Looking Inside

And it’s not like your dishonesty equates to sticking a pin into his condom supply. Everybody pretends a little at the beginning of relationships.

Just enjoy it while you can.

Her self-lecture must have worked a little, because by the time it came for her to get ready for her date with Trey—yes, for all intents and purposes, it definitely was a date—she was feeling more optimistic. More than optimistic . . .

. . . Excited.

Trey called at around three thirty and said they had reservations at the Park Grill for seven, but that he’d be by to pick her up at five if she thought she could be ready by then.

“Five? Why five?”

“Something’s been cooking over the long weekend, and we got things all finalized today while I was in the office. It should be pretty amazing,” he said on the phone.

“What?” she asked, her curiosity piqued.

“It’s a surprise. We were talking about how we don’t take advantage of things in the city. This is a chance to improve our record. Do you think you can be ready by five?”

She assured him she could.

“Wear shoes you can stand in for a little bit without getting sore feet, and a warm coat,” he told her before he signed off.

There’d been something in his tone that made her think he was really looking forward to this mysterious event as well. That only spiked her excitement even more.

In deference to the fact that it sounded like they’d be outside for a while, she chose to wear a pair of jeans, supple brown over-the-knee boots, a thick ivory sweater and a darling ivory faux fur coat that had belonged to Caddy, which was not only extremely fashionable, but warm. She wore her hair up because of the thick turtleneck on the sweater and took some time with her makeup. By the time she’d finished getting ready, the mirror told her she looked chic and confident.

On the inside, however, it was like a swarm of bees was trapped inside her stomach.

Once Harry had called to announce Trey’s arrival, she spritzed on her favorite perfume and went to grab her purse. She answered his knock a moment later, brimming with excitement. She could tell by his warm, admiring gaze that her nervousness was her secret.

“Wow. You look fantastic.”

“So do you,” she told him. It was a bald understatement. He looked monumentally handsome, wearing a pair of black jeans, a stark white cotton mock turtleneck shirt, a rust-colored scarf and his black peacoat. There was a slight scruff on his jaw and his golden brown hair was sexily mussed. She wanted to eat him up.

He smiled and stepped into her, dropping a kiss on her mouth. He inhaled and nuzzled her ear. “You smell even better,” he said gruffly, causing her skin to prickle in pleasure. He pressed his lips to her throat, and she sighed.

She felt him press something in her hand. “What’s this?” she asked, glancing down to see he’d put a thumb drive in her hand.

He shrugged sheepishly. “An audio recording of some of my music. I picked it up while I was at the office. Be kind while you listen to it. There’s a reason I’m the CEO of a company that represents some of the most talented artists on the planet, but I’m not one of them.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” she insisted earnestly. “I’ve heard you play, and I know your focus. If you decided that you wanted to play as a full-time job, you’d be as successful at that as you are at running TalentNet.”

He smirked and kissed her briskly on the mouth. “Nice to know that if I did ever decide to go in that direction, I’d have one other person beside my mom buying my records.” She gave him a rueful glance and he grinned. “Come on. We don’t want to be late for this. There’s already a lot of traffic. I have a car waiting.”

She set the thumb drive on a foyer table and followed him out the door. “A lot of traffic for what?”

“You’ll see,” he said mysteriously.

She laughed and scurried to keep up with his long-legged stride down the hallway.

It was crisp, windless December night, the temperature right around the freezing point. A black sedan was waiting for them in her building’s turnabout.

“Eleanor, this is Billy,” Trey introduced once they’d climbed into the back of the car. “Billy drives for me a lot.”

Eleanor and the middle-aged man in the driver’s seat exchanged hellos. “They’ve made the announcement to the media,” Billy said to Trey as he turned down the radio and he pulled onto the inner drive. “Lake Shore Drive is already bumper to bumper.”

“Just get us as close to Millennium Park as you can using the local streets, and we’ll walk the rest of the way,” Trey said as he checked his watch.

“Bumper-to-bumper traffic for what?” Eleanor asked him. He just gave her a small smile, his eyes gleaming in the shadows, and grabbed her hand.