Uninhibited

She glanced at Reed out of the corner of her eye to see how he was taking it. His countenance hadn’t changed except for a slight narrowing of his eyes and a too-tight something about his jaw, as if he were clenching his teeth. Encouraged, Zoe rattled on.

“Maybe we could hold a sort of informal market focus group,” she said recklessly, tossing ideas out off the top of her head. “You know, invite your friends over some evening and let them sample the products and tell us what they think about each of them. I could even give minifacials or—oh, I know!” She snapped her fingers as inspiration struck. “How about massages with my scented body oils? My friend Gina is a massage therapist and she’d lend me her table. We could set it up right here in the parlor. Gina might even come along to give the massages herself, if she’s free. She’s very good. Very much in demand. In fact, she has scads of clients right here on Beacon Hill. Probably some of your friends, even. Maybe you’ve heard of her? Gina Molinari? No? Well, anyway, I’m sure she wouldn’t charge too much, as a favor to me. Although, with your money, I don’t guess you’d worry about that.”

Zoe tossed another quick look over her shoulder. Reed Sullivan was still standing there, a bland look on his face, seemingly at ease as he patiently waited for his great-grandmother’s guest to be ready to leave…but a tiny, telltale muscle in his chiseled jaw had begun to twitch, ever so slightly. Zoe smiled brightly and plunged ahead.

“If that goes well, we could do something more formal. Well, not exactly formal, but more, um…” she tapped a forefinger against her chin, parodying someone deep in thought “…businesslike,” she decided, the word forming on her lips as if she wasn’t quite sure of its pronunciation, or exact meaning. “We could widen the survey. You know, pay different people to come in off the street to try the products, with questionnaires afterward to see what they like and don’t like. I’ve participated in dozens of focus groups like that when I’ve been between jobs, and they’re all pretty much run the same way,” she said confidingly. “I even worked as a researcher myself once, on one of my temp jobs, so I know how it’s done. So. How does that sound to you? Just to start, I mean?”

“Well, ah…” Moira’s gaze flickered from Zoe’s flushed face to her great-grandson’s stony countenance and back again. She smiled. “That sounds like quite an ambitious plan, my dear.” She nodded emphatically. Approvingly. “Quite ambitious.”

“Oh, I’m ambitious, all right.” Zoe slanted another quick glance at Reed. The muscles in his jaw were bulging now, as if he’d gone beyond clenching his teeth to grinding them. Zoe felt a surge of pure adrenaline and went in for the kill. “Extremely ambitious.” She leaned over slightly, reaching out to clasp one of Moira’s hands in both of hers. “Why, with all your lovely money behind me there’s no telling what I can—” She broke off, startled, as Reed’s long fingers wrapped themselves around her biceps. She dropped Moira’s hand as he pulled her upright with something very close to a jerk.

“We can talk about what you can or can not do with all Gran’s lovely money at some other time,” Reed said quietly, through his teeth.

Zoe’s protest was automatic. “But I haven’t fin—”

“I hate to rush you, but I’m running late, Miss Moon.” He glanced pointedly at his watch, turning his wrist without letting go of her. “If you want a lift home, we’ll have to leave right now.”

“Late for what? Oh. Your rugby practice,” she said, realizing belatedly that her hostess’s great-grandson was actually teetering on the edge of losing his cool. He’d never have laid hands on her, otherwise. “Well, don’t worry about me, then.” She gave him a bright, saccharine smile meant to push him clean over the precipice. “I can take the T home when I’m ready to go.” She shrugged dismissively, trying to dislodge his hand. “Moira and I have lots more to discuss and—”

His fingers flexed on her arm. “I really must insist, Miss Moon.”

“No, thank you. I appreciate the gesture but—”

“I didn’t want to mention it, but I’m afraid Gran is getting tired.” The look he turned on Moira was one of filial concern. “Aren’t you, Gran?”

“Nonsense. I’m not the least—” Moira began.

“She’ll never admit it, of course,” Reed continued smoothly, talking over his great-grandmother’s protest, “but it’s been a long afternoon for her. She usually takes a nap right after tea, and we’re keeping her from it.” He lowered his voice, putting his lips very near Zoe’s ear as if to keep Moira from overhearing. “She is ninety-two, you know.”

“Oh. Oh, yes. Of course. How thoughtless of me.” Guilt pierced Zoe’s tender heart, instantly chasing away all thought of goading Reed. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t thinking. You’ve been so kind to me,” she said to Moira, “and here I am, keeping you up when you should be resting. Just let me grab my purse and—”

“Got it.” Reed bent down, scooped the tapestry bag off the floor by its braided leather straps with his free hand and swung it toward her.

Zoe grabbed at it awkwardly, fumbling to hold on to it without upending the precariously gaping shopping bag hanging from her arm. She felt her shawl begin to slip, and hunched her shoulder, trying to boost it back into place.

“Dinner here after practice?” Reed said to his great-grandmother as Zoe grappled with her belongings.

“Dinner? Well, actually, I—”

Reed stared down his nose at her and waited.

“Yes, of course, dear. Dinner here,” Moira agreed demurely. “If you like.”

“I like.” He bent and pressed a quick kiss on her cheek. “I’ll be back around eight-thirty, if that’s all right with you?”

Moira nodded. “Eight-thirty will be fine.”

“Good.” He nodded, once. “That’s settled, then.” His hand tightened on Zoe’s arm. “Miss Moon?”

Zoe braced herself against the pressure. “Thank you for a lovely tea, Moira. I really enjoyed it.”

“So did I, dear,” Moira said. “Immensely. I’ll call you about the market research party early next week and we can discuss the details at more length.”

Reed mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like “Over my dead body” under his breath.

