At the Billionaire’s Wedding (21 page)

“Really?” He cast a skeptical eye on the discarded electronics. “That’s a shock. No, I went to look at the software—nothing else,” he added as if he could tell she was having an invasion-of-privacy freak-out. “The machine is all but crippled with malware. It’s got a well-known virus that was slowing it down to glacial speed. Didn’t you notice?”

Nope. “Well, I knew it was really old,” she muttered in her own defense. “Old computers are always slow.”

He grinned. “This one was beyond slow. It would drive me insane, so I started cleaning it up, and…” He checked his watch. “Time got away from me. Is it really after one?”

“Mmm-hmm.” She nudged the tangle of stuff on the floor with one toe. “Please tell me you’re going to put all this back together.”

“Not on your life. Some of it’s so old, there’s no software to support it. I’ll be glad to box it up for the owner, but he doesn’t need any of it.”

“She.” Natalie gave the pile another worried look, then pushed the issue from her mind. She certainly wasn’t going to go poking through, trying to figure out what everything was and how it might connect. A big note of apology to Amaryllis would have to suffice. “So is it working again?”

He turned back to the screen, where various status bars were inching forward. “Should be soon. It will be much faster once this is done.”

“Well, that would be nice.” Slowly she came across the room. “How does a computer science major end up a lawyer?”

“Change of heart, I guess.”

She glanced sideways at him. There was more to it than that, from his carefully light tone. “Is that your connection to the wedding going on up there? It’s some big technology guy getting married, right?”

His mouth quirked as if at some private joke. “Maybe. But I’m here strictly for business reasons.” He turned the chair around and gave her a rueful smile, the one that made him look young and almost bashful. “Would I be down here mooching off your Wi-Fi every day otherwise?”

“How would I know?” She opened her eyes wide. “Maybe you’re a workaholic who doesn’t even know how to have fun.”

For a fraction of a second his eyes dropped. Not bashfully, but openly—though quickly—checking her out. “I hope that’s not true.”

Natalie opened her mouth, and nothing came out. Archer was a successful guy—smart, hardworking, funny, decent, and way too good-looking to be a real lawyer. It had been a long time since someone so obviously
right
checked her out. “So, no date for the wedding?” His eyebrows went up, and she hastily added, “I assume if you had a date, you’d be spending more time with her. Or him, as the case may be, because sometimes it is, you know, and that’s fine.”

His smile had started in the middle of her speech and grew as she rambled on. “If I had a date, she would no doubt be furious at me for working,” he said, laying particular stress on the female pronoun. “But I haven’t got a girlfriend, here or at home.”

Thankfully something on the computer beeped, and he turned around again. Natalie took advantage of the moment to let her head drop back.
Smooth, girl
, she told herself. Not that she was hitting on him. She was just nosy. But she was also unreasonably pleased that he wasn’t in a relationship. The more appealing he got, the more she’d thought he would be. Guys this
right
did not freely walk the earth.

“Here you are,” Archer said, writing something on a sticky note and pressing it down on the desk blotter. “The password was too easy and obvious; at least three other people have been freeloading on your system, and one of them seems to like porn.”

“What?”

“Unless it’s your thing,” he said without missing a beat. “I’m not judging.”

“I am not downloading porn!” Natalie wondered who the heck it was. Maybe Charles, the old duffer who came to work on the lawn and gardens every other week. She’d thought he was just reading a book, sitting on that bench beside the front door during his break. Hmm.

“Like I said, no judgment.” Archer stood up and stretched his shoulders. He looked at the modem and router, now happily blinking little green lights. “Damn, I miss this,” he said, almost to himself.

“Fixing computers from the dinosaur age?”

