He and Gabriella had come a long way in the last week, and he wasn’t about to stand idly by and watch their mar riage go down the tubes through any default on his part. Perhaps he needed to be more proactive in making that crystal clear to the world in general—and to Willow in
particular. Conveniently, the next night’s awards dinner would provide him with the ideal opportunity to do pre cisely that.
He hoped she’d be smart enough to get the message, but if she chose to be obtuse, he was perfectly prepared to spell it out for her, one syllable at a time. And if that wasn’t enough to convince her she was pinning the tail on the wrong donkey, he’d fire her and to hell with the possible repercussions. He wasn’t about to be heLd up to ransom by her, or anyone else.
It was close to midnight when he finally arrived at his own front door. The penthouse was silent and only one lamp in the foyer had been left on. Gabriella was half asleep, and although he’d have liked nothing more than to make love to her, he was pretty bushed himself. So, foregoing the pleasure until they were both in better shape to appreciate it he crawled into bed, wrapped his aims around her, and fell into the deep and dreamless sleep of a man confident that he had a firm hold on more than just his wife’s warm, delicious, sweetly scented body.
When she stepped into the reception area outside the ho tel’s vast mirrored ballroom on Thursday night, Gabriella decided she could just as well have been attending an opening at one of the world’s most recognized fashion houses. Certainly, every designer she’d ever worked with was represented in the gorgeous silks and beaded crea tions worn by the women around her.
And the jewels! Diamonds that put the fire of the crystal chandeliers to shame; Colombian emeralds, pigeon’s blood rubies, sapphires the size of walnuts! Absently, she fingered the aquamarine lying snugly at her throat.
Noticing, Max murmured, “It might not be the show-
jest piece in the room, but it’s hanging around the most beautiful neck.”
She loved the way he leaned into her when he spoke, the movement so slight as to go unnoticed by a casual observer, but possessed of such a subtle intimacy that a tiny explosion of delight vibrated throughout her body. She loved the way he looked, too. There wasn’t a man in the room who matched his black-tie elegance.
“It’s perfect and I wouldn’t change it for the world,” she said.
His gaze slid to the Swarowski crystal studs in her ears. “I should have commissioned matching earrings.”
“You had my wedding ring resized so that I can wear it again.” She brushed a minuscule thread of lint from the satin lapel of his dinner jacket, and let her left hand drift up to caress his jaw, loving the way the light gleamed on the simple gold band as she did so. He’d given it to her alter she’d finished dressing that evening, and as he’d slipped it on her finger, she’d promised herself she’d never take it off again, no matter what. “This means more to me than any number of expensive gifts.”
“Unless you want to cause a scene, quit touching me like that,” he growled, snagging her wrist. “It’s been al most four days since we made love and I’m feeling de prived.”
“Me, too,” she told him on a shaken breath, the heat he so easily aroused with a glance, a word, streaking through her. “I missed you so much when you were away, Max.”
She wanted to tell him she loved him, too, but not until alter he’d said it to her. Only then could she be sure he was ready to hear the words he’d steadfastly refused to believe when she’d spoken them to him in the past.
He raised her hand. Kissed the pulse beating at her
inner wrist. Traced a covert, sensual circle in her palm with his thumb, and nodded to where her parents were engaged in animated conversation with the Austrian con sul and his wife. “What do you say to us making up for lost time by cutting out of here early? We can send the limo back to collect your folks later.”
“I hope I didn’t just hear what I thought I heard!” Willow McHenry, demurely resplendent in bronze taffeta, materialized out of the crowd, champagne glass in hand. “You can’t possibly leave early, Max. It’s out of the ques tion.”
Out of the question, Gabriella thought with some amusement, tripped off Willow’s tongue with practiced ease any time events threatened to disrupt her well- orchestrated plans. Hopefully, she’d soon apply it to her secret hopes for a more intimate liaison with Max!
