"There is no you and me, and stop calling me 'honey.'" I don't dare turn around, don't dare show him my back. I shuffle backward to the door, reach behind me for the handle.
"Then tell me your name, Cinderella."
My hand shakes on the door handle. I push the lever down. Pull the spring-loaded weight of the door toward me, never taking my eyes off his. I need to look away, but I cannot. Cannot. I am trapped by his gaze. Ensnared by his warmth, not just physical heat, but some welcoming, enveloping, cocooning, all-consuming warmth in his soul. It heats the ice in me, spreads through the gaping lonely chasms of my being echoing with cold and absence.
"No." It is a whisper, inaudible over the hammering of my heart. If I give him my name, I will give him all of me.
A name is a thing of power.
"Why not?" Long easy strides carry him to me.
His hands curl around the base of my spine and pull me forward, and the door clicks closed, and I'm up against his chest, breathing in cinnamon and cigarettes. "I'll tell you mine, then, how about that? My name is Logan Ryder."
"Logan Ryder . . ." I'm blinking up at him, trying to breathe, my hands flat on his chest, feeling his breath, feeling the thunder of his heartbeat under my right palm. "Hi."
"And your name is . . . ?" He's so close, all I can feel and all I can smell and all I can taste, his scent is all-consuming and his heat is all-enveloping, and I cannot give him my name, because it's all I have to give, currency I dare not spend.
I just shake my head. "I can't. I can't." I back away from him, forcing my legs to obey the prudence of my mind rather than the lust of my heart and body.
"Can I tell you a secret, Cinderella?"
"If you wish." I'm still struggling to make my lungs operate, and it comes out breathy.
"I have no idea what I'm doing right now." His fingers dig into the flesh just above my backside, holding me firmly against him.
As if I could move; I'm paralyzed by this sensation. "Me either," I admit.
He smirks, and one of his hands rises to my face. Cups my cheek. His thumb brushes my cheekbone.
I feel absurdly close to tears, for some inexplicable reason.
"Maybe so, but I'm the one doing this . . ." he breathes,
and kisses me,
and kisses me,
and kisses me.
Or . . . he would have, but I stumble backward in the fragment of a second before his lips touch mine, put just enough distance between us that the kiss is stopped before it can ruin me.
He sighs, a short, small breath of wonder and frustration and desire.
*
BAM!--BAM! A heavy fist pounds twice on the door, and I jump, stumble backward and away until my spine flattens against the door. I stare at Logan, eyes stinging and lungs aching for air, hands trembling.
I jerk the door open and slip out of it, slam hard against Thomas's chest.
"Where did you go?" His heavily accented voice is thick as oil, deeper than canyons.
His hands grip my shoulders, set me several feet backward, away from him, turn me around.
"I went into the wrong bathroom by mistake."
A paw bigger than a bear's wraps around my upper arm, gently but implacably, and compels me away from the bathroom. "Next time, I go in with you."
Away, back to the ballroom. Len is there, arms crossed, eyes unhappy. And you, at the bar a few feet away, drinking.
Something is ended, something else begun.
"Madame X. You should pay more attention to which bathroom you go into." Len's voice is sharp, light faux-friendliness. "You wouldn't want me to worry about where you'd gone, now would you?"
"No, my apologies." I hunt for a suitable explanation. "It was--a female thing. Unexpected. I'm sure you understand."
Thomas's hand still around my upper arm, Len in front of me, I fight for breath, for calmness. Pretend the flavor of an almost-kiss does not still linger on my lips. Hope my frantic pulse cannot be heard over the band. I am dizzy.
The milling and talking has ended, and everyone has paired off into couples to dance, a few people along the edges of the crowd, watching, waiting, drinking.
You sweep me away, onto the dance floor, where couples waltz and spin and sway. Your hands are politely placed on my waist and your hand is in mine, warm and dry and loose. You lead with practiced ease, guiding me through one dance, and then another. We pause when the band takes a break, and we sip at wine that I find too light, too fruity, too sweet. And then the band strikes up again, and you lead me back out, fit your hand to my waist, where your touch cannot be misconstrued as anything but platonic. You make small talk, but I let it wash over me without responding, and you seem to expect this, to understand it, carrying on a one-way conversation about--I don't even know what.