He flexed his fingers, snagging her gaze. He had really nice hands, she noticed again. “
Doing
something. Yeah, it’s old, but when it was new, that was a top-of-the-line machine. I used to take those apart in college. My roommate and I were complete geeks; we booby-trapped the bathroom door down the hall with a little flashing light, and we wired a statue near our dorm with a speaker so we could spook tourists. I spent more time trying to write an AI essay generator than I spent writing actual essays, and nearly flunked an English class because of it. Still… It was fun.”

“Why’d you give it up?” she asked softly.

The fondness of things remembered faded from his face. “Life changes.”

That was the truth. Natalie wondered what had changed in his life to make him give up hacking his way around computers—maybe money? If he could afford to spend his college years taking apart “top-of-the-line machines,” he must have had money—then. But now he spent his days hunched over a laptop looking beleaguered when he should have been on vacation, enjoying the wedding events.

“Right.” She cleared her throat, suddenly wishing she wasn’t wearing her worn-out jeans and a plain T-shirt. She shoved her hair from her forehead and cringed as her finger touched something gooey on her cheek. Not that she was hitting on Archer, or even interested in hitting on him. She turned back toward the kitchen, furtively swiping the gooey stuff from her face. “You want some lunch?”

Somehow Archer felt that being offered food again was a victory. He followed her into the kitchen, where she began pulling out plates. “I have roast chicken and coleslaw,” she said. “Nothing very gourmet.”

“Sounds great.” He propped one shoulder against the doorway and watched as she fetched an armload of containers from the refrigerator. The dark smear on her cheek was wider and lighter now, as if she’d tried to wipe it away. “What are you baking today?”

She glanced up and flashed him a quick smile. “Madeleines. I also had a brain wave about ice cream overnight, even though I already did the ice creams, so I started a few custards as well.”

“You’re making ice cream?”

“Uh-huh. Did you think it was produced in a chemical factory somewhere?”

“No, I just didn’t know anyone could make it at home,” he said. “It comes from the store in a box, like pasta.”

She snorted and carved some slices off a fat loaf of crusty bread. “You can make pasta at home.”

He whistled in quiet astonishment. “Maybe
you
can.”

Natalie laughed, opening another container. “I am just as amazed that you could fix that old computer, so we’re even. Rosemary mayo?”

Dumbly he nodded. Not only did it sound good, he was beginning to get a whiff of it. And there was something very sensual about the way she handled food. Her head tilted to the side as she swirled a dollop of mayonnaise onto the bread, then laid some tomato slices and lettuce on top of it. The blade of her knife glinted as she ran it through a whole chicken breast, the skin dark chestnut and speckled with herbs or spices or something. One by one she layered the sliced chicken on the bread before bringing the knife down through the sandwich, cutting it into halves. He had a strong feeling she’d made everything from scratch, and when he asked, she confirmed it.

“Of course. I’m writing a cookbook, remember.”

“With recipes for mayonnaise and bread?”

She laughed again. “No, although they’re both easy to make. I want my cookbook to be the sort of thing people turn to every night, not only for basics like a quick roasted chicken, but for dinner parties and special occasion meals. I start with easy, basic recipes, then add on layers of extras or different flavor variations. Most people don’t have time to make mayonnaise, although…” She gave him a secretive little smile that made his stomach tighten. “I did include one recipe for how to flavor mayonnaise from the jar. A few chopped herbs and a squirt of lemon juice make a huge impact.” She scooped out some coleslaw onto both plates, set a sandwich half on each, and handed him one. “Let’s eat.”

Archer was only too happy to obey.

“So when does the cookbook come out?” he asked as they ate on the patio. He’d pushed his laptop aside and now Oliver the cat lay on top of it. Archer barely glanced at it, fully diverted by the succulent sandwich in his hands and the fascinating woman across from him.

She took her time answering. “I don’t know. I have to finish writing it.”

He nodded. “Is the publisher getting impatient for it?” One of his clients had written a book on a computer language once, and Archer had helped him find a literary attorney for the book contract.

Natalie played with her coleslaw, chewing very slowly. Too late, Archer recognized the signs of someone who didn’t want to answer. “That’s not really my business. Never mind.”

