Suzanne smiled. “I was planning to tell her you’re a great guy, just as wonderful as she imagines you are.”
A flush worked its way up from his neck. “Uh, thanks. Well, I guess we’d better get going. Ready, Natalie?”
She glanced at him, a twinkle in her gray eyes. “Are you certain you can’t fly? It would sure come in handy right now to be able to go right over the heads of all those people on the dock.”
“Very funny.” He glanced at Eric, who had a grip on their overnight cases and seemed ready to run interference for them. “Say, Eric, where were you figuring on stashing those?” he asked.
“In the trunk of the limo,” Eric said. “Would you rather have them up with you?”
“I just want to keep this operation simple,” Jonah said. “So let’s not bother with the trunk. Just heave them in and we’ll jump in right afterward.”
“Got it.”
Jonah took a deep breath. “Okay, let’s go.” He wrapped a protective arm around Natalie’s shoulders and lowered his head against the glare from the lights as they stepped off the gangplank. “We’re not stopping.”
“Right.”
Holding her tight against him, he shouldered his way through the crowd behind Eric, ignoring the camera lenses, microphones and shouted questions. Ahead of him the uniformed limo driver opened the passenger door. Eric put the overnight cases inside and jumped back just as Jonah shoved Natalie in.
“Get in and drive!” Jonah shouted to the chauffeur, who seemed to think he had to hold the door for Jonah, too. Jonah leaped in and wrestled the door shut as someone tried to keep him from closing it. At last the locks clicked into place and he sagged with relief as the car edged away from the crowd.
“Are you okay?” Natalie sat in the far corner, looking small and vulnerable, her eyes wide.
“I’m okay.” He didn’t see any obvious scrapes or bruises on her delicate skin. “Are you?”
“Physically. But it sure messes with your head, being part of a mob scene like that, doesn’t it?”
Jonah closed his eyes and leaned back against the plush upholstery. “Yep.” He took a deep breath. “You know what’s the worst part?”
“What?”
He kept his eyes closed and willed his tense muscles to relax. “I was raised to be polite, to respond to people with courtesy when they approached me. I can’t do that anymore, because now everyone wants something.”
“I…guess they do.”
“And then I see some of the looks on the faces of those women, and my heart goes out to them. They need someone to speak a kind word to them, to smile, to ask them how they’re doing. And I don’t dare.”
He felt a light touch on his arm and opened his eyes.
Natalie had scooted over next to him and rested her hand on the sleeve of his sport coat. “That’s one of the sweetest things I’ve ever heard anyone say.”
God, she was beautiful, especially when she got that soft look in her eyes. The leather seat reminded him of the one down in the cabin of the boat, which reminded him of what she’d felt like beneath him. He wanted her in his arms again, wanted to kiss her and touch her the way he had this morning. “I wasn’t trying to be sweet. I just—”
“You just can’t help it,” she said. “You’re a decent human being, and so you just can’t help being such a nice guy.”
He sat up straighter and smiled at her. “Don’t push it. I wasn’t having such sweet thoughts about you just now.”
Her cheeks grew rosy and she glanced down at his sleeve. Slowly she removed her hand. “You know, I’m not so different from all those women you’ve been trying to stay away from.”
“You mean aside from the fact that you’re twenty times better-looking than any of them, and probably twenty times richer, and you’ve promised not to go to bed with me under any circumstance? Other than that, yeah, I guess you’re just like them.”
The blush on her cheeks deepened and she glanced away. “I am. I want something, just like they do.”
Aha. He’d been afraid from the beginning that she had an agenda. He’d hoped to be wrong, but apparently not. He wondered if it was something kinky, or illegal, or kinky and illegal. She looked innocent enough, but he’d only spent a few hours with her. How could he claim to know whether that innocence was a cover-up for all sorts of weird cravings? And damned if the idea didn’t excite him. Even straight arrows could be tempted.
As his imagination worked overtime, his question came out sounding gruffer than he’d meant it to. “What do you want?”
She glanced at him uncertainly. “Maybe this isn’t the time to discuss it.”
“That wild, huh?”
“No, it’s just—”
“Just what?” he asked softly, his heart pounding. He should have guessed that a woman with her looks and her money had become bored with traditional sex. She probably didn’t want to go to bed with him because she was saving him for something far more elaborate than a simple roll in the hay. When he’d asked if she expected him to make love to her this weekend, she’d probably laughed to herself at his conventional ideas.
The limo slid to a stop and the engine stopped.
“We can talk about it later,” she said. “Maybe after the helicopter ride.”
He was more aroused than he cared to admit, and a little afraid he wasn’t up to whatever she had in mind. “Remember you’re not dealing with some swinging playboy.”
“That’s why you’re so perfect for this.” She smiled at him. “You’re even an Eagle Scout.” The limo driver opened her door and she stepped outside.
So that was her agenda, he thought. She planned to corrupt an Eagle Scout.
NATALIE HAD LOST HER NERVE, but as she strapped herself into the helicopter seat she decided everything had worked out for the best. They wouldn’t have had enough time to discuss her mother’s book before the helicopter ride, and doing it during the ride was totally impossible. She sat in front, next to the pilot, with Jonah directly behind her. They’d dodged the usual crowd to get to the helicopter, but once through the gate they’d been protected by a wire fence that cordoned off the landing pad.
She’d never been in a helicopter before, and her stomach tickled with excitement as she looked down through the bubble of glass that curved under her feet. Once again she reminded herself to soak up this experience—after all, she’d paid for it. The whirling blades made a lot of noise, but the pilot handed each of them a headset which provided symphony music that pretty much drowned out the heavy thumping of the rotors.
The helicopter lifted off and her stomach lurched as the ground fell away beneath her. The pilot swung the chopper out over the river, its dark surface a mirror of color and light. They glided downriver past the harbor, heading straight for the Statue of Liberty’s torch. Natalie’s heart pounded with anticipation as they grew closer, and closer still, until she felt as if she could touch the great lady’s cheek.
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