Secret Strangers in Love novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Table One

Mr. Stanhope had his shirt buttoned wrong, and his hair stood up on one side.

He stepped between me and the doorway.

"Chairman," he said. "This is not what it looks like."

"It looks like two people who ate noodles in a thunderstorm," said Stanford Ashworth.

He sliced the orange in half and held a piece out to me.

I took it because I had never been taught how to refuse a chairman.

"Miss Dunne, how long have you worked for this company?"

"Two weeks, sir."

"And in two weeks you fixed the recall chart, and the sales department's overdue reports, and my new chief executive's tie."

"His tie?"

"It's inside out."

Mr. Stanhope looked down.

Stanford ate a segment of orange and waited, with the patience of a man who has spent fifty years letting people finish their own sentences.

"You'll both come to dinner on Sunday," he said finally. "Seven o'clock. Lake Shore Drive. Wear something with a pocket."

"Why a pocket?" I asked.

"I like to see what people put in them."

He walked out, and the orange peel followed him.

I turned to Mr. Stanhope.

"Is he always like that?"

"He's worse in his own house," he said.

Stanford's house on Lake Shore Drive was a gray stone building with a doorbell that played a hymn.

A housekeeper took our coats and led us into a dining room.

It held one long table, six chairs, and a portrait of a woman with sharp eyes and a soft mouth.

"My late wife," Stanford said. "She'd have liked you. She liked anyone who made me nervous."

"You don't look nervous."

"That's because she isn't here."

Dinner was roast chicken, and I enjoyed it for ten minutes.

Then Stanford began.

"Where is your family from, Miss Dunne?"

"The north shore. My mother was a Dunne."

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