Page 27 of The Perfect Deception

“Mr. Man­del. Your fa­ther is wait­ing for you in the liv­ing room.”

Dina walked with Adam be­hind the woman, her feet sink­ing into the plush Aubus­son car­pet, and re­sisted the urge to reach for his hand. She could do this.

Out­side the door­way of the liv­ing room, he reached for hers. His warm skin against hers and the press of his fin­gers was re­as­sur­ing. Whether he needed the sup­port, or whether he was do­ing it for show, didn’t mat­ter. They were to­gether for the mo­ment.

His fa­ther rose as they en­tered, Adam gave her hand a last squeeze but held on, and walked up to his fa­ther. They nod­ded to each other, and his fa­ther turned his at­ten­tion to her.

She held out her hand and he grasped it. While Adam might be Mr. Flashy­pants, his fa­ther was The Gen­eral, com­plete with mil­i­tary pos­ture. It was a good thing her hand was in Adam’s or she might be tempted to salute.

“It’s a plea­sure to see you again, Mr. Man­del. You have an im­pres­sive home.”

He re­leased her grasp and nod­ded. “You’re quite dif­fer­ent from Adam’s usual dates.”

Oof.She heard Adam’s in­take of breath and from the glint in his fa­ther’s eye, Dina won­dered if he was look­ing for a re­ac­tion. Her first im­pres­sion of him hadn’t been great, and he sure wasn’t help­ing his cause now. But she was here for Adam, and she’d live up to her side of the bar­gain.

“I’m sure I am,” she said, a wide grin on her face. Loop­ing her arm through Adam’s, she looked up at him, hop­ing his fa­ther could read her ex­pres­sion of ado­ra­tion.

“May I of­fer you a drink?” The Gen­eral asked.

When she nod­ded and Adam’s fa­ther reached for the whiskey de­canter, Dina blurted, “Did you know that if the 99 mil­lion cases of Scotch ex­ported each year were laid end-to-end, they would run the dis­tance be­tween Ed­in­burgh and New York six times?”

Dina froze as the words left her mouth, for the ex­pres­sions on the men’s faces were…odd. The Gen­eral’s hand was sus­pended midair above her tum­bler, his mouth slightly open, his white brows fur­rowed. Adam looked be­tween her and his fa­ther and seemed to be sup­press­ing laugh­ter.

“No, I did not know that. How…in­ter­est­ing,” The Gen­eral said. “Adam, would you like one?”

He nod­ded, eyes sparkling.

They sat in front of the fire­place, glasses in hand and Dina lis­tened to The Gen­eral and Adam make small talk. Or at­tempt to. They were re­ally bad at it. The Gen­eral men­tioned the weather and Adam an­swered with a word or two. Dina launched into a de­scrip­tion of cloud for­ma­tions. Adam men­tioned base­ball and The Gen­eral nod­ded. Just as the awk­ward ex­change was be­com­ing un­bear­able and Dina was about to break in with base­ball stats, the woman who’d opened the front door for them en­tered the room af­ter a soft knock.

“Din­ner is served.”

The Gen­eral nod­ded his head, re­mind­ing Dina of an em­peror sur­vey­ing his sub­jects. He led them out of the liv­ing room, across the ex­pan­sive foyer and into the din­ing room. If Adam hadn’t held her by the hand, she would have stopped dead in the en­try­way.

The din­ing room—to call it a room was prob­a­bly an in­sult—was awe-in­spir­ing. From at least a twelve-foot ceil­ing dan­gled a crys­tal chan­de­lier with enough lights to power a small coun­try. Mir­rors on ei­ther end of the room gave it the il­lu­sion of ex­tend­ing far fur­ther than its thirty feet. Dec­o­rated in taupe, mauve and cream, it ex­uded el­e­gance. Dina wasn’t sure she was dressed well enough for the room.

How­ever, no one stopped her and no one of­fered her a change of cloth­ing, so she sat in the Louis XVI chair Adam held out for her, stared at the bone china and sil­ver laid out on the ma­hogany ta­ble, and pre­tended she fit in.

“This room is lovely,” she said to The Gen­eral, who in­clined his head. “Did you know Louis XVI hated cats?”

It was as if her mouth had a mind of its own, which would be great if it in­volved kiss­ing Adam, but in this in­stance, she didn’t think ob­scure facts about fur­ni­ture, or the kings af­ter whom that fur­ni­ture was named, was en­dear­ing her to Adam’s fa­ther.

But this time, he laughed. “Cats? Re­ally?”

Spread­ing her cream linen nap­kin on her lap, she nod­ded.

“Well, I’ll be damned. I guess the dandy might have had some good qual­i­ties.”

A raised eye­brow from Adam pre­vented her from con­tra­dict­ing The Gen­eral on his use of dandy. In­stead, she cleared her throat, tasted the but­ter­nut squash soup and lis­tened as the two men talked about law. The sub­ject didn’t par­tic­u­larly in­ter­est her; but, their in­ter­ac­tion did. Adam asked ques­tions, as if to draw his fa­ther out. The Gen­eral ini­tially gave one or two word an­swers, but Adam per­sisted. Dina’s heart broke lis­ten­ing to him try­ing to get his fa­ther to talk to him. She slid her foot for­ward be­neath the ta­ble un­til it bumped into his. His gaze shot to­ward her and he paused mid-sen­tence.

His fa­ther no­ticed. “See, Adam, this is what I’m talk­ing about. You lack fo­cus. Care­less mis­takes are in­evitable if you don’t pay at­ten­tion.”

Dina’s gasp was lost in the quiet clat­ter of her meal be­ing served. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but that was my fault. My foot hit Adam’s and dis­tracted him.”

The Gen­eral raised an eye­brow, re­mind­ing her of his son. “My son could do with fewer dis­trac­tions.”

Adam’s hands had clasped into fists and he was poised to rise from the ta­ble. She was sup­posed to be help­ing him. Now was not the time for him to get into a fight with his fa­ther.

In­stead, she smiled. “Well, if we elim­i­nated all dis­trac­tions, nei­ther of us would be here tonight,” she said, and The Gen­eral’s jaw dropped.