Taken aback, I tried to stammer a reply, but she cut me off. “I propose you ask her whether she wants to date you, Mr. Foster. I don’t suggest you tell her you’re pretending. The only thing I ask from you is that you not hurt my niece. She is exuberant, full of life, and green as a pea shoot. If you’re going to be seen with her, then I ask that you not be seen with anyone else. Appear exclusive, even if you aren’t. And when you’re done with the charade, let her down gently. “
“Of course! I promise you that.”
“Never for one second string her along, Mr. Foster, or I will tell her everything. Don’t you dare tell her you love her and don’t pretend like you need her. You date her, take her places, show her things, then set her free. Does that suit you?”
“Perfectly, Mrs. Danos-Monroe,” I answered, reaching across to shake her hand happily.
She grinned at me, a look of mischief in her eyes. “I think this is going to be fun to watch. Call me Aunt Ettie.”
“Thank you, Aunt Ettie. You don’t know how much you’ve helped me out.”
“You know, Mr. Foster—”
“Dane. Call me Dane.”
“Yes, Dane. Hanna is away in Washington taking care of some things with the new job, but she’ll be back in a day or two. You should pop in.”
“I will, I will. You know, I moved into an estate not too far from here recently.”
“Even better. I’ll tell her you dropped by to see her. That will give her a shock.”
I left the Danos-Monroe estate like the winning gladiator. I had danced with the auntie and lived to see another day. Lamont had said we’d only need to be seen in public a few times, but I wanted to see Hanna more often. It would be a faux relationship, but who said it had to be a boring one? I had been sincere when I told Aunt Ettie, essentially, I thought Hanna deserved a chance to make a few good bad decisions. It would be hard to keep my hands off the delectable young anthropologist, though.
***
“Gervais, hand me the bouquet,” I ordered.
“Sir, are you sure you want me with you? I could wait in the car.”
“It has to look like we happened to be passing through. You remembered the gate, so we dropped in to visit.”
“What about the flowers?”
“You’re right. Leave them in the car. Come on!”
After straightening my tie, I rang the bell. Gervais came up beside me, huffing. “When you said you needed me away from the office today, this isn’t what I had in mind.”
“You’re my moral support, Gervais.”
“Really, sir! Just change my job title to wingman, why don't you?”
“Oooh, maybe I should. Wait, be quiet. I hear someone coming. You should see the butler. I’m seriously contemplating hiring one—Hi! Good evening, we were just in the neighborhood and thought we’d drop by!” I gushed when the butler opened the door.
“Mrs. Danos-Monroe is expecting you,” he replied airily.
Gervais tittered and hid his smile. I cleared my throat censoriously at him, and we followed the butler into the house. We found Mrs. Danos-Monroe almost exactly as I had left her, in her receiving room sipping tea. This time, however, so was Hanna. The red-haired girl sat at a piano aimlessly picking at the keys, playing a tuneless melody. She looked up in surprise when the butler announced us.
I repeated my rehearsed speech. “Good evening. We were just in the neighborhood and thought we’d drop by!” Aunt Ettie rolled her eyes at my terrible acting. Either way, I had said my line.
Hanna stood from the piano. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to see you,” I said, confident smile in place.
Gervais amended, “I recognized the gate, and Mr. Foster decided to stop by for a visit. He recently acquired an estate not far from here.”
“How neighborly,” Aunt Ettie said.
Hanna replied tersely, “You wasted the trip, then.”
“E-excuse me?” I said.
“Mr. Foster, I have an evening of fun planned. As I recall, your version of a fun-filled evening left something to be desired. I’m sorry you lost the time it took to drive up here, but I’m not interested in seeing you.”
I shot Aunt Ettie a glare for fooling me into believing Hanna would be pleased to see me. I turned my gaze back to the saucy young woman in the hip-hugger jeans and character t-shirt, looking even more attractive than when I had seen her before. Her svelte figure was as enticing as I remembered, inspiring instant dirty thoughts, and I forced my desire in check. I dragged my eyes above the neck. She had her long red hair pulled up in a ponytail that swished down to her shoulder blades. Her changeable eyes flashed golden. Her kissable lips were positioned in a pout. “What do you have planned?” I asked.
“None of your business. Aunt Ettie, I’ll leave you to your company, if you’ll excuse me.”
“I was about to retire to my room. Be a dear and entertain a little longer, niece. I’m sure whatever you have planned can wait a bit,” Aunt Ettie suggested, rising gracefully from her chair and heading out the door.
“Aunt Ettie!” Hanna pleaded.
