"Like it?"
She felt jolted into awareness. But she didn't bother to turn around to face Finn.
"Yes, very much. Do you spend much time in galleries?"
"Now and then." He stepped up beside her, amused at the way she stared at the painting. Every thought in her head was reflected in her eyes. "Actually, your spot this afternoon convinced me to drop in."
"Really?" She looked at him then. He was dressed much as he'd been when he'd crossed the runway. His expensive leather jacket unsnapped, his jeans comfortably worn, boots well broken in.
"Yes, really. And I owe you one, Kansas."
"Why is that?"
"Th." He nodded toward the painting. "I just bought it."
"You—" She looked from him to the painting and back again. Her teeth locked together. "I see."
"It really caught me." He dropped a hand on her shoulder and faced the painting. If he continued to look at her, Finn knew he'd break out in a grin. It was all there in her eyes — the disappointment, the desire, the irritation. "And the price was right. I think they're going to find out very soon that they're underselling her."
It was hers, damn it. She'd already imagined it hanging above her desk at home. She couldn't believe he'd snapped it out from under her. "Why this one?"
"Because it was perfect for me." With the lightest of pressure on her shoulder, he turned her to face him. "I knew the moment I saw it. And when I see something I want…" He trailed a finger up the side of her throat, feather light, while his eyes stayed on hers. "I do what I can to have it."
Her pulse jumped like a rabbit, surprising her, annoying her. They were standing toe to toe now, their eyes and mouths lined up. And too close, just an inch too close, so that she could see herself reflected in the dreamy blue of his eyes.
"Sometimes what we want is unavailable." "Sometimes." He smiled, and she forgot the crowd pressing them together, the coveted painting at her back, the voice in her head telling her to back away. "A good reporter has to know when to move fast and when to be patient. Don't you think?"
"Yes." But she was having a hard time thinking at all. It was his eyes, she realized, the way they focused as if there were nothing and no one else. And she knew, somehow, that he would continue to look at her just that way, even if the ground suddenly fell away beneath her.
"Want me to be patient, Deanna?" His finger roamed over her jawline, lingered.
"I—" The air backed up in her lungs. And for a moment, one startled moment, she felt herself swaying toward him.
"Oh, I see you found refreshments already," Marshall said.
She saw the wry amusement on Finn's face. "Yes, Marshall." Her voice was unsteady. Fighting to level it, she gripped his arm as though he were a rock in the stormy sea. "I ran into Finn. I don't think you've met. Dr. Marshall Pike, Finn Riley."
"Of course. I know your work." Marshall offered a hand. "Welcome back to Chicago."
"Thanks. You're a psychologist, right?" "Yes. I specialize in domestic counseling."
"Interesting work. The statistics seem to point to the end of the traditional family, yet the overall trend, if you look at advertising, entertainment, seems to be making a move back to just that."
Deanna looked for a barb, but found nothing but genuine interest as Finn drew Marshall into a discussion on American family culture. It was the reporter in him, she imagined, that made it possible for him to talk to anyone at any time on any subject. At the moment, she was grateful.
It comforted her to have her hand tucked into Marshall's, to feel that she could be, if she chose, part of a couple. She preferred, overwhelmingly, Marshall's gentle romancing to Finn's direct assault on the nervous system. If she had to compare the two men, which she assured herself she certainly didn't, she would have given Marshall top points for courtesy, respect and stability.
She smiled up at him even as her eyes were drawn back to the dramatic and passionate painting.
When Fran and Richard joined them, Deanna made introductions. A few minutes of small talk, and they said their goodbyes. Deanna tried to pretend she didn't feel Finn's eyes on her as they nudged their way to the door.
"Be still my heart," Fran muttered in Deanna's ear. "He's even sexier in person than he is on the tube."
"You think so?"
"Honey, if I was unmarried and unpregnant, I'd do a lot more than think." Fran shot one last look over her shoulder. "Yum-yum."
Chuckling, Deanna gave her a light shove out the door. "Get a hold of yourself, Myers."
"Fantasies are harmless, Dee, I keep telling you. And if he'd been looking at me the way he was looking at you, I'd have been a puddle of hormones at his feet."
Deanna combated the jitters in her stomach with a brisk gulp of spring air. "I don't melt that easily."
Not melting easily, Deanna thought later, was part of the problem. When Marshall pulled his car to the curb in front of her building, she knew that he would walk her up. And when he walked her up, he would expect to be invited inside. And then…
She simply wasn't ready for the "and then." The flaw was in her, undoubtedly. She could easily blame her hesitation toward intimacy on the past. And it would be true enough. She didn't want to admit another part of her hesitation was attributable to Finn.
"You don't need to walk me up."
He lifted a hand to toy with her hair. "It's early yet."
"I know. But I have an early call in the morning. I appreciate your going by the gallery with me."
"I enjoyed it. More than I anticipated." "Good." Smiling, she touched her lips to his. When he deepened the kiss, drawing her in, she yielded. There was warmth there, passion just restrained. A quiet moan of pleasure sounded in her throat as he changed the angle of the kiss. The thud of his heart raced against hers.
"Deanna." He took his mouth on a slow journey of her face. "I want to be with you."
"I know." She turned her lips to his again. Almost, she thought dreamily. She was almost sure. "I need a little more time, Marshall. I'm sorry."
"You know how I feel about you?" He cupped her face in his hand, studying her. "But I understand, it has to be right. Why don't we get away for a few days?"
"Away?"
"From Chicago. We could take a weekend." He tipped her face back and kissed the side of her mouth. "Canc@un, St. Thomas, Maui. Wherever you like." And the other side. "Just the two of us. It would let us see how we are together, away from work, all the pressures."
"I'd like that." Her eyes drifted closed. "I'd like to think about that."
"Then think about it." There was a look of dark triumph in his eyes. "Check your schedule, and leave the rest to me."
Chapter Seven
Deanna hadn't expected the pricks of disloyalty. Television was, after all, a business. And part of the business was to get ahead, to make the best deal. But while the May sweeps consumed the CBC Building, with nightly ratings discussed and analyzed by everyone from top brass to the maintenance crews, she felt like a traitor.
Next year's budgets were being forecasted off the sweeps, and the forecasts were being made on faulty assumptions.
She knew Angela's would be gone before the start of the fall season. And with the deal Angela had made, she would compete with CBC'S daytime lineup as well as with prime-time specials.
The more celebratory the mood in the newsroom, the more guilt jabbed at Deanna's conscience.
"Got a problem, Kansas?"
Deanna glanced up as Finn made himself comfortable on the corner of her desk. "Why do you ask?"
"You've been staring at that screen for the past five minutes. I'm used to seeing you move."