“Maybe,” he answered, doubtfully.
Suzanne hid a smile. She knew Todd, and knew his romantic nature. He was perennially on the lookout for the man of his life. He was absolutely convinced that his soul mate was waiting for him at the next nightclub, or restaurant or cocktail party. Todd could no more stop dating than he could stop eating or breathing.
“So,” she said, putting down her cup of tea after taking a sip. Delicious, perfect tea, a special blend Todd had imported especially from England. Served in the perfect teacup. Villeroy and Boch’s Vieux Luxembourg. Set out on the perfect silver tray. Christofle. Placed on the perfect coffee table, made out of a 16th century monastery door. Working with Todd was a pleasure in every possible way. “Are we ready to face the Dragon Lady this afternoon? Tell you what. You bring the chair and I’ll bring the whip.”
“Sorry, sweetie.” Todd sighed. “I think you might have to go into the Dragon Lady’s lair all by yourself. My accountant says that if I don’t stop by his office today, he’ll report me to the IRS himself. So Marissa Carson is all yours. You can be the one to convince her that, no, that much red in the bathroom will make it look too much like an internal organ and that those 80 yards of blue shantung she ordered on special consignment from Beijing cannot be dyed yellow.”
“And that you can’t tear down a load-bearing wall because it bothers your—what’s that dog breed? Lapsang souchong? The one that’s all hair and yaps constantly?”
“Llhasa apso.”
“Right.” Suzanne winced, remembering trying to argue Marissa Carson out of that one. “And as much as you’d like sun in the sun room in the afternoon, which is when you get up anyway, the sun does rise in the east, has done so for many, many years and no, there’s not much you can do about that.” Marissa Carson was impossible. Suzanne turned to glare at Todd. Who was going to leave her alone with a woman not even Xanax could tame. “Thanks a bunch for dumping me. Who knows what crazy new idea Marissa’s hatched in the meantime?”
“She’s just back from New York,” Todd said contemplatively. “And crazy about the Met’s new production of Aida. I shudder at the thought. It probably means that now she’s into—“
“Elephants,” they said together and Suzanne laughed.
She sipped her tea, relaxed for the first time in twenty-four hours, and contemplated Todd. He was such a pleasure to look at. He wasn’t much taller than she was, beautifully made, with fine features, long silky blond hair and deep green eyes. He was so good-looking that people often underestimated him.
She smiled at him and he smiled back.
Todd was such a great guy. They got along really well and had done so since the moment they’d met. They meshed so easily that Todd could finish her sentences. He knew her decorating style so well all she had to do was give a vague word picture, make the most basic of sketches and he could see her entire decorating scheme complete in his head. He had a fine sense of irony that offset her tendency to be too serious and she in turn kept him grounded.
Suzanne knew that Todd was contemplating asking her to become a full partner in his company. So far they’d only worked on the occasional contract together, like the Marissa Carson redecoration. But what they had done together had been spectacular and endlessly satisfying. Architectural Digest had taken note twice.
She was excited at the thought of joining Todd’s company. He had one of the most successful decorating firms in the Pacific Northwest and it would make her career overnight, not to mention boosting her income a thousand percent. But that’s not why she’d accept.
She’d accept because she couldn’t imagine anything nicer than working full-time with him, with a man who understood her. Understood her feelings almost before she knew them herself. A man she always felt comfortable with, not like…
If only…
She sighed.
“You’ve got a lot of thoughts circling around in that pretty head of yours. Care to share?” Todd drained his tea and leaned forward elegantly to put his cup down.
Suzanne poured more tea into his cup and then hers. “Actually, I was thinking what a great couple we’d make. Just think of it. We get along really well; we like the same things and have almost the same tastes. With just enough of a difference to make it interesting. I’ve learned a lot about antiques from you and I’ve dragged you kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century. We never fight and…what?”
Todd was smiling and shaking his head. “Wouldn’t work, sweetie. Never in a million years.”
Suzanne rolled her eyes. “Well, I know that. I was just speculating—“
“No, it wouldn’t work not for that reason, but for another one.”
Another one? Suzanne straightened. “Well, why not? Except for the biggie, of course. I mean we really do get on, and—“
“Yes, we get along. Too well, in fact.”
Suzanne smiled and shook her head. “There’s such a thing as getting along too well? Wow. Have the divorce lawyers heard about that one? What does it mean—to get on too well?”
His head tilted, green eyes studying her, Todd was silent.
“What?” she asked.
“You really want to know this?”
“Of course I do. I want you to explain that thing—that getting-along-is-the-kiss-of-death thing.”
“You know what I mean already, without me spelling it out for you. It’s just that you won’t acknowledge it. And it’s the reason you haven’t lost your heart to anyone and the way you’re going, you never will. I know you haven’t dated anyone in quite a while but when I first met you, I watched you date some eminently suitable men. Men of discernment and class, who shared your tastes in music and theater. It got to be this pattern. You’d meet a man, enjoy his company for a few evenings and then—“
Suzanne shifted uneasily on the couch. What was this? So what if her love life had been undergoing a little slump lately? She’d been busy with work, after all. Todd didn’t have to make a big deal out of it. “And then?” she prompted, trying not to sound cross, trying to sound bored.
“And then, boom, you dump him. And start all over again.”
Well, that was rich, coming from Mr.-Love-Them-And-Leave-Them, the man who’d taken the one night stand to an art form. She pouted. “You make me sound…shallow. And impossible to please, and—“
“Restless. And unsatisfied. The men you were dating didn’t excite you, sweetie. And how could they? They were you. In male form. Talking about the Century Theater playbill and the new Scorsese film and how beige is the new black. You don’t need that. You get that from me and from Claire. You’re such a feminine woman, Suzanne. You need the opposite. Someone yin to go with your yang. Someone to stir your juices. Someone…someone really…male.”
Suzanne closed her eyes. She knew someone who had a lot of yin to her yang. Someone who whipped her juices into a froth. Someone really, really male.
“Someone tall, and dark and with shoulders out to here,” Todd’s baritone continued dreamily. “With short black hair just faintly silver at the temples, that early Gianni Agnelli look, you know? And eyes to die for. Yum.”
Suzanne’s eyes popped open at that and she glared at Todd, sitting smugly on his Sanderson cabbage rose couch. She would have thrown a pillow at him, but she might miss and tea stains were hard to get out of silk.
Todd smiled knowingly. “Food’s really good at Comme Chez Soi, isn’t it? It’s that new chef of theirs. But then how would you know? You didn’t eat a bite.”
CHAPTER SIX