by Sara Celi
“I’m not asking for that.” He lifted his chin. “But I think you’re drunk, Ainsley. Let me take you home.”
“I’m not drunk.” I picked up an abandoned wineglass from the nearest cocktail table. It was still at least half full of red wine. With a shrug, I finished off what remained. Alcohol killed germs, didn’t it? “At least, I’m not nearly drunk enough.”
“You’re blitzed. You’re drinking other people’s cocktails, for god’s sake.”
“So?” I held up the empty wine glass. “Can’t let good wine go to waste. At least they didn’t scrimp on decent booze at this event, like they do at so many others.”
Trevor narrowed his eyes. “I want you to give me your car keys.” He closed the space between us. “Because you’re worse off than you think.”
“Don’t worry.” I giggled and waved a hand in the direction of the rest of the party. “And I can call a car whenever I want.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that you’re drunk,” he murmured. “And your behavior is telling everyone else here that you are.”
“Pfft. No. If there is one thing I can handle, it’s my liquor.”
He took the drink from my hand and gave it to a passing waiter. “Let me drive you home. You’ve had enough.”
“Nope.”
“Yes.” He tightened his jaw. “If you stick around much longer, you’re going to start embarrassing yourself.”
I shook my head at him. “I’m not leaving yet.” Then I turned my attention to another round of champagne flutes making their way through the party on a silver tray held by a uniformed staffer. I needed one, or perhaps two, at the most. Maybe drinking them would finally make me black out so I could forget the disaster my life was becoming—which had only been further highlighted in the last ten minutes.
His hand caught the other end of my purse, and he pulled his body almost flush with mine. “Yes, you are,” he growled. His gaze locked with mine, and I couldn’t have pulled myself away even if I had tried. “I’m taking you home—now—before you make more of a fool of yourself.”
His eyes were steely and firm, his chin had a hard line, and unspoken demands coated his voice. No sense in arguing with this guy.
“Okay, fine,” I said after a deep breath. “You win.”
When the valet arrived at the front of The Beachcomber Club with my rented Alfa Romeo 4C Spider, I ushered Ainsley into the front passenger seat, gave the attendant fifty bucks, and sped away from the party as fast as I could. Part of me wanted to save her from herself. Part of me wanted to leave the event. And part of me wanted to get her alone.
Getting her alone also meant a chance to convince her to take my offer.
“Where do you live?” I asked as I drove the car a few blocks down S. County Road.
“Palm Beach Towers.” Her words slurred. “Don’t you remember? Dad bought that condo like thirty years ago. He got it because your father wanted it first.”
“I didn’t think you all still owned it.” My hands tightened on the wheel. “But I guess I’m not surprised.”
“The Rosses are creatures of habit. Remember? Habits… habits… ha…” She pressed the automatic window release on the passenger-door console and rolled the window all the way down. “Whew,” she said into the passing wind. “That feels good. Soooooo good.”
Forcing her to leave the party had been a fantastic judgment call on my part. She must have weighed about 135 pounds soaking wet; the alcohol had made quick work of her.
“Just try not to throw up in my car,” I warned. “It’s a rental.”
“Of course, it is.”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.” She laughed to herself. “But maybe I should vomit in it then, just to get back at you. You… you… you…”
“What?”
“Arro—” She hiccupped. “Arrogant bastard.”
I laughed. “You don’t mean that, Ainsley. You don’t know what you’re saying.”
She blew some air between her lips. “I’m not the first woman to call you arrogant… and I won’t… be…”
“The last?”
She waved a shaky finger at me. “Yep.”
“I’ll take it as a compliment.”
I stopped the car at the next red light. As we idled behind a Mercedes, I took the opportunity to observe her without her noticing. She was far too focused on the nearby beach homes and the balmy South Florida night.
And damn, she was so fucking gorgeous.
I knew that she knew this about herself. She had to—she’d been raised that way. Ainsley had the confident air of a woman who thought her privileged life would always be secured. Even the current state of her family’s business affairs hadn’t stripped that away overnight; that sort of quality stayed imbedded in her DNA. She had no hair out of place; her flawless makeup highlighted her flawless skin, toned body, and thin curves. She was perfect.
In fact, the truth was, no one I’d met in New York intrigued me as much as this woman. I sent up a silent thank you that Ross Publishing’s current state of disaster had given me one more chance to prove it to her.
“So, The Beachcomber Club,” I tried when the light changed from red to green. I pushed the accelerator with my foot and drove us through the rest of Palm Beach’s pristine main drag. “What an exciting night.”
“Don’t sound so bored.” She laughed, keeping her attention on the passing streets. From this traffic light, we had about three blocks to the Palm Beach Towers property. “You were there at the party, too, you know.” She looked at me, and our eyes met for a brief beat. “Why is that, by the way? You never told me. No one forced you to come.”
I refocused on driving. “I decided to come down here for a few days, and my assistant reminded me before I left that I had an open invitation to attend. I hadn’t even noticed it.”
“I don’t buy it. You—you give money to a charity? Nope.”
