The Bridal Suite

“I’m fine. It’s just... It’s just that I need you.”

“Oh, my dear,” Arthur said, and she didn’t realize he might have gotten the wrong impression until she was on her way out the door.

But by then, it was too late.

Griffin had been in a lot of restaurants in his life, but never in one that reminded him of a chapel.

If only he’d been paying attention when Cynthia had turned up unexpectedly at his office, smiling her perfect smile, looking as if she’d just stepped out of a bandbox—whatever the hell that might be—asking if he’d like to join her for lunch.

Sure, he’d said, even though he knew he should have come up with some excuse because Cynthia was beginning to push things a little too hard. But his thoughts had been on Dana Anderson, and how much pleasure there’d be in firing her, and the next thing he’d known, he and Cynthia had been standing inside this super-trendy, self-conscious watering hole where violins violined and trysters trysted.

“What is this place?” he’d muttered.

“It’s called Portofino,” Cynthia had whispered, giving him a tremulous smile. “Your mother said the Times gave it a terrific write-up.”

My mother, the matchmaker, Griffin had thought grimly, but he’d managed to smile. Apparently, it was time for another little chat. Marilyn McKenna was wise, sophisticated and channing...but she never gave up. She had decided, a couple of years before, that it was time he married and settled down, and she’d switched her considerable energies from her newest charity to getting him to do just that. Poor Cynthia didn’t know it, but she was his mother’s latest attempt at moving him toward the goal.

“If you’d rather go someplace else,” Cynthia had said, her perfect smile trembling just a little...

“No,” Griffin had said, because that was exactly what’d he been thinking. “No, this is fine.”

It wasn’t fine. The Times might love Portofino but as far as he was concerned, the place was a total loser. He liked being able to identify the food on his plate, something you could not do in the artificial twilight of the restaurant, and if the captain or the sommelier or the waiter slid by one more time, smiling with oily deference and asking, sotto voce, if everything were all right, he was going to say no, by God, it wasn’t, and would somebody please turn up the lights, dump half the bordelaise sauce off what might yet prove to be a slab of rare roast beef, and take away these flowers before he started listening for a Bach fugue to come drifting from the kitchen?

Griffin smothered a sigh. The truth was that he’d do no such thing. He’d come here of his own free will, which made paying the consequences for his stupidity an obligation.

The captain had seated them at a table for two behind the perfect fronds of an artificial palm tree. The fronds had dipped into his soup and his salad. Now, they were dipping into his beef.

“Isn’t this romantic?” Cynthia sighed.

“Yes,” Griffin said bravely, brushing aside a frond. “Yes, it is.”

“I just knew you’d like it,” Cynthia said, batting her lashes.

He’d never noticed that before, that she batted her lashes. He’d read the phrase in books but until this moment, he hadn’t thought about what it meant. Blink. Blink, blink. It looked weird. Did all women do that, to get a man’s attention? He couldn’t imagine the Anderson woman doing it. She’d probably never batted a lash in her life.

“Griffin?”

Griffin looked up. Cynthia was smiling at him. Nothing new there; she almost always smiled at him. Not like the charming Ms. Anderson, who always glared.

“Griffin.” Cynthia gave a tinkling little laugh and cocked her head at a pretty angle. “You seem to be a million miles away.”

“I’m sorry, Cyn.” Griffin cleared his throat. “I, ah, I keep thinking about that conference.”

“The one in Florida? Your mother mentioned it.”

Give me a break, Mother!

“Yes,” he said pleasantly. “It should be interesting. I’ve never been to a software convention before.”

“I envy you,” Cynthia said, and sighed.

Griffin’s dark brows angled upward. “I didn’t know you were interested in computers.”

She laughed gaily. “Oh, Griffin! Aren’t you amusing? I meant that I envied you for getting away from this cold weather to spend a long weekend in Florida. I only wish I had that opportunity.”

Griffin’s jaw clenched. Marilyn the Matchmaker was really pushing it this time.

“Yes,” he said politely, “I suppose it sounds terrific, but I doubt if I’ll even get to set foot on the sand. I’ll be too busy rushing from meeting to meeting.”

“Ah,” Cynthia gazed down at her plate. “I see.”

Griffin sighed. No. She didn’t see. She was a nice girl, but she was wasting her time. Sooner or later, he was going to have to find a way to tell her that.

It was true, she would undoubtedly make some man a fine wife. She was pretty. Actually, she was beautiful. She was well-educated, too, but she wasn’t the kind of woman who was bothered by the fact that she was a woman; she understood that there was a difference between the sexes. Griffin had had enough of male-bashing broads to last a lifetime. Any man would, who’d come of age within the past couple of decades.

Cynthia was like a breath of fresh air. She had no agenda and no career goals. She didn’t look upon men as the enemy. She liked being a woman. She understood the difference between the sexes, and the difference pleased her.

There was no question as to what would make Cynthia happy. She would be content to be a man’s helpmate. To bear his children. To stay at home, cook his meals and clean his house...metaphorically, anyway, because, of course, there’d be a staff of servants to do all of that. The point was, Cynthia would not want the rules bent to accommodate her. She wouldn’t leave you wondering if she’d say “thank you” if you opened her car door for her or accuse you of trying to treat her as if she were the weaker sex.

Griffin knew that if he’d been looking for a wife, he’d have looked no further.

But he wasn’t looking for a wife. Not yet. Maybe not ever. His life was full and exciting, just the way it was. He loved his work, and his freedom, the right to come and go as he pleased, when he pleased. Not that he didn’t enjoy curtailing that freedom from time to time. The world was full of gorgeous women who were eager to share his life for a few weeks or months, no commitments asked. They were not wife material, his mother had said more than once, and each time she did, Griffin nodded thoughtfully and breathed a silent prayer of thanks that they were not.

But—and it was one hell of a big “but”—if he ever did decide it was time to settle down, and if Cynthia was still available, he might just look her up. He liked her well enough; he supposed he could even learn to love her...and if he couldn’t imagine taking her in his arms, the way he’d thought about taking Dana Anderson in his arms, and making love on the warm sands of a tropical beach, so what? Wild passion wasn’t what married life was all about.

Griffin frowned. Dammit, it wasn’t what the Anderson woman was all about, either. Why did he keep thinking about her and that silly beach?

Ms. Anderson, making love on a beach. The very idea was laughable. She’d probably never had a date in her life. She’d probably never...

Griffin jerked back in his seat.

No. It couldn’t be!

But it was. There, directly across the restaurant, tucked away in a cozy little nook, sat Dana Anderson...and a man.

What was she doing here? Griffin would have bet anything that she had her lunch in a health food store, or quaffed yogurt at her desk. Instead, here she was amidst the palm fronds and velvet drapes in the pseudo-romantic, sickeningly phony confines of Portofino. And she was with a guy.

An attentive one.

Griffin’s frown deepened.

The man could have been chosen for her by central casting. He was perfect, from his tortoise-shells to the bow tie that bobbed on his Adam’s apple.

“Monsieur?”

Griffin looked up. The waiter hovered beside the table.

“Do monsieur and madame wish dessert? A tarte, perhaps, or a Madeline Supreme?”