She slapped him gently on the arm. ‘No, Nicholas. No,’ she said, but the designer did not look convinced. Nicholas had only graduated from the Parsons Fashion School three years ago. He’d gone directly to work for YSL in Paris, subsequently starting his own label just over a year ago with a loan from his parents. His label was still little more than a cottage industry – when Brooke had first met him, he’d confided in her that he knew the best way to get his designs noticed was sending them to the most beautiful, high–profile girls in the city, but he did not have the money to send $25,000 gowns out to socialites on the off chance. He’d chosen Brooke carefully and he had confessed to ‘weeping buckets’ when she had made her appointment to see him.
‘Come here,’ said Nicholas, waving Matt over to a table at the far end of the studio. ‘I have champagne, I have chocolate, I have strawberries.’
Nicholas shook his finger at Brooke. ‘No chocolates for you, sugar plum.’
He then went across to a garment rail and unzipped a dress bag. He pulled out a biscuit–coloured gown that fluttered through the air like a butterfly. Brooke clapped her hands together in glee.
‘Oh Nicholas!’ she exclaimed.
‘I’m glad you like it,’ said Nicholas, beaming.
‘Like it? I love it,’ she gasped, fingering the gossamer–light material.
‘Shame it’s just for the rehearsal dinner,’ said Matt, taking a drink of champagne from a mini–bottle.
Both Brooke and Nicholas scowled at him, making him snort his drink down his nose.
‘Speaking of which, I have something for you,’ added Nicholas, looking a little embarrassed. She followed him into a white dressing room where he pulled back a curtain. ‘Just in case,’ he whispered.
Brooke gasped. It was a beautiful ivory sheath of satin, a wonderful dress she just knew she’d look amazing in.
Nicholas shrugged. ‘Now, I know you have another dress, a much grander one than this. But I thought if you wanted to change into something a little simpler for the party?’
‘Oh Nicholas, it’s amazing.’
Nicholas smirked. ‘So I take it you want to try it?’
Brooke nodded, then looked back at Matt.
‘Hey, don’t worry about me,’ he said, pouring another glass of champagne, ‘I’ll be fine out here.’
Excited as a little girl, Brooke quickly slipped into the dress. Nicholas helped her onto a little footstool to elevate her off the ground and he darted around her, making fine adjustments with pins. Looking into the long gilt mirror in front of her, she scooped her hair up to show her long neck. She almost felt like crying. Brooke had never been the sort of girl to believe it when people told her she was beautiful, but the poised, sophisticated woman staring back at her from the mirror was as stunning as she had ever dared hope to be. The A–line skirt was grand yet modern, the neckline low and scooped, while the fitted bodice emphasized her long torso. It dipped down just past her shoulder blades at the back, enough to be proper but low enough for a suggestion of sensuality and daring. Not only did it look good, it felt good too. The ivory satin–faced organza felt light and luxurious on her skin, both fragile and strong, like a secret armour. As Matt walked to the entrance of the dressing room, Nicholas retreated. She felt a vague sense of disloyalty that Matt was seeing his dress before David, but reminded herself that this wasn’t actually her wedding dress, so it didn’t really count. Still, she held her breath as she awaited his response.
‘Very nice,’ he nodded. ‘I thought you hated it.’
She held her skirt out, feeling a pang of disappointment at his polite reaction. Her heart started beating faster with the realization that she wanted him to think she looked beautiful. Stop it, she told herself. Stop it. Doesn’t every woman just want a compliment from an attractive man? ‘It’s the other dress I have a problem with,’ she said quickly, stepping down from the stool. ‘The Disney Princess dress. But this one just feels right. Shame I can’t get married in it.’
‘What do you mean?’
She saw his confused expression and waved a dismissive hand. ‘Don’t ask, family politics. Now if you’d just care to step out again … ?’
When Brooke had changed back into her own clothes, she thanked Nicholas and led Matt back out onto the street. They slowly walked back towards the Brooklyn Bridge, along a tree–fringed promenade, staring out at the glistening oily–black waters of the East River, not speaking. It was unusually quiet, no joggers or stumbling drunks, the bitter cold keeping people indoors or in bars and restaurants enjoying Christmas parties.
