“We have done our duty, Mrs. Hamilton.”

She shook her head. “There’s still a line of people in there wanting to talk to you when they get the chance, and you know it.”

“You talked to all of them. I don’t need to.”

“They’re expecting-”

He shook his head. “If you’ll remember correctly, Mrs. Hamilton, we had some very different plans for these three days in Chicago. A little shopping, a little time alone together. You wanted to see that art fair. Instead, I haven’t even had breakfast alone with you, and you’ve been asleep long before I could escape the crowd at night. I’ve noticed it before, lady. You are a very, very good sport.”

“I am,” she agreed impishly, “very, very good.”

“And I think it’s time to skip out and cut up a little.”

“Oh?”

Craig’s thumb idly traced her cheekbone. A very high, delicate cheekbone. He was tremendously fond of those bones. And those incredible deep-set green-blue eyes, always so full of emotion, so sensitive to his every mood. She had a tiny black beauty mark at the nape of her neck and wore her curly black hair just long enough to conceal it. He loved that mark, too. And the legs that could have been a dancer’s…she was all leg, he told her often. She regularly apologized for being so misshapen.

She was wearing her cat’s smile at the moment, her eyes unspeakably demure beneath a fringe of thick, dark lashes. She knew damn well that in his eyes she was shaped perfectly. And that he was tired of people and wanted her alone, where the phone was off the hook and the door was locked against interruptions.

“First, we’re going to hear some music,” he told her huskily. “And then maybe we’ll just walk for a while.”

“Walking is what you have in mind, is it?”

“For starters.”

Sonia made a big business out of straightening his tie. Scarlet-and-black-striped, very conservative.