He looked around him. She was right. They were on the perimeter of the floor, which was packed with other couples.
“We’ve played out the necessary charade. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve reserved the rest of my dance card for Milton Hoffman.”
Chase’s expression hardened. “Of course,” he said politely. “I want to touch bases with some people, too. I see you broke down and invited some of my old friends and not just your own.”
“Certainly.” Annie’s smile would have turned water to ice. “Some of them are my friends, too. Besides, I knew you’d need something to keep you busy, considering that you made the great paternal sacrifice of not asking to bring along your latest little playmate. Or are you between bimbos, at the moment?”
Chase had never struck a woman in his life. Hell, he’d never even had the urge. Men who hit women were despicable. Still, just for an instant, he found himself wishing Annie were a man, so he could wipe that holier-than-thou smirk from her face.
He did the next best thing, instead.
“If you’re asking if there’s a special woman in my life,” he said, his gaze locked on hers, “the answer is yes.” He paused for effect, then went for broke. “And I’ll thank you to watch the way you talk about my fiancée.”
It was like watching a building collapse after the demolition guys had placed the dynamite and set it off. Annie’s smirk disintegrated and her jaw dropped.
“Your—your...?”
“Fiancée.” he said. It wasn’t a complete lie. He’d been dating Janet for two months now, and she hadn’t been at all subtle about what she wanted from the relationship. “Janet Pendleton. Ross Pendleton’s daughter. Do you know her?”
Know her? Janet Pendleton, heiress to the Pendleton fortune? The blond, blue-eyed creature who turned up on the New York Times Sunday Society pages almost every week? The girl known as much for the brilliance she showed as vice president at Pendleton as for having turned down a million-dollar offer to lend her classic beauty to a series of perfume ads for a top French company?
For the barest fraction of a second, Annie felt as if the floor was tilting under her feet. Then she drew herself up and pasted a smile on her lips.
“We don’t move in the same circles, I’m afraid. But I know who she is, of course. It’s nice to see your tastes have gone from twenty-two-year-olds to females tottering on the brink of thirty. Have you told Dawn yet?”
“No! I mean, no, there hasn’t been time. I, ah, I thought I’d wait until she and Nick get back from their honey—”
“Milton. There you are.” Annie reached out and grabbed Milton Hoffman’s arm. She was pretty sure he’d been trying to sneak past her and Chase undetected, en route to the line at the buffet table, but if ever there’d been a time she’d needed someone to cling to, it was now. “Milton,” she said, looping her arm through his and giving him a dazzling smile, “my ex has just given me some exciting news.”
Hoffman looked at Chase, his eyes wary behind his tortoiseshells. “Really,” he said. “How nice.”
“Chase is getting married again. To Janet Pendleton.” Could your lips be permanently stretched by a smile? “Isn’t that lovely?”
“Well,” Chase said, “actually—”
“I suppose it’s the season for romance,” Annie said, with a silvery laugh. “Dawn and Nick, Chase and Janet Pendleton...” She tilted her head and gazed up into Milton Hoffman’s long, bony face. “And us.”
Hoffman’s Adam’s apple bobbed so hard it almost dislodged his bow tie. It was only a week ago that he’d asked Anne Cooper to marry him. She’d told him how much she liked and admired him, how she enjoyed his company and his attention. She’d told him everything but yes.
His gaze leaped to her former husband. Chase Cooper had taken his father’s construction firm and used his engineering degree and his muscles to turn it into a company with a national reputation. He’d ridden jackhammers as they bit deep into concrete foundations and hoisted pickaxes to reduce the remainder to piles of rubble. Hoffman swallowed hard again. Cooper still had the muscles to prove it. Right now, the man looked as if he wanted to use those muscles to pulverize him.
“Chase?” Annie said, beaming. “Aren’t you going to wish us well?”
“Yes,” Chase said, jamming his hands into his pockets, balling them so hard they began to shake. “I wish you the best, Annie. You and your cadaver, both.”
Annie’s smile flattened. “You always did know the right thing to say, didn’t you, Chase?” Turning on her heel, she propelled herself and Milton off the edge of the dance floor and toward the buffet.
