“Great,” I said sadly, gathering my bag, eager to finally beat a quick retreat out of the apartment.
“Oh, and one more thing. Alex is hosting a charity fundraiser at The Grange, next Saturday night, and I wondered if you might like to come?”
“Do you really think that’s such a good idea?” I replied with an ironic smile, my mind flashing back to that scene with Greg at the last corporate event Blake had invited me to. “I’m not sure how ready I am for another work function, after what happened last time.”
“No, you don’t understand,” he said, his voice suddenly growing serious and urgent. “This wouldn’t be work, Jessica. I’m asking you there as my date.”
“Oh,” I said, my heart leaping, my legs suddenly weak, taken aback by the sheer simplicity and sincerity of what he’d just said. “In that case … then sure.”
“Wonderful. I’ll send a cab over to your apartment then, for seven o’ clock on Saturday night.”
“I’ll look forward to it,” I replied, meeting his eye, another memory of his touch flashing through my racing brain.
And while his confident demeanor never waivered, I was surprised to notice that he seemed pleased – even excited – that I’d said yes.
Does he perhaps want me after all?
§
I felt like screaming. Despite all my amazing new outfits, nothing was right. I kept staring at the thick, gold-embossed invitation card, to the annual Wiltshire Ball that had arrived at Fallon’s apartment by courier that Saturday afternoon.
Evening dress?
None of my new clothes came under that category – not even the party dress Fallon had pressured me into buying. Evening dress meant long and formal, a proper gown.
Why the hell didn’t he give me more notice?
If I’d known I’d have to get properly dressed up, I could have at least hired something. But it was already late afternoon, and the car was arriving for me at seven. Fallon’s apartment now looked like a bomb had hit it; there were clothes everywhere. I’d tried on everything she owned that wasn’t pants, and for a girl who seemed to live in skinny jeans and t-shirts, she owned a heck of a lot of dresses, mostly from her previous style phases.
I looked at myself in the mirror.
I was wearing the closest thing Fallon had to an ‘evening dress’: sleeveless, hot pink taffeta, ruffled from the waist, but at least it was nearly floor-length. It hung loosely around my bust, but I could pin that, surely?
I tried to think positively.
The color actually worked really well against my chestnut hair and pale complexion.
Who am I kidding?
This dress was from Fallon’s short-lived eighties Madonna phase and it was obvious. There was no way I could go in this. I’d be better off in her jeans and Bikini Kill t-shirt again ...
Just as I was about to sink to the floor in despair, the buzzer sounded.
I looked up, panicked.
Oh shit.
Is the car early?
Am I really gonna have to go in this?
But no, it wasn’t quite six. I nervously headed to the door, and was surprised to see a second courier, this time carrying an enormous black rectangular box.
“Jessica Clark?” he asked, holding out the slip for me to sign.
I received the package, confused, and took it back into the safety of the apartment, stepping around mountains of discarded clothes as I made my way for the couch.
I gingerly opened the box, delicately folding back the sheets of pale pink tissue paper to reveal ...
No way.
I lifted the contents from the box, unable to believe my eyes. It was the most exquisite thing I’d ever seen. A silver, floor-length, Christian Dior evening gown, with delicate beading all over the bodice, shimmering like it was covered in a thousand tiny jewels.
It was a dress for a princess.
§
I looked around the beautiful, old-fashioned lobby of The Grange, the flagship in the Matthews Hotels chain. The floor was a striking black and white marble. The low mirrored Art Deco coffee tables and blue velvet sofas dotted about gave the place an opulent, European glamor. And the centerpiece was a huge imposing staircase that seemed to pour into the room. It made anyone who descended it look like a film star, and for a second I caught myself imagining Jessica Matthews, elegantly sweeping down the staircase of her husband’s finest hotel.
“Blake, this place looks amazing,” I said.
“You look amazing,” Blake breathed in my ear.
“It fits perfectly,” I whispered back to him. “How did you know?”
“Let’s just say, I found the shape of your body difficult to forget.”
I smiled back at him, feeling a flutter of excitement as my eyes took him in — his crisp, tailored suit, his immaculate hair, his chiseled features – and I marveled again that he was actually my date for the evening.
“Let me get you a drink,” he said, stepping away, to head over to the drinks table.
And as he did so, I caught sight of a familiar face and my heart sank. Marianne. Again.
Why can’t I just have one perfect night?
She looked ... Well, she looked, to put it mildly, slightly nuts. She had a great dress, I’ll grant her that: emerald silk, totally her color and obviously expensive, but like last time, it looked like she’d hit the bottle rather early. Her usually immaculate hair was slightly disheveled, and as she opened her mouth to laugh, too loudly, at something her unfortunate companion had said, I noticed that her lipstick was smeared across her front teeth.
I turned away, keen to avoid another scene.
She was clearly even more drunk than last time, so God knows what she’d be willing to say in public. However, this was a large private function, and with any luck, I could go the whole evening without her noticing me.
