Page 10 of Romance and Peppermint Lattes
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged as if it was of little consequence. “No time for it. I came close once, but her family didn’t consider my writing career noble enough. Her father tried to fix me up with a job in his insurance office.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing much. I told her I was going to work for the paper, and she claimed if I really loved her I’d accept her father’s generous offer. It didn’t take me long to decide. I guess she was right—I didn’t love her.”
He sounded nonchalant, implying that the episode hadn’t cost him a moment’s regret, but just looking at him told Maryanne otherwise. Nolan had been deeply hurt. Every sarcastic irreverent word he wrote suggested it.
In retrospect, Maryanne mused one afternoon several days later, she’d thoroughly enjoyed her evening with Nolan. They’d eaten, and he’d raved about her Irish stew until she flushed at his praise. She’d made them cups of café au lait while he built a fire. They’d sat in front of the fireplace and talked for hours. He’d told her more about his own large family, his seven brothers and sisters. How he’d worked his way through two years of college, but was forced to give up his education when he couldn’t afford to continue. As it turned out, he’d been grateful because that decision had led to his first newspaper job. And, as they said, the rest was history.
“You certainly seem to be in a good mood,” her coworker, Carol Riverside, said as she strolled past Maryanne’s desk later that same afternoon. Carol was short, with a pixielike face and friendly manner. Maryanne had liked her from the moment they’d met.
“I’m in a fabulous mood,” Maryanne said, smiling. Nolan had promised to pay her back by taking her out to dinner. He hadn’t set a definite date, but she half expected to hear from him that evening.
“In that case, I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but someone has to tell you, and I was appointed.”
“Tell me? What?” Maryanne glanced around the huge open office and noted that several faces were staring in her direction, all wearing sympathetic looks. “What’s going on?” she demanded.
Carol moved her arm out from behind her and Maryanne noticed that she was holding a copy of the rival paper’s morning edition. “It’s Nolan Adams’s column,” Carol said softly, her eyes wide and compassionate.
“Wh-what did he say this time?”
“Well, let’s put it this way. He titled it, ‘My Evening with the Debutante.’”
ChapterTwo
Maryanne was much too furious to stand still. She paced her living room from one end to the other, her mind spitting and churning. A slow painful death was too good for Nolan Adams.
Her phone rang and she went into the kitchen to answer it. She reached for it so fast she nearly ripped it off the wall. Rarely did she allow herself to become this angry, but complicating her fury was a deep and aching sense of betrayal. “Yes,” she said forcefully.
“This is Max,” her doorman announced. “Mr. Adams is here. Shall I send him up?”
For an instant Maryanne was too stunned to speak. The man had nerve, she’d say that much for him. Raw courage, too, if he knew the state of mind she was in.
“Ms. Simpson?”
It took Maryanne only about a second to decide. “Send him up,” she said with deceptive calm.
Arms hugging her waist, Maryanne continued pacing. She was going to tell this man in no uncertain terms what she thought of his duplicity, his treachery. He might have assumedfrom their evening together that she was a gentle, forgiving soul who’d quietly overlook this. Well, if that was his belief, Maryanne was looking forward to enlightening him.
Her doorbell chimed and she turned to glare at it. Wishing her heart would stop pounding, she gulped in a deep breath, then walked calmly across the living room and opened the door.
“Hello, Maryanne,” Nolan said, his eyes immediately meeting hers.
She stood exactly where she was, imitating his tactic of leaning against the door frame and blocking the threshold.
“May I come in?” he asked mildly.
“I haven’t decided yet.” He was wearing the raincoat again, which looked even more disreputable than before.
“I take it you read my column?” he murmured, one eyebrow raised.
“Read it?” she nearly shouted. “Of course I read it, and so, it seems, did everyone else in Seattle. Did you really think I’d be able to hold my head up after that? Or was that your intention—humiliating me and... and making me a laughingstock?” She stabbed her index finger repeatedly against his solid chest. “And if you think no one’ll figure out it was me just because you didn’t use my name, think again.”
“I take it you’re angry?” He raised his eyebrows again, as if to suggest she was overreacting.