“Don’t whine, Hanna. You’re a big girl. They shouldn’t hold you long. Goodbye, boys!” With that, she disappeared through the receiving room French doors. Hanna crossed her arms and shot daggers at me with her eyes.
“Should I go wait in the car?” Gervais stage-whispered.
“Don’t leave me alone with her. I have a hunch she’s not all right in the head,” I hissed back.
“And you want to date her?” he countered.
Hanna made a frustrated sound and sat in a chair. “Why are you really here?”
“I wanted to see you,” I repeated.
“What about your girlfriend?”
“My who? Oh, I broke up with her.”
“How convenient! If you think I still want to sleep with you, let me inform you that offer is off the table.”
Gervais gave a shocked laugh. “She asked you to sleep with her? And you turned her down?”
“Shush! Hanna, hey, listen. That’s behind us, right? I want to try again. I want to-to-to—”
Gervais blurted, “To date you. He wants to date you. How crazy is she that you turned her down?”
“I’m not crazy. He’s the crazy one, rejecting me.” She snorted and made a face.
I eased down onto the chair next to her. “Is that what this is about? Look, I didn’t reject you. I turned you down because…well, because I didn’t want to take advantage of you. You seemed a little irrational that night. Would it have been right of me to take what you offered before you had time to really think about it? Besides, you don’t want to be anybody’s one-night stand. I’ve been thinking about you ever since that night, Hanna. I can’t seem to forget about you. Now that I’m single, how you would feel about going out with me?”
She avoided making eye contact, choosing instead to stare down at her fingers. She fumbled with a rent in her jeans and pulled at the fray. A lock of red hair came free and dropped across her face, and she pushed it back behind her ear. She was achingly beautiful. It was going to be harder than I’d anticipated to keep her chaste and untouched. The naive girl had an artless appeal I simultaneously wanted to exploit and shelter. I may have fibbed about thinking of her endlessly, but it wasn’t much of a lie. I had been thinking about her.
“I don’t know,” she said. Her eyes met mine and bounced away.
“Would you care to consider it over dinner in New York City tonight?”
“What would my Aunt Ettie say?”
“She’d probably say yes. Although I don’t know that you really need to ask. You’re a big girl, like she said.”
“You’re infamous, a regular Casanova. Everybody knows that.”
“Thought that was what you liked about me.”
“You said your reputation exceeds you.”
“And so it does, but you won’t know until you see for yourself.”
“I tried. You turned me down.”
“Is this payback?” I said in a teasing tone. “Because I’m crushed, Hanna, truly. You know how much nerve it took to stroll up in here and ask you out? How could you be so heartless, so cruel, so—”
“Fine, I’ll go.”
“—unbelievably perfect! Thank you!” I kissed her lips spontaneously. It was the barest touch. My mouth skated across hers and left a trail of sparks in its wake as desire kindled. I inhaled her lilac and vanilla scent and exhaled with a soft moan. When my eyes met hers, her hazel orbs glittered with reciprocal lust. I could tell. I smiled at her. “I’ll pick you up tonight at eight. Do you have time in your evening of fun to squeeze me in?”
“I’ll be ready,” she murmured.
I looked up and spotted Gervais studiously ignoring us. I chuckled. He and I were back in the car headed home when he asked, “Exactly how do you plan on not leaving ‘something to be desired’ this time?”
***
She was dressed in a little black dress. It fell to mid-thigh and hugged every curve closer than a Maserati on a road full of turns. Her glossy red hair was pinned up on one side and fell in curls down the other. Rubies dangled from her earlobes and from a thin gold chain to her breasts. Gold bangles were on one wrist and a designer handbag on the other.
She wore black high-heeled sandals with gold serpentine buckles, and her long legs were bare of pantyhose. Her mouth was painted scarlet red, and those bewitching eyes were shadowed with blue and lined in black. Her long lashes looked longer than ever. In short, she was a walking masterpiece.
I picked her up from her Aunt Ettie’s house in my favorite car and guided the Aston Martin up the interstate to New York City. Soft indie music played in the background for atmosphere. We had a long drive, but she was good company. She asked, “Why’d you really ask me out?”
“Because I thought about what you said, about feeling like a caged bird and wanting to fly.”
“You laughed at me when I told you that.”
“It was a corny way to put it, but I understood you. I feel the same way sometimes.”
“Nobody tells Dane Foster what to do.”
“You’d be surprised. It might seem that way. More often than I want to, I have to modify my behavior to suit others. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not a bad thing to take into consideration how your actions will affect your loved ones. I just…I understand what you were saying. What’s that job in Washington?”
“Eh, it’s a position at the Smithsonian, very prestigious, boring stuff.”
