig for dirt.”
Maddy felt sick at the implication of his words. She stopped and looked up at him, over Brutus’s head. “There is no dirt to find,” she said, unable to keep her voice steady.
His words were an unpleasant revelation. She’d begun to warm to Tom O’Brien. When it came to rating men, a sense of humor ranked as high as a good butt. Higher even. How could someone who appreciated the humorous satire of
Shrek
judge her so harshly for something she hadn’t done?
She turned on her heel and walked on, stomach churning with disappointment and anger. She reached her too-old, in-need-of-a-service Honda hatchback.
“Why don’t we go in my car?” he said, gesturing to a recent-model BMW parked a few spaces over.
“We?”
“You. Me. Brutus.”
“Brutus and I are fine, thank you. We don’t need a ride.” She made her voice as chilly as a freshly churned sorbet.
“You do if you want help getting away from that lot,” he said, gesturing at the reporters following them.
“I can manage on my own, thank you. Now if you don’t mind, I don’t want to be late to the cemetery.”
Tom’s voice rose with frustration. “For crying out loud, Maddy, I’m just trying to help here. Protect you. I hadn’t even intended to go to the cemetery. I’ve been away from the office long enough as it is.”
At his tone of voice Brutus whined sympathetically and leaned over to lick Tom’s hand. Maddy expected Tom to snatch his hand away, but with a pained look on his face, he left it there for Brutus’s slobbery ministrations.
“Uh, anyway, isn’t it obvious Brutus wants to be with me?” he said.
“Because you’re his alpha—”
“I didn’t say that,” Tom said. “And for heaven’s sake, keep quiet about that dumb theory in front of these reporters.” He wiped his hand down the side of his trousers. “Now come on, are you getting in the car or not?”
Brutus looked appealingly up at her with his black button eyes and then back to Tom. She didn’t need a degree in dog speak to know what he wanted.
Maddy thought for a minute. She could evade the reporters just fine by herself. But it would do Brutus good to bond further with Tom. He still wasn’t eating very well. Was only just out of mourning.What harm could it do to accept a ride with Tom? Give Brutus what he wanted.
It wasn’t what she wanted. Of course it wasn’t. She wouldn’t even think about how comforting it had been to have Tom by her side during the church service, how appealing the thought of having him with her at the cemetery.
“Okay,” she conceded, “for Brutus’s sake.”
She climbed into the BMW, appreciating its leather luxury. She noted its showroom condition, quite different from her own car, which hadn’t been cleaned for months and was full of cooking equipment and props for food photography. She prayed Brutus wouldn’t do anything untoward to damage Tom’s car. Like lift his leg against the expensive sound system and short-circuit the electronics.
“Nice car,” she said.
“Yes,” Tom said with the doting look men reserved for their boy toys. She wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d lovingly stroked the dashboard. “I’ve only had it a few weeks.”
Brutus went to scramble onto Tom’s lap, but she dragged him back to her side of the car, studiously avoiding coming into contact with Tom’s legs as she did so. She fastened her seat belt and settled Brutus on her lap as Tom gunned the car away from the church.
“I know this area well,” he said. “We’ll easily lose those guys before we head out to the freeway.”
Maddy found there was something disconcertingly intimate about being alone with Tom in his car. She couldn’t help noting the interesting play of muscles in his thighs as he used the brake. And it was kind of, well, sexy the way he pushed the Steptronic stick shift when he changed gear.
The citrus male scent of him seemed to intensify in the confines of his car and she felt suddenly short of breath. She remembered how her nipples had hardened as she’d brushed against him in the church and willed them not to do it again. He was undeniably gorgeous. And yet he seemed to have such a bad opinion of her.
They’ll dig for dirt.
His words kept going over and over in her head. She got more and more annoyed as she thought about their implication. She would start to hyperventilate if she didn’t say something in her own defense.
“Stop the car,” she said, surprising herself nearly as much as she surprised Tom.
“What?” he said.
“I said pull over. Please,” she added.“We’ve lost the reporters.”
“Uh, okay,” he said, sounding puzzled,“you’re not going to—”
“No, I don’t get carsick. Though I don’t know about Brutus. I
did
give him a peanut butter cookie—uh, a healthy one of course—before we left home and I suppose he could be feeling a bit nauseous . . .”
