Blitzing Emily (9 page)

“This is for you.”

He shook his head. “A list?”

“I wrote this while you were in the shower earlier. It’s biographical information about me. Maybe you could write up a few things before we see each other again,” Emily suggested. He unfolded the piece of paper, glanced at it a moment, and dropped it next to his silverware.

“What are you talking about?” He was obviously unconvinced.

“If we’re going to pull this off, we have to know things about each other.”

It seemed perfectly logical to her. Memorizing a list was easy, and it left no room for error. Obviously, he had other plans. His eyebrows smacked together, and he folded his arms across his chest.

“Isn’t this a bit impersonal? Can’t we get to know each other without a written checklist?”

“We have to have a plan,” Emily insisted, and the server approached.

Brandon seemed to shake himself a bit and said, “Hello.”

“Hi. I’m Jordan. I’m your server today. Would you like a drink to get your lunch order started?”

“Well, Jordan. Nice to meet you.” Brandon flipped to the menu’s wine list. “We’d like to order a good bottle of champagne. I’ll leave that up to you and the sommelier, other than to say I’m not a big Dom Perignon fan, and maybe more dry than sweet. We’d both like the penne pasta with chicken for lunch, but I’d like a double order for myself. We’d like the house salad with vinaigrette dressing, and we’d like some bread and butter for the table, please.”

“May I have some water with no ice?” Emily asked.

“Of course you may,” Jordan said. “I’ll bring the champagne, the water, the salad, and the bread right away.”

“No ice?” Brandon looked quizzical.

“Bad for the vocal cords,” she explained. “They need to stay nice and warm.”

“Ahh. I see. So, Emily Anne Hamilton, maybe I’ll burn this little piece of paper and ask you questions instead.” He made a grab for the small glass oil candle at one end of the table. Emily pushed it out of his reach.

“You won’t remember everything—”

“You worry too much,” he assured her. He patted her hand. “Maybe we should start with something easy. What year did you graduate from high school?”

“Excuse me? You’re trying to find out how old I am.” Brandon didn’t seem to notice, but Emily saw a few of the other diners, primarily men, gesturing toward their table and commenting. He must be used to it.

“Of course I am,” he assured her with exaggerated patience.

“It’s on the piece of paper.” To Emily’s horror, he tore her painstakingly composed list into four even squares, crumpling them in his hand. She let out a gasp of distress.

“What are you doing?” She tried to keep her voice down. More people turned around.

“There.” He grinned like he’d really accomplished something. “Now we’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

“Why can’t you—” Emily felt best when there was a list, an action plan, written directions of any kind. She could follow directions. They kept her on track. She could measure her progress. Even more, being in control of herself and her surroundings was comforting, even if she was fairly positive there were many people who thought she needed to take it down several notches.

He stroked Emily’s cheek with one hand. “Relax, sugar. This isn’t brain surgery. We’ll have lunch; we’ll get to know each other. It’ll be fine.” If she could tell him how scary it was for her to feel like things were out of control, it might help, but she’d just met him. Maybe it should wait a little while.

He leaned a little closer “Take a breath,” he prompted. He squeezed her hand. The sommelier arrived at the table. “Mr. McKenna, I thought you might like to try a bottle of Krug.” The bottle was opened. Two glasses were poured, and they were alone again. Well, other than the fact that most of the restaurant seemed to be staring at them by now.

Brandon turned to her. “Let’s have a toast.” He handed a glass to Emily, picked up his own and said, “Toast.” She may have rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help but smile at the mischievous expression in his eyes. “Seriously,” he said, looking thoughtful, “Here’s to a successful engagement.”

“To the engagement.” She took a sip. The champagne was wonderful. Brandon dug into his jacket pocket for something.

“I have a confession to make. I borrowed that ring you couldn’t find this morning.” He gave her what she was sure he thought was an apologetic grin. “I—you needed another ring. I stopped at Tiffany’s after I dropped you off. This is for you.”

He put a ring box, wrapped in robin’s egg-blue paper and tied with a white, double-faced satin bow, into her hand. She stared at it in shock for a moment. Obviously if they were supposedly engaged she’d need a ring. But she didn’t realize he was serious about buying one.

