Damian nodded. “We did, indeed.” he said smoothly.
Dawn leaned her head against her groom’s shoulder. “We just knew you two would have a lot to talk about.”
I don’t believe this, Laurel thought. I’m trapped in a room filled with matchmakers.
“Really,” she said politely.
“Uh-huh.”
“Name one thing.”
Dawn’s brows lifted. “Sorry?”
“Name one thing we’d have to talk about,” Laurel said pleasantly, even while a little voice inside her warned her it was time to shut up.
The woman across the table made another choking sound. Dawn shot Nick a puzzled glance. Gallantly he picked up the slack.
“Well,” he said, “the both of you do a lot of traveling.”
“Indeed?”
“Take France, for instance.”
“France?”
“Yeah. Damian just bought an apartment in Paris. We figured you could clue him in on the best places to buy stuff. You know, furniture, whatever, considering that you spend so much time there.”
“I don’t,” Laurel said quickly. She looked at Evan, sitting beside her, and she cleared her throat. “I mean, I don’t spend half as much time in Paris as I used to.”
“Where do you spend your time, then?” Damian asked politely.
Where didn’t he spend his? Laurel made a quick mental inventory of all the European cities a man like this would probably frequent.
“New York,” she said, and knew instantly it had been the wrong choice.
“What a coincidence,” Damian said with a little smile. “I’ve just bought a condominium in Manhattan.”
“You said it was Paris.”
“Paris, Manhattan...” His shoulders lifted, then fell, in an elegant shrug. “My business interests take me to many places, Miss Bennett, and I much prefer coming home to my own things at night.”
“Like the blonde who came with you today?” Laurel said sweetly.
“Aunt Laurrr-el!” Dawn said, with a breathless laugh.
“It’s quite all right, Dawn,” Damian said softly, his eyes on Laurel’s. “Your aunt and I understand each other—don’t we, Miss Bennett?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Skouras.” Laurel turned to the dentist, who was sitting openmouthed, a copy of virtually everyone else at the table. “Would you like to dance, Evan?”
A flush rose on his face. He looked up at Damian.
“But—I mean, I thought...”
“You thought wrong, sir.” Damian’s tone was polite but Laurel wasn’t fooled. Anger glinted in his eyes. “While we’ve all been listening to Miss Bennett’s interesting views, I’ve had the chance to reconsider.” He turned to Dawn and smiled pleasantly. “My dear, I would be honored if you would desert Nicholas long enough to grant me the honor of this dance.”
Dawn smiled with relief. “I’d be thrilled.”
She went into his arms at the same time Laurel went into Evan’s. Nick pulled out Evan’s chair, spun it around and sat down. He draped his arms over the back and made some light remark about families and family members that diverted the attention of the others and set them laughing.
So much for Damian Skouras, Laurel thought with satisfaction as she looked over Evan’s shoulder. Perhaps next time, he’d think twice before trying to play what were certainly his usual games with a woman.
* * *
Gabriella Boldini crossed and recrossed her long legs under the dashboard of Damian’s rented Saab.
“Honestly, Damian,” she said crossly, “I don’t know why you didn’t arrange for a limousine.”
Damian sighed, kept his attention focused on the winding mountain road and decided there was no point in responding to the remark she’d already made half a dozen times since they’d left Stratham.
“We’ll be at the inn soon,” he said. “Why don’t you put your head back and try and get some sleep?”
“I am not tired, Damian, I’m simply saying—”
“I know what you’re saying. You’d have preferred a different car.”
Gabriella folded her arms. “That’s right.”
“A Cadillac, or a Lincoln, with a chauffeur.”
“Yes. Or you could have had Stevens drive us up here. There’s no reason we couldn’t have been comfortable, even though we’re trapped all the way out in the sticks.”
Damian laughed. “We’re hardly in the ‘sticks’, Gaby. The inn’s just forty miles from Boston.”
