Miller forced himself to smile conspiratorially back at Serena, knowing that Mariah was going to see the exchange, knowing that she was going to interpret it as friendliness. At first.
Later, when she’d had time to think about it, Mariah would realize that he’d been flirting with her friend right from the start.
“You wouldn’t happen to be from the Boston area, would you?” he asked Serena. “I know a Harcourt Westford from my Harvard days—his family came from…I think it might’ve been Belmont.”
“No, as a matter of fact, I’ve never even been to Boston.”
She was lying. She’d met, married and murdered victim number six in Hyannisport, out on Cape Cod. The victim’s sister had told investigating officers that her brother and his new wife—she was using Alana as an alias back then—frequently went into Boston to attend performances of the BSO.
“Help yourself to something from the bar,” Serena directed them. “And the caterer made the best crab puffs tonight—be sure you sample them.”
As Serena moved off to greet other arriving guests, she glanced back at Miller and blew him a kiss that Mariah couldn’t see.
“Are you okay?” Mariah’s fingers gently squeezed his upper arm. “You look a little pale.”
He met her eyes and forced a smile. “I’m fine.”
“Why don’t you sit down and I’ll get us something to drink?”
“You don’t have to do that.” He didn’t want her to go. He didn’t want to have to use the opportunity to watch Serena, to smile at her when he caught her eye.
“I don’t mind,” Mariah told him. “What can I get you?”
“Just a soda.”
“Be right back.”
Miller couldn’t stop himself from watching her walk away, knowing that by the time she came back, he’d be well on his way toward destroying the easy familiarity between them.
There were chairs along the edge of the deck, but he didn’t sit down. If he sat down there, he wouldn’t be able to see Serena Westford where she was standing on the other end of the wide deck, at the top of the stairs that led down to the beach.
He made his way to one of the more comfortable-looking lounge chairs instead. He’d have a clear view of Serena from there.
Serena was watching him. He could feel her glancing in his direction as he gingerly lowered himself into one of the chairs. From the corner of his eye, he saw her lean closer to the man she was talking to. The man turned to look over at the bar and nodded. As he walked away, Miller sensed more than saw Serena heading in his direction.
His cover flashed through his mind like words scrolling down a computer screen. He was Jonathan Mills. Harvard University, class of ’80. M.B.A. from NYU in 1985. Car alarms. Hodgkin’s. Chemotherapy. Never married. Facing his own mortality and the end of his family line.
Forget about Mariah. God knows she’d be better off without a man like him in the long run. He was “The Robot,” for God’s sake. What would a woman who was so incredibly warm and alive want with a man rumored to have no soul?
“Are you feeling all right?” Serena’s cool English voice broke into his thoughts. He glanced over to find her settling onto the chair next to his. “Mariah was telling me how you’ve recently been ill.”
There was an unmistakable glint of interest in her eyes.
Miller nodded. “Yeah. I have been.” Across the deck he could see Mariah, a glass of something tall and cool in each hand, held in conversation by the same man who’d been talking to Serena earlier. She glanced at him, but he looked away before she could meet his eyes.
“How awful,” Serena murmured.
“Mariah didn’t tell me anything at all about you,” Miller countered, knowing that everything she was about to tell him about herself would be a lie.
In the past, this game of pretend had had the power to excite him, to invigorate him. She would lie to him, and he would lie to her, and the game would go on and on and on until one of them slipped up.
It wouldn’t be him. It never was him.
But tonight he didn’t want to play. He wanted to turn back the clock and spend the next one hundred years of his life reliving this morning’s dawn, with Mariah in his arms, the taste of her kisses on his lips.
“I think our Mariah has something of a crush on you,” Serena told him. “I don’t think she was eager for you to meet me.”
Meaning that it was an indisputable fact that the moment Miller met Serena, he would turn away from Mariah, and—in Serena’s opinion—rightly so.
This woman’s self-confidence and ego were both the size of the Taj Mahal.
Miller leaned closer to Serena, feeling like Peter in the Garden of Gethsemane. “I don’t really know her—not very well. We just met a few days ago, and…I know we’re here together tonight, but we’re really just friends. She seems very nice, though.”
Meaning, he hadn’t made up his mind about anything.
“Tell me,” Miller said, “what’s a woman like you doing on Garden Isle all by yourself?”
Meaning Serena was definitely interesting and attractive to him with her petite, aerobicized body and her gleaming blond hair and killer smile.
Serena smiled.
The game had moved into the next round.
MARIAH FELT LIKE A GIANTESS. Standing next to Serena, she felt like a towering football linebacker despite the dress and heels. Maybe because of the dress and heels. She felt as if she’d dressed up like this in an attempt to fool everyone into thinking she was delicate and feminine, but had failed.
Miserably.
John and Serena were deep in a conversation about Acapulco. Mariah had never been to Acapulco. When had she had the time? Up until just a few months ago, she hadn’t gone anywhere besides the office and to the occasional business meeting up in Lake Havasu City or Flagstaff.
Feeling dreadfully left out, but trying hard not to let it show, Mariah shifted her weight from one Amazon-sized leg to another and took a sip of her wine, wishing the alcohol would make her feel better, but knowing that drinking too much would only give her a headache in the morning.
This evening was so not what she’d hoped. Silly her. She’d never even considered the fact that Jonathan Mills would take one look at Serena and be smitten. But he was obviously infatuated with Mariah’s friend. He’d watched the blond woman constantly, all evening long. The few times Mariah had been alone with him, he’d talked only about Serena. He’d asked Mariah questions about her. He’d commented on her hair, her house, her party, her shoes.
Her tiny shoes. Oh, he didn’t say anything about size, but Serena’s feet were small and feminine. Mariah hadn’t worn shoes that size since third grade.
All those signals she’d thought she’d picked up from him were wrong. Those kisses. Had he kissed her first, or had she kissed him? She couldn’t remember. It was entirely possible that she had made the first move this morning on the couch. She knew she’d made the first move down in the basement.
And each time she’d kissed him, he’d told her in plain English that he thought they should just be friends.
But did she listen? Nope, not her. But she was listening now. It was all that she could do—she had nothing worth adding to the conversation. Acapulco.