When It Hooks You (It #1) (18 page)

“L
OOKS
L
IKE
S
OMEONE
G
OT
L
AID
L
AST
N
IGHT
,” Trish’s sister-in-law Bethany teased as Trish scooped ice cream onto cake plates. They were in the kitchen, away from the party crowd.

Though her giddiness apparently shined as brightly as baby Drew’s giant balloon bouquet, Trish wasn’t ready to share the reason for her happiness. “Not I. How ’bout you? Wait…you getting laid would involve my brother, and I’d rather not think about that.”

“Don’t worry—turns out the best form of birth control is to have a baby. We’re too busy during the day and too tired at night to have any sexual aspirations. I need to get my romance fix through you. Who is he?”

“Why do you automatically assume my good mood has something to do with a guy? Maybe I’m elated because of something that happened at work.”

“Are you?”

“No. It’s a guy.” She wanted to scowl at herself, but couldn’t make the curves of her mouth turn anything but up.

“And…”

“That’s about all. It’s nothing serious.”

“When do I get to meet him?”

“What did I just say?”

Drew’s cry pierced into the kitchen followed by an urgent “Beth!” bellowed by Trish’s brother. Bethany huffed. “You’d think with two grandmas and a father out there I might get fifteen minutes off of baby duty. Mind handing these out?”

“Not at all. Go take care of that little pill.” When Bethany quirked an eyebrow, Trish explained, “Because he’s birth control. Get it?”

Unamused, Bethany left the room. Cake was handed out, the pill was calmed down, and present opening commenced. On either side of the peasantry of normal-sized gifts were dueling towers of vibrantly wrapped boxes from each of the grandmothers—who were evidently as concerned with size as everyone else. The stacked presents looked innocent enough, but to Trish they signaled the beginning of a battle for the title of favorite grandma.

About half way through the first stack, she thought she heard her phone buzz with a new text. Her purse was tucked under one of the end tables a few feet away from where she sat. She’d check it later. Her eyes drifted to the clock on the mantle. Assuming Adam had been headed to the East Coast—she realized now he’d never said where he was going, and she’d never asked—his plane should have landed.

She refocused her attention on the gifts. Had the second stack grown larger? This was going to take forever to get through, especially when Bethany paused after each gift to try to coax her infant son into giving some sort of favorable reaction. Trish’s phone buzzed again. The bathroom was down the hall, and her purse was on the way.

“Excuse me,” she whispered to no one in particular, surreptitiously rising from her perch on the arm of an overstuffed chair. Moments later, she was in the bathroom, reading a text from Adam.

Is your passport still active?

“Passport?” she murmured. Did this mean he was going to whisk her out of the country for an overnight and take her revirginity? Was there a clause in his reasons and rules that made such an act permissible on foreign soil? She read the second message.

Separate rooms.

“Hmphf,” she grumbled, typing back.

So you’re planning this one?

Are you okay with that?

Yes.

Is your passport still active?

Si.

Over the next few days, Adam and Trish agreed on dates for their trip, and Adam arranged the plane tickets. The one he forwarded to her only went as far as Houston. He explained that they’d meet up there and then catch a flight together—to somewhere comfortably warm and modestly humid. The only other clue he gave her was to be prepared for rain. The big date was set for late September, leaving Trish with enough time to obsess.

“I’m a rabbit. He’s a monkey,” she told Lyssa over Skype.

“Since when are you into the Chinese zodiac?”

“Since it nailed us both. Listen to this: the rabbit is appealing to the opposite sex, uncomplicated, affectionate, and realistic about itself, often leaving leadership roles to others.”

“You think you’re affectionate?”

“When I want to be. Here’s Adam: high intelligence, original thinker, successful in endeavors, and friendly but introverted. It’s totally him!”

“I’ll have to take your word for it. But you and I were born in the same year, so I’m a rabbit, too. Does this mean we’re supposed to be exactly alike?”

“No. There’re variations based on which element you most closely associate with. Let’s see.” She flipped to the web page she’d pulled up earlier and scrolled to a description of the elements. “I’m earthy; you’re more metal.” She returned Lyssa’s image to full screen.

“If you’re traveling together, does this mean your revirgination is out the window?”

Trish’s lips curled into a feline grin. “We’ll see. He was mister chivalrous protecting my virtue last time, and we’ll have separate rooms this time, but I’m not sure he’ll be able to resist all of this again.” She combed her fingers through her long, blond strands, lifting them above her head and letting them slip to float down around her shoulders.

Lyssa shook her head and laughed. “Maybe he’s got other reasons for resisting your seductive charms.”

“Like what?”

“Like…I don’t know.” Lyssa pressed her lips together and gave her head a small shake, reaching for her glass. The girls were indulging in a long-distance happy hour. “Where do you think he’s taking you?”

“I have it narrowed down to Guatemala or Honduras. I know he travels to both for business, and they each have connecting flights in Houston from both Chicago and Baltimore. Plus, their expected weather is in line with how he told me to pack.”

Lyssa’s mouth puckered. “He’s taking you on a work trip to a developing nation? Are those areas stable? Don’t you think you ought to Google him before you take off to a foreign land together?”