I am not thinking of you.
"Can I cut in?" Oh, his voice. Now sharp and expectant, leaving no room for disobedience.
You do not stand a chance, sweet Jonathan.
Big hard warm strong hands take me, spin me away, and his steps are not as practiced, not as smooth, but powerful and implacable and confident. His hand is not on my waist, not polite, not platonic. His hand is on my hip, cupping me intimately. Not quite inappropriate, but very nearly. Fingers are tangled in mine, rather than clasping like friends.
"Hi," he says, and indigo eyes find mine.
"Hi," I breathe back.
And we dance. We sway and sweep in graceful circles, and time is like water, one song passing, and then two, and I cannot look away. Don't wish to. His eyes search me, and seem to see me. Read me, as if I am a familiar and beloved book, long lost and just now found once again.
"What's your name, Cinderella?" His forehead touches mine, and I fear the intimacy of the scene, his hand on my hip, his fingers twined with mine, our bodies too close.
I must end this dance.
I pull away.
"Wait!" He catches my hand and pulls me back against him.
We are lost in the crowd of dancers, but I know Len is watching and so is Thomas, and so is Jonathan, and this cannot happen, should not be happening. He is too close. He touches me as if we are framed and fitted and formed to belong one to the other, as if he knows me, as if my body is his for the touching.
"Why won't you just tell me your fucking name?" He sounds very nearly desperate.
"I can't." I know not how else to explain it.
"It's just a name, sweetheart."
"It's not. It's more than that. It's who I am." I want to smile, want to throw myself at him, to taste his lips, to feel the hard heat of his chest and the warmth of his arms. I want to say a million traitorous things.
"Exactly." His fingers leave my hand and slip and slide up my forearm, and God, his fingertips on the tender underside of my forearm is so intimate and so soft that I can't breathe and I am aroused by that innocent intimacy, my thighs clenching together as I stare up at him, just his fingertips on my forearm, dragging from wrist up and up to elbow, back down, tracing and tickling. "I want to know who you are."
My fingers go to my lips, touch them where his lips nearly touched mine. I shake my head. "You can't."
"Why not?"
"It's impossible."
"Nothing is impossible."
I have no response for that. I can only tug my arm free, and he cannot do anything but allow it. I walk away, and it hurts, it aches, the pull to look back. The pull to return to him and finish the almost-kiss is like a taut wire speared through my heart, plucked to hum like a harp string. Each step away from Logan makes my whole being sing the song of that plucked string.
I find you on the far side of the ballroom, leaning against the wall with a glass of wine in one hand, engaging Len in conversation. I hear words bandied back and forth that I believe are car terms, the kind of thing I imagine men discuss between themselves in a strange language all their own: horsepower and torque and cylinders.
Thomas, however, is on the edge of the dancing crowd, and those wide black eyes s
ee me, and I wonder how much else they saw.
"Madame X?" You say my name, as if you suspect something.
"I'm fine, Jonathan." I refuse to look anywhere but at the dark red rose in your lapel. I hadn't noticed that before. It matches the shade of my dress exactly.
"They're seating us for dinner." You escort me--guide me--through the crowd, through a set of guarded doors, to an enormous room filled with large round tables with six place settings each.
There is a stage at the front of the room. A lectern, a microphone.
Dinner is a long, quiet, formal affair. Outside fork, inside fork, outside spoon, inside spoon. Ice water. Sip at white wine. Nibble at salad greens, a sliver of bread, then a dinner of shredded quail and spicy brown rice and pea pods cooked in oil. As the dinner ends and a delicate dark chocolate mousse is brought out, a stout, middle-aged man takes the stage, adjusts the mic, taps it. Speaks in slow, precise, measured tones of the items to be auctioned this evening. A priceless original painting. A one-of-a-kind, two-hundred-year-old sapphire necklace. A chair that once belonged to King Louis XVI. An ancient Roman Gladius Hispaniensis.
You bid on the necklace. A hundred thousand. Two hundred thousand. Two hundred fifty thousand. You are reckless with your money, I think. You win the bid.
