Trust Me on This - Jennifer Crusie [33]
The doors opened at the seventh floor.
“We’ll talk about it,” he said. “Where’s your room? You can help clean me up.”
“Good idea.” Dennie pushed past him to lead the way. “A little water and you’ll be cleaned off and I can throw you out.”
“You really sound like Lady Macbeth,” he said as he followed her.
“Yes, and look what happened to her.” Dennie shook her head. “And all because she married a monomaniac.”
“Oh, so everything was Macbeth’s fault. Hey, she wanted it too.”
“Wanted what?” Dennie stopped at her door and shoved in her room card.
“All those crimes in the dark.” Alec moved beside her. “She wanted them too.”
He grinned down at her, and she pushed him away to open the door to her room.
“Once you’re clean, you’re gone.”
“Absolutely,” Alec lied.
“I think this sounds wonderful,” Victoria burbled up at Brian as they left the table. She’d only had dessert to undo Dennie’s damage, and it hadn’t been easy. Bond had been much quieter after Dennie and Alec had gone, telling Donald that perhaps the dinner table wasn’t the best place to discuss business. It’s the perfect place, Victoria wanted to say, Harry’s listening, but she backed off and entertained Brian and Donald with the most fatuous conversation she could think of, repeating everything she’d ever heard Trella say. By the time they’d stood to leave the table, both men were relaxed again. “And please don’t let little Dennie upset you. She’s very protective of us all, especially of Alec. I’m sure once you explain it again, she’ll understand.”
“She just doesn’t understand how things work in Washington,” Donald said beside her, and Victoria felt warm toward him for the first time because he was such a bona fide twit and was therefore making her act look so much better.
“And I just love the idea of the Prentice compound,” Victoria burbled on. “You really should talk to Alec later. Do you think you could meet him sometime?”
“Of course,” Bond said, but he still looked wary.
“The bar at eleven,” Donald said automatically. “Where we met last night. What do you say?”
I say “God bless Donald,” Victoria thought, and Bond seemed to feel the same.
“I’ll call Alec and tell him,” Victoria promised. “Now you two go ahead and talk business. I’ll just go back to my room and call Alec.”
“Don’t forget, we’re having dinner tomorrow to celebrate the deal,” Donald said roguishly. “Maybe we’ll have to call it the Compton-Prentice compound.”
“You never know,” Victoria twinkled back at him, and thought, Over my dead body. There were some things she was not willing to do to fight crime, and marrying Donald topped the list.
“This is great,” Alec told Dennie as she mopped off his face in her bathroom. “Nobody’s washed my face for me since I was ten.”
“Who hit you when you were ten?” Dennie moved his nose cautiously back and forth.
“Ouch! What are you doing?”
“Seeing if it’s broken.”
He caught her hand and pulled it away. “It’s not broken. You didn’t hit me hard enough to break it.”
“Well, you bled like a stuck pig.”
“Noses always bleed like that.” He stood up and took off his jacket.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m covered with blood.” He unbuttoned his shirt. Really, it was logical. Anybody would take off his clothes if they were covered in blood and wine.
Too bad he hadn’t bled on her.
“And what do you think you’re going to change into here?” Dennie stood with her hands on her hips, looking at him with disgust, which was not the reaction he’d been hoping for. She was exasperating and infuriating and impossible, and he’d never wanted a woman more, especially now that it seemed entirely probable that she wasn’t a crook after all. He’d been feeling positively cheerful ever since she’d snarled at Bond.
And the night was not over yet.
He ran cold water in the sink and dropped his shirt in it. “You’ve got to get blood out fast or it stains. And then there’s the wine.” He turned off the water. “You know—out, out, damned spot. Now what shall we do while my shirt soaks?”
She folded her arms and looked at him grimly.
No go, he thought. Well, let’s lull her