During his absence, Gabriella had had plenty of time to mull over Tuesday’s events and remained more con vinced than ever that her instincts were on target. Even her mother had commented on the proprietary way Willow had taken over. “She thinks I am too old and unimportant to be of any consequence,” Maria had said darkly, “but I am still smart enough to recognize a snake when it slithers into my daughter’s home. Beware of her, my child. She is dangerous.”
The snake had wound itself around Max’s other arm. The brief glance he spared it, and the speed with which he disentangled himself made Gabriella glad she’d de cided not to undermine their reconciliation by voicing her suspicions to him. He’d said “it”—whatever it had been—was over, and if she couldn’t take his word over Willow McHeniy’s, she had no business wearing his ring and passing herself off as his wife now.
“There must beTfive hundred people here, Willow, tic said tersely. “I doubt we’d be missed.”
“Of course you’d be missed!” She swung her gaze to include Gabriella and bared her teeth in a smile. “Both of you. It’s not often the city scene’s brightened by a celebrity of your wife’s magnitude, on top of which to night my boss is a star in his own right, as well.” Un deterred by the way he’d shrugged her off, she tucked her hand beneath his elbow and nodded .toward the waiters setting plates of smoked salmon on the linen-draped tables in the ballroom. “I think we should find our seats, don’t you? It looks as if dinner’s about to be served.”
Your wife... my boss? Amazing!
Biting her lips to stifle the giggle threatening to erupt, Gabriella marveled at how, one way or another, the woman managed to worm her way into their private uni verse and turn them from a couple to a trio. “Are you here alone, Willow?” she inquired politely, when she managed to bring herself under control again.
Willow’s gaze narrowed, but her smiled gleamed as implacably as ever. “Of course not, dear. Here’s my date now. Max, you already know Brent, I believe?”
Max shook the man’s hand. “Sure. Nice to see you
here, Brent.” -
“And this,” Willow continued with superbly subtle contempt, “is the famous Gabriella Sildossy, Brent.”
“Also known as my wife,” Max put in blandly, placing a possessive hand at Gabriella’s waist and inching her a little closer. “Brent works in the drafting department at Logan Enterprises, sweetheart, and drew up some of the .preliminary plans for the Budapest project.”
The three of them chatted briefly about the success of the restoration and the charm of her native city in general,
and for once Willow was unable to insii herself into the conversation.
That she didn’t like being relegated to the sidelines was obvious. “It’s never been on my travel agenda,” she said brusquely when, in an attempt to include her, Gabriella asked if she’d visited eastern Europe.
She immediately reasserted herself, though, when they reached their table. “I think you should sit here, next to the podium, Max,” she proclaimed. “That way, you won’t have to climb over our laps to get to the micro phone.”
The little laugh she tacked on to her remark was meant to imply she was joking, of course, but Gabriella was willing to bet Willow would give up six months’ salary for the chance to get better acquainted with Max’s lap— or any other part of him she could lay hands on. In all honesty, Gabriella could hardly blame her. He was the most gorgeous man in the room, and quite possibly the entire world!
Her tolerance was short-lived though, when the relent less woman tried to relegate her to a seat about as far removed from .Max’s as it wa
s possible to get, short of moving her to another table. “And you over here, with your mother and father, Gabriella.”
Once again, Max intervened. “My wife, her parents, and I will sit together, Willow.”
“Oh...!” She shrugged indifferently. “All right, if you say so. But I was rather hoping you’d give the rest of us a chance to rub shoulders with your famous guests. Sort of share in the reflected glory, if you see what I mean.”
“Afraid you’ll have to make do with admiring them from a distance,” he said, his voice cut with steel. “And just for the record, I don’t share my wife with anyone.”
Although warmed by his words, a thread of uneasiness
wove through Gabriella. Was it her imagination, or wa he playing the attentive husband with a little too much dedication tonight? And if so, for whose benefit?
“J don’t mind mingling,” she told him.
He ushered her to her chair and took a seat next to her. “I do,” he said. “I want you by my side, close enough to touch.”