‘Shouldn’t we be with a bodyguard about now? Anyone could jump out at us around here.’
‘I’ve got you,’ she said playfully nudging his shoulder.
They walked in silence for a while. ‘Sorry for bringing you out here,’ said Brooke finally. ‘I thought it might be fun, but it’s just made me depressed.’
‘You don’t have to wear that other dress you know,’ said Matt.
She sighed. ‘I do. It cost such a lot of money, and Asgill’s got the licence to manufacture the Guillaume Riche perfume because he was making the dress.’
‘Does that appear in a contract anywhere?’
‘I don’t think so, but Liz would go crazy. She spent weeks negotiating with Guillaume’s business partner.’
He smiled and rubbed the dark stubble on his chin. ‘So you’d prefer to feel like a cream puff on your wedding day than annoy your sister? The sister you don’t like very much, I should add?’
She smiled ruefully and they stopped at the iron railings, looking across to the magical Manhattan skyline sparkling against a Prussian blue sky. Brooke sighed. It was one of her favourite views in the world, especially at night, when the Brooklyn Bridge was festooned with lights, its arches like two black bishops’ mitres.
‘Funny how the best view of the Manhattan isn’t even in Manhattan,’ she said, suddenly feeling like Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. ‘Sometimes you need to get out of somewhere to get the best perspective on it.’
She glanced across at Matt and felt a strange illicit thrill being with him, seeing wedding dresses, taking romantic walks. Matt pulled up the collar of his long overcoat and thrust his hands in his pockets. He looked more brooding than usual tonight, his wide mouth in a long firm line, his eyes fixed at some vague point on the river. Brooke frowned, wondering if he was thinking about Susie. To her amazement she felt a sharp jolt of jealousy.
‘I’m going to Africa in February,’ he said, turning to face her. ‘I’ve decided to do the programme and it looks like I’ll be offered a place in Ghana.’
Although she had known about it for ages, she still felt disappointed he was leaving. ‘That’s great, Matt,’ she said, forcing out her enthusiasm. ‘Good job I brought this from the studio then, huh?’
She took a mini–bottle of champagne from her coat pocket and struggled with the cork until it eased off with a pop.
‘To the future,’ she said, offering him the bottle.
He took a long gulp and turned to look at her. ‘I’m going to miss you,’ he said simply.
She waved her hand to laugh off his comment. ‘Hey, I’ll expect postcards,’ she said. ‘But it’s only for a year, isn’t it?’
‘It won’t be the same though, will it?’ he said. ‘I’ve got a feeling that when you’re married we might not see so much of each other.’
She knew he was right. In a week’s time she would be married and she knew in her heart of hearts that, even if Matt stayed here, their friendship would not last long. She wasn’t sure if that made their friendship false, it was just the dynamics of a marriage. She would have made a commitment to David that changed things. Still, she wasn’t quite ready to say it out loud.
‘Matt, you’re my friend,’ she said. ‘David isn’t some ogre, you know. Of course we’ll see each other after the wedding.’
‘Hey don’t worry,’ said Matt, taking another drink. ‘It’s what happens. You get married, somehow all
your friends of the opposite sex, particularly unmarried friends, just drop off. It happened to me.’
Brooke felt a sudden twist of jealousy. She often forgot that Matt had been married before.
‘Don’t be silly, we can still have lunch and drinks when we’re not working,’ she insisted. ‘In fact, we should make a date for you to come to our house for dinner.’
‘Well, if you do, make sure you fix me up with a Park Lane Princess so I never need to work again.’
‘You’d hate that,’ she smiled. I’d hate that, she thought, feeling a shift in mood between them.
Just then, specks of snow started falling, drifting down from the sky like stardust. Smiling, she began walking towards the bridge again.
‘So what do you think?’ she asked, trying to steer them back onto a more platonic footing. ‘What am I going to do about my wedding dress? Guillaume’s or Nicholas’s?’
‘It’s very simple: do you makes you happy, Brooke,’ said Matt. ‘What feels right to you, not other people.’
