is like prying open a clam with your bare hands.”
“Oh, come on.” She cocked her head. “Are you going to deny he lost no time telling you about the shooting incident last week? Even before I had the chance to pick up the phone?”
Quentin frowned. “Only because I phoned him and demanded to know what the heck had happened the night before. I had gotten a call from the police to let me know that they were going to do everything possible to try to keep the tabloid journalists at bay about the shooting. One of the nice things about being a major donor to police charities is that the police brass remembers you when, say, your sister is involved in a shooting.” Quentin paused and gave her a meaningful look. “Naturally, I had to ask what shooting.”
“I was going to call you,” she said, knowing she sounded a bit defensive. The truth was she hadn’t been relishing that conversation with her brother—or any other member of her family for that matter. She knew her family well enough to know their reactions would have fallen somewhere between alarm and panic, and she hadn’t been wrong.
“After I got a call from the police,” Quentin added, “I phoned Connor.”
“Don’t you mean interrogated?” she asked, her annoyance coming through in her tone. “And why didn’t you bother to call me first?”
“Because,” Quentin said patiently, “given a choice between the two of you, I knew I’d have a better shot with hin at getting the straight story.”
She crossed her arms. “Are you saying I would have lied?”
Her brother gave her a knowing look. “Artful omission is more like it.”
Allison dropped her arms in exasperation. “Whatever.”
“And, yes, believe it or not, I did have to threaten and cajole Connor,” Quentin went on. “He initially told me to call you. I think the only reason he eventually said anything at all was that I’d already found out more or less what happened from the police.”
So maybe Connor hadn’t gone racing to her brother with the news.
“I must say, I agree with Quentin,” her mother put in. “Connor seemed very reluctant to go into much detail about the shooting when your father and I asked him about it. Frankly, I think he wanted to spare us unnecessary worry.”
“And, by the way,” her father added, “Connor is not the one who told us about the threat you’d received in the mail. That was something that the police mentioned to Quentin when they called him.”
She looked across the ballroom and her eyes met Connor’s. The look on his face said he was debating whether to walk over. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. She didn’t need his help handling her family.
She did owe him an apology though—at least for jumping to the conclusion that he’d raced to her family to blab about the shooting.
Sitting next to Connor at dinner was torture, Allison thought. Her family, fortunately, was sitting among guests at other tables. Otherwise, it would have been much harder to pretend interest in the mundane chitchat being carried on at her table.
She took another bite of her dessert. Mercifully, the guest on her left had just excused himself to say hello to people he knew at another table.
She itched to hash things out with Connor. She wanted to apologize, yes. At the same time, though, she was still piqued about the high-handed way he’d acted after the attack in the parking lot. Surely he owed her an apology as well?
She stole a look at him. He was chatting with the guest on his right, the wife of a Congressman. Connor’s slightly rough-around-the-edges quality was set off tonight by his tuxedo. The juxtaposition was incredibly sexy and, she noted sourly, apparently appreciated by the Congressman’s wife as well.
The stab of jealousy brought her up short. She was spared having to analyze the emotion, however, because Connor took that moment to turn to her.
“Dance with me?” he asked. His lips were curved upward but his tone was mocking. “I think we can survive it, don’t you?” He nodded around their table at the empty seats and the couple getting up at the other end. “Besides, it will look odd if we didn’t take at least one turn around the room.”
She nodded and let him help her rise from her seat. The dance floor might finally afford her the opportunity and privacy to get her apology over with.
When they were out on the dance floor, he drew her to him for the start of a slow song. If she’d been dispassionate, she would have said his touch felt light but firm. But, since she was far from feeling detached, his touch—from their bodies brushing to his hand at her back guiding her—was causing waves of pulsating sensation to radiate outward from the points of contact.
For a while, they danced without speaking, gliding across the dance floor to a slow and sweet song until the temptation to rest her head on his shoulder became palpable.
She gave herself a mental shake. She had things to say to him and she’d better get on with it.
Before she could say anything, however, he stirred the hair at her temple with his breath and murmured, “Silence becomes you.”
She looked up with a start and saw the mocking laughter in his eyes. She’d been practically swooning in his arms—while thinking that she had to apologize to him—and he was mocking her! She decided the apology she owed him could wait a little longer. “Humility would become you but I don’t see you exhibiting any.”
“That’s my girl.” He had the nerve to laugh outright. “I was wondering where that temper of yours had gone. You seemed as deflated as a dead balloon during dinner.”
Well, Allison thought, so much for her attempt at seeming at ease during dinner. “Quite the one for compliments tonight, aren’t you?”
“Is that what you want? Compliments?” he asked. Though his tone was still mocking, it contained a hint of seriousness.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
He cocked his head, pretending to think, before clearing his throat and looking down at her. “Your eyes have the color and sparkle of aquamarines, your hair the darkness and luster of a night sky—”
“Stop.” Even knowing he was teasing, his words sent a ripple of liquid pleasure through her.
“Why?”
“Because we’re in a room full of people.” And she couldn’t take anymore.
“Ah.” His eyes gleamed. “Haven’t you ever heard that dancing is the vertical expression of a horizontal desire?”
He was telling her? She was practically going up in flames, incensed yet aroused by their banter.
“So how am I doing? Am I as good as Slade?”
“Who?”
“Preppy boy.”
She must have continued to wear a blank look, because he added impatiently, “Mr. Make-Love-Not-War.”
“That’s Makepeace,” she
