laughed, then folded his arms on the table and shook his head. “You’re a funny lady. I remembered your sense of humor best of all. You used to make me feel really comfortable.” He looked down at his hands, slender and tanned, sensitive hands. “I don’t mix with people very well.”
“Most of us don’t, if you want the truth,” she confided. “We learn to bluff. Put on a big smile and leap in with both feet. By the time people realize you’re not a live-wire personality, you’re talking to them and you forget how shy you are.”
“Come on,” he chided. “You’re not shy.”
“I certainly am!” she replied. She tucked a long strand of shimmering auburn hair behind one dainty ear. “I’ve been shy all my life. But I learned to act like an extrovert. Now everyone thinks I am one.”
“Yeah, well that doesn’t work for me,” he said. He studied her face. “Are you always as happy as you look in those product ads you do?”
She looked down at the silverware, touching her knife gently with a long, red-polished fingernail. “Is anybody happy all the time? I have my problems and I get lonely. But I suppose I’ve learned to like my own company. At least, I’ve had to until this past year. My mother died of a heart attack, and I’ve moved back in with my father, to keep him company.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “I guess it’s hard to lose a mother.”
She sighed. “Yes, I suppose it was. We never got along very well, but I cared about her. So did my father. God bless him, he went crazy when she died. Just went all to pieces. She was the guiding force, you see. Mother made the rules and he followed them. This is the first time in his life that he’s had the freedom to do what he likes, and now he doesn’t quite know what to do with it,” she said, smiling tolerantly. “He’s a character, my dad. A dreamer. If he hadn’t inherited money, and had Mother show him how to make more, I suppose he’d been running an antique store and giving away his profits.”
“Do you look like him?”
“Not really. I have his awful auburn hair and green eyes,” she admitted. “But I have my mother’s facial features.” She studied him. “You look a lot like...like your brother.”
“Yeah, most of the men in the Stephano family kind of look alike. Why, we have an uncle who looks like he could be Marc’s and my father.”
“Uncle Michael,” she said suddenly, remembering Marc’s deep, gravelly voice telling her about his uncle, a slightly shady character if she remembered correctly.
“That’s right. Hey, girl, you’ve got a good memory.”
“Too good, sometimes,” she said with a wistful look in her eyes.
He started to speak, but the waiter came, and they paused to order. He took out a cigarette and glanced at her.
“It’s okay,” she said, “I’m used to people who smoke.”
“I’m not quite as bad as Marc,” he said, laughing. “He smokes like a furnace these days.”
“Has he changed a lot?” she asked, and her eyes were wide and softer than she realized.
He leaned back in his chair and studied her carefully. “Oh, he’s changed, all right. So much that I finally had to move out on my own. Well, not quite. I don’t like my own company that much, I have a roommate. Nice guy. He sells real estate.”
“Have you been out on your own long?”
“Three years,” he confessed. “Marc lives in an apartment on the East Side, overlooking the river. He’s got a great view. Mine’s a little closer in, and it faces another building. Not much to look at unless you look up, but it’s a place to sleep.”
“I guess Marc travels a lot,” she persisted.
“Not too much.”
The waiter brought their orders, and she gave up asking about the man from her past long enough to eat. Coffee was served when they finished, and they lingered over it.
“What about the men in your life?” he asked. “I don’t believe you’re that much of a man-hater.”
“Oh, I go out on the town once in a while,” she said, “but I work hard, and the weekends are the only time I have free.”
He looked at his coffee cup. “I’d like to take you out to dinner tonight,” he told the coffee. “It’s Friday, and I know you probably already have a date....”
“No,” she said, watching him color. “Actually I don’t.”
“Oh. That’s nice.” He crossed his arms on the table again and glanced at her hesitantly. “Well, would you come? I know it’s short notice, but I had to get introduced to you first, before I could ask, you know.”
She smiled secretly at his shy manner. She liked his style. In a way he seemed a lot like her. She tossed back her hair. “Well...”
“Be a sport,” he coaxed, brightening as he added, “I’ll take you to a restaurant that has a fountain. I’ll even let you swim in the fountain.”
She laughed delightedly. “Is there a fountain, honestly?”
“No. But for you I’ll build one,” he promised. He cocked his head to one side, studying her. “Be a sport!”
Her green eyes began to shine with amusement, and her face became exquisite. He caught his breath looking at her. Why not? she asked herself. She didn’t like the usual type of man who expected much more than a handshake at the end of the evening. She thought that Joe wouldn’t be like that. He didn’t seem to be looking for a serious relationship any more than she was. What would it hurt? It might even be a dig at Marc. Yes, perhaps it would anger him, after all these years, to know that she was seeing his brother. She’d never expected that she might feel vengeful; it was out of character. But the affair with Marc killed something in her, knowing how little he’d valued the love she’d offered him. It had damaged her in ways she didn’t even like admitting to. And the love-hate she felt for him, even after nine years, demanded some sort of reckoning. Wouldn’t this be a little recompense? It wasn’t as if she were using Joe. Joe knew the score; he just wanted a friend. Why not? Only the two of them need ever know it was just friendship. But Marc wouldn’t know it. He’d think she was leading Joe on, to get even. She could get to him without ever laying a hand on him.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll come out with you. But, Joe, I’m no good-time girl,” she added, putting it plainly, her face solemn. “Friendship is all I’m offering. Okay?”
He shifted in his chair, and something touched his eyes for an instant. But he grinned. “Okay,” he said on a laugh. “Friends forever.”
“Uh, I hate to mention it,” she said hesitantly, “but isn’t this kind of fraternizing with the brass, so to speak?”
“Let me worry about that.” His dark eyes narrowed. “You aren’t carrying a torch for big brother after all these years, are you?” he asked abruptly.
She shook her head and felt her body going rigid with remembered pain. “Not on your