“Don’t even think about it,”Tom groaned. “Let him bark, not barf. Not in my new car.” He pulled over to the curb and killed the engine.
“Well?” he said, his brow creased with annoyance. “I thought you didn’t want to be late to the cemetery?”
“I don’t. But this won’t take long.”
“Hmph.” He sounded unconvinced.
She took a deep breath. “Tom, what you said. About dirt. Digging for it. There isn’t any. I mean, I appreciate your good intentions. But I can’t accept any help from you if you continue to think . . . to think that I . . . that I had a . . .”—it was so distasteful it was almost impossible to say it—“any kind of . . . of sexual relationship with my friend Walter.” Her final words came out in a rush.
Tom stared at her for a long moment, his deep brown eyes incredulous. Then he exploded into a paroxysm of coughing. His face went red under the bronze of his tan. His eyes watered. Maddy resisted the urge to slap him on the back to stop him from choking. The way she was feeling at the moment about this stuffed-shirt lawyer—gorgeous as he was—she might slap him just a bit harder than was warranted.
Tom managed to control his coughing and get his breath back. But, momentarily unable to speak, he continued to stare at Maddy where she sat next to him in the passenger seat of his car.
She turned to face him, looking directly with those clear green eyes, her cheeks flushed, her chin tilted upward, her mouth set in a stubborn line. Hell, even the tips of her ears looked angry. She certainly didn’t pull any punches. He couldn’t believe she’d been so direct.
“I . . . I . . .” he finally managed to stutter, stunned at how she’d put him on the spot. “I never . . . I never thought . . .”
“Oh yes, you did,” she stated. “And don’t try to deny it.”
How could she possibly have guessed what he’d been thinking about her? In his dealings with her he’d been subtle, discreet, lawyerlike. “I . . . uh . . . don’t make judgments on people before I . . .”
“That’s bull,” she said. “It was obvious you’d made up your mind about me before you’d even met me.”
Obvious? How obvious? He cleared his throat. “That’s not true,” he said.
“Ahem,” she said, holding his gaze. Brutus looked at him from her lap, equally accusingly. The dog snuffled as if to agree with its mistress.
Mistress? He hadn’t meant to even
think
the word
mistress
. In any context. The two pairs of eyes met his unflinchingly and Tom began to feel a totally unaccustomed panic. As if she had him on the witness stand.
He couldn’t prevaricate any longer. She demanded the truth, and dammit, he’d give it to her. “Yeah. Okay,” he said. “I thought you were the old man’s mistress.”
As soon as he said the words he wished he could take them back. Her face seemed to crumple. Her beautiful full mouth began to tremble and she bit down on her lower lip.
Her eyes misted. “That . . . that’s what I thought you thought,” she whispered. “Yet ... yet it sounds dreadful to hear the actual word.” She closed her eyes.
“Mistress.”
What had he got himself into? Where was his lawyerlike cool? His caution? His next words seemed to spill out of their own accord. “But as soon as I met you I knew that couldn’t be true.”
Her eyes snapped open. “Really?”
That wasn’t 100 percent the truth but he couldn’t bear to see her face crumple again. Couldn’t bear to witness tears. Didn’t know how he’d stop himself from gathering her into his arms to comfort her if she cried.
“Really,” he said. And was surprised to find that if he hadn’t meant it the first time he’d met her, he certainly meant it now. She’d never fitted the femme fatale image he’d built up in his mind.
“You ... you mean that?”
“Yeah, I mean that,” he said. “You ... you didn’t seem the type.”
Her mouth twisted. “I don’t know whether I’m meant to be flattered by that or not.”
“Feel flattered,” he said.
“Thanks,” she said with a watery smile. There was silence for a moment. “Tom?”
“Yes?”
Her eyes widened and he thought again how candid they were. “I swear to you that there was absolutely nothing ... nothing untoward about my relationship with Walter. He truly was like a grandfather to me. I even tried to fix him up with my grandmother when she visited with me from upstate. She’s a widow. Still very attractive.”
Typical female. Never satisfied with leaving a guy alone. Even at eighty-two.Tom swallowed a retort. But he couldn’t help rolling his eyes.
“Yeah,” she said with a wry smile, “I know. Neither of them was interested.”
“Right,” he said, knowing any other comment he made could get him into trouble.
“And ... and about the will. I was clueless about the money.”