I tsked. To get what I wanted from her, I still had a lot of work ahead of me, and the little digs she dished out regularly only served to remind me of that. “I’m more generous than you think, Ainsley.” The muscles in my back tensed. “And you must have forgotten about Margo.”
“Oh, god, I did.” She clicked her teeth. “Okay, that was a shitty thing to say.”
“You’re drunk. I won’t hold it against you.”
“I’m not drunk.”
I chuckled to myself. “Whatever you say, princess.”
“Don’t call me that,” she whispered. “I’m not a princess”
“Fine.” I stopped the car at another red light, the last one before I would turn the car into the Palm Beach Towers entrance. This night needed a reboot. Fast. “I’m sorry. I can be an asshole without even realizing it.” I regarded her. “But if I do say so myself, I’m getting pretty good at excusing your bad behavior and not taking any of it personally.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” She laughed to herself. “A great deal of it I absolutely expect you to take personally.” Our eyes met. “Just not that last comment.”
I decided at that moment to take a leap. “I owe you an apology, Ainsley. A big one. That night at the Whitney Museum—I was out of line. Way out of line. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“Shouldn’t have done what? Make out with me? Or insult me?”
“Both,” I murmured. I didn’t add that I’d played that moment over and over in my mind a thousand times since then, always landing on how comfortable it had felt to do it, and how unusual it had been for me to lose control like that. “I’m sorry.”
“Apology accepted,” she said.
We fell silent again, until I parked the car in the visitor spot just to the side of the condo complex entrance. A large fountain set off the white building, which stretched about five stories up and featured units with expansive views of the Intracoastal Waterway and West Palm Beach. I guessed by the midcentury architectural style that the building had been built in the 1950s.
“You know, one of t
hese days, you won’t hate me so much,” I said. “It’s going to happen.”
“You think so?”
I turned and put a tentative hand on her shoulder. “I know so.” I tightened my grip. “This development with your dad’s company doesn’t have to be the worst thing that ever happened to you, Ainsley.”
“I’d hardly call it the ‘worst thing’.” She lowered her voice. “His death was.”
A pang of guilt and regret coursed through me. How long had our parents spent competing, trying to outdo the other with acquisitions and influence. Too long. Now, both were dead—her father and mine. We could have put all of it aside a long time ago. In fact, we should have.
But the past couldn’t be repeated. It couldn’t be changed. We only had the present.
“I don’t doubt it was hard when he died,” I told Ainsley, struggling to find something comforting to say that would also come across as sincere. “He was a good man. A great man.” I swallowed. “But what I mean is, this doesn’t have to be a bad chapter in your life, either.”
She stared back at me but didn’t reply.
“You and Ashton will get through this. It’s a—A glitch.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one who might lose everything.” She tore her gaze away from me and looked out the window of the car, staring at the filled parking lot. “I keep thinking about what Dad would say if he knew what kind of a mess we are in. He’d be horrified, embarrassed, and—”
“Stop,” I said. “Don’t beat yourself up by thinking about what a dead person would say or think. You can’t please a ghost.” She turned her attention back to me. I went on. “And he’s not here. He’s not going through this moment. You can’t spend your life trying to chase what you think he would want you to say or do. You have to make your own decisions, okay? You have to think for yourself.”
“You’re right.” She nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Good,” I said, encouraged by that answer. “Now, why don’t you let me walk you to your place so that I can make sure you get home safely.”
“How chivalrous of you.”
I gave her a mock bow. “That’s me. A knight in shining armor.”
She giggled. “Hardly.”
“I’ve been known to have good manners from time to time.” I got out of the car, shut the door, and walked over to the passenger side, which I opened for her. “Shall we?”
She didn’t reply, but when she got out of the car, her hand found mine. A jolt of electricity coursed through me as our fingers linked. Fact—I liked this. A lot.
I escorted Ainsley across the pavestone entryway, past the doorman, through the lobby, and into the elevator. She pushed the button for floor number three, and when the heavy doors closed us together in the small space, I felt something catch inside my throat. Something had shifted about Ainsley in the last few years. She wasn’t just the snobby, elitist daughter of a man my family used to consider a major rival. She was a woman now, and more of one than she probably understood.
The elevator dinged, and we stepped into a long corridor. We walked down it, then stopped in front of a large door with the chrome numbers three, four, and six nailed to the outside wall.
“This is me,” she said. “This is home.” She opened her purse and fished out her keys. “Thank you for driving me.”
“You’re welcome.”
Once again, our gazes locked, and neither of us tried to break away. Instead, what felt like an eternity passed between us.
“Make sure you drink some water,” I finally suggested. “And take some aspirin before you go to bed. You’re going to need it tomorrow.”
She smiled. “Thanks. I will.”
“My offer still stands, by the way.”
“What offer?”
“The one I made to you and Ashton in New York.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Oh, that offer.”
“Yes, that one.” I propped my hand on the doorframe. “I’m in Palm Beach for a few days. I’d like to see you for brunch tomorrow. We have a lot to discuss.”