“No, it’s okay.” She took a deep breath. “I don’t have a publisher yet. Writing a cookbook was… Well, it was an excuse to get out of Wellesley. My brother and I had a big fight about our family restaurant and I needed to get away.”

He just listened.

“This house belongs to my college roommate’s stepmother,” she went on. “When I told Pippa I needed a hideout, she offered it.”

He glanced at the house. One never knew what real estate was worth, but someone had spent a lot of money renovating this house. “Pretty nice hideout, if you ask me.”

She smiled, a little pensive. “Very nice.” She seemed to rouse herself from whatever had dampened her mood. “So you just moved to Boston?”

“From San Francisco. But I went to college in the Boston area and liked it. Still do.”

“You moved back for work?”

He winked. “An offer I couldn’t refuse.”

“Something that combines computers and law,” she guessed. “I have a guess whose wedding it is up there. The shop in town only sells trashy newspapers and they are full of rumors about Internet millionaires.”

Archer pushed back his plate and heaved a happy, sated, sigh. “I don’t do the computers anymore, just the law. But being able to speak the language helps with my clients, who include”—he tapped one temple—“many very successful Internet entrepreneurs.”

“Oh?” She raised one eyebrow teasingly. “So it’s no one famous getting married?”

He made a stern face. “I can’t really discuss it. Client confidentiality, you know.”

One side of her mouth curled upward, giving her a sly, sexy look. “Got it.” She folded her arms and rested her elbows on the table. “Why not computers? You said you miss it.”

It was his turn to take a moment before answering. “I loved it,” he finally said, slowly. “I got my degree in computer science and did a couple of years as a programmer. I wasn’t brilliant,” he added, “just generally competent and brash as heck.” Duke Austen had hacked the
New York Times
front page as a middle-schooler before channeling his intellect into more socially acceptable—and profitable—directions. Archer had been a very competent mid-level programmer, who would have written search engine algorithms forever if he’d stayed.

She ran her finger along the edge of her plate, picking up a bit of mayo. She stuck out her tongue and delicately licked it off her fingertip. Archer stared, feeling the stirrings of a very different sort of hunger. Every time he saw Natalie, he liked her more and more. Damn Duke and his suggestion of asking her to be his date to the wedding.

“Why law?” It seemed her voice had grown throaty and seductive with that lick of mayo.

He hesitated. “Because of my father.”

“Oh.” She tilted her head to one side, obviously picking up on his discomfort. “My mother runs the kitchen in our restaurant. I’m following in her footsteps, too.”

Archer gave a sharp laugh. “My father’s not a lawyer. He told my mother he was divorcing her three weeks after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She’s so tenderhearted, she told him to go—her cancer was pretty advanced and I think she didn’t expect to survive. But I could have killed him. He’d been banging his assistant for some time, but to leave Mum at that moment…” He shook his head. “I had a friend whose mother did divorce law, and she turned out to be a real shark. Thanks to her, my mother ended up with a good settlement and guaranteed lifetime health insurance. I was impressed. I wasn’t really hitting it out of the park as a programmer, so I decided to go into law.” He shrugged. “Divorce law didn’t do it for me, but corporate law did, and not many attorneys really know their way around tech clients. So that’s my specialty.”

Her face had grown soft and compassionate during his story. “How’s your mother doing now?”

“Quite well. She got an experimental drug in a clinical trial and it beat back the tumor. She gardens, she paints, she bakes…” He forced a grin. “If living with my father for twenty years didn’t kill her, cancer seemed unlikely to.”

“Ah. Still haven’t forgiven him?” She sounded understanding.

His jaw clenched. “No.” Not forgiven, nor spoken to in years, and Archer was very happy to keep it that way. Ted Quinn was a heartless bastard. He’d been an absent father and an indifferent husband, and Archer didn’t care if they never saw each other again.