“For goodness’ sakes, must you take me so literally? I know where it is. We spent last night there, didn’t we?” Gabriella crossed her legs again. If the skirt of her black silk dress rode any higher on her thighs, Damian thought idly, it would disappear. “Which reminds me. Since that place doesn’t have room service—”
“It has room service.”
“There you go again, taking me literally. It doesn’t have room service, not after ten o’clock at night. Don’t you remember what happened when I tried to order a pot of tea last night?”
Damian’s hands flexed on the steering wheel. “I remember, Gaby. The manager offered to brew you some tea and bring it up to our suite himself.”
“Nonsense. I wanted herbal tea, not that stuff in a bag. And I’ve told you over and over, I don’t like it when you call me Gaby.”
What the hell is this? Damian thought wearily. He was not married to this woman but anyone listening to them now would think they’d been at each other’s throats for at least a decade of blissful wedlock.
Not that a little sharp-tongued give-and-take wasn’t sometimes amusing. The woman at Nicholas’s wedding, for instance. Laurel Bennett had infuriated him, at the end, doing her damnedest to make him look foolish in front of Nicholas and all the others, but he had to admit, she was clever and quick.
“‘Gaby’ always makes me think of some stupid character in a bad Western.”
She was stunning, too. The more he’d seen of her, the more he’d become convinced he’d never seen a more exquisite face. She was a model, Dawn had told him, and he’d always thought models were androgynous things, all bones and no flesh, but Laurel Bennett had been rounded and very definitely feminine. Had that been the real reason he’d asked her to dance, so he could hold that sweetly curved body in his arms and see for himself if she felt as soft as she looked?
“Must you drive so fast? I can barely see where we’re going, it’s so miserably dark outside.”
Damian’s jaw tightened. He pressed down just a little harder on the gas.
“I like to drive fast,” he said. “And since I’m the one at the wheel, you don’t have to see outside, now do you?”
He waited for her to respond, but not even Gabriella was that foolish. She sat back instead, arms still folded under her breasts, her head lifted in a way he’d come to know meant she was angry.
The car filled with silence. Damian was just beginning to relax and enjoy it when she spoke again.
“Honestly,” she said, “you’d think people would use some common sense.”
Damian shot her a quick look. “Yes,” he said, grimly, “you would.”
“Imagine the nerve of that woman.”
“What woman?”
“The one who made that grand entrance. You know, the woman with that mass of dyed red hair.”
Damian almost laughed. Now, at least, he knew what this was all about.
“Was it dyed?” he asked casually. “I didn’t think so.”
“You wouldn’t,” Gabriella snapped. “Men never do. You’re all so easily taken in.”
We are, indeed, he thought. What had happened to Gabriella’s sweet nature and charming Italian accent? The first had begun disappearing over the past few weeks; the second had slipped away gradually during the past hour.
“And that dress. Honestly, if that skirt had been any shorter...”
Damian glanced at Gabriella’s legs. Her own skirt, which had never done more than flirt with the tops of her thighs, had vanished along w
ith what was left of her pleasant disposition and sexy accent.
“She’s Dawn’s aunt, I understand.”
“Who?” Damian said pleasantly.
“Don’t be dense.” Gabriella took a deep breath. “That woman,” she said, more calmly, “the one with the cheap-looking outfit and the peroxide hair.”
“Ah,” he said. The turnoff for the inn was just ahead. He slowed the car, signaled and started up the long gravel driveway. “The model.”
“Model, indeed. Everyone knows what those women are like. That one, especially.” Gabriella was stiff with indignation. “They say she’s had dozens of lovers.”
The car hit a rut in the road. Damian, eyes narrowed, gave the wheel a vicious twist.
“Really,” he said calmly.
“Honestly, Damian, I wish you’d slow—”
“What else do they say about her?”
“About...?” Gabriella shot him a quick glance. Then she reached forward, yanked down the sun visor and peered into the mirror on its reverse side. “I don’t pay attention to gossip,” she said coolly, as she fluffed her fingers through her artfully arranged hair. “But what is there to say about someone who poses nude?”
