"Do you know what you want?” Only the way he said it made me think he wasn’t talking about lunch.

I peered at the menu, but my heart was beating too fast and it made it hard to concentrate on the words. "Sorry,” I said to the waiter. "I'm searching for something that’s vegetarian.”

He rattled off a few items, which I also had a hard time concentrating on.

Grant made a pondering "hmmm” sound, and I glanced back at him. His eyes glinted wickedly. "Are you sure you don't want to cheat?” And that time for sure he wasn't talking about lunch.

"Cheating is bad,” I said.

"You're right.” He sent a killer smile in my direction. "I don’t want you to cheat. I want you to change your mind altogether. Choose something that's better for you.”

I handed the menu back to the waiter. "Sorry, I’m not going to cheat today. I’ll have the vegetable lasagna.”

Grant shook his head in mock disappointment—or maybe it was real disappointment; it was hard to tell since he was still smiling—but he didn’t bring the subject of us up again.

We spent the rest of lunch discussing things like where we’d like to travel. He had actual plans. I had dreams I passed off as plans. He asked me what my favorite natural wonder was, and I said, "The ocean.”

"I don't think that's technically a natural wonder.”

"It is to me. I love swimming in the waves.”

"I meant like the Grand Canyon.”

Without thinking about it, I said, "I've never been there.”

I realized this was a mistake when his eyes widened. "You’ve never been to the Grand Canyon?”

Kari probably had, but I couldn't take it back now, so I shrugged. "I’m too busy to take the time out for that sort of thing.”

He shook his head in disbelief. I knew I needed to change the topic of conversation. “So what were your favorite subjects in school?"

"School?" He leaned back in his chair as though he needed the extra space to think about it. "Probably math. It always made sense. Unlike English, economics, and girls."

"And exactly how do you plan on taking over the free world if you don’t understand economics?”

“I'll hire advisers. I'll hire you, in fact.”

"Okay. Let me know when your army of junior high zombies is ready."

I didn’t want lunch to end. I ordered a fudge brownie sundae for dessert, even though I wasn’t hungry anymore and Maren wouldn't approve of me eating something dripping with calories. I just wanted to prolong the time I spent with him.

But finally even that disappeared and then I didn’t have a reason to keep him any longer. We both stood up and he said, "I’ll walk you to your car.”

"I had my driver drop me off,” I said. "I’ll give him a call."

"Oh, then I'll take you home," Grant said.

In retrospect the problem was that being with Grant made it hard to think straight. When I asked if he knew how to get to my house and he said yes, I didn't think anything more of it. He’d already taken me to Maren's before, which of course was where I needed to go. I was so wrapped up in talking to him that I didn't realize he'd driven to Kari's house until we went up the drive and he asked for the gate code. Then he said, "Oh, never mind. It looks like we’re following the pool truck. Do you have a nice pool?"

Probably. Unless pool trucks came to houses for other reasons. I smiled over at him. “It’s okay.”

Then I took deep breaths, suddenly realizing that the next few minutes could go very bad in a lot of ways. “How did you know where I lived?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice at a normal pitch.

"When Lorna first came down to the hospital after you’d fired her, I drove her up here to talk to you. You weren't home, though.” He glanced over at me and smiled. "I wonder what would have happened if we’d met then? Do you think things would have turned out differently?”

Oh, yeah. They would have turned out very differently. The real Kari would have turned the hose on them. Then at the club, Grant would have seen that I was a fake from the start. But I shrugged like it was one of those unknowable mysteries and scanned the yard and trees to make sure Kari wasn't out for a stroll.

Thankfully, I didn’t see her.

The pool truck stopped by the house. Were they going to ring the doorbell? Would Kari come out to talk to them?

Grant pulled up near the garage and stopped the car. I didn’t move. I just stared at the yard trying to think of any plausible excuse for why we should leave immediately.

An older Latino man got out of the pool truck. He hefted a toolbox and a jug out of his truck bed, then walked around to the back of the house.

I couldn't even tell if Kari was home right now. Who knew whether her car was in the four-car garage. Really, her house had a four-car garage. Like maybe her Porsche wanted to have slumber parties. Grant got out of the car, but I still didn't move. My muscles had completely stopped working. What if she'd seen us pull up and came to one of the front windows to see who it was?

Apparently Grant thought I was waiting for him to open my door, because that’s what he did. I got out and scanned the house windows as we walked to the front door. Nothing. I opened my purse and fumbled through it until we reached the doorstep. "I, uh—this is really embarrassing. I don't have my house keys with me. But I know my assistant has an extra copy. I'll give her a call and she can—”

Grant leaned over and tried the doorknob. It swung open. "You’re in luck. You also forgot to lock the door.”

"Oh,” I said. "Great." How come Kari never locked her doors? Didn’t she know that was unsafe? I looked inside. No sign of Kari. I stepped through the doorway. I had told her I was getting the manuscript, so she might not be surprised to see me at her house, but she would definitely be surprised to see Grant. And he would be really surprised to see her. "Thanks for lunch, and for the manuscript. I’ll, um—"

He let out a sigh and stepped inside after me. "Look, we need to talk. You know, about what happened at lunch. Or at least what I wanted to happen at lunch. Despite what you said about Michael, I think you wanted it to happen too."

What was I supposed to say to that? I opened my mouth and nothing came out. Then I heard footsteps clicking on the tile off in the left side of the house coming toward us.

CHAPTER 11

I grabbed Grant's hand and pulled him off toward the right side of the house. "Do you want a drink or something?” I asked. "Let’s go to the kitchen." We walked through a sitting room with a bay window that faced the front lawn. "This is my reading room,” I guessed. "It's where I go over my fan mail.” It had two doors. I took him through the one in the back, and we walked into a room full of shelves holding porcelain dolls and curios. "And this is my, um, doll collection room, and you can see I also have lots of ceramic cats because, hey, you can never have too many of those.”

The room was a dead end. I towed him back into the room. He raised an eyebrow at me questioningly, but he didn’t come right out and ask if I was lost in my own house. "I thought you’d like a tour while you’re here," I said, by way of explanation. "I don’t get many visitors, so I like to show the place off when I can." Then I pulled him through the other sitting room door. We went into a hallway. I didn't hear Kari coming up behind us, but that didn't mean we wouldn't run into her at any moment. I glanced into a doorway but didn't go inside. "That’s my den," I said.

He looked inside to be polite. "Nice.”