“Anne,” Milton whispered, “Anne, my dearest, I had no idea...”
“Neither did I,” Annie whispered back, and smiled up into his stunned face hard enough so he’d have to think the tears in her eyes were for happiness and not because a hole seemed suddenly to have opened in her heart.
* * *
Married, Chase thought. His Annie, getting married to that jerk.
Surely she had better taste.
He slid his empty glass across the bar to the bartender.
“Women,” he said. “Can’t live with ‘em and can’t live without ’em.”
The bartender smiled politely. “Yes, sir.”
“Give me a refill. Bourbon and—”
“And water, one ice cube. I remember.”
Chase looked at the guy. “You trying to tell me I’ve been here too many times this afternoon?”
The bartender’s smile was even more polite. “I might have to, soon, sir. State law, you know.”
Chase’s mouth thinned. “When I’ve had too much to drink, I’ll be sure and let you know. Meanwhile, make this one a double.”
“Chase?”
He swung around. Behind him, people were doing whatever insane line dance was this year’s vogue. Others were still eating the classy assortment of foods Annie had ordered and he hadn’t been permitted to pay for.
“I’ve no intention of asking you to foot the bill for anything,” she’d told him coldly, when he’d called to tell her to spare no expense on the wedding. “Dawn is my daughter, my floral design business is thriving and I need no help from you.”
“Dawn is my daughter, too,” Chase had snarled, but before he’d gotten the words out, Annie had hung up. She’d always been good at getting the last word, dammit. Not today, though. He’d gotten it. And the look on her face when he’d handed her all that crap about his engagement to Janet made it even sweeter.
“Chase? You okay?”
Who was he kidding? He hadn’t had the last word this time, either. Annie had. How could she? How could she marry that pantywaist, bow-tie wearing, gender-confused—
“Chase, what the hell’s the matter with you?”
Chase blinked. David Chambers, tall, blue-eyed, still wearing his dark hair in a long ponytail clasped at his nape the same way he had since he’d first become Chase’s personal attorney a dozen years ago, was standing alongside him.
Chase let out an uneasy laugh.
“David.” He stuck out his hand, changed his mind and clasped the other man’s shoulders. “Hey, man, how’re you doing?”
Chambers smiled and drew Chase into a quick bear hug. Then he drew back and eyed him carefully.
“I’m fine. How about you? You all right?”
Chase reached for his drink and knocked back half of it in one swallow.
“Never been better. What’ll you have?”
Chambers looked at the bartender. “Scotch,” he said, “a single malt, if you have it, on the rocks. And a glass of Chardonnay, please.”
“Don’t tell me,” Chase said with a stilted smile. “You’re here with a lady. I guess the love bug’s bitten you, too.”
“Me?” David laughed. “The wine’s for a lady at my table. As for the love bug... It already bit me, remember? One marriage, one divorce...no, Chase, not me. Never again, not in this lifetime.”
“Yeah.” Chase wrapped his hand around his glass. “Wha
t’s the point? You marry a woman, she turns into somebody else after a couple of years.”
“I agree. Marriage is a female fantasy. Promise a guy anything to nab him, then look blank when he expects you to deliver.” The bartender set the Scotch in front of David, who lifted the glass to his lips and took a swallow. “The way I see it, a man’s got a housekeeper, a cook and a good secretary, what more does he need?”
“Nothing,” Chase said glumly, “not one thing.”
The bartender put a glass of Chardonnay before David, who picked it up. He turned and looked across the room. Chase followed his gaze to a table where a cool-looking, beautiful brunette sat in regal solitude.
A muscle knotted in David’s jaw. He took another swallow of Scotch.
“Unfortunately,” he said, “there is one other thing. And it’s what most often gets poor bastards like you and me in trouble.”
Chase thought of the feel of Annie in his arms on the dance floor, just a couple of hours ago.
“Poor bastards, is right,” he said, and lifted his glass to David. “Well, you and I both know better. Bed ‘em and forget ’em, I say.”