‘It doesn’t work like that though, does it?’ she asked searchingly.
‘I thought you wanted to become a rebel,’ he chided.
‘I think I’m a very bad rebel,’ she grinned back.
‘You want to wear Nicholas’s dress, so wear it. Fuck what everyone else thinks.’
‘What do you think? You didn’t like Nicholas’s wedding dress, did you?’ she asked, scanning his face. ‘Don’t lie to me. I saw it in your eyes.’
The snow was beginning to fall in thicker flakes, smearing the sidewalk in a glossy white sheen.
‘You’re beautiful, Brooke,’ he said after a long searching pause. ‘You know, the first moment I ever saw you, when we were at Brown, you looked so beautiful I almost felt my heart stop,’ he said softly. ‘I never thought that one person could have that effect on me again, but it did happen again. Back there, seeing you in that dress.’
Thoughts raced frantically around her head. Was he admitting feelings for her, or acknowledging her beauty, like everyone did around her? Over the last few months she had got so used to reading her name prefaced by the word ‘beautiful’ that she had become numbed to the compliment. But hearing it from Matt was making her heart beat hard. She took a breath as the memory of their last night together in Providence began replaying itself in her head. She remembered wanting him that night. She remembered enjoying their closeness, his sexiness, as they danced. At the time she’d thought it was the unusually large amount of alcohol she had drunk, but was their quirky friendship, their easy intimacy that had survived all the way through college, actually something more? Suddenly she had to know.
‘Do you remember our last night out at Brown? On the dance floor. Did you ask me to go home with you?’
He gave her a small, self–conscious smile. ‘Yeah, I did.’
‘I wasn’t sure what you’d said.’
‘You weren’t sure?’
‘I couldn’t hear over the music … And I didn’t want to spoil things.’
He looked confused and regretful. ‘You didn’t say anything. You just walked away. I thought you were just saying ‘No’ in the most elegant way possible.’
In a way I had, thought Brooke sadly, scanning her eyes over every inch of his face. That night in the club, Brooke had been almost sure what he had said. But she had chosen to ignore it and, in doing so, had rejected him. If she’d kissed him that night, what would it have achieved? She knew she was not supposed to end up with someone like Matt Palmer – from the cradle Brooke had been brought up, conditioned, to believe that she was a princess, destined for her Camelot. Her first summer at Brown she had taken Matt to Parklands and had registered her mother’s silent disapproval. And for reasons she didn’t even understand, Brooke had listened to it.
He gave a small smile before looking away in discomfort.
‘It was crass, I know, but I was in love with you. For three years I’d wanted to ask you to come home with me. I guess that last night I had to try. But I was right all along. I wasn’t good enough.’
‘Matt, it was never that. We were friends.’ Her cheeks reddened as she thought of her snobbishness, buried so deep inside her she hadn’t recognized it or chosen to rebel from it.
Time seemed to stand still as tension welled between them.
The snow was getting heavier. ‘We should get back,’ she said at last.
He nodded as they turned off the promenade. Matt flagged a cab down, and on the ride back to Manhattan Brooke was too embarrassed to talk. As the cab drew up at Matt’s apartment building, he turned to her.
‘I know you want to get back, but do you mind coming up for a moment? I just wanted to give you my wedding present.’
‘You are still coming to the wedding?’ she asked quickly, wondering if what had been said back in Brooklyn had changed anything.
‘I plan to,’ he smiled. ‘I’d just rather I gave it to you now.’
She shrugged. ‘Okay, but just for a moment. I really need to get back, and it’s probably not a good idea for me to be seen here, either.’
The building’s lobby was mercifully empty and they didn’t speak in the elevator, both avoiding the other’s eyes. He pushed the key in the door and, as it opened, Brooke knew it was a bad idea her being here.
There was just a single lamp casting low light around the room, and suddenly Brooke felt exposed and thrillingly vulnerable.
Standing in front of her, Matt took off his coat. His back was wide and muscular and his jumper had ridden up to show a tiny stripe of tanned flesh.
He turned round and they stood and faced one another.
