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The living area had a futon couch, a desk with an elaborate array of computer equipment, a drafting table, and a bookshelf sagging with the weight of tomes. The only art on the walls was a series of black-and-white architectural photographs in lucite frames.
"These are fantastic pictures," he said, pausing to admire the light and shadow in an arched gallery.
"Thanks. I took them."
He turned, surprised. "You're a photographer, too?"
She shrugged and took the cellophane off the irises and started trimming their stems. "Not really. I only take them for myself, and they're only of things that I find beautiful. Patterns, mostly. Repetition. Symmetry. Angles and curves."
"The mathematics of beauty."
She looked up from filling a vase and smiled. "Yes. Exactly. Most people don't get that; that there is math in both the visual arts and music."
"You're talking to an engineer."
She laughed. "I guess that could explain it, but I've met plenty of math and science guys who lack an aesthetic sense. Look at the great flowers you chose: structural, and all one kind. I think it's the best way to display flowers."
Flattered, he made a faint noise that might be construed as thanks.
"So!" she said brightly. "Would you like to open the wine?" She put a bottle of red up on the breakfast bar, then bumped it when she reached up again to put down the corkscrew. She fumbled and just managed to catch it before it fell over, and before his own mad dash got him there. "Oops! Sometimes I think I'm all thumbs," she said, a quaver in her voice. She giggled, but not a happy giggle. More a verge-of-hysteria giggle.
He reached for the wine bottle and corkscrew and examined her surreptitiously as he went to work on the bottle.
Emma hopped about the small kitchen, prattling something about micro salad greens and vinegars, her hands moving as fast as birds' wings.
He pulled the cork and moved to her side of the breakfast bar, where the wineglasses were. He poured out two glasses, glad to see no cork bits, and paused to look at the wine label. It was a nice pi not noir from Oregon.
She bumped into him and bounced away, his closeness seeming to make her hummingbird nervousness go up a notch.
He reached out and touched her arm, to calm her, to tell her that she didn't have to do this. "It's okay," he said.
Her eyes went past him to the wine. "Is it? I was hoping so. I'm afraid I don't know as much as I'd like to about wine. The woman at the wine shop down the block chose it for me."
She snatched a glass and held it up. "Here's to new adventures!"
He took a glass as well, but when she clinked her glass with his he didn't drink. "Emma."
She lowered her glass. He saw faint tremors in the surface of her wine, revealing the shaking of her hand. "Yes?"
"You don't have to do this. We can stop right here. Forget the whole arrangement."
Her eyebrows went up in concern. "Stop? You've changed your mind? You don't want any of this?"
"It's not right."
"But I made a stuffed leg of lamb. And dessert." She looked helplessly around the kitchen, the signs of her efforts clear in the dirty bowls, pans, and utensils.
"We can still eat the di
Some of the light left her eyes. She looked hurt. "You don't want to sleep with me."
"Yes! I do! But you're so nervous, I wanted to give you a chance to reconsider." He was calling her nervous. Ha! What a joke! He was the one who was ready to die of nerves.
She set down her wineglass and played with its base, watching her own fingertips sliding around the circle of glass. Then she suddenly looked up, meeting his eyes with a steady gaze. "It's been a year and a half since I've had sex. They say it's like riding a bicycle and you never forget how, right? But that doesn't mean there isn't a part of me that's still a little nervous, no matter how much I'm looking forward to it."
He was surprised and pleased by her admissions of having been celibate for so long and of wanting to sleep with him. "It's been a while for me, too," he said quietly.
"I've never done it with someone I wasn't in a long-term relationship with." She stepped closer to him, bringing her mouth within inches of his own. "And I've never been creative with it, before tonight. But it's good to try new things. To learn. Don't you think?"
He could feel the warmth of her breath against his lips. "Education is important." He tried to give nobility one last chance. "I don't want to corrupt you."
"The sin of knowledge? A bit old school, don't you think?"
"I don't want you to be ashamed, afterwards."
"Will you think badly of me, if I become your mistress?"
Would he think less of her if she went through with it? If she were his age or looking for marriage, then he might. But Emma had other things on her mind than relationships. From what little he knew of her, she wouldn't be doing this unless it made practical and moral sense to her.
He laughed as he realized what his answer to her question was. "If you go through with it, tomorrow I'll wonder if it's all been real."
She raised a brow. "Will I be a toy to you? A sex toy in a very large toy box?" She gestured to the apartment.
"Not a toy. A toy implies mastery by another. I think pagan goddess' would be the better description. A goddess bestowing gifts upon the incredibly fortunate."
She smiled and came close enough for her lips to brush his. "I can live with that."
He was suddenly sure that he could, too. Oh God, yes, he could. He put his hand on her hip and began to close the scant distance.
The buzz of the oven timer cut between them. "Oh good, there's the lamb!" she said, hopping away from him and grabbing her oven mitts.
"Hurrah," he muttered. Walking was becoming difficult for him now, as well. He moved to the other side of the breakfast bar, where his lower half would be out of sight.
He watched her lift the pan out of the oven. She glanced up at him and smiled, and for the first time in his life he seriously wondered if he should start looking for a wife. There was something deeply appealing about a woman cooking for you. Though this was only a business arrangement, it was easy to forget that fact when Emma smiled at him, when she seemed to take such care and delight in the meal she had made.
"Do you want to help?" she asked.
"Sure. What do you need me to do?"
"You could finish setting the table. I took out dishes for two settings, if that's okay."
He looked at her in puzzlement.
"I wasn't sure that you'd want me to eat with you, or if this was supposed to be more like a restaurant experience."
"Two places is what I expected," he said, although he hadn't given it a thought before this moment. He couldn't swallow a bite if she was hovering in the background, watching.
"Good! I'm starving."
He went to work on the table. As he was finishing up she hobbled up to join him, carrying two plates of salad. He went back and got the wine, returning to find her lighting candles. It was a much more romantic setting than he had anticipated, and he was glad for it. It gave the illusion that they were both here because they wanted to be.
And wasn't that true anyway?
Emma stood in her awkward bird pose beside the table, gesturing toward a chair. "Sit. Please."
He moved past her and pulled out the other chair for her. "Please," he said. She might soon be his mistress, but that didn't mean he couldn't be a gentleman about it.
She ducked her head shyly and sat as he pushed in the chair.
"Your leg is still bothering you," he said.
"It'll go away, don't worry."