The sincerity in his voice reached her. Her temper slowed to a simmer, then finally cooled altogether. “Maybe I could at least look in the boxes,” she said cautiously.
Sammy at his most indifferent couldn’t have been any more casual than Jason when he shrugged. “It’s up to you.”
“I’ll look.”
She opened what appeared to be a shoebox first. Folded inside layers of tissue paper were the slinkiest, highest silver sandals she’d ever seen. She recognized the label from one of the city’s swankest shoe stores.
“Ohmigosh,” she murmured, trying to imagine wearing the shoes without feeling a little like Cinderella in her glass slippers. If the shoes were this incredible, what on earth did the rest of the boxes contain?
“More?” Jason inquired lazily. He’d sprawled in a chair to watch. His posture was relaxed, but there was a tension beneath the surface that suggested he couldn’t wait for her reaction to the rest.
Suddenly Dana grinned and gave in to temptation. How often did fairy-tale extravagances happen to a woman like her? “Oh, what the hell? Let’s go for it.”
She tugged open the biggest box and discovered a slinky black dress that shimmered with silver beads on the shoulders. She held it up and moved in front of the full-length mirror. She swallowed hard when she saw her reflection. She looked glamorous. She turned slowly back to Jason. “If this is what you had in mind for a simple family dinner, I would never have forgiven you if you’d let me go downstairs in jeans.”
“I had my own jeans out, just in case.”
The remaining boxes contained the sheerest, laciest lingerie Dana had ever seen. She tried to picture Jason shopping for it, but her imagination failed her. “You bought these?” she asked holding up one of several pairs of virtually nonexistent panties. The pair dangling from her finger was black. There were others in the sexiest red, the richest cream, the most virginal white.
He grinned. “Had the time of my life doing it, too. You just have to promise you’ll wear them under your jeans. The image will drive me wild. In fact, if you don’t get them out of here this very instant, you and I are going to be very late for dinner and that will really take some explaining.”
Dana gathered the clothes up from the bed and started out the door. At the next instant she looked back and caught the pleased expression on Jason’s face. “Thank you,” she said softly. “I feel like Cinderella.”
“There’s a difference, sweetheart. You’re already home.”
Dana couldn’t get Jason’s words out of her head all through dinner. She barely noticed that Sammy was wearing new slacks, a dress shirt and a tie that he kept trying to tug loose. There was a new confidence about him that even in her distracted state was impossible to miss. He watched Brandon Halloran and mimicked every move the older man made. Brandon was careful to include Sammy in the conversation, for which Dana was grateful.
Everything about the evening was perfect. Everyone admired her dress. Mrs. Willis’s menu was superb, even if Dana didn’t know what half the things were. Lacey Halloran went out of her way to be gracious to both Dana and Sammy. After his initial reserve, even Kevin Halloran opened up. It had taken several glasses of wine to accomplish that, but whatever the cause, Dana was grateful. After his behavior in Jason’s office, she’d been prepared for open disapproval.
Jason sat back and watched the byplay with the satisfaction of a man who’d put all of his chess pieces into motion and was waiting for certain victory. When they moved into the living room after dinner, he poured brandy for everyone—even Sammy, who choked on the first sip and asked for a soda.
Lacey Halloran set her own snifter of brandy on an end table and leaned toward Dana. “Jason tells me you had to leave your old apartment.”
“That’s ’cause these guys I knew said they were gonna come after her,” Sammy piped up. “Jason and I figured it wasn’t so safe for her to be there anymore.”
Jason’s mother looked nonplussed for an instant. “That must have been very frightening,” she said finally.
“You get used to the violence in a neighborhood like that,” Dana responded.
“I’m sure living here is a vast improvement,” Kevin said. It sounded to Dana as if he were accusing her of something, though his expression was perfectly bland.
“Actually I don’t expect to be here all that long. Sammy and I will find a place of our own.”
Lacey Halloran looked confused. “But I thought…”
“There’s no rush,” Jason said, interrupting his mother.
Dana had a terrible hunch she knew exactly what the woman had been about to say. Apparently Brandon Halloran was not the only one with a mistaken understanding of where her relationship with Jason was headed. They’d probably taken one look at this fancy dress she was wearing tonight and leaped to all sorts of wrong conclusions. They probably thought she intended to take Jason for everything she could get. Unfortunately there was no way she could correct their impressions without embarrassing Jason and making matters worse.
It was one of those rare times when retreat seemed the most prudent course.
She stood up. “If you’ll excuse me, I really should be going up. I have work to do and I’m sure you all would like to spend some time together without an outsider around. Sammy, I know you have homework.”
Jason was on his feet at once. “Dana…”
“No, really. I have to get those sketches finished tonight. It was very nice meeting all of you.”
She was halfway up the stairs before Sammy caught up with
