“Come on.” He touched her arm, but didn’t take it. She went with him the rest of the way through the park to a row of iron benches on the edge of the square, facing the imposing facade of the Newberry Library.
For a while they just sat there. Tom let the silence spin out. It was full dark by then, the streetlights blooming bright, the fountain in front of the library bubbling away, making those happy splashing sounds as the water shot upward and tumbled back into the fountain’s bowl. An old couple strolled past, the man frailer than the woman. He held her arm and leaned heavily on a cane. And there were others, most walking fast, in a hurry to get wherever they were going.
“You live in Forest Park, right?” he asked after a while.
She sent him a glance.
He put up both hands. “Don’t shoot me. It was on your résumé.”
An unwilling smile broke across those full lips. She shook her head. “Do you ever give up?”
“Persistence. Key to success. Tell me about your place.”
“Tom…”
“Come on. It’s getting-to-know-you time. Totally innocent.”
“Hah.”
She had him pegged. It wasn’t innocent. Tom knew that. Not innocent in the least. He was drawn to Shelly. Powerfully. She made him want to take the kind of chances he’d long ago stopped taking.
He knew he should respect the boundaries she’d just set. But when he looked into those brown eyes of hers, well, what he should be doing seemed of no importance.
“About your place…?”
She blew out a breath. “Oh, all right. It’s got three bedrooms and two baths. My parents helped me buy it. It’s small, but it’s mine.” She turned to him. In the glow of the streetlamp a few feet away, her eyes were dark velvet and her skin shone like pearls.
Tom smiled to himself. He knew she liked him. Maybe more than she wanted to like him. He’d take it a day at a time. Anything might happen.
As a rule, he would never consider seducing his secretary. But he was considering it. More than considering it. It felt…right, somehow, with Shelly. He wanted her. And he liked her. That seemed a rare thing to him. As each day passed, Tom was only more certain that, between him and Shelly, the rules didn’t apply.
She said, “You realize I know almost nothing about you.”
“Is that an accusation?”
She sighed. “Well, yeah. I guess it is. Where do you live?”
“I’ve got a great condo on East Randolph.”
“Right in the Loop.” The Loop was downtown, so named because the train system looped in a circle around it. Living space there was at a premium. She went on, “I might have guessed. And you can see Grant Park from your balcony, right?”
“Yeah. I can see it.” He nudged her with his elbow. Gently.
She shot him a wary glance. “What?”
“We could go there right now. I’ll show you my… view.”
She laughed. “I think you’re dangerous.”
“Who, me?” He did his best to look harmless.
“Let me guess. You’re from somewhere back east. You went to Yale. You were on the rowing team…”
“Princeton. Coxswain, heavyweight men’s crew. I had a full ride.”
“In the rowboat?”
He chuckled. “I meant scholarships. They covered everything, tuition, fees, living expenses. I never would have gotten near the Ivy League otherwise.”
A frown crinkled her smooth forehead. “Not from a rich family? Not from Pennsylvania or Massachusetts or upstate New York?”
“I was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My dad was a janitor and my mom worked in a dentist’s office. They were older. My mom was forty-five when she had me. I was their only kid.”
“Was?”
“Yeah. They died years ago. My dad went first. Heart attack. My mom followed not long after.” He didn’t say the rest, that the stress of his arrest and the trial for insider trading had really taken it out of them. Dan Holloway died while Tom was in prison. Tom got out in time to be at his mother’s bedside when she went.
Shelly’s big brown eyes were soft. “Wow. That’s tough. How old were you when you lost them?”
“Twenty-four.”
“I can’t imagine getting along without my parents.” She put her hand on his arm. It felt damn good there. Warm. And steady. “I’m sorry, Tom.”
He looked into her eyes and felt like a fraud. They died because I broke their hearts.…
He had the craziest urge right then, to tell her everything. All the gory details. His apprenticeship in greed, ambition and corruption under a master manipulator, his long free fall from grace.
It was an urge he had little trouble resisting. He wasn’t going there. He liked Shelly. He wanted to get to know her better. A lot better.
But some ugly stories were better left unshared.
He lowered his arm from under her touch. “You do what you have to do. I went into the army after they died.”
“Time for a change, huh?”
“You could say that. When I got out, I got my MBA on the GI bill from the University of Texas. I worked in Dallas and Atlanta, then Dallas again. And then back to New York. And now Chicago.”
“Back?”
“Excuse me?”
“You said you went back to New York.…”
Way to blow it, Holloway. He tried to act casual as he covered his ass. “I had a job in New York before my parents died.” And he went right on before she had a chance to ask him what kind of job. “What else? My favorite color is orange and I’m becoming a Cubs fan. I hate Thai food, love Italian. Two serious relationships.”
“Marriages, you mean?”
“Uh-uh. Never went that far. Now you. Come on. It’s only fair. Favorite color?”
“I love blue.”
“And about the Cubs?”
“The Cubs are tops with me. I like Thai food, like Italian better. I have a thing about tuna fish. Love it.”
“A little mercury. What’s the harm?”
“Exactly. Never been married, either—and I see those questions in your eyes.”
“Busted. Your son’s father…?”
“Okay. Since I feel like we’re almost friends—in a strictly professional way…”
He made a circular, move-it-along motion with his hand. “Yeah?”
“I got pregnant in college. The boy didn’t want anything to do with being a dad. He agreed to sign papers giving up his rights to Max. I haven’t seen him since.”
“That’s cold. Signing away your own kid.”
She shifted on the bench, turning her body toward him. “Honestly, I’m not bitter.” She looked so…earnest. And damn it, he wanted to slide his fingers under her hair, hook his hand around her neck and pull her close for a kiss.
But he played fair—for now—and held himself in check. “I like your attitude, Winston.”
“Hey.