“What was that, dear?” Moira asked. “I didn’t quite hear you.”

“I said, I’ll take care of all the details.” He looked down at Zoe, smiling at her through gritted teeth. “Ready, now?”

Without waiting for either assent or refusal, he propelled her into motion, steering her around the piecrust table and across the Aubusson. It was either stumble along beside him as best she could or fall flat on her face and let him drag her. Zoe stumbled along, the shopping bag dangling from her arm, her purse clutched to her chest, her soft, knitted shawl slipping farther and farther off her shoulder. She had to quickstep to keep up with his long-legged, no-nonsense stride as he headed toward the tall double doors. The doors opened outward just as they reached them, and Eddie stepped back, bowing them into the foyer with a nod of his head.

“Sir?” he said in the same formal, sonorous tone he had used before. The word and the tone contrasted incongruously with the bright red shorts and red-and-yellow color-block rugby shirt he was wearing. No one paid any attention to the fact that he must have been listening at the keyhole to have opened the doors so promptly.

“Grab my things, please, Eddie,” Reed said he marched across the marble foyer, towing Zoe in his wake. She was nearly on tiptoes now, and the shawl had slipped entirely off of one shoulder and was dragging on the floor. “I’m running late.”

Eddie already had Reed’s things laid out in readiness, the overcoat draped across the top of a tufted velvet Victorian bench, the briefcase and gym bag side by side on the floor in front of it. He grabbed them up along with his own gym bag and fell in step behind the two scurrying figures.

“I take it you’re not going to change here as usual?” he asked pleasantly, as if the sight of his employer’s great-grandson quickstepping a guest out of the house wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

“No,” Reed said shortly. “No time. We have to drop Miss Moon off at her apartment on our way.” He yanked the front door open with his free hand before Eddie could maneuver around to do it for him. “I’ll change at Magazine Beach.”

I really ought to let him drive me home, Zoe thought vindictively as he all but dragged her over the threshold and out onto the front steps. Considering his final destination, a detour to the North End during rush hour traffic would make him really late. But it would make Eddie late, too, and Eddie wasn’t the one giving her the bum’s rush. And besides, she wasn’t in the mood to go anywhere with Mr. Stuffed Shirt!

“You don’t have to drop Miss Moon at her apartment,” she said between her teeth, digging in her heels and rearing back as he reached for the door handle of the sleek black Jaguar XJ6 parked—wouldn’t you just know it!—at the curb directly in front of the house. “You don’t have to drop Miss Moon anywhere, because Miss Moon will take the T. Now let go of my arm!”

She yanked her arm out of his grasp and turned to face him, there on the sidewalk in front of his great-grandmother’s Beacon Hill mansion.

“Boy, I sure don’t know what your problem is, mister.” Huffily, head down, Zoe wrestled with the handles of both shopping bag and purse, settling them securely over her arm. “And I don’t particularly care.” She hitched her shawl up over her shoulder with a jerk, draping the excess over her forearm. “But I definitely do not appreciate being treated like some kind of two-bit street hustler who’s out to make a quick buck off a sweet old lady.”

“If a quick buck was all you were after, there wouldn’t be any problem, would there?” Reed said mildly, his tone as urbane and civil as if he hadn’t just dragged her out of his great-grandmother’s house by the scruff of the neck.

Zoe found it really annoying that he could sound so cool, as if that mad dash across the marble foyer and down the wide brick steps hadn’t happened, while she was left feeling frazzled, put-upon and decidedly ill used. “Then just what is your problem?” she demanded.

“My problem is your brazen effort to bilk a sweet old lady out of a small fortune to finance some fly-by-night cosmetic company.”

“Fly-by—” Zoe’s mouth gaped open and she stared at him like a hooked fish for a full five seconds. “New Moon is not fly-by-night!” she exclaimed furiously, and then clamped her mouth shut. Shouting at the top of her lungs might be all well and good in the North End, but Beacon Hill called for a little more decorum. Besides, if she lost her temper, Mr. Stuffed Shirt would win. And she’d implode before she’d let that happen. “I’ve been selling New Moon products to individual clients for over three years, and commercially, on a commission basis, for almost two,” she said with quiet dignity. “I have steady retail customers in two shops in the Faneuil Hall Marketplace and several locations in the Back Bay, including one in a very exclusive boutique on Newbury Street, which, for your information, is where I met your great-grandmother. I’d hardly call that fly-by-night.”

“Regardless of what you’d call it, Miss Moon, you’re not getting any money from my great-grandmother to expand your little…enterprise.” His slight hesitation made the word sound distinctly unsavory.

“Why not?” Zoe demanded, truly puzzled by his attitude. “Moira told me she invests in all kinds of businesses. And with your blessing, too. So just what have you got against me and New Moon?”

“Let’s just say I have a constitutional aversion to con artists and leave it at that, shall we?”

“Con artists!?” She had to fight to keep her voice even. “But I just told you, I’m not trying to con any— Moira’s the one who invited me to tea and I— Oh, forget it! It’s obvious you’ve already made up your mind,” she accused, ignoring the fact that her little act in his great-grandmother’s parlor might have had something to do with his poor opinion of her. “And you aren’t about to change it, are you? No matter what I say.”

Zoe lifted her chin. “All I can say is that you’re cheating your great-grandmother out of a wonderful investment opportunity. New Moon is going to be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars some day. Millions, even.” She picked up the end of her shawl and tossed it across the opposite shoulder, haughty as an affronted queen. “It’s going to be bigger than Estee Lauder. And you’re going to be very, very sorry.”

With that, she turned and stomped off down the street, her mass of fiery, corkscrew curls swaying against her back, her purse and shopping bag bouncing against her hip, the heels of her purple suede boots clicking like castanets against the venerable old Boston street.