But much as I tried to disappear into the silk wallpaper behind me, it soon became clear that she hadn’t just spotted me, but that she’d honed in on me and was going in for the kill – verbally at least. It was as if the whole room had descended into a hush, just her loud, nasal voice remaining, that same voice I’d spent so many months listening to, so many months taking orders from …
“Of course I was supposed to take on the Matthew’s apartment project, with the prospect of more work after that … Until some silly little slut with ideas above her station opened her legs and stole it right from under my nose …”
I tried to take a few deep breaths, to keep my vision fixed straight ahead, to not let her words get to me, but I couldn’t help but feel my pulse begin to race and a flush of heat rise to my cheeks.
“Oh, just some airhead who used to work for me,” she continued, despite the fact that nobody had actually asked her any further questions. “I taught her everything I knew, and then of course she went and fluttered her eyelashes, stuck out her cute little tits, and whisked him away. Won’t be long before he realizes what a talentless, vacuous little fraud she is though …”
Just then Blake returned with my drink, his eyes widening when I almost snatched it out of his hand and gulped back as much of it as I could in one go.
“Thirsty?” he said with a questioning smile.
I nodded at Marianne, who was still shooting daggers at me, her mouth hanging open in a sloppy, drunken snarl as she swayed back and forth dangerously on her six-inch Jimmy Choos, the poor guy standing next to her looking frantically around the room for an escape route.
“Just promise you won’t let the wicked witch over there put a spell on me,” I replied.
“Oh God,” Blake said when he saw her. “I’m sorry. She’s on the board of one of Wiltshire’s charities. I should have realized she’d be on the guest list.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, trying to tune out her voice, which was still cackling away in the background, loud enough for the whole room to hear. “And thanks again for inviting me. I mean it.”
“I’m glad you could come,” Blake said with a smile
. “I wouldn’t be having half as much fun if you weren’t here …”
I looked up into his eyes, unable to keep the smile off my face, wondering once again just what exactly might happen later on, once we were finally on our own.
§
With Blake by my side, I began to relax and enjoy myself again. I actually managed to avoid Marianne for the rest of the night, and even forget about her after a couple of glasses of Dom Perignon.
“Jessica, I want you to meet Elizabeth O’Connor,” said Blake, leading me across the room. “She might look low-key,” he whispered as we approached, “but Elizabeth’s hedge fund is one of the few that made money during the last recession. She really knows her stuff ...”
He gestured towards a petite woman in a plain black dress. She didn’t look particularly glamorous, she wasn’t plastered in make up, but I could tell that she’d clearly spent a lot of money on her appearance. Those blonde highlights alone must have cost her hundreds of dollars a month. I was beginning to learn a little bit about these things.
“Elizabeth darling,” Blake began warmly. “You wanted to meet my new protégé?”
I was taken aback by the warmth and sincerity of Elizabeth’s smile. Her grey-blue eyes sparkled and she extended her hand for me to shake.
“That dress!” she said. “It’s Dior, isn’t it? I can tell. It’s divine. I can’t carry that sort of thing off myself, but it looks like it was made for you.”
“Wow, thanks,” I replied, smiling. I almost blurted out that it was a gift from Blake, too, but figured that probably wasn’t the best thing to say right now.
“So Blake tells me you’re just starting your own design business? How exciting! It’s a great time for it, right now. You should come over to my office sometime; we should discuss your strategy. And while we’re at it, I’ve just bought a new summerhouse in the Hamptons, and whatever Eurotrash owned it before? Well, my God, the whole thing simply needs ripping out and starting again from scratch. I’d love to know your thoughts ...”
§
It seemed like I was introduced to an endless parade of men in suits and society hostesses. And after a while I felt like my head was spinning. I excused myself to go to the powder room, to touch up my make up and, to be honest, just to take a moment to catch my breath.
But as I entered the bathroom, I heard a low, woozy groan coming from the stall at the far end of the room. Wow. Whoever was inside sounded more than a little worse for wear.
“Hello?” I called out. “Everything okay in there?”
And in reply came another low, grizzly moan.
I took a few tentative steps towards the stall, wondering just what on earth was going on, and hoping whoever was inside was okay.
“You need any help?” I called out.
No reply.
So I gently pushed on the door. It wasn’t locked and it slowly swung open to reveal …
Oh God.
I took a sharp intake of breath.
It was Marianne, slumped like a ragdoll over the toilet bowl, her hair wild and crazy, her makeup completely ruined, her chin smeared with vomit, and her eyes half-closed as she tried to focus on me, mumbling and muttering something at me that came out as nothing more than a woozy, nonsensical slur.
“Oh God,” I said, feeling my heart go out to her, despite everything. “Let’s get you up and out of here.”
It took all my strength to lift her away from the toilet bowl, helping her uneasily to her feet, letting her slump and lurch against me as I guided her first to the basin, where I helped her gulp down some water, before dabbing away the vomit from her chin with some paper towels.
“Oh, Jessica!” she said, her eyes finally focusing on me as I wiped away the lipstick that she’d somehow got all over her cheeks. “I seem to have got myself in a bit of a state. Be a doll and call me a cab would you? I don’t appear to have my purse but I can give you the money back in the office on Monday.”
I didn’t have the heart to remind her I’d quit, and she was clearly too far gone to remember any of this in the morning, anyway.