She had never felt more secure, never more certain that they belonged together. If only they could have done as he’d suggested and slipped away when the meal was over, how differently the evening might have ended. But a per son’s whole world could come crashing down on jf only’s, and Gabriella’s began to fail apart in the lull between dessert and the presentation of awards.
She had slipped away to the ladies’ room and was seated on a stool at the vanity table, touching up her llp stick, when the door opened and Willow came in. Their eyes met in the mirror and although there was a steady stream of traffic in and out, an irrational sense of danger swept over Gabriella, raising the hair on the back of her neck and sending tiny thrills of fear chasing over her skin.
“I thought I might find you in here.” All cozy smiles, Willow plopped onto the stool next to hers. “I’ve been waiting all night to tell you how perfectly divine you look, and I absolutely adore your pendant.” As if they were very old, very good friends, she leaned across and scooped the aquamarine onto the pad of her finger in order to examine it more closely. “It’s one of Gio’s pieces, of course. The craftsmanship and design are unmistakable. Was it a gift from Max?”
“Yes,” Gabriella said, trying not to shrink at the touch of that cool, intrusive finger at her throat.
“Well, aren’t you lucky! All he ever gave me from there are these.” She let go of the pendant, and tilted her
t to show off the topaz-and-gold studs in her ears. “Not that I’m complaining, mind you, since the most ex pensive thing I’ve ever given him is the pen set he keeps on his desk at the office—oh, no, that’s not quite true!” She tapped a reproving forefinger against her pursed lips. “I gave him the marble clock beside his bed, too. But that hardly counts, because it was my fault the one he had before got broken.”
Apparently oblivious to the impact of that little gem of information, she turned to the mirror and pushed her fin gers through her hair, arranging a curl here, another there, then leaning forward to inspect her teeth, presumably to make sure no debris from the spinach souffle accompa nying the main course had overstayed its welcome.
“How could it have been your fault?” If it hadn’t been that she suddenly found herself floundering like a non- swimmer tossed into a bottomless lake, Gabriella would have rejoiced at how unperturbed she managed to sound.
“11mm?” Another curl was lovingly tucked into place. “Oh, you mean about the clock? I knocked it off the bedside table by accident, one night. I suppose I could have had it repaired, but things like that generally aren’t worth what it costs to have them fixed, and it was rather badly smashed, so I decided to buy him a new one in stead.”
“Not worth fixing? For your information, it had a one- of-a-kind crystal case signed by the artist and—”
“Tell me about it! I was afraid to walk barefoot on the carpet for days afterward.”
Don’t assume the worst! Gabriella told herself sternly. Just because she’s been in your bedroom doesn’t neces sarily mean she’s been in your bed as well! She’s playing some sort of sick mind game and f you want to emerge the winner, you’ll walk away from her. Now! Only a devil
for punishment would kave herself open to further injury by asking her what she was doing upstairs in your home to begin with.
So true! But sometimes, the only way to put an end to the doubts was to drag them out into the clear light of day and confront them. How else to lay them to rest and go forward with one’s life? No matter what the outcome, anything was preferable to leaving them to fester like some insidious disease.
.Replacing the cap on her lipstick, she took a tissue from the box on the vanity table and blotted her lips. “What were you doing in our bedroom, Willow?” she asked, proud of the cool detachment in her voice. She was the only one who knew she was shaking inside. With fear, with pain, with anger.
A smile so slight it was almost a smirk crossed Willow’s face. “Among other things. I was sleeping in there, dear.”
Among other things? The witch! “With Max’s permis sion?”
Willow glanced at her, eyebrows raised in astonish ment. “Don’t look so shocked, Gabriella. Certainly with Max’s permission! What did you think? That I just wan dered in there uninvited and made myself at home?” She sighed, and a faraway look came into her eyes before she let them drift closed. “That mattress was pure heaven, just as Max promised!”
