Project: Runaway Bride

“Whatever you think goes best with Chinese takeout.”

She opted for a bottle of zinfandel that was already open and added two glasses to everything else she’d already gathered.

In the living room, she lowered herself to the sofa beside him, setting out the plates and silverware and pouring the wine. Reid doled out portions of lo mein, fried rice, General Tso’s chicken and crab rangoons for each of them, then grabbed a fork and leaned back into the soft cushions of the couch.

Kicking off her shoes, she folded her legs beneath her and did the same.

For long minutes, they ate in silence. Juliet honestly wasn’t sure what to say, given everything that had transpired already that day, but she was enjoying the flavors of food she hadn’t eaten in far too long.

“Looks like you were hungry,” Reid commented, glancing at her half-empty plate. His wasn’t much fuller, though, so she didn’t take it personally.

Moving what was left of her food around with her fork, she said, “Yeah. I’ve been a little distracted lately. Probably not eating as well as I should.”

To say the least. Between plans for a wedding and her confusion about her relationship with Paul, she’d been eating like a bird. Sometimes literally grabbing only a banana or a handful of granola on her way out the door.

“Lily and Zoe and I used to order Chinese when we pulled all-nighters,” she told him. “I guess I didn’t realize how much I’ve missed it.”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call Chinese takeout ‘health food,’ but it sure does hit the spot once in a while.”

“It does,” Juliet replied softly. “And this is nice. Thank you for suggesting it.”

He shrugged a shoulder, took a sip of his wine. “You’re the one who said we should grab Chinese and bring it back here. I just thought it looked like you could use a break, and figured getting something to eat while I was out of the office made more sense than trying to come up with an excuse for going out to lunch again after I get back.”

Her lips lifted in a whisper of a smile, more to herself than for him. He was just being kind, and she knew it. As owner of McCormack Investigations, he could come and go as he pleased. It was a multimillion-dollar corporation, and he employed enough other investigators and support staff that the place could probably run itself for a week or two without him, let alone a few hours.

He’d offered to bring her home to be sure she was safe. He hadn’t wanted her returning to her fiancé after the confession she’d made in his office. Then he’d wanted to be sure she was okay—not just physically, but emotionally, as well. He’d brought up the idea of lunch to keep her from locking herself in the loft and spending the rest of the day moping around.

He hadn’t said any of that, of course, he’d simply steered her in a direction that wouldn’t allow her to be alone with her jumbled thoughts or disillusionments.

Not for the first time, she wondered why she couldn’t have met Reid before Paul. Of course, she’d met Paul in college, long before she’d ever moved to New York or had the need to hire a private investigator.

But suddenly—all right, maybe not so suddenly—she’d found herself thinking about Reid much more often than she thought about Paul. Pulling away from Paul because whenever they were together, Reid’s face or voice would fill her head.

When Paul would reach for her, she’d stiffen, never knowing if his touch would be gentle or rough. Reid had only ever shaken her hand or touched the small of her back, and the memory of it could make her shiver. Day or night. For no reason at all or because she’d been concentrating too hard on what it might be like to have him touch her even more. A lot more, in a lot of other places, and for much less professional reasons.

She swallowed hard, lifting her wineglass to her mouth to hide it. And to buy herself a little time while her breathing returned to normal.

She was an engaged woman. She shouldn’t be sitting here lusting after another man. Even if the man she was engaged to had turned into a bit of a jerk.

But since he had, and since he was on his way back to Connecticut, Paul never needed to know that she was enjoying a very impromptu, very pleasant meal with a kind, handsome business associate.

There was no harm in that. And since this was the best she’d felt in quite a long while, she was going to savor it for all it was worth.

Three

Present day

It said something about his personal life that he was in the office, working, on a Saturday, Reid McCormack thought. And that he was happy to do it.

For one thing, the place was quiet for a change. As a private and corporate investigation firm taking up five floors in the center of one of Manhattan’s tallest skyscrapers, the office was always bustling. With people, with conversations, with the ring of phones and buzzing of fax machines. Sometimes even the weekends were busy, depending on their caseloads and the number of investigators putting in overtime.

This weekend, though, he’d lucked out. The offices—or the floor where his corner office was located, at any rate—was silent as a tomb. He could hear himself think. Hell, he could hear himself breathe.

Not that that was a good thing, not today. But at least here he had paperwork to keep him busy. Reports to fill out and review. Cases to follow up on. New employee applications to consider.

Some of it he’d been putting off for a while. Some he’d had to dig deep to come up with. Either way, it would eat up his day and keep him from going home too early to an empty brownstone where the silence was not only deafening but depressing as hell. With luck, it might also help to keep his mind off the thing he was trying desperately to avoid thinking about.

With a grunt, he closed one file folder, set it aside and reached for another.

He hadn’t always hated his town house. There was a time when he’d loved it. He’d bought it slightly rundown and renovated it from top to bottom until it put all of the other houses on the block of his upscale neighborhood to shame.

Then he’d taken Juliet there. It had become their secret meeting place. A clandestine lovers’ nest where they’d hidden away from the world.

Now he couldn’t sleep in his bed without missing the feel of her lying next to him. He couldn’t walk into the kitchen without picturing her standing at the center island in one of his discarded dress shirts, pouring fresh glasses of wine or nibbling on grapes from the fruit bowl.

The memory of her voice echoed off the walls.

The scent of her perfume hung in the air.

The home he’d once loved had turned into a bitter reminder of the woman who was at this very moment walking down the aisle into the arms of another man.

The pencil in his hand snapped. He hadn’t even realized he was holding the thing, and counted himself lucky it wasn’t the pen from his Montblanc set or the crystal letter opener instead.

Making a concerted effort to unlock his knuckles and loosen his grip, he blew out a breath. He might not be happy about Juliet’s decision, but it was hers to make. Her decision, her mistake.

And it was well past time that he put their ill-fated affair behind him and get his head back on business. He hadn’t built McCormack Investigations into a multimillion-dollar corporation by letting himself be distracted. Especially by a woman, no matter how beautiful or smart or refined she might be.

For the fourth or fifth time since he’d gotten to the office, the phone rang. Not his receptionist’s line or one of the others on the floor, but his direct line. Who would be calling him here, at this number, on a Saturday?

Annoyed now by more than just the ringing phone, he snatched it up and snapped, “What?”

There was a slight pause and then a deep male voice came on the line. “Mr. McCormack. It’s Glenn from the front desk.”

An image of the tall, wide-shouldered security guard from the building’s main lobby flashed into his head, and Reid immediately regretted his short tone.

“Yes, Glenn. I’m sorry, what can I do for you?”

“There are a couple young women down here insisting they need to see you. I told them you weren’t in today, but they don’t seem to believe me,” he added, a touch of humor tingeing the words.

“Who are they?” Reid asked.

“Lily and Zoe Zaccaro. They say they’ve been calling you all morning, but you didn’t answer.”

With a long-suffering sigh, Reid pinched the bridge of his nose. So that explained the incessant ringing of his private line. But if there was anything he didn’t need today, especially in his current dark mood, it was these two walking blond disasters.

Okay, so maybe “disaster” was a bit harsh. He’d never even met the youngest Zaccaro sister, Zoe, though the stories he’d heard about her led him to believe she was the wildest of the three.

But Lily was the one who’d dragged him into the crazy world of the Zaccaro trio to begin with. Theft and corporate espionage and a disappearance that had turned out to be an amateur undercover investigation, and finally his introduction to Juliet.