“You ‘borrowed’ my ring? Is that what they’re calling it now?” she teased.

Even though she hadn’t spent that much time with him, she could see that he was nervous. She saw a faint flush on his cheekbones. His normally graceful movements were a bit jerky. He swallowed hard, and he didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands. Suddenly she was nervous, too. This was pretend. It meant nothing. At the same time, how many times in any woman’s life did she hold a ring box?

“I can wear the ring I already have,” she said. He looked bewildered. After all, most women probably didn’t argue with the giver when they saw a box from Tiffany’s. “Are you sure about this?”

“Of course, I’m sure. Go ahead. Open it.”

Emily pulled at one end of the bow, and the ribbon fell away. The paper the box was wrapped in spread out like a star in her hand to reveal another smaller, robin’s egg-blue suede box inside the cardboard one.

“Even the box is beautiful,” she sighed.

He pulled the box open, took the ring out, and slid it onto the third finger of her left hand.

“What do you think?”

He licked his lips. His hand trembled a little. The diamond was very, very large. A round center stone was flanked with pear-shaped diamonds set in platinum. The weight on her finger was unfamiliar, but not unpleasant. The diamonds sparkled like they were alive. Even more, the ring looked like it was made especially for her. It was perfect.

She’d be wearing this ring for a month. He’d lost his mind.

“Did you tell them you wanted the biggest one?” she managed to rasp out.

“A diva would
need
the biggest one.”

Their eyes locked. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. Emily didn’t know what to say. She finally repeated, “Are you sure?”

There wouldn’t be any romantic words, and he didn’t get down on one knee, but the look in his eyes as he lingered over the back of her hand made Emily’s heart skip a beat. He brushed her knuckles with his lips again. She stifled a gasp.

“It’s beautiful. Thank you, Brandon.”

“Soft hands, sugar.” He laid her hand back in her lap. She still clutched the little ring box. “So, where were we? You were telling me about your sister.”

“I was not.”

“Well, speak up. Isn’t she single?” Emily’s mouth dropped open. His grin was shameless.

“You’re kidding me. You just gave me a ring, and now you’re picking up on my sister.” He put his fingertips over her mouth.

“Shh,” he soothed. “All this stress and upset isn’t good for your headache. You need to take it easy.” She knew he was right, but she resisted the impulse to drive her fork into the back of his hand. “Relax.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a few seconds. “There you go. That’s much better.” He patted her knee. “You were telling me all about—Amy, isn’t it?”

“Actually, you’d probably really like my sister. She loves football.”

“I’m sure she’s nice. You’re more interesting, though.” Emily just stared at him. “You seem surprised.”

“I—”

“So, what was on your piece of paper? Why don’t you tell me all about it?”

“It would have been so much easier if you would have read it before you tore it up.”

“Let’s try this one more time.” He probably seemed mild-mannered and reasonable to the other people sitting in the restaurant. The teasing in his voice made Emily want to commit bodily harm. If he’d let her speak . . . “You have a sister named Amy. Do you have any other brothers or sisters?” She shook her head no. “Do your parents still live in the area?” She nodded. He took a deep breath, and his fingers slid away from her face. “Now, that was easy. Where do they live, sugar?”

“My mom lives in West Seattle, and my dad lives in Issaquah.”

“They’re no longer married.” She wondered if she heard regret in his voice.

“No. They’re not.” She put the little suede ring box back into the bigger one, and crammed it all into her handbag. “Are your parents still married?”

“Yeah” was all he said. The teasing was gone. A gentle smile touched his mouth.

“They still love each other?”

Brandon studied her face for a few moments. Emily had the oddest feeling he had decided she could be confided in, and he didn’t do this often. “They do,” he said, finally. “I see what they have, and I want the same thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I thought we were supposed to be talking about you.”

“Well, I’m curious,” she insisted.