Perhaps if she hadn’t been blindsided by shock, Gabriella might have managed to handle the situation with more poise. She was, after all, a woman of the world, and men cheating on their wives was hardly a novel concept. Some might even go so far as to say that, in Max’s case,
• it was justified; that she’d driven him to it by walking out on him and leaving him to his own devices too long. She might even have believed it herself and been able to for-
give him— he hadn 1 sworn to her that he’d remained faithful.
It was this last betrayal of trust that unraveled her and had her leaping up from the stool so violently that it tipped over. She didn’t care that two other women who’d been chatting together on a love seat in the corner eyed her suspiciously and practically tripped over each other in their eagerness to leave before the catfight began. “You’re lying! You’ve never set foot in my bedroom!”
Oh, how shrill she sounded. How pathetically hysteri cal.
“I’m afraid I have, dear,” Willow said, calmly col lecting her bag and standing up also. “And in your lovely luxurious soaker tub, too. My stars, it’s almost as com fortable as the mattress and :vastly preferable to the shower! And I’ll never forget the view from the bed on a clear night. There’s nothing quite like being all warm and cozy under the covers and watching the moon rise over the sea, don’t you agree?”
Gabriella simply stared at her, too speechless with dis may to muster a reply. Instead, she stood frozen with in credulity as Willow patted her cheek and admonished kindly, “Pull yourself together, dear. It’s high time we got back to our table and you don’t want some photog rapher capturing you looking like this and splashing your picture all over tomorrow morning’s paper, now do you?”
That soft little hand, the phony, concerned smile, the anxious query in the brown eyes which weren’t anxious at all, but completely empty and without soul—the com bination was more than Gabriella could bear. “Don’t touch me!” she whispered, springing back with a shudder. “Don’t ever come near me again.”
“Well, if you prefer to spend the rest of the night sulk ing in here, that’s your business.” Willow shrugged. “But don’t worry, Fm certainly not going to insist on staying
with you and holding your hand through yet another emo tional crisis. No wonder poor Max got tired of trying to keep you happy. I can see now why he felt he was wasting his time.”
She swept out and let the door swish closed behind her. Alone in the blessed silence, Gabriella set the stool up right again and collapsed on its padded seat. So, finally, the gloves were
offi
She supposed she ought to be relieved. But she felt nothing. Was so numb, in fact, that she wondered briefly if she was trapped in some horrible dream brought on by too much champagne. Except she’d drunk barely two glasses all night, and the tears glazing her cheeks were hot and wet and all too real.
A few minutes later, the door swung open again. Too distraught to face anyone, Gabriella fled around the corner and into the nearest toilet stall. Footsteps followed and stopped on the other side of the cool marble wall behind which she hid. “Gabriella,” her mother said softly. “I’ve come to help.”
It was perhaps the one voice in the entire world capable of melting the ice encasing her heart; the only voice that had always known how to heal the hurts. And oh, how she was hurting, now that the numbness was wearing off! So much so that her face was contorted with the pain, and great ugly noises were coming from her mouth.
“Open the door, my darling,” her mother coaxed.
And she did. Because her mother would love her no matter how she looked or sounded. She didn’t have to pretend to be brave or impervious or invincible, rand she didn’t have to be perfect. All she’d ever had to do for her mother to love her was be herself.
“Oh, Mama!” she wept, sliding back the bolt and fall ing into her mother’s arms. “I think I’m going to die!”
“Rubbish!” her mother said. ‘have too much to
live for. Wash your face, then come and sit on that little couch where all the mirrors are, and tell me what’s gone so terribly wrong in the last half hour that you’re hiding in here like a refugee. Your poor husband’s beside himself with worry. I believe if I hadn’t come myself to investi gate, he would have.”
Oh, how tempted she was to unburden herself! How she wished she could paint a truthful picture of her trou bled marriage and solicit her mother’s advice, lean on her wisdom! Yet what right had she to weigh down a seventy- year-old woman with such knowledge, then expect her to return with an easy mind to a home on the other side of the world?
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