David laughed and clinked his glass against Chase’s. “I’ll drink to that.”
“To what? What are you guys up to, hidden away over here?”
Both men turned around. Dawn, radiant in white lace and with Nick at her side, beamed at them.
“Daddy,” she said, kissing her father’s cheek. “And Mr. Chambers. I’m so glad you could make it.”
“I am, too.” David held his hand out to her groom. “You’re a lucky man, son. Take good care of her.”
Nick nodded as the men shook hands. “I intend to, sir.”
Dawn kissed Chase again. “Get out and circulate, Daddy. That’s an order.”
Chase tossed her a mock salute. The bridal pair moved off, and he sighed. “That’s the only good thing comes of a marriage. A kid, to call your own.”
David nodded. “I agree. I’d always hoped...” He shrugged, then picked up his drink and the glass of white wine. “Hey, Cooper,” he said, with a quick grin, “you stand around a bar long enough, you get maudlin. Anybody ever tell you that?”
“Yes,” Chase said. “My attorney, five years ago when we got wasted after my divorce was finalized.”
The men smiled at each other, and then David Chambers slapped Chase lightly on the back.
“Take Dawn’s advice. Circulate. There’s a surprising assortment of good-looking single women here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“For a lawyer,” Chase said with a chuckle, “sometimes you manage to come up with some pretty decent suggestions. What’s with the brunette at your table? She spoken for?”
David’s eyes narrowed just the slightest bit. “She is, for the present.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” the attorney said. He was smiling, but there was a look in his eye that Chase recognized. He grinned.
“You dirty dog, you. Well, never mind. I’ll—what did my daughter call it? Circulate. That’s it. I’ll circulate, and see what’s available.”
The men made their goodbyes. Chase finished his drink, refused to give the bartender the satisfaction of telling him he wouldn’t pour him another, and circulated himself right out the door.
* * *
Annie kicked off her shoes, put her feet up on the old chintz-covered ottoman she kept promising herself she’d throw out and puffed out a long, deep sigh.
“Well,” she said, “that’s over.”
Deb, seated opposite her on the sofa, nodded in agreement.
“Over and done with.” She flung her arms along the top of the sofa and kicked off her shoes, too. “And I’ll bet you’re glad it is.”
“Glad?” Annie pursed her lips and blew a very unladylike raspberry. “That doesn’t even come close. I’ll bet Custer had an easier time planning the battle at Little Bighorn than I had, planning this wedding.”
Deb arched a dark, perfect eyebrow. “Bad analogy, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
“Yeah.” Annie heaved another sigh. “But you know what I mean. The logistics of the whole thing were beyond belief. Imagine your daughter walking in one night and calmly announcing she’s going to get married in two months and wouldn’t it be wonderful if she could have the perfect wedding she’d always dreamed about?”
Deb stood, reached up under her chiffon skirt and wriggled her panty hose down her legs.
“My daughter’s in love with the seventies,” she said, draping the hose around her throat like a boa. “If I’m lucky, she’ll opt for getting married on a hilltop somewhere, with the guests all invited to bring... What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Annie shot to her feet and padded to the kitchen, returning a moment later with a bottle of champagne and a pair of juice glasses. “He accused me of wanting that, you know.”
“Know what? Wanting what? Who accused you?”
“You mind drinking this stuff out of juice glasses? I know you’re supposed to use flutes, but I never got around to buying any.”
“We can drink it out of jelly jars, for all I care. What are you talking about, Annie? Who accused you of what?”
“Chase. Mr. Ex.” Annie undid the wire around the foil, then chewed on her lip as she carefully worked the cork between her fingers. It popped with a loud bang and champagne frothed out. Some of it dripped onto the tile floor. Annie shrugged and mopped it up by moving her stockinged foot over the small puddle. “A few weeks ago, he called to talk to Dawn. I had the misfortune to answer the phone. He said he’d gotten his invitation and he was delighted to see I hadn’t let my instincts run amok.” She held out a glass of wine, and Deb took it. “Amok,” she said, licking her fingertips, “can you imagine? And all because when we were first married, I threw a couple of parties in the backyard behind the house we lived in.”
