Trust Me

messages. You know, email. At any rate, I sent Stark a message. Told him I was locked in the freezer. He came down and got me out.”
    Augustus narrowed his eyes. “Reminds me of the time Tony saved her from – “
    “Not now, dear,” Bess murmured gently.
    Celia turned to Stark. “We’ve been anxious to meet you, Stark. It’s not every day that our Desdemona falls in – “
    “Mother.” Desdemona’s face turned a brilliant shade of pink. She slid a sidelong glance at Stark. “For heaven’s sake, let’s not get carried away here.”
    “Celia’s right,” Benedick said portentously. “About time I took a good look at the man you’re thinking of marrying.”
    “Dad, Stark and I have a dating relationship.” Desdemona sounded desperate. “We have absolutely no plans for marriage.”
    “That’s not the way I heard it from Bess,” Celia said gently.
    “Well, Aunt Bess has it all wrong,” Desdemona said.
    Bess appeared mildly surprised. “I do?”
    Juliet rolled her eyes. “Come on, Desdemona, we all know you and Stark are involved.”
    “Is that a fact?” Benedick looked grim.
    “We do not all know that,” Desdemona said loudly. “What Stark and I do together is our personal business, and I would appreciate it if my family would stay out of it.”
    “Hold on here now.” A troubled expression furrowed Benedick’s regal brow. He glanced at Desdemona and then at Stark. “Did we misunderstand something here? I was told things were serious between you two.”
    “Well, they aren’t.” Desdemona turned toward Stark with a blindingly bright smile. “Are they? We’re friends. And business associates. And we have a casual dating relationship. Isn’t that right, Stark?”
    Stark was stunned by the icy talons of pain that seized his insides. The words that Desdemona had whispered as she had shuddered in his arms earlier that afternoon had been quietly burrowing deeper and deeper inside him. He realized that he had been hoarding them like hot coals against a dark winter.
    I love you.
    Now he realized that she had probably not meant them, after all.
    I love you.
    Just words that had been spoken by a passionate woman in the heat of the moment.
    I love you.
    He was standing in the slipstream of chaos, buffeted and disoriented by the cold, random winds. Comprehension of the pattern was impossible.
    “Whatever you say,” Stark said politely.

    “Whew. That was a close one.” Desdemona hastily shut the door of her office, turned around, and sagged back against the glass panel “I’m really sorry about that embarrassing scene with my folks.”
    “Forget it.”
    “They get a little excited sometimes. It’s a family trait.”
    “I said, forget it.” Stark watched as she went around behind her desk. What had he expected? he wondered. Desdemona was a Wainwright. She might have a casual dating relationship with a man like him, but that was probably as far as things would ever go.
    “Stop saying forget it.” She gave him a thoroughly exasperated glare. “I can’t forget it. The last thing I wanted anyone to do was put you on the spot.”
    “What spot?”
    She gave him an odd look. “You know. All that talk about us being seriously involved.”
    Stark looked at the blank screen of the computer. “I thought we were.”
    “Well, of course we are.”
    “We are?” This was the kind of conversation that always succeeded in baffling him, Stark thought. Still, he found himself seizing on the small flicker of hope her words had rekindled.
    Desdemona flopped back in her chair, aimed her ringer at him, and narrowed her eyes. “You know what your basic problem in life is, Stark?”
    “No,” he said. He switched his gaze back to her and waited, intent on the answer.
    “You take everything a little too literally.” Desdemona grinned. “For example, take a good look at yourself right now.”
    “I can hardly do that.” He glanced around at the notes, clippings, and photos that covered the walls of the office. “There isn’t a mirror in here.”
    “There. You did it again. You see what I mean? You’re too literal minded. Very few people in this world say exactly what they mean.”
    Stark frowned. “I’ve noticed that.”
    “You have to look for the real meaning behind the words. Think of human communication as a problem in chaos theory.”
    “Complexity, not chaos. And communication applications are not my area of expertise.”
    She slapped a palm on the table. “There you go again.