The Elliotts: Bedroom Secrets: Under Deepest Cover

“You mean like chefs and restaurant managers and spice dealers?”

And terrorists and spies. She nodded.

“Well, maybe there’s more to running a restaurant than I thought. Maybe now that he has a girlfriend, he’ll stay home more. You’ll take good care of him, won’t you?”

“More like he’s taking good care of me.”

Six

Dinner was the typical five-course extravaganza. Though the Elliotts had a chef come in even for their family dinners, Maeve was a fine cook in her own right and couldn’t resist dabbling in the kitchen. The meal tonight was vichyssoise, followed by a field-green salad, braised salmon, beef tips with fresh asparagus, and fudge-caramel mousse.

“What do you think, Bryan, love?” Maeve asked. “Up to your standards?”

“Gram, you know even Une Nuit can’t compete with the dinners you serve here,” he said diplomatically. He’d enjoyed the dinner but he’d spent most of his time watching Lucy, who was so nervous she could hardly swallow. She was doing a spectacular job posing as Lindsay. She’d often shot him nervous but affectionate looks throughout the evening, and a couple of times she’d sought him out and taken his hand.

He had to admit, the feel of her smooth little hand in his had stirred something inside him until it was becoming increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction. But that was the general idea when working a cover story. Live it, believe it, and you could be convincing.

But was he living it a little too much? He certainly had no problem doting on “Lindsay.” He even stole the cherry from the top of the mousse and presented it to her, which started a boisterous argument among the cousins. When they’d been kids, they’d always fought over the cherry until Maeve had been forced to go to the kitchen and bring out the jar of maraschinos, giving each of her grandkids one.

“So,” Patrick said, “where is your twin sister this evening, Shane?”

“Why are you asking me?” said Shane, who was editor in chief of The Buzz. “You know Fin. She’s eating and sleeping at Charisma these days, she’s so obsessed with this competition.”

The others at the table agreed. This was one of those times Bryan was truly grateful not to be in the magazine business. He didn’t like this competition among his aunt, uncles and cousins for control of EPH. He had no idea what his grandfather’s goal had been in setting up the contest, but surely it wasn’t to put them all at each other’s throats.

“No need to criticize,” said Scarlet, sticking up for her boss. “Aunt Finny is devoted, that’s all. She truly cares about Charisma.”

“Oh, and I don’t care about The Buzz?” Shane shot back.

“I didn’t say that.”

More arguments broke out after that. Bryan leaned back and folded his arms, rather enjoying the melee. The things some people thought were important.

Lucy interrupted his amusement. “Excuse me,” she said quietly to him. “I’ll be back.”

He thought she’d just gone to the powder room, but when she hadn’t returned in ten minutes, he started to worry. Maeve had brought out the dessert, and Lucy’s sat untouched.

Realistically, Bryan knew nothing could happen to Lucy while she was at The Tides. The place was safe as Fort Knox. But her absence made him uneasy, and he excused himself to go look for her.

The downstairs guest bath door was open, the light off. If she’d ever been there, she wasn’t there now.

He wandered all around the first floor, thinking maybe she’d gotten distracted by his grandparents’ artwork or knickknacks, some of which were museum quality. But she was nowhere.

Surely she hadn’t gone upstairs. Unless she’d felt ill and wanted to lie down. But wouldn’t she have said something to him?

He checked upstairs and still didn’t find her. Now he was truly worried.

He returned to the dining room. Her chair remained empty.

“Bryan?” his grandmother inquired. “Something wrong?”

“I seem to have lost my girlfriend.”

“We probably upset her with all our arguing,” Scarlet said. “Bryan was right when he said we could be scary.”

Scary, maybe, but his family stuck together in a crisis. And though this didn’t exactly qualify as a crisis yet, the others didn’t hesitate to put down their dessert spoons, push back from the table and go in search of Bryan’s lost date.

He found her a couple of minutes later. Theorizing that she might have stepped outside for a breath of fresh air, he went out to the patio, then to the steps that had been carved out of the cliff leading down to the private beach. He spotted a solitary figure, standing on the sand below looking out to sea, and his whole body relaxed with relief.

He stepped back inside to let the others know he’d found her. Then he went down to the beach.

She didn’t hear him over the waves until he was almost upon her. She turned, startled, and her cheeks were wet with tears.

“Lucy, what on earth is wrong?”

She swiped at one cheek with the back of her hand and laughed self-consciously. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you. I only intended to step outside for a minute. My head was spinning. I shouldn’t have had that third glass of wine.”

“It’s us who should be apologizing, arguing like that when we have guests. I’m sorry if we upset you.”

She laid a hand on his arm. “I didn’t mind the arguing. That’s not it.”

“Then what is it?” he asked, bewildered. But then again, most women bewildered him. They were such complex creatures.

“I was just thinking how fun it would be to belong to a big, boisterous family like the Elliotts. And that got me to thinking about my family. We don’t fight, true, but that’s because we hardly ever talk. And of all stupid things, I sort of started to miss my parents. And I started thinking, if I don’t make it through this—”

“Make it through?” He couldn’t help it, he had to interrupt. “Lucy, you’ll make it through. It may take time, but look at the progress we’ve made already.”

“I told you I was being silly.”

“I know this thing has turned your life upside down. I admire the fact you were brave enough to take on embezzlers and terrorists. Not everyone would do that.”

She shrugged.

“I’ll get you back home to your normal life as soon as possible,” he said, though he didn’t look forward to pushing her out of his life. But that was inevitable. Tempted though he was, he couldn’t allow Lucy or any woman to get close to him. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t safe.

“It certainly hasn’t been all bad,” she said with a sniff. The ocean breeze had all but dried her tears. “At home I don’t get to dress like this or have dinner at a gazillion-dollar mansion or meet publishing luminaries.”

“Publishing luminaries with bad manners,” Bryan added with a rueful laugh. “Ah, Lucy, you’re a good sport.”

He gave her a spontaneous hug, which he’d intended to be brief and brotherly. Instead, Lucy put her arms around him and hugged him back, hard, pressing her luscious body against his.

Almost of its own accord, his hand slid down to her slender waist, then lower, flirting with the curve of her bottom.

When he realized what he was doing he froze. He’d been about to grab Lucy’s butt! He forced himself to ease his grip on her, to gradually pull away.

She looked up at him with those vibrant green eyes still dewy with tears, her pink mouth slightly parted. And the expression in her eyes, one of such utter trust, did him in completely.

No one had ever looked at him that way. Before he knew what was happening, he bent his head and closed the few inches between them, capturing those moist, pink lips with his.