“I thought you lived in a condo.”
“We did, eventually, but not then. Chase knew somebody who got us this really cheap rental in Queens.”
Deb nodded. “What kind of parties did you throw?”
“Outdoor parties, mostly.”
“So?” Deb made a face. “Big deal.”
Annie’s lips twitched. “Well, it was wintertime.”
“Wintertime?”
“Yes. See, the thing was, the house was so small, the mice pretty much ran it. And—”
“Mice?”
Annie sank down on the chair again. “It wasn’t much of a house, but then, we didn’t have much money. I’d just graduated from high school and the only job I could find was at the local Burger King. Chase had transferred to City College. The tuition was lots cheaper and besides, that way he could work construction jobs for his father a couple of days a week.” She sighed. “We were dead broke. Believe me, we found a million ways to save money!”
Deb smiled. “Including having parties outdoors in midwinter.”
Annie smiled, too. “Oh, it wasn’t that bad. We’d build a fire in a barbecue in the backyard, you know? And I’d make tons and tons of chili and homemade bread. We’d put on a huge pot of coffee, and there’d be beer for the guys...”
Her voice drifted away.
“A far cry from today,” Deb said. She reached for the champagne bottle and refilled both their glasses. “Bubbly, caviar, shrimp on ice, boneless beef with mushrooms...”
“Filet de Boeuf Aux Chanterelles, if you please,” Annie said archly.
Deb grinned. “Pardonnez-moi, madam.”
“No joke. Considering what that stuff cost, you’d better remember to give it its French name.”
“And you didn’t let Chase pay a dime, huh?”
“No,” Annie said sharply.
“I still think you’re nuts. What’re you trying to prove, anyway?”
“That I don’t need his money.”
“Or him?” Deb said softly. Annie looked at her and Deb shrugged. “I saw you guys on the dance floor. Things looked pretty cozy, for a while there.”
“You saw the past worm its way into the present. Trust me, Deb. That part of my life is over. I don’t feel a thing for Chase. I can’t quite believe I ever did.”
“I understand. A nostalgia trip, hmm?”
“Exactly. Brought on by my little girl’s wedding...” Annie paused, swallowed hard and suddenly burst into tears.
“Oh, sweetie.” Deb jumped from the couch and squatted down beside Annie. She wrapped her arms around her and patted her back. “Honey, don’t cry. It’s not so unusual to still have a thing going for your ex, you know. Especially when he’s hunky, the way Chase is.”
“He’s getting married,” Annie sobbed.
“Chase?”
“To Janet Pendleton.”
“Am I supposed to know her?”
“I hope not.” Annie hiccuped. “She’s rich. Gorgeous. Smart.”
“I hate her already.” Deb put her hand under Annie’s chin and urged it to rise. “Are you sure?”
“He told me so.” Annie sat back, dug a hanky out of her cleavage where she’d stuffed it after the ceremony and blew her nose. “So I told him I’m marrying Milton.”
“Milton? As in, Milton Hoffman?” Deb rocked back on her heels. “My God, you wouldn’t!”
“Why not? He’s single, he’s dependable and he’s nice.”
“So is a teddy bear,” Deb said in horror. “Better you should take one of those to bed than Milton Hoffman.”
“Oh, Deb, that’s not fair.” Annie got to her feet. “There’s more to a relationship than sex.”
“Name it.”
“Companionship, for one thing. Similar interests. Shared dreams.”
“And you can have enough of those things with Milton to make you forget all the rest?”
“Yes!” Annie’s shoulders slumped. “No,” she admitted. “Isn’t that awful? I like Milton, but I don’t love him.”
Deb heaved a sigh as she stood up. “Thank you, God. For a minute there, I thought you’d gone around the bend.”
“Not only am I sex-obsessed—”
“You’re not. Sex is a big part of life.”
“—but I’ve used poor Milton badly. Now I’ve got to call him up and tell him I didn’t mean it when I introduced him to Chase as my fiancé.”
The Millionaire Claims His Wife Page 3