“I trust him,” Trish said with enough warning in her tone to end the inquisition. “How are classes going?” She sucked an ice cube into her mouth as her friend eagerly skipped off on the new tangent, exactly like Trish knew she would.

When the conversation ended, Trish opened a blank window on her computer. Her fingers hovered over several keys before she chose her search terms:
Chinese zodiac compatibility
.

Clicking on the first result, she followed the rabbit row across to the monkey column to discover:
Need effort.
She went back and chose the second link, which led her to a prediction that any kind of relationship between a rabbit and a monkey would take a considerable amount of work. “Third time’s a charm,” she murmured and took a gulp of her now bitter-tasting Moscow mule. “Snake eyes,” she grumbled upon reading that despite the rabbit’s fascination with the monkey, the primate was a very poor choice of mate.

Trish sighed, clicking off the computer. Those warnings were actually good things. She and Adam were blissful and harmonious now, but if they were to continue beyond this final date, the passion would eventually wane and the necessity for effort would set in. Knowing this would make it a lot easier to part ways with her beloved monkey at the end of their rendezvous.

“You’re not driving me to the airport,” Trish said. “The L is faster, anyhow.”

“This guy’s whisking you out of the country. He could be kidnapping you for all we know. This might be my last chance to ever see you again, and I’m not going to miss it,” Cliff said. “Besides, this’ll give me an excuse to avoid driving to the North Shore for brunch with the long lost great aunt who’s toddled into town.”

“Aha, we strike upon the real reason you want to take me.”

“See you tomorrow morning. Mind being on the curb so I don’t have to do a ritual dance to the parking gods to find a spot?”

Several hours later, Trish threw her carry-on bag onto Cliff’s backseat and climbed into the front next to him. “To O’Hare, Jeeves. Terminal one.”

He navigated them out of the city onto the Kennedy Expressway. “I’d feel more comfortable with this if you’d at least tell me the guy’s name.”

“You don’t know him, so what’s the difference?”

“A name and a few background details would give me something to tell the police when I have to file a missing persons report.”

“Would it make you feel any better to know—” She let out a rough exhale. “Cliff, if I tell you who he is you have to be sworn to maximum secrecy. You can’t tell another soul—living or dead.” She didn’t think she was breaking any rules by dating a client, but thought it best to be discreet.

“Oh my God. Who is it?”

“Swear your oath.”

“If you go missing, can I tell the fuzz who it is?”

“If I’m not back at my desk Monday morning and you haven’t heard from me, you may inform the authorities. Barring that highly unlikely circumstance, you tell no one. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“He’s a fully vetted client of the firm.”

“Our firm?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

She paused. “Tell no one—and for the record, I don’t approve of any of my friends trying to find out anything about him on the Internet. This is a temporary relationship, and I want it to stay pristine and unsullied in my memory banks. Got it?”

“Do you think he’s hiding something juicy?”

“No! But he’s a successful businessman. A young, handsome businessman and I don’t doubt the possibility of nasty rumors floating on the interwebs. I’d rather not be privy to them.”

“Who is it?”

“You can’t tell
anyone
.”

Cliff huffed. “You know what? I don’t even care anymore.”

“Do you still want me to tell you?”

“Of course.”

“It’s Adam Helms. Of Helms Enterprises.” The corners of Cliff’s eyes creased, indicating no recognition of the name. “He’s one of Michael’s clients. He’s based out east, so he’s only occasionally at the Chicago office.”

Cliff shrugged. “I’ve never heard of him, but it does make me feel better to know Michael knows him—and that we’ll have all kinds of information on him should the police need it.”

“They won’t!” She slugged Cliff’s shoulder. She appreciated the concern of her friends, but didn’t give it any credence. Fending off their uncertainty had made her realize how much she trusted Adam, which only strengthened her feelings for him. He’d defied the odds to become her ideal male specimen. She hadn’t seen him in weeks and communication had been sparse, giving her imagination all the room it needed to polish and enhance his positive attributes.

It was even easier to brush aside her friends’ skepticism and the doomsday forecasts of the Chinese zodiac when she reflected that she didn’t need Adam to be a shining star into her future. She merely needed those mesmerizing eyes drinking her in, that tender mouth roving her body, and his rumbling voice whispering her name for one more weekend.

Chapter 16

T
HE
F
LIGHT
T
O
H
OUSTON
was long enough for Trish’s excitement to gravitate toward anxiety. She’d committed to an entire weekend with Adam in a foreign country without an easy getaway plan. Their previous dates had been on her home turf. At any moment she could’ve stuck a fork in their date and called it done. She worried about feeling trapped.

Upon exiting the plane, she scanned the collection of people in the waiting area and the hallway beyond. A new source of anxiety set in—what if Adam had changed his mind and didn’t even show? His flight was supposed to land forty-five minutes ahead of hers. He’d told her he’d locate her arrival gate and meet her there.

“Looking for someone?”

The rumble of his smooth, deep voice had come from directly behind her. In the few seconds it took to whip around to face him, her apprehension subsided. Hooking her free arm over his shoulders, she pulled him to her for a kiss. It was a quick, sweet peck, but they kept their faces close, touching their lips together again and again as they said hello and asked trivial questions about their respective flights. Surrounded by his soothing scent, Trish felt cradled, not trapped and dismissed her earlier worries.