Brandon’s lips twitched in amusement. “My dad was so crazy about my mama that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. She was engaged to someone else when he met her. He kept pursuing her. He told me that if he hadn’t married her, he would have never gotten married. She’s the other half of him.” He thought for a moment. “My dad’s a bit rough. His daddy worked in the oil fields; they didn’t have the social graces. My mama was Miss Louisiana and a Miss America runner-up, so I don’t embarrass myself at a formal dinner party, for instance. She gave him polish, and he gave her the ability to be who she is.”

Emily grinned back at him. “That sounds wonderful.”

“It is. My dad played in the NFL when I was young. They had a hard time with all the traveling when I was a kid, but when Dad started coaching, it was even worse. They did their best to spend more time with each other and with us.”

“Do you have brothers and sisters?”

“I have a younger brother, Dylan. He and Amy must be about the same age.” Emily hadn’t said a word about how old Amy was. She’d find out later how he knew that fact.

“Does Dylan play football?”

“Sugar, he’s a doctor.”

“That’s interesting.”

He stifled laughter. “Interesting, huh? Why don’t you tell me some more about your sister?”

The food arrived while they were talking. He unwrapped the breadbasket and offered it to Emily. “Is Amy a redhead as well?”

“No. Amy’s hair is blonde, and she’s taller than me. When we don’t want to kill each other, she’s my best friend in the world. She’s really outspoken, she’s funny, and she’s also the bravest person I know.”

“What makes you say that?”

“When she wants something, she goes after it. Nothing stops her.”

“It would seem to me that the two of you might have more in common than you think. You seem fairly motivated, too.”

“Not that kind of motivation.” Amy had opened her flower shop with no financial help from their parents or anything else besides a standard small-business loan. She had left a solid, secure career to risk everything following her dream. “I’m so proud of her.”

Emily saw the dimple in his cheek deepen. She had spent only twenty-four hours with him, but she knew already that he concealed something he wasn’t about to tell her. Then again, maybe he was.

“Oh, no motivation at all,” he observed. His voice was as dry as the champagne he’d just taken another sip of. “You got into a highly exclusive training program as a teen. You graduated from a leading conservatory and have a grad degree from Juilliard. You’ve been working your ass off for the last eighteen years singing all over the world.” He put the glass back down on the table. “What happens when you’re motivated?”

Emily wondered if she was about to spend the next month with her mouth hanging open. “Maybe I didn’t explain that well,” she told him. “How do you know all this stuff, anyway?”

“It’s surprising what you can find out with a Google search,” he said lazily and leaned back against the booth again.

“You borrowed my ring, you searched my closets, and you used my
laptop.
Wait till we get home. I’m searching on you, too. It’s on, like Donkey Kong.”

“You could ask me questions instead,” he observed.

“Well, that’s no fun,” she said. “Where am I going to get the dirt?”

“I might tell you some of that, too.” He drained his glass. “Then again, maybe not. A man needs a few secrets. Speaking of secrets, I understand that Cheryl the nurse thinks I’m a horn dog.” He took a large bite of salad, and gave Emily an expectant look.

“Aren’t you?” He choked on the salad. She patted him on the back till he stopped coughing. She reached out for the bottle of champagne and poured him another glass. “Sorry,” she teased.

“No, you’re not,” he said.

“How do you know that?”

“I just do.”

Emily couldn’t stop laughing with him. The longer they talked, the more she felt tension drain out of her. She realized with a shock that she felt safe with him, and it wasn’t just because he towered over the other guys in the restaurant.

Their entrees arrived. The penne with chicken smelled heavenly. Brandon took a large bite. “It’s good, sugar.”

“It is.” Emily pointed her fork at him. “Back to the horn dog stuff.”

“Listen. I’m human. I’m a normal, healthy guy with a sex drive. Have I done things that, in retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have? Hell, yes. There isn’t a man that hasn’t. At the same time, you don’t have to worry.” He patted her kneecap again. “I promise I will not drag you under the table, tear your clothes off, and make love to you in front of Jordan and the sommelier. Then again, it beats the hell out of the dessert menu, doesn’t it?” His smile was unrepentant. He took another bite of his lunch and washed it down with champagne. “You’re not eating.”

Emily was feeling a little warm. Maybe it was the champagne, or maybe she was going to blush herself into a coma. The thought of getting naked with Brandon wasn’t exactly repulsive.