LITMIR.BIZ

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jewelry business is Blake’s bailiwick and the only thing I’ll say, the only thing I know to report, is that he’s working to increase sales the way any number of businesses do—with new advertising or new packaging or new whatever. That doesn’t mean anything is floundering.”

      “I’ve seen the ads—A Once In A Lifetime Experience,” Tanya said. “Coffee and pastries for morning shoppers. Champagne and hors d’oeuvres later in the day. One-on-one customer service—”

      “And Gabby—don’t forget Gabby is available by e-mail for personal shopping advice for certain clients who want to know what a high-profile trendsetter would buy.”

      “That sounds like you’re putting in a plug for Blake’s new public relations campaign.”

      Tate merely smiled as if that was exactly what he was doing and was pleased to be able to again control the information that would go into her story.

      But she couldn’t let him get too comfortable. “And I heard you and Blake talk about him stockpiling canary diamonds to use as a tie-in with the Santa Magdalena diamond when he finds it.”

      Tate sobered and sighed again. “You’re just digging around all over the place, aren’t you?”

      Tanya gave him the that’s-my-job shrug.

      “Let’s just say,” Tate said, “that it wouldn’t do any harm to have the Santa Magdalena diamond appear. And I hope that that happens and the focus of your report leans more in that direction—in a direction that can help rather than hurt.”

      “In other words, you’d like it if my report could be more in the way of free advertisement than anything really revealing.”

      He just grinned.

      “So you’re using me? Is that why your fiancée isn’t putting the kibosh on your spending so much time with me?”

      “My fiancée…” He took a drink of his wine, looked at the glass as he set it back on the table then said, “No more fiancée. No more engagement.”

      “Oh…” she said, not impressed by the announcement.

      He cocked his head at her. “You don’t believe me?”

      “Oh, sure,” she said flimsily.

      “You don’t believe me.”

      “Believe you, don’t believe you—it isn’t really a matter of that. If the engagement was on yesterday and off today, it’ll just be on again tomorrow.”

      “Even the staff—and the staff’s family—has been keeping track of that?”

      “Hard not to. One day you’re an item, the next you aren’t.”

      He shook his head. “Well, I hate to switch things up, but it’s not the same this time. The engagement is definitely off.”

      Something about the way he said that gave Tanya a strange moment of elation that she tempered in a hurry. Then she shook her head at him, denying her own response and his claim all at once.

      “You still don’t believe me?” Tate interpreted that part of the head shake.

      “It doesn’t matter. This is how things go with you two. It stands to reason that you wouldn’t make it to the altar the first time around. There will probably be a couple of engagements and breakups before that will happen. But do I think it will eventually happen? Sure.”

      Tate rolled his eyes. “This is tonight’s dinner all over again.”

      So the subject that had made his family meal rough hadn’t been the Charlie issue, it had been Tate’s broken engagement…

      “Your family didn’t take it seriously either?” Tanya asked.

      “Only seriously enough to be annoyed. But I am serious—Katie and I are—”

      “I know, broken up.”

      “Once and for all.”

      Why was there that part of her that wanted so much to buy the finality he was selling? To think that it was even a possibility that Tate McCord and Katie Whitcomb-Salgar could be no more for real? It shouldn’t have any impact on her at all, one way or another.

      And yet it did. It raised a hope in her that was completely out of place. That shouldn’t have been there. That she didn’t want there. It made her feel as if she were walking a tightrope and had just discovered she didn’t have a safety net. It shook her.

      And she suddenly felt the need to get out of there. To get some distance in which to gather her wits and regain some balance. Some distance that would take her where Tate wasn’t right there beside her, smelling so good, looking so good, and now not engaged…

      “I think we’ve done enough here tonight,” she said, getting to her feet. “We’ve laid the groundwork. We can probably call it quits.”

      She knew that had come out of the blue and the hastiness of it had obviously confused Tate. “We haven’t even talked about the present-day McCords—with the exception of Gabby,” he pointed out.

      “I know about the present-day McCords,” Tanya said as she closed her notebook, clipped her pen to it and began to make a pile of the photographs she was taking. “Your mother looks after the household and family and does charity work. Blake is the CEO of McCord’s Jewelers. You’re a surgeon. There’s the twins, Penny and Paige—Penny is a jewelry designer, Paige is a geologist and gemologist. And there’s Charlie, who’s a student at Southern Methodist University and who we’ve also talked about tonight. Did I leave anyone out?”

      “No, that’s the lot of us,” Tate confirmed, his tone still perplexed.

      He stood then, too. And while Tanya hoped it was just a polite acknowledgment that she was about to leave, instead he said, “I’ll walk you back to your mother’s place.”

      “That’s okay, you don’t have to,” she said, wishing it hadn’t sounded so panicky.

      “I want to,” he assured her.

      “Whatever,” Tanya said, trying for aloofness and failing as she picked up everything and held it in front of her like a schoolgirl carrying books. Carrying books close and tight and protectively.

      “Did I tick you off somehow?” Tate asked as they headed for the path that wound away from the pool.

      “No. I don’t know why you would think that.”

      “Maybe because you’re acting as if I just grew fangs or something. Is my not being engaged scary to you?”

      Terrifying. Although she wasn’t exactly sure why, except possibly that she was terrified that she might give in to that wave of elation that had washed through her when he’d told her his engagement was off and let down her guard with him.

      But if she let down her guard, then what? She could end up just another person he occupied his time with while he was on one of his innumerable breaks from Katie Whitcomb-Salgar. And all Tanya could think was, Oh, no, not me.

      She just wasn’t sure she could stick to it.

      Although there was still the issue of her mother and her mother’s job, and the fact that Tate was her mother’s employer…

      Reminding herself of that helped. It actually allowed her to begin to relax again.

      Even if Tate wasn’t engaged any longer, there was still a good—a very good—reason why she absolutely couldn’t and wouldn’t let anything happen with him. Anything even like last night when she’d thought he might be on the verge of kissing her.

      Then something else that seemed completely unlikely occurred to her and compelled her to say, “When did this particular breakup come about? I didn’t think Katie was even

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