“Certainly. What would you like, Dev?”
“Whatever you and your grandmother are having is fine.”
“I’m having white wine.” Her smile tipped into one of genuine affection as she moved to a side table containing an opened bottle of wine nested in a crystal ice bucket and an array of decanters. “Grandmama, however, is ignoring her doctor’s orders and sipping an abominable brew concocted by our ancestors back in the sixteenth century.”
“Žuta Osa is hardly abominable, Sarah,” the duchess countered. She lifted a tiny liqueur glass and swirled its amber-colored contents before treating her guest to a bland look. “It simply requires a strong constitution.”
Dev recognized a challenge when one smacked him in the face. “I’ll give it a try.”
“Are you sure?” Sarah shot him a warning glance from behind the drinks table. “The name translates roughly to yellow wasp. That might give you an idea of what it tastes like.”
“Really, Sarah! You must allow Mr. Hunter to form his own opinion of what was once our national drink.”
Dev was already regretting his choice but concealed it behind a polite request. “Please call me Dev, ma’am.”
He didn’t presume to address the duchess by name or by rank. Mostly because he wasn’t sure which came first. European titles were a mystery wrapped up in an enigma to most Americans. Defunct Eastern European titles were even harder to decipher. Dev had read somewhere that the form of address depended on whether the rank was inherited or bestowed, but that didn’t help him a whole lot in this instance.
The duchess solved his dilemma when she responded to his request with a gracious nod. “Very well. And you may call me Charlotte.”
Sarah paused with the stopper to one of the decanters in hand. Her look of surprise told Dev he’d just been granted a major concession. She recovered a moment later and filled one of the thimble-size liqueur glasses. Passing it to Dev, she refilled her wineglass and took a seat beside her grandmother.
As he lifted the glass in salute to his hostess, he told himself a half ounce of yellow wasp couldn’t do much damage. One sip showed just how wrong he was. The fiery, plum-based liquid exploded in his mouth and damned near burned a hole in his esophagus.
“Holy sh...!”
He caught himself in time. Eyes watering, he held the glass at arm’s length and gave the liqueur the respect it deserved. When he could breathe again, he met the duchess’s amused eyes.
“This puts the stuff we used to brew in our helmets in Iraq to shame.”
“You were in Iraq?” With an impatient shake of her head, Charlotte answered her own question. “Yes, of course you were. Afghanistan, too, if I remember correctly from the article in Beguile.”
Okay, now he was embarrassed. The idea of this gray-haired matriarch reading all that nonsense—and perusing the picture of his butt crack!—went down even rougher than the liqueur.
To cover his embarrassment, Dev took another sip. The second was a little easier than the first but still left scorch marks all the way to his gullet.
“So tell me,” Charlotte was saying politely, “how long will you be in New York?”
“That depends,” he got out.
“Indeed?”
The duchess did the nose-up thing again. She was good at it, Dev thought as he waited for the fire in his stomach to subside.
“On what, if I may be so bold to ask?”
“On whether you and your granddaughter will have dinner with me this evening. Or tomorrow evening.”
His glance shifted to Sarah. The memory of how she’d fit against him, how her mouth had opened under his, hit with almost the same sucker punch as the Žuta Osa.
“Or any evening,” he added, holding her gaze.
* * *
Sarah gripped her wineglass. She didn’t have any trouble reading the message in his eyes. It was a personal challenge. A not-so-private caress. Her grandmother would have to be blind to miss either.
Okay. All right. She’d hoped this meeting would blunt the surprise of a sudden engagement. Dev had done his part. The ball was now in her court.
“I can’t speak for Grandmama, but I’m free tomorrow evening. Or any evening,” she added with what felt like a silly, simpering smile.
She thought she’d overplayed her hand. Was sure of it when the duchess speared her with a sharp glance.
The question in her grandmother’s eyes ballooned Sarah’s guilt and worry to epic proportions. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t deceive the woman who’d sold every precious family heirloom she owned to provide for her granddaughters. A confession trembled on her lips. The duchess forestalled it by turning back Devon Hunter.
“I’m afraid I have another engagement tomorrow evening.”
Both women knew that to be a blatant lie. Too caught up in her own web of deceit to challenge her grandmother, Sarah tried not to squirm as the duchess slipped into the role of royal matchmaker.
“But I insist you take my granddaughter to dinner tomorrow. Or any evening,” she added drily. “Right now, however, I’d like to know a little more about you.”
Sarah braced herself. The duchess didn’t attack with the same snarling belligerence as Alexis, but she was every bit as skilled and tenacious when it came to extracting information. Dev didn’t stand a chance.
She had to admit he took the interrogation with good grace. Still, her nerves were stretched taunt when she went to bed some hours later. At least she’d mitigated the fallout from one potentially disastrous situation. If—when—she and Devon broke the news of their engagement, it wouldn’t come as a complete shock to Grandmama.
* * *
She woke up the next morning knowing she had to defuse another potentially explosive situation. A quick scan of her phone showed no return call or text from Gina. An equally quick scan of electronic, TV and print media showed the story hadn’t broken yet about Sarah and Number Three. It would, though. She sensed it with every instinct she’d developed after three years in the dog-eat-dog publishing business.
Alexis. She had to tell Alexis some version of her involvement with Devon Hunter. She tried out different slants as she hung from a handrail on the subway. Several more in the elevator that zoomed her up to Beguile’s offices. Every possible construction but one crumbled when Alexis summoned her into her corner office. Pacing like a caged tiger, the executive editor unleashed her claws.
“Jesus, Sarah!” Anger lowered Alexis’s smoker’s rasp to a frog-like croak. “You want to tell me why I have to hear secondhand that one of my editors swapped saliva with Sexy Single Number Three? On the street. In full view of every cabbie with a camera phone and an itch to sell a sensational story.”
“Come on, Alexis. How many New York cabbies read Beguile enough to recognize Number Three?”
“At least one, apparently.”
She flung the sheet of paper she was holding onto the slab of Lucite that was her desk. Sarah’s heart tripped as she skimmed the contents. It was a printed email, and below the printed message was a grainy color photo of a couple locked in each other’s arms. Sarah barely had time for a mental apology to Red for thinking she’d be the one to peddle the story before Alexis pounced.
“This joker wants five thousand for the picture.”
“You’re kidding!”
“See this face?” The executive editor stabbed a finger at her nose. “Does it look like I’m kidding?”
“This...this