The sword captures my attention. The scabbard is bronze, the hilt of polished bone, the blade so ancient and pitted and rusted that its shape is nearly lost. This is the crown jewel of the auction, a museum-quality piece of history. Bidding starts at a mind-boggling number. Three men bid: an old man with four wisps of white hair draped across his bald pate, a ridiculously beautiful man whom I assume is a movie star, and--
Him.
The table holds two other couples, one a pair of celebrities, the other an elderly couple ignoring the auction completely. The chair beside Logan is empty, the place setting removed.
He lounges in his chair, a glass of red wine held by the stem in one hand. As the bidding continues, he lifts the glass as his signal, ruby liquid sloshing in the goblet.
The bidding reaches seven figures.
I need to look away, but I cannot.
He is a jaguar, all sleek and perfect features, compact, easy power held in repose, exuding threat simply by his mere existence. Blond hair like a fall of gold, swept back in kinked and wavy strands around his ears, the ends brushing his collar. Indigo eyes sweeping the room.
Finding me.
He does not look away. Even when he lifts his wine in a silent bid, he does not look away.
Neither do I.
You are beside me. Logan is across the room. Caleb Indigo is under my skin.
I have no pulse, no breath, no vital functions. All I am is sight, the war of nerves, the fire of need, the calcification of fear inside my throat.
"Friend of yours?" you ask, your voice low, pitched so only I can hear.
"No." It is the only answer of which I am capable.
"You're a better liar than that, X. I saw you two dancing." You take a long swig of scotch. You have been drinking heavily. I worry. "Logan Ryder. I've heard of him."
"Oh?" I endeavor to sound casual, and almost succeed.
But my eyes are still locked, pulled, hypnotized, drawn to the exotic gaze of the man across the room. I must look away or betray myself yet further. Only . . . I am incapable. Made weak.
My will is gutted by the memory of a near-kiss. I am shredded by the desire to finish it, to consummate the kiss.
"He's kind of a mystery in the business world. Has his fingers in a dozen of the most lucrative pies in the city, but no one knows shit about him. Where he got his money, how much he's worth, where he lives, nothing. Just showed up one day on the scene, investing here and there, in this and that. He's got this uncanny knack for selling off right when the prices are best. He never comes to events like this, though. Total recluse." You sound speculative. "He a client of yours?"
"No."
"But you know him."
"No, I really don't." I sound almost cool, almost even, almost believably casual.
You lean close. "I'll give you your lie, Madame X. I owe you that much."
"I'm not--"
"Just do me a favor, will you?"
"What's that?" I force my gaze away, at long, long last, down to my empty plate. I am unaware of having eaten dessert, but there is nothing left except brown smears and crumbs. I feel his eyes still watching me from afar, even with my own closed, pinched shut.
"Quit pretending I don't know you better than that. Quit pretending I didn't see the way you two danced. You may not know each other, but you want to."
"No, I don't."
"Don't you, though?" Your eyes are sharp, too much so.
"No." I swallow hard, force my eyes to yours. "I am loyal to Caleb. But I will agree to drop the subject if you will."
"Fine with me." You stand up. Extend your hand to mine, assist me to my feet. As soon as I'm upright, you let go. "I've had enough of this shit-show. Let's go."
"Very well." I accomplish a miracle: I do not look back. Not once.
No Lot's wife, I.
You, Thomas, and Len, you all three escort me out of the building. I am in the lead, escaping the hot confines of that building. Once we are out into the night, sirens howl and horns blare and eight people pass between me and the entrance in a gaggle talking, laughing, trailing clouds of cigarette smoke and gaiety. Fingers tangled in the gauzy crimson at my thighs, I bunch the skirts, lift them clear of the sidewalk. Stare out and up into the night sky, at the window squares, familiar buildings seen from an unfamiliar angle, yellow taxis in serried ranks. Stoplight, cycling from green to amber to red, the lights much larger and brighter from down here.
I ignore Thomas, ignore your questioning stare, ignore Len's puzzled eyebrows raised in an arch. I stride away, skirts held around my ankles, heels clicking on the concrete. Freedom. Ripe, thick air in my lungs, noises in my ear.