A flash fire image of Laurel Bennett, naked and flushed in his bed, seared the mental canvas of Damian’s mind. He forced himself to concentrate on the final few yards of the curving road.
“Nude?” he said calmly.
“To all intents and purposes. She did an ad for Calvin Klein—it’s in this month’s Chic or maybe Femme, I’m not sure which.” Gabriella snapped the visor back into place. “Oh, it was all very elegant and posh, you know, one of those la-di-da arty shots taken through whatever it is they use, gauze, I suppose.” Her voice fairly purred with satisfaction. “She’d need it, wouldn’t she, seeing that she’s a bit long in the tooth? Still, gauze or no gauze, when you came right down to it, there she was, stark naked.”
The picture of Laurel burned in his brain again. Damian cleared his throat. “Interesting.”
“Cheap is a better word. Totally cheap...which is why I just don’t understand what made you bother with her.”
“You’re talking nonsense, Gabriella.”
“I saw the way you looked at her and let me tell you, I didn’t much like it. You have an obligation to me.”
Damian pulled up at the entrance to the inn, shut off the engine and turned toward her.
“Obligation?” he said carefully.
“That’s right. We’ve been together for a long time now. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“I have not been unfaithful to you.”
“That’s not what I’m talking about and you know it.” She took a deep breath. “Can you really tell me you sat through that entire wedding without feeling a thing?”
“I felt what I always feel at weddings,” he said quietly. “Disbelief that two people should willingly subject themselves to such nonsense along with the hope, however useless, that they make a success of what is basically an unnatural arrangement.”
Gabriella’s mouth thinned. “How can you say such a thing?”
“I say it because it’s true. You knew that was how I felt, from the start. You said your attitude mirrored mine.”
“Never mind what I said,” Gabriella said sharply. “And you haven’t answered my question. Why did you keep looking at that woman?”
Because I chose to. Because you don’t own me. Because Laurel Bennett intrigues me as you never did, not even when our affair first began.
Damian blew out his breath. It was late, they were both tired and this wasn’t the time to talk or make decisions. He ran his knuckles lightly over Gabriella’s cheek, then reached across her lap and opened her door.
“Go on,” he said gently. “Wait in the lobby while I park the car.”
“You see what I mean? If we’d come by limousine, you wouldn’t have to drop me off here, in the middle of nowhere. But no, you had to do things your way, with no regard for me or my feelings.”
Damian glanced past Gabriella, to the brightly lit entrance to the inn. Then he looked at his mistress’s face, illuminated by the cruel fluorescent light that washed into the car, and saw that it wasn’t as lovely as he’d once thought, especially not with petulance and undisguised jealousy etched into every feature.
“Gaby,” he said quietly, “it’s late. Let’s not argue about this now.”
“Don’t think you can shut me up by sounding sincere, Damian. And I keep telling you, my name’s not Gaby!”
A muscle knotted in his jaw. He reached past her again, grasped the handle, slammed the door closed and put the Saab in gear.
“Wait just a minute! I’m not going with you while you park the car. If you think I have any intention of walking through that gravel in these shoes...” Gabriella frowned as Damian pulled through the circular driveway and headed downhill. “Damian? What are you doing?”
“What does it look like I’m doing?” He kept his eyes straight ahead, on the road. “I’m driving to New York.”
“Tonight? But it’s late. And what about my things? My clothes and my makeup? Damian, this is ridiculous!”
“I’ll phone the inn and tell them to pack everything and forward it, as soon as I’ve dropped you off.”
“Dropped me off?” Gabriella twisted toward him. “What do you mean? I never go back to my own apartment on weekends, you know that.”
“What you said was true, a few minutes ago,” he said, almost gently, “I do have an obligation to you.” He looked across the console at her, then back at the road. “An obligation to tell you the truth, which is that I’ve enjoyed our time together, but—”
“But what? What is this, huh? The big brush-off?”