I smiled, and she giggled. I reached across the center console and collected her hand in mine. “I think we’re gonna have a good time getting to know each other. But you should know upfront that I’m not looking for anything serious. I want to take you out, show you a good time. That’s all.”
“You could have your pick of girls, Dane. Why on earth would you pick me?”
“You’re…different.”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“Different in an interesting way. I promise you, I’ve never had a girl recruit me to run away with her before. You’re spontaneous and unpredictable. I like that.”
“You’re much more reserved than I imagined.”
“That doesn’t sound like a compliment.”
“It’s not a bad thing. To tell you the truth, I’m glad you didn’t take me up on my offer that night.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes…because I’m certain we wouldn’t be here now.”
The conversation faded to companionable silence as we drove. The music soothed, and the drive was familiar. I leaned back in the driver’s seat and waited for the city skyline to appear.
We arrived at a five-star restaurant, and I let the valet take the car. The exquisite Hanna was draped on my arm. We glided into the dimly lit interior, where we were swiftly shown to our reserved table. Immaculate white tablecloths and shiny gold candelabra added to the ambience. The sommelier suggested a dry red in a voice with a hint of French accent, and Hanna fluently thanked him in French, carrying on a brief conversation. I felt pleased to have a date that was not only lovely, but knowledgeable.
She ordered Cargolade, an escargot, and I opted for Rouille de seiche, a savory stewed squid with vegetables. We shared a dessert of peche Melba and ate every bite of the sweet French vanilla ice cream drizzled in peaches and raspberry sauce. She teased me about my terrible mispronunciations of the menu, and I told her she’d have to teach me. I could picture us in Paris, doing a little light shopping, enjoying Fashion Week, taking pictures in front of the Eiffel Tower. We could fly out tonight, tomorrow. There was really no telling where our faux relationship would take us.
“I’m not the best dancer, but I won’t step on your toes,” I said. I took her proffered hand and led her to the open space of the dance floor. There was a string quartet strumming elegantly. I might have been rusty on the latest modern dance moves, but I could waltz. I wrapped an arm about her waist and glided with her across the dance floor. She moved like her feet didn’t touch the ground. She was graceful, weightless in my arms. I pulled her closer, and she molded to my body.
We left the restaurant for a brief stroll because she wanted to see what it felt like to walk New York’s streets. It was a cool, clear night. Passing crowds of people, I felt right at home with the skyscrapers looming above. I didn’t see New York’s dirt and grime. To me, it would always be a place where anything could happen. I was walking next to a beautiful girl who wanted to hold my hand, and that wasn’t too unusual, except that I really wanted to hold her hand, too. Women like Annabeth tried to hold me down, but there was nothing clingy about Hanna. She was like a kite that if I let the string go, she would float away into the night sky.
CHAPTER 7
I was sitting on a stage with a late-night talk show host, trying to see past the glare of the lights. I had a smile plastered to my face, and I was answering some pretty embarrassing questions about my personal life. That wasn’t hard, because Lamont and his team basically scripted everything I had to say. It was then the host asked about my mother, and I went blank because we hadn’t planned how to answer questions about my childhood.
The network, or somebody, supposedly had given my people all the questions that were going to be asked. Yet here was this guy, Denny Timmons, with the perfectly coiffed hair and the pancake makeup asking me something about my life before the bitches and booze, and I sat there with a stupid look on my face.
He repeated the question in a made-for-television voice: “Everybody wants to know about your mother, Dane. I mean, you had this kind of twisted way of dealing with women—“
“I don’t think twisted at all.”
“C’mon…you gotta think it was a little twisted. You pick ’em up, you don’t call back. You’re running through girls, breaking hearts. This guy is a real lady-killer, people! You don’t think it was a little twisted to treat these women like they were disposable?”
I countered, “Does that sound too different from any other twenty-something-year-old guy you know? Most men go through that phase.”
“We’re talking about you, though.”
I heard Gervais in my earpiece telling me I needed to take control of the conversation. I shifted in my seat, realizing this was a live talk show, and I didn’t have room for error. “Yes, we’re talking about me. Let me just say that I do not treat women like they’re disposable. I recently came out of a relationship. It was an amicable split, and I may start dating again eventually. I’d rather focus on Excelsis right now. Business has been success—”
“Michelle Torres, pop singer, she’s quoted as saying you pursued her for weeks but stopped talking to her after hanging out for one night. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what happened that one night, right?” he joked with a lecherous look.
“First of all, Michelle Torres is trying to sell albums. She’s a new artist. She wants the publicity—”
“And there’s a rumor you’re reported am
icable split with actress Annabeth Gessler was anything but amicable. An inside source alleges you simