Page 58 of The Agent
“Where do you eat?” Natalie spotted a long table with about twenty chairs around it through a square archway. “Not at the banquet table, I’m guessing.”
“Nope, there’s a small kitchen on the second floor where I have my meals.” He made a face at the grand dining room. “The decorator said the room needed a table that size but I’ve never used it.”
“What a shame! I was picturing you presiding over dinner with a bewigged footman behind every chair.” She slid him a teasing glance.
“You think I could talk Leland into wearing his wig here?” Tully said, referring to the Regency ball Derek had staged for his proposal to Alice.
“He said it itched, so no.”
Tully chuckled and gestured toward the stairs with his handful of bags.
“Let me carry some of those,” Natalie said, reaching for the shopping bags.
“I’m good,” Tully said, because of course he would.
“Fine. I will pretend like I’m Cinderella in my ball gown ascending the royal staircase.” She put her hand on the gleaming wood bannister and, lifting her chin, walked slowly up the steps as though she were wearing a crown. The piano caught the corner of her eye. “Do you play that?”
“No, it came with the house. Too much trouble to move, I guess.” He glanced down at it. “Maybe when I retire I’ll take lessons.”
He sounded serious and a little wistful. “You like music?”
She knew so little about him and yet she had given him her unquestioning trust. She needed to rein it in fast.
“I like to dance,” he said with a wicked twinkle in his eye. “Especially the two-step.”
The dance that had started this. Well, maybe taken it to the next level. “You’re a man of surprises.”
“Actually, I’m a pretty straightforward guy.” But his answer sounded automatic, like he’d said it many times before to deflect ... what?
They reached the top of the stairs and he directed her down a hallway that was slightly less intimidating. The door he indicated led into a beautiful updated kitchen with dark hickory cabinets, a white subway-tile backsplash, and leaded glass windows. A round oak table surrounded by four matching chairs stood on the herringbone brick floor.Thiswas Tully.
Natalie plunked the tote on the granite-topped island while Tully set the clothing bags on the counter by the door. “Let’s eat.”
Natalie followed his directions about where to find dishes, flatware, and napkins while Tully unloaded the bag. The aromas of barbecue sauce, melted cheese, and jalapeño cornbread made her mouth water.
When they had settled at the table, Tully raised his beer bottle and touched the neck of hers with a clink. “I’m glad you’re here. And that you understand.”
“Understand what?”
He swept his hand around the room. “About the house. That it’s not really who I am.”
“And yet it is,” she said. “It’s solid, independent, and built to last.”
He smiled but his eyes held genuine gratitude. “That’s a compliment I’ll take.” He put down his beer and picked up a rib. “Now let’s eat, woman, so I can take you to bed.”
“Tour before sex,” Natalie said, even as arousal slid through her body.
“Only if you’re willing to take it naked.”
Natalie woke up the next morning to sunlight painted across a strange and enormous bed with Tully’s big heat-generating body pressed smack up against her. She blinked at the tray ceiling above her centered by a large bronze-and-etched-glass light fixture as memory returned. Tully’s house ... no, mansion. She lifted her head to check out the landscape of pale green treetops in the near view and the wide, brown Hudson River in the far before she let it fall back on the pillow.
Tully stirred and tightened the arm he had thrown over her waist. “You okay?” he mumbled into the pillow.
“Just confused.”
“About what?” His voice was more focused now.
So many things, she thought. Why someone would stalk her. How Dobs had connected her with his wife. What her feelings for Tully were. “I couldn’t remember where I was,” she said.