“Gabriella, calm down.”
“Don’t you tell me to calm down,” she said shrilly. “Listen here, Mr. Skouras, maybe you can play high-and-mighty with the people who work for you but you can’t pull that act with me!”
“I’d like us to end this like civilized adults. We both knew our relationship wouldn’t last forever.”
“Well, I changed my mind! How dare you toss me aside, just because you found yourself some two-bit—”
“I’ve found myself nothing.” His voice cut across hers, harsh and cold. “I’m simply telling you that our relationship has run its course.”
“That’s what you think! What I think is that you led me to have certain expectations. My lawyer says...”
Gabriella stopped in midsentence, her mouth opening and closing as if she were a fish, but it was too late. Damian had already pulled onto the shoulder of the road. He swung toward her, and she shrank back in her seat at the expression on his face.
“Your lawyer says?” His voice was low, his tone dangerous. “You mean, you’ve already discussed our relationship with an attorney?”
“No. Well, I mean, I had a little chat with—look, Damian, I was just trying to protect myself.” In the passing headlights of an oncoming automobile, he could see her face harden. “And it looks as if I had every reason to! Here you are, trying to dump me without so much as a by-your-leave—”
Damian reached out and turned on the radio. He punched buttons until he found a station playing something loud enough to drown out Gabriella’s voice. Then he swung back onto the road and stepped down, hard, on the gas.
Less than three hours later, they were in Manhattan. Sunday night traffic was sparse, and it took only minutes for him to reach Gabriella’s apartment building on Park Avenue.
The doorman hurried up. Gabriella snarled at him to leave her alone as she stepped from the car.
“Bastard,” she hissed, as Damian gunned the engine.
For all he knew, she was still staring after him and spewing venom as he drove off. Not that it mattered. She was already part of the past.
CHAPTER THREE
JEAN KAPLAN had been Damian Skouras’s personal assistant for a long time.
She was middle-aged, happily married and dedicated to h
er job. She was also unflappable. Nothing fazed her.
Still, she couldn’t quite mask her surprise when her boss strode into the office Monday morning, said a brisk, “Hello,” and then instructed her to personally go down to the newsstand on the corner and purchase copies of every fashion magazine on display.
“Fashion magazines, Mr. Skouras?”
“Fashion magazines, Ms. Kaplan.” Damian’s expression was completely noncommittal. “I’m sure you know the sort of thing I mean. Femme, Chic...all of them.”
Jean nodded. “Certainly, sir.”
Well, she thought as she hurried to the elevator, her boss had never been anyone’s idea of a conventional executive. She permitted herself a faint smile as the doors whisked open at the lobby level. When you headed up what the press loved to refer to as the Skouras Empire, you didn’t have to worry about that kind of thing.
Maybe he was thinking of buying a magazine. Or two, or three, she thought as she swept up an armload of glossy publications, made her way back to her employer’s thirtieth floor office and neatly deposited them on his pale oak desk.
“Here you are, Mr. Skouras. I hope the assortment is what you wanted.”
Damian nodded. “I’m sure it is.”
“And shall I send the usual roses to Miss Boldini?”
He looked up and she saw in his eyes a flash of the Arctic coldness that was faced by those who were foolish enough to oppose him in business.
“That won’t be necessary.”
“Oh. I’m sorry, sir. I just thought...”
“In fact, if Miss Boldini calls, tell her I’m not in.”
“Yes, sir. Will that be all?”
Damian’s dark head was already bent over the stack of magazines.
“That’s all. Hold my calls until I ring you, please.”
Jean nodded and shut the door behind her.
So, she thought with some satisfaction, Gabriella Boldini, she of the catlike smile and claws to match, had reached the end of her stay. Not a minute too soon, as far as she was concerned. Jean had seen a lot of women flounce through her employer’s life, all of them beautiful and most of them charming or at least clever enough to show a pleasant face to her. But Gabriella Boldini had set her teeth on edge from day one.
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