Cause For Scandal (Dynasties: The Elliotts #3)(25)
Author: Anna DePalo

He saw too much, she thought with chagrin. “Let’s get back.”

Later that evening, as she sat across the dining table from Zeke, Summer realized dinner was going to be as much of a trial as she’d thought. Olive had informed her grandparents that Summer had brought a “male friend” along with her.

Summer had started to count the number of times that her grandfather’s eyebrows had risen and fallen with suspicion, and now she wondered if civility would hold sway at least until the end of the meal.

Even her grandparents had heard of Zeke Woodlow and, of course, her grandfather was no fool. If her cousins had seemed to sense there was more to her relationship with Zeke than met the eye, then certainly Patrick Elliott wouldn’t be fooled. Last weekend she’d announced her broken engagement, and this weekend she was showing up at The Tides with a different man in tow.

At that thought, she caught her grandfather’s penetrating look and nearly winced as she got a good idea of his thoughts: Well, Summer, my girl, these are the sorts of shenanigans that I’d have expected out of your sister and not from you.

Zeke cleared his throat, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had descended. “So, Summer tells me you’re in the process of choosing a successor. Do you already have big plans for your retirement?”

Summer groaned inwardly. The word retirement didn’t exist in her grandfather’s vocabulary. Not really, and certainly not as applied to him.

She wondered why Zeke would bring up a touchy subject. She’d already told him how the competition among magazines was exacerbating family tensions. She tossed him a quelling look that he either didn’t see or refused to acknowledge.

Summer watched as her grandfather leisurely finished buttering a roll and took his time answering. She knew from experience that one of her grandfather’s techniques for making his targets uncomfortable was to draw out the silence.

Zeke, however, appeared to remain completely at ease. It was she who felt like squirming.

When Patrick finally looked up, he said, “Some of us never really stop working. For others, though, the party never seems to end.” He bit into his roll.

Argh, Summer thought.

She watched as Zeke took his time chewing his food and swallowing. “Yes, sir. That’s all too true. I’m glad we fall into the same camp on that score.”

Patrick huffed, as though he couldn’t believe Zeke had the audacity to claim that he—the up-by-his-boot-straps, self-made founder of a publishing empire—had anything in common with a bad-boy rock star.

Summer noticed her grandmother hide a smile. Well, at least Gram seemed to be rooting for the underdog.

Patrick stopped eating and addressed Zeke. “You mentioned that your parents are a professor and a psychologist. Do they approve of your career choice?”

“They weren’t too happy at first, but they realized I was entitled to pursue my own dreams. How about yours?”

Summer thought she heard her grandfather say something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like “insolent pup.” She wanted to crawl under the table, or at least throw her napkin over her head.

Maeve appeared to catch the pleading look that Summer sent her and said, “When Patrick first came calling, my father disliked him intensely.”

“Then I’m glad he’s only continuing a family tradition,” Zeke said.

Maeve looked greatly amused, while Patrick lowered his eyebrows.

To Patrick, Zeke added, “I’m like you. Ambitious, hard-working and willing to start at the bottom and work my way up in a field in which I had no connections.”

Patrick studied Zeke thoughtfully. “But still with time to dally, it seems. First with one granddaughter, now with the other, eh?”

At Summer’s gasp, her grandfather turned to her and added, “Don’t look at me like that, my girl. I’m still able to read, and, yes, news of Scarlet’s appearance with Zeke in the Post did make its way back to me. I may need reading glasses, but I’m not dead yet.”

“That was me, not Scarlet, Granddad!”

The minute the words were out of her mouth, Summer regretted them.

Patrick sat back, a curiously satisfied look on his face.

Summer flushed. “I mean—”

Zeke looked Patrick in the eye. “There is no explanation.”

Summer recovered enough to add, “I still meant what I said last weekend. I realized that John and I wouldn’t suit, that we’re too alike, so I called off the engagement.”

“Your grandfather understands,” Maeve interjected. “After all, there was a time when he was young and impetuous himself.”

“Never,” Patrick declared.

“Why,” Maeve continued, as if she hadn’t heard her husband, “my father swore that Patrick was heading for the shortest courtship on record.”

Maeve then steered the conversation to a safer topic and asked Olive to bring in some fresh fruit.

Summer was relieved when dinner wrapped up soon after that. Afterward, she sat with Maeve in the small tearoom, which was done up with chintz-upholstered furniture, and sipped some herbal tea from a porcelain cup. Her grandfather and Zeke had disappeared into the library, and Summer worried about their conversation.

“I think Patrick likes him,” Maeve said.

Summer jerked up her head to look at her grandmother. “You’re kidding. How can you tell?”

Maeve gave her a fond little smile. “Zeke refused to be cowed. He put me in mind of Patrick nearly sixty years ago when he came to Ireland and courted me.”

Summer mulled over her grandmother’s comment, and later that night, when she finally caught Zeke alone, she said, “I did try to warn you about Granddad.”

Zeke laughed. “His bark is worse than his bite.”

“What did you talk about in the library?” she asked curiously.

“We smoked cigars and shot the breeze. He showed me his impressive collection of first editions.” He added with a wink, “Don’t worry, I like him.”

Her eyebrows shot upward in surprise, but Zeke just laughed again.

On Wednesday night, Zeke picked up Summer at work in his rented sports car. They’d made plans to eat at Peter Luger Steak House in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, just over the bridge from Manhattan, and then take in a photography exhibit at an art gallery in nearby Fort Greene, which was known as an artists’ haven from Manhattan’s high rents.

He’d never met anyone quite like Summer, Zeke reflected. She was a bundle of contradictions. An heiress with few pretensions and not a few insecurities. A throwback to another era, but one who had career ambitions. A recent ex-virgin who could send him from relaxed to heavily aroused in less than a minute.