So instead I just nodded and guided her out through the function room and toward the reception, as quickly and inconspicuously as I could. But even so a few guests couldn’t help but turn round, whispering behind their cupped hands to one another, obviously remarking at the awful state she’d managed to get herself into.
“Can you order a taxi, please?” I said gently to the smartly dressed girl behind reception, telling her Marianne’s address; luckily I still knew it off by heart, from all the many errands and jobs she’d sent me on. “And you’d better put it on the Matthews expense account. My friend’s lost her purse.”
When the cab arrived a few minutes later, and I walked Marianne out to the street and helped her inside, I once more felt sorry for her, despite her obvious hatred for me and all the crap she’d put me through.
Because here was someone, I thought, who, despite all her success in the industry, despite all her many achievements, was still a sad, lonely old woman, going home to an empty apartment.
“Take care, Marianne,” I said, closing the door on her and waving her off as the cab pulled away into the busy downtown traffic.
§
Eventually the function room began to empty out, and as it did so, the thought I’d tried to distract myself from all evening flitted back into my head:
What happens next?
Because when I remembered our moment in the club, it seemed now like so long ago, almost like it had happened to two different people. And although Blake’s statement kept popping back into my head – that this wasn’t work, and that I was here as his date – I still found myself worrying that I was perhaps under some misunderstanding about this evening, that we might simply kiss goodnight and that would be that and we’d never see each other again.
“I’ve just realized,” he murmured quietly, once we were almost the last remaining in the large room, “that I’ve still not given you the tour. Follow me.”
He offered his arm, guiding me out toward the lobby, shooting the girl on reception a friendly smile as he led me confidently toward the elevators.
“How about we start with … the penthouse suite,” he said, as if this was a perfectly normal place to begin a tour.
He pressed the ‘call’ button and we waited in silence, the electricity increasing between us with each passing second. I found I almost couldn’t breathe, as I slowly realized what was happening: where he was about to take me. I kept my eyes fixed ahead, on the brushed chrome of the doors, as I felt my pulse begin to throb in my veins.
Finally the elevator chimed, its door swishing open, the polished interior sparkling. My breath shivered in my throat as we stepped inside, the doors closing, enveloping us once more in a heady, heavy silence.
Blake removed a gold keycard from his breast pocket, inserting it gently into the slot and tapping in a series of numbers, sending the elevator upwards, towards the penthouse suite.
In the mirrored walls, I could see our reflections, cast a million times over, Blake and Jessica and Jessica and Blake.
Is this really happening?
Just like in his apartment, the doors opened right into the penthouse.
“Oh, Blake,” I said, as I took in the sumptuous room; one wall was solid glass from floor to ceiling, the lights of Manhattan glittering below. “It’s beautiful.”
I felt his hands close gently around my waist and his breath hot on my neck from behind.
“Not as beautiful as you.”
I turned round, looking up into his cool grey eyes, feeling myself melt as he kissed me, his lips pressing hungrily against mine, our mouths parting, our tongues flicking.
I shuddered as his hands softly began to explore my body, and I pushed myself hard against him, feeling the intense throbbing of my sex. I wasn’t the only one getting hot either; I could feel Blake’s cock, pressing against me through the immaculately tailored cloth of his suit pants, begging for release.
As I let my hand stray down, softly stroking his hardness through the fabric of his pants, I felt him groan, his tongue pushing more urgently into my mouth, our breath coming now in soft sighs as we worked each other to boiling point.
“I need you,” I gasped between kisses. It was something I’d been wanting to say for so long. “Take me, Blake ... Please.”
And with a shiver of anticipation, I felt him scoop me up in his strong arms, carrying me effortlessly across the room towards the sumptuous king-size bed.
He placed me gently down upon the crisp, fresh white cotton sheets, climbing on top of me, his rugged face so perfect and handsome above me, his lips curled in a hungry, animal smile.
“Fuck,” he whispered. “You’re just perfect.”
I kissed him hard in reply, feeling like I just couldn’t get enough of him now, my trembling fingers tugging eagerly at his shirt, not caring if I ripped its buttons, just wanting to get him undressed, as fast as humanly possible.
He too seemed to want the same thing, and he pushed himself up onto his knees, first tugging off his blazer, then his shirt, finally exposing his tanned, muscular frame beneath, so perfect, so beautiful.
I lay back on the pillows, unable to believe that this smoking hot hunk was actually undressing for me.
He pulled open his tan leather belt, then stood up to slide down his pants, the figure hugging white boxer briefs he wore beneath leaving practically nothing to the imagination: he was obviously just as excited as I was!
Before I even knew what was happening, he’d climbed back over me, positioning himself between my legs, his hands tugging my dress up eagerly around my hips.
“Cute panties,” he said, his eyes moving between my legs. “Now where have I seen those before ...”
Oh God.
Not those.
I peered down between my legs with embarrassment, realizing that I was wearing the very same pair – those girly black and white polka-dot ones – that I’d worn that first night at Blake’s party.
I was about to make up some excuse, but as I felt his lips softly touch my sex through the cotton, all that escaped my lips was a soft gasp.
Girl After Dark Page 38
