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offering me something a bit stronger?”
    Simon grinned. “Trust me. It’s in there.”
    Marsh took a sip. The coffee itself wasn’t that hot, but whatever it was that Simon had added to the brew burned all the way down to his stomach. He handed the mug back and they sat for a few moments in silence.
    “Leila’s angry at you,” Marsh said. “She thinks you let slip her secret.”
    “Well, that’ll get taken care of soon enough. As soon as she realizes it was you, as soon as you tell her—”
    “No.” Marsh sat forward. “She can’t be told. I can’t tell her—”
    “Oh, come on, Dev—”
    “No, Simon, really.” Good Lord, if Leila found out that he was the one who kissed her last night, it would be an absolute disaster. “What am I supposed to do? Walk up to her and say, ‘Oh, by the way, it was I, the one man in the universe you’re most likely to argue with, the man you don’t even like, who kissed you so soundly at midnight’? Is that what I’m supposed to say?”
    “I guess you’ve got a point.”
    “I don’t want her to feel as if I’ve made a fool of her, or to hate me,” Marsh said quietly. “In fact, I want quite the opposite.”
    “And you think by
not
telling her the truth, you have a better shot at that?”
    Marsh sighed and rubbed his hands across his face. “You make it sound so bloody dishonest.”
    “Just tell me what you want me to do,” Simon said.
    “Don’t tell her it was me,” Marshall answered. “Please? I’ll tell her. I promise. Just not yet.”
    Simon nodded. “You better not blow this. I don’t want some bozo for a brother-in-law.” He laughed. “At least not any bozo besides you.”
    “That’s
Doctor
Bozo, to you.”
    Simon grinned. “Happy New Year, by the way.”
    “Right. It’s new, anyway.”
             
    Leila sipped a glass of soda and watched as Simon prepared one of his stir-fried vegetables-and-tofu concoctions for dinner. He was actually a better-than-decent cook, and the tofu stuff he made always tasted very good, but Leila hated seeing it in its precooked phase—a white brick of soy protein, all pale and quivering on the cutting board.
    “What time is Elliot’s flight coming in?” Simon asked as he cut the tofu into neat little bite-sized squares.
    Leila glanced at her watch. “Eight o’clock. Two hours.”
    Simon looked up at her. “I’m surprised you didn’t call him and beg off. You know, tell him you don’t want him to come. Politely, of course.”
    Leila pulled her legs up to sit cross-legged on the kitchen chair. “Actually, I’m looking forward to seeing him.”
    Simon stopped cutting and stared at her. “You are?”
    “I lost it last night,” she admitted. “Number one, I kissed a total stranger, and number two, those kisses apparently meant nothing to this stranger, because he left the party without a single look back.” She took a deep breath. “He obviously doesn’t care about a few silly little kisses, and neither do I.”
    Simon grinned. “Is that why you carried the portable phone down to the beach this afternoon? Because you didn’t care whether or not this mystery guy was going to call you?”
    “I thought
Elliot
was going to call,” Leila said with great dignity. It figured that Simon would notice that she had carried the phone around all day.
    Seeing Elliot would do her good, she tried to tell herself. He was so down to earth, so…well, unromantic. But that was okay. She knew his limitations. She wouldn’t have to worry about becoming disappointed with him twenty years down the road.
    Because he was already so disappointing.
    Leila looked up at her brother as he chopped broccoli into small pieces. That last thought, although it sounded quite a bit like something Simon might say, had come from some dark, disenchanted corner of her very own mind.
    The honest truth was, Leila didn’t want to see Elliot. In fact, she was dreading his arrival. She’d spent the entire afternoon frustrated and