He spoke briefly with the maître d’ and led Gwen to a table near the band. They were playing a recently popular tune, a little ditty about someone who done somebody wrong, and several couples were on the dance floor kicking up their heels.
Gwen and Mitch had barely sat down when a waiter brought a cooler holding a bottle of wine. He displayed the label to Mitch, who nodded his approval.
“I didn’t know you could afford Chateau D’Or,” Gwen said, shaking out her napkin with a snap.
Mitch gave her an exasperated look. “Trust you to say something so damnably prosaic at a time like this,” he said.
“A time like what?” She sipped at her ice water, casting Mitch a glance of childlike innocence. “Aren’t we here to celebrate your latest triumph?”
The blare of trumpets briefly drowned out Mitch’s reply, but his handsome face was eloquent.
“…should know me better than that,” he said. “I haven’t forgotten.”
Gwen resisted the urge to put off the forthcoming conversation with more banter, but she could see that Mitch wouldn’t play along. He’d decided on formality tonight, which was a very bad sign.
“Okay,” she said with a faint sigh. “I’m sorry, Mitch. I’ll try to be good.”
He relaxed a little, allowing the waiter to decant the wine. He held the glass under his nose, breathed in, and then tasted the Merlot with appreciation. After a moment he gave the waiter an approving nod, and the man filled Gwen’s glass.
The first thing Gwen thought as she drank was that the wine really didn’t taste any better than the cheap stuff she’d shared with Dorian a few hours earlier. She’d enjoyed that impromptu picnic more than she had her last few meals in Manhattan’s finest restaurants, enjoyed sparring with a man who was as unpredictable and volatile as a summer storm…
Don’t think of him. For God’s sake, keep your mind on your—
“Gwen?”
She came back to herself and smiled. “Sorry, Mitch. Woolgathering.”
“Still scheming about Hewitt’s story?”
“Hewitt’s story,” she said with a snort. “It was my dad’s long before it was his.”
“Your father, good as he was, had some crazy ideas. Spellman never would have let him pursue them even if he’d—” He broke off and coughed behind his hand.
“Even if he’d lived,” Gwen completed. “I know. But the murders mesh too well with his theories, Mitch.”
“A secret cult of blood-drinkers?” Mitch said, careful to keep the overt mockery out of his voice. “You know that’s hardly likely, Gwen, no matter how much Eamon believed.”
“You make it sound ridiculous,” she said, bristling, “but I’m not letting it go until I can prove he was wrong—or right.”
Mitch rubbed at the faint lines between his brows. “I just wish you’d consider the consequences,” he said. “Hewitt could make real trouble for you, Gwen. He’s never believed women belong on a newspaper.”
“It’s not as if it’s unknown. There are plenty of feature writers—”
“I thought you wanted to work in the city room, covering the big stories?”
“I won’t get there if I don’t take a few chances.”
Mitch’s mouth set in a mulish look that was all too familiar. “There are some things a woman just shouldn’t do.”
Gwen controlled her urge to shoot up out of her chair and answered with deliberate calm. “Is that really what you think, Mitch?”
“You know I’d support anything you chose to do.”
“Within limits.”
“Yes.” He met her gaze. “I want to take care of you, Gwen. Even if it means protecting you from yourself.”
“But that’s exactly the trouble. I don’t want—”
The waiter reappeared, his face molded into a professionally bland smile. “Are monsieur and madame ready to order?” he inquired with a bow.
“Two filets mignon, rare,” Mitch said, before Gwen had a chance to express a preference. She pressed her lips together and stared down at the table. The band struck up a slow, sensuous jazz melody, and Mitch rose from his chair.
“Shall we dance?” he asked, offering his hand.
The last thing Gwen wanted was a scene. She took his hand and stepped with him onto the dance floor. He pulled her close.
“I’ve been waiting for this all night,” he said, his breath tickling her ear. “We’ve hardly seen each other the past few weeks.”
“That isn’t exactly my fault,” she said.
His voice took on a real note of apology. “I didn’t mean to neglect you. This story is taking all my time and attention. But you haven’t exactly been around when I’m free, Gwen.”
“Am I supposed to wait until you find it convenient to bestow your attention?”
He pulled back a little, frowning. “You sound peevish, Gwen. It isn’t attractive in you.”
“I wonder why you put up with me at all.”
Suddenly he stopped. He cupped her face in his hands and looked into her eyes.
“I put up with you because you’re the brightest and most interesting woman I know, not to mention gorgeous.”
Gwen said nothing. Mitch really believed that he would support her in any career she chose—as long as he got to decide how much time and effort she spent at it. As long as he got to make the rules.
Mitch began dancing again, his lips against her hair. “Ah, Guinevere,” he said. “When are we going to end this game?”
This was it. The conversation she’d been dreading. The one they’d had a dozen times before. Only this time she wasn’t sure she could worm her way out.
“You know what I want,” he whispered. “We were meant to be together, Gwen. You know it as well as I do.”
“Mitch…”
“You’re fighting it just because you think you want independence. You don’t. No woman really does.”
It was all Gwen could do not to jerk out of his arms. “It must have been a dangerous journey,” she said with forced lightness.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your voyage into the darkest recesses of a woman’s mind.”
He