The heel of my shoe catches in a crack in the sidewalk and I trip, one foot bare on the cold concrete now. I stumble, nearly hit the ground. But a hard body is there, an arm around my waist.
A door, propped open with a wedge, a suddenly familiar blast of scent: cinnamon, wine, and now cigarette smoke, strongly.
I look up, and there he is. "Cinderella. You all right?"
I cannot be this close to him. Cannot.
I turn away, intending to leave my shoe caught in the sidewalk. I have to get away from him before I kiss him. The need to taste his mouth is overwhelming, the need to feel his arms around me all-consuming.
"Your shoe." He bends, retrieves my shoe, and hands it to me.
I slip it on my foot, and then Thomas is there, a huge hand gripping my upper arm, turning me in place. "It is time to return now, Madame X."
I see a light in Logan's eyes as Thomas gives away my name.
I walk beside Thomas back to the car.
Oh, I turn and look back. I must.
Place a foot in the car, a hand on the roof. Stare out over the long roof and sleek hood, watch the stoplight flash to bright green, the cars in a line accelerating. Another crowd of people passes under the awning, but this is an incidental crowd, none speaking to the others.
He is there, watching me intently, blond hair loose and wavy. A hand in his pants pocket, the other lifting a cigarette to his lips, an orange-glowing circle casting his eyes and forehead and sharp high cheekbones into brief illumination--a pause, and a pall of white smoke curling up and away and dissipating.
This is a vignette, seen in a quick glance, and then Thomas presses me gently but firmly down and into the car, the door closes with a soft thunk, and then he is out of sight as the Maybach rounds a corner.
I see him still, though, his eyes on me through the veil of smoke, seeing me, searching me, wanting me as much as I want him.
*
At my door, accompanied by Thomas, Len, and you, and I wish only for a quiet moment alone, a word with you. Instead, Len and Thomas linger in the elevator do
orway, blocking it open, making it clear you will not be going inside with me, but away with them.
"Thank you for going with me this evening, Madame X."
"You are welcome." I offer you a small, tight, sad smile. "Good-bye, Jonathan. And good luck with your business."
"You, too." Your fingers move in your right hip pocket. "Wait."
I pause with my door open. You approach me, take me by the shoulders, turn me around. You stand behind me. I feel you, hear your breathing. Something cold and heavy drapes against my breastbone. I look down, see a huge sapphire. The antique necklace you won in the auction.
"Jonathan--"
"Not up for debate, X." Your hands work at the back of my neck, fixing the clasp. You step back. "There."
I turn, and you smile. Nod.
"Why?" I ask.
You shrug, and there's that smirk, that insouciant grin. "'Cause I can. Because I want to. It looks perfect on you."
"Why did you buy it, Jonathan? Not for me, surely."
That shrug again, less easy this time. "Because Dad was there. To make a point."
"You spent a quarter million dollars to spite your father, to show him that you could, just because?"
"Yeah, basically."
"That's childish." I reach up to unclasp the necklace.
"Maybe, yeah. But it's my childish decision to make. Keep it, X. My gift to you." Something in your voice, something in your eyes convinces me.
I lower my hands. Lift up on my toes, hug you briefly, platonically. "All right, Jonathan. In that case . . . thank you."
"You're welcome." You salute me, index and middle fingers together, touched to your forehead. "See ya."
And you're gone.
I won't see you again. I feel more sadness at this than I'd expected to.
Alone, finally, I stand at my favorite window. Watch the taxis and the delivery trucks pass, watch the nearest stoplight cycle green-amber-red, feeling the memory of free air in my lungs, the sound of horns and sirens and voices, the smell of the city.
Indigo eyes.
Thumb on my cheekbone, lips on mine, some inexplicable knowledge of a secret forever passed in stolen moments in a men's room, the feel of breath on my breath, a warm voice and strong gentle hands, the scent of cinnamon and cigarettes.
I want to cry for what I lost when I left that men's room.
But I cannot, for I do not know what it was I lost, only that it is gone, and that it meant everything to me.
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