A Rare Find

“What about your mom?”

Amara pressed her lips together, then sighed. “She doesn’t know I was suspended. She’s on her honeymoon on some Polynesian island, and her phone doesn’t seem to be working.”

“Well, won’t she be surprised when she shows up at your graduation and you’re not there?”

Amara swallowed. “I hadn’t gotten that far in my thinking. The whole thing just blew up yesterday.”

Press picked up a beach towel from a chaise and started to dry himself off. Amara turned her head away, taking a sudden interest in the climbing roses on a trellis. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the way he moved the towel across his back. This time her throat was too dry to swallow.

He tossed the towel over one shoulder and slipped his feet into a pair of well-worn flip-flops. “So what are you planning on doing? Hang around the pool all day?”

Amara nervously slipped a lock of hair behind her ear. “No, I think from what my father and your sister Mimi said, I’m supposed to be babysitting. You have a little sister?”

“Half sister. Brigid. She’s cool. For a seven-year-old. But she’s in school until three, so you still have most of the day to yourself.”

“I guess I’ll just wait around here. I’ve got a book I could read.”

“That sounds pretty boring. Why don’t you just hang out with me?”

“Shouldn’t I let your other sister know?”

“You mean Mimi?” Press shook his head. “Trust me, Mimi will eventually wake up later, a little fuzzy about the fact that she invited you to stay here.” He used the tip of the towel to get water out of his ear. “I mean, you can say no. Or if you think your father wouldn’t like it?”

Amara shook her head. “I’m sure he wouldn’t mind since he’s really tied up with work. My being here suddenly has only complicated his life.” She didn’t feel like filling him in on the details of who her father was. The conversation would then inevitably turn to questions about what Nicholas Rheinhardt was really like, was he really as cool as he seemed on TV. The thing of it was, she really didn’t have the foggiest idea how to answer.

“Well, in that case, why don’t I meet you back here in about fifteen minutes? I need to take a shower.” Press pointed over his shoulder to the house. It was a stately brick Georgian manor complete with towering columns and shiny black shutters. “And then we can go to the club to get some breakfast. Normally I live in a dorm on campus and eat there. But since I’m graduating from Grantham next week, and classes and exams are done, I decided to crash at home for a change.” Unconsciously he rubbed his tanned washboard stomach.

Amara’s mouth dropped open.

“You haven’t eaten yet, right?”

She snapped her jaw shut. “Ah, no.” She hadn’t even had dinner last night.

“They have scrambled eggs and bacon and stuff like that at the club. You’re not a vegetarian, are you? A lot of girls are vegetarians. I just don’t get that. There’s no way I could live without bacon.”

Amara hadn’t had a bite of meat in more than three years. It was a philosophical thing—she couldn’t bear the thought of hurting animals—not a weight thing, the way it was for some of her friends.

She was torn. She believed in standing up for her principles, but there was no way she was going to piss off this amazing guy… .

Her stomach growled loudly. She looked down, horrified.

Press laughed. “I guess bacon it is. After that I’ll take you to meet Penelope.”

She glanced up, doubly stricken. “Is she your girlfriend?”

Press laughed, this time louder.

CHAPTER SIX

PENELOPE©WAS©JUST©FINISHING the episode that took place in some remote corner of the former Soviet Union, which seemed solely notable for its frigid temperatures, temperamental plumbing and thin potato soup. When she leaned back in her ergonomically designed desk chair and glanced out her office window, she caught sight of two men coming up the walkway.

One was short and squat, his legs doing a two-step for every long stride of the man to his right—or her left.

Technically she ceased observing Man Number One after less than a millisecond. There was nothing technical about the way Penelope bit the inside of her cheek and gazed openly at Nicholas Rheinhardt—in the flesh as opposed to on screen.

Oh, my. No amount of cyberknowledge had prepared her for the accelerated heart rate and tightness of breath that she was currently experiencing. Her agitated state made her recall the conversation she’d had with herself when she’d held the Grantham Galen several weeks earlier. Now, mentally, she did a checklist once more of the causes of these physiological effects. There was only one explanation.

Clearly Nicholas Rheinhardt was poison.

And she had no idea of the antidote.

Still, ever stalwart, she rose and walked softly on the wall-to-wall carpeting of the reading room to the front of the building. She pushed open the central glass door and waited.

It seemed like a good idea to take the offensive. Penelope gulped. Whatever she did, she refused to muss with her hair in classic female flirtatious behavior.

“Our apologies for being late,” the shorter man said. He stuck out his hand.

Penelope looked down. She noticed the man bit his nails, but they were otherwise clean. She extended her hand to shake his. “I’m Penelope Bigelow. My brother, Justin, mentioned over the phone that Nicholas Rheinhardt wanted to visit the Rare Book Library.” She raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, well, I’m Georgie De Meglio, Nicholas’s producer. Think of me as Nick’s alter ego.” He smiled wide.

A seemingly genuinely pleasant man, Penelope thought. Then she focused on the man rocking on his heels. “And you must be the ego, then?”

For a moment—several moments actually—he stared intently. Even Georgie appeared to notice because he jabbed him in the ribs. “Nick isn’t his best in the morning, are you?”

“Mr. Rheinhardt, I presume,” she said.

“Nick, please,” he responded, his eyes locked on hers. He held out his hand.

They made contact. This time Penelope’s heart stopped beating, her jaw became slack and breathing was all but forgotten. Poison, definitely.

“I’m sorry we’re late,” he said, his hand still holding hers. He didn’t appear to be as disturbed as she felt, but Penelope could have sworn she saw his pupils dilate. He wasn’t as unaffected as he appeared to be.

“The traffic. It was murder. But then, you probably know all about that seeing as you live here.” He gave her his famous camera-ready smile.

Penelope blinked. “I usually bike.”

“Oh.” The smile dipped in wattage. He dropped his hand.

“Shall we go inside, gentlemen,” she said, recovering. Penelope held out her hand in the direction of the conference room. “From what my brother mentioned, you’re interested in seeing some of our food-related manuscripts.” She walked briskly in front of them. She was aware of the sound of her ballet flats clipping along the stone floor of the entrance hall.

She opened the second set of glass doors to the well-lit reading room and its long tables. A hushed silence enveloped the space. She continued to the conference room on the right and opened the door. “I tried to intuit what you had in mind.”

“I’ve never been intuited before,” Nick quipped.

Penelope was taken aback. Then she saw him purse his lips. Aha. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were making a joke.”

“He does that frequently. Is that a problem?” Georgie acted the mediator.