‘Matt, I … ’ She stopped herself. I want you, she said silently.
As if he had read her mind, he took a step nearer towards her, his green eyes lingering on hers until he brought his hand to her cheek.
The air charged magically as their faces drew towards one another in unison until his lips brushed against hers. A voice of resistance yelled from somewhere deep inside her. Stop! Slow down! her mind told her, wanting her mouth to protest. But this was what she wanted. This, and nothing else.
‘Was that my present?’ she gasped as he pulled momentarily away from her.
He gave a slow, sexy smile. ‘No. It’s a coffee machine, but hopefully you like this better … ’
His strong arm circled her small waist as he pulled her closer. His lips crushed down on hers once more and she felt powerless to resist. His tongue searched inside her mouth and she closed her eyes, every nerve ending igniting in pure liquid desire, as she felt unable to process anything beyond the exquisite pleasure of his lips on her skin.
Still entangled in his arms, she shrugged off her coat and he pulled her into the bedroom. The door shut and he pushed her against it. She grabbed the nape of his neck and probed her fingers through his short thick hair, feeling his hard cock push towards her through the fabric of his jeans. Separating for an instant, his fingers unbuttoned her blouse, letting the fabric flutter to the floor, while she pulled his jumper over his head, stroking her hand across his dark, wiry scrub of chest hair. He gave a low moan, before his lips stroked her neck and shoulders. Pushing her onto the bed he straddled her, cupping and rolling her breast in his hand. Her nipple flinched and hardened as his flesh touched the tight dark beige skin through the lace fabric of her bra. His hands pushed down her ribcage until his fingers could unbuttons her jeans. Involuntarily she parted her legs. He kissed the hollow of her neck, slowly moving his mouth down towards her tanned, taut belly, savouring every inch of skin until it descended into the deep V–shape of her unbuttoned denim. His lips sent a ribbon of fire to her hot, wet core. She felt drugged with desire. She wanted him inside her; she wanted him to taste her. She wanted to feel her hard, tight nipples between his soft lips, she wanted his tongue to stroke and suck her secret slit. His hands began to pull down her jeans. Her eyes half closed in lust, she looked at him, the strong familiar jaw line, the long lashes framing green intelligent eyes, his
handsome features, and saw … David.
‘No,’ she screamed suddenly, as a wave of guilt crashed over her, sucking her desire away like the ocean pulling sand away from the shore.
‘No, Matt, I’m sorry, we can’t,’ she gasped, rolling away from him and shaking.
‘I’m engaged, I’m getting married next week, this is wrong,’ she said with an emphasis she did not feel.
He rubbed his hands disappointedly across his lips. ‘Is it?’ he asked bitterly.
She swung off the bed and pulled on her blouse hurriedly, her cheeks flushing with shame.
Silence rang around the room. Matt was unsmiling. ‘Do you love him?’ he said finally.
She hesitated, not wanting to hurt him, but not wanting to lie to him either.
‘So the answer is yes,’ he pre–empted regretfully. ‘And are you going to marry him?’
Thinking of the wedding she felt a hollowness and detachment. She didn’t know what she wanted at the moment. A few moments ago, all you wanted was Matt, she told herself, shutting her eyes in grim helplessness. What a mess.
‘How can I not?’ she said, her voice cracking with regret. ‘It’s a big oil tanker careering towards its final destination. How do you stop that?’ she asked, daring to wonder if she wanted to stop it.
‘You could come with me to Ghana.’
She gave a low, slow laugh.
‘Now there’s a solution,’ she said, looking at him. ‘Running away to Africa.’
She saw hurt flicker in his dark blue eyes and she understood why he was going to Africa: he was running away too. She didn’t know if he was tired of New York and the endless stress of the ER, or whether the truth was that he had never got over the death of his wife. She felt almost certain it had nothing to do with Susie, but maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with her.
‘Okay, if not Africa,’ said Matt, ‘how about Paris or London or LA? You said you loved it in LA.’
She zipped her jeans, not daring to look at him. ‘Matt, stop it please. I do love David.’
He stood up and took her hand, spinning her round to face him.
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