“Champagne!” announced Natalie with a big grin.
Jonah shrugged. Her enthusiasm was contagious. “Why not?”
“I’ll be right back,” Suzanne said, and left.
Natalie looked like a kid at a carnival. “This is so exciting. Do you suppose they’ll let us take the wheel?”
He leaned his forearms against the mahogany railing. He did his best to appear relaxed, although his heart was hammering from being this close to her. “I don’t know. This is a pretty fancy boat.”
“Yeah, but your hobby is sailing. You could convince them to let you, don’t you think?”
He turned more fully toward her. Time for her to start realizing he wasn’t the superhero she thought he was. That might keep both of them from making fools of themselves this weekend. “My chief made me put that down on the form, but I really don’t know much about sailing. A guy from the station has a little boat and he’s taken me out a few times, but I’m not qualified to sail a beauty like this.”
She gazed up at him, her smile serene, her eyes hidden behind sunglasses. “If they gave an award for the most modest man in America, I’ll bet you’d win, hands down.”
“I’m not modest, I’m truthful. I hope you haven’t bought into all the hype about me, because if you did, you’re going to be sadly disappointed in the next twenty-four hours.”
Her smile wavered just the tiniest bit. “I hope not,” she murmured.
He almost groaned aloud. She did have high expectations for this date, after all. She probably expected some combination of Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise. He was in big trouble.
“There they are! On the Satin Doll!”
With a fresh feeling of dread, Jonah turned toward the dock, and sure enough, a television van had pulled up and a camera crew was piling out.
“Let’s go below,” he said, grabbing Natalie’s arm.
“At least until we get out on the river,” she agreed as the yacht moved away from the mooring slip. She started down the steps into the cabin.
“I don’t think leaving the dock’s going to help.” Jonah glanced back at the camera crew as they boarded a motor launch. “Dammit, I was hoping this wouldn’t happen. Why can’t they leave me alone?”
Natalie looked over her shoulder at him. “You really don’t get it, do you?”
“No! I’m nothing special.”
When they reached the bottom of the steps, she took off her sunglasses and gazed at him. “I think you’re wrong.”
“Ah, there you are.” Suzanne emerged from the galley and handed them each a champagne flute. Then she returned with the rest of the bottle nestled into an ice bucket and a tray of chocolate-covered strawberries. “Let me know if I can get you anything else.” She set the bucket and tray on a table anchored in front of a leather banquette. “Lunch will be served on deck in a half hour. Listen for the bell. And enjoy!” She climbed the steps to the deck, leaving them alone.
Natalie raised her glass and touched the rim to his. “To friendship.”
Jonah looked into her eyes and wondered if her motivations were that simple. Somehow he doubted it.
3
SHE REALLY DID NEED a friend, Natalie thought as she looked into Jonah’s eyes. A friend who would help her mother reenter the world of the living. And she specifically needed Jonah to be that friend.
But just as it had been that night in the cab, friendship was being nudged aside by something a little more exciting. She really couldn’t let that happen, at least not until she’d talked to him about her mother’s book.
Jonah handed her his drink. “If you’ll hold this a minute, I’ll go topside and see if the TV motor launch is still after us.”
“Sure.” Their fingers touched as she took his glass. Yep, the chemistry was strong between them. Watching him bound up the steps to the deck made her go all warm and tight inside. She would just have to ignore the feeling and concentrate on becoming Jonah’s good buddy instead. Maybe they could play chess.
Putting both champagne flutes on the table, she poked around the cabin but didn’t turn up a chess-board. Finally she gave up. Untying the sleeves of her sweatshirt, she hung it on an ornate hook by the door before sliding onto the leather banquette and nestling among the pillows tossed there.
The gentle rocking motion of the boat coaxed her to lean back, put her feet up and relax. After all, she should try to enjoy herself a little, considering she’d sacrificed her retirement account to be here. She’d ordered the champagne in hopes it would make her forget about the money. And here she was not even drinking it.
She picked up her drink and helped herself to a chocolate-covered strawberry. This wasn’t half-bad, she thought, biting through the chocolate into sweet red pulp. If she could forget how much this weekend was costing her, maybe she’d enjoy being pampered for a change.
As a young and inexperienced woman in the stock market, she’d had to hustle the past few years to keep her head above water. Even with her rent held lower than the other tenants’ because of an old agreement made by her great-uncle, she still didn’t have lots of cash for luxuries left over at the end of each month. Lately she’d been spending all her spare money and energy trying to lift her mother’s depression.
At least that was working. Whenever Alice wasn’t wrestling the bachelor-auction theme into her manuscript, she was brainstorming ways for Natalie to make a good impression on Jonah this weekend. The white outfit had been Alice’s idea. The illusion of purity always fascinated a man, she’d said.
Meanwhile, Natalie struggled to keep her two roles straight. In her mother’s presence she had to pretend to be crazy in love with Jonah, but in Jonah’s presence she had to squelch any sexual feelings, or risk compromising her mission. Her brain was tired from the effort, come to think of it. She ought to have another strawberry.
She closed her eyes and took a bite. When the juice spurted out, she tried to catch the runoff with her tongue before it dribbled down her chin. She missed. Damn. She should have been more careful. Her illusion of purity was probably compromised. Opening her eyes, she glanced down at the front of her blouse. A red dot marked the exact position of her left nipple. She grabbed a napkin and started dabbing at it, which only spread the stain and made her nipple pucker under the soft material.
A soft sound drew her attention to the stairs, and she realized Jonah had been standing there for several seconds. Even across the distance separating them, she could feel the heat in his gaze. Unfortunately her body was responding to that heat. This buddy plan wasn’t working too well.
He cleared his throat and walked over to sit on the opposite end of the banquette. He picked up his champagne glass and drained it before he spoke. “The launch is still keeping up with us. The captain says there’s not much he can do about it, as long as they don’t come close enough to be any kind of navigational danger.”
“So what do you think we should do?” It came out sounding much more suggestive than she’d meant it to. She couldn’t help it if being nervous made her voice husky. And she was definitely a wee bit nervous being alone with him. The look he’d given her a minute ago hadn’t worn off yet, either.
He put down his glass and turned, his glance dropping to the red spot on her blouse, then moving back to her face. “I think you’d better tell me what you expect for your thirty-three thousand.”
“I—I don’t know what you mean.”
“Then I’ll be more clear. Do you expect that before this weekend is over I’ll make love to you?”
The