“I already said—”
“I know what you said. You don’t want to go through with it.” I leaned closer to her. “But I think you were being too hasty when you said it. And I think you should give me, and the offer, another chance.”
She gulped. “Okay.”
“How about I pick you up? Noon? We can have lunch at Taboo.”
She pulled her bottom lip in between her teeth and regarded me. “Taboo sounds good. But I’ll meet you there.”
“That works for me,” I said, somewhat disappointed that she didn’t want me to pick her up. Still, I’d take whatever I could get. “We might as well get to know each other better, since it’s been so long. And we—well, we’re going to be quite entwined for the next few months.”
I knew it sounded presumptuous, but I didn’t care. I knew how to make deals, and how to get what I wanted.
And I wanted Ainsley.
“I told Ashton that my answer is no,” Ainsley replied. “I’m not doing it. I won’t marry you to save our family. I’m not for sale, Trevor.”
“I’m not trying to buy you.” I lowered my voice. “All I’m asking for is a meal. You can give that to me, can’t you?”
We stared at each other for another long moment. I took in her bright eyes, pouty lips, and smooth skin, then realized to my surprise that I wanted to memorize it all.
“Okay,” she said. “But that’s it.”
Then she turned on her heel and entered her unit without so much as another word.
What the hell was I thinking? Was I insane? Was I crazy?
Clearly.
The following morning, those questions, and one resounding answer, ran through my head from the minute I opened my eyes. They dominated every breath I took, every time that I blinked, every moment that passed.
What in the world had I agreed to?
Lunch with a man my father hated, that’s what.
Still wearing the previous night’s cocktail dress, I dragged myself out of bed and stumbled into the master bathroom. I’d taken Trevor’s advice about the aspirin and the water, but I still had a hangover, one that made my mind feel like mush and sent a dull ache through my body with every move that I made.
God, I’m getting too old for this…
I splashed some water on my face from the faucet, took off the dress, tossed it into a dry-cleaning bag, and grabbed my pink robe from the hook on the back of the door. After tying the belt around my body, I made my way into the kitchen and located my clutch, where it still sat on the center countertop. I took my phone from it, unlocked it, and noticed I had fifteen emails in my inbox. Still feeling the effects of the night before, I sank into one of the barstools that rimmed the counter and read the first few messages.
After scanning through offers to fifty-percent-off sales and a variety of spam advertisements, I opened something that I dreaded the second I saw it: a “checking in” message from NYC Wholesale Scarves and Wraps, one of the vendors I’d been in talks with about my upcoming silk scarf range. Before my brother’s bombshell news, we’d been within a few days of signing a major contract.
Ugh. They needed an answer, and soon. I had no idea what I would say to them, but I also knew better than to reply on the fly. Instead, I clicked out of the emails and opened my contact list. I needed some advice, and I knew the best place to get it.
“Bonjour,” Mom said as she answered the phone, her soft alto voice having no trouble at all with the nuances of French. “Comment ça va?”
“Bonjour.” I turned on the coffeemaker and laughed. “You know it’s me, Mom. It’s on the caller ID.” I located a single-serve coffee pod in the cabinet and shoved it into the machine. “How are you?”
“Wonderful, darling. Just getting ready for the next guests this week. I have a couple coming in from Ontario, and they’re celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.”
After her contentious, dramatic, tabloid-chronic
led divorce from my dad, Mom had taken her $20 million settlement and moved to Bourdeau, France. She bought a chalet overlooking Lake Bourget and turned the carriage house accompanying it into a small bed and breakfast. She loved it so much that she never came back to the United States. She said life was a lot simpler there, and she wanted it to stay that way.
For one thing, Page Six didn’t give a damn what she did as she lived out her life in France.
“Looks like I’m full for the rest of the month, too,” she said on the phone that morning. “Lots of repeat customers.”
“That’s great.”
We fell into familiar small talk about town gossip and basic comings and goings as my coffee brewed, but I was only giving half-interested answers. And she noticed. It didn’t take very long.
“You never call me this early, darling,” she said. “That’s how I know that there has to be something wrong.”
“There is.”
“Spill it.”
I took my full coffee cup from the stand underneath the machine, not bothering to add cream or sugar to the warm drink and walked to the kitchen table. I wanted—needed—my morning java at full strength. How to start this conversation?
I took a deep breath to steady myself. “I take it that you haven’t talked to Ashton lately.”
“Oh, I have. He told me everything.”
I almost choked on my first sip of coffee. “He did?” Thoughts raced through my head. What had Ashton told my mother about Trevor? I almost didn’t want to know. “When did you talk to him?”
“A few hours ago.”
“What?” I braced my hand on the back of a nearby chair. “What did he say?”
“Well, he mentioned that he hoped an infusion of capital could prop up the company. He said he’d talked to a few investors, and that at least one seemed very motivated.”
“Motivated? That’s an understatement.” I scoffed. “This didn’t bother you at all?”
“No. Should it?”
“Are you serious?” My mouth dropped open. “And you didn’t think to tell me about this, either? Maybe call me the minute you learned of this crazy idea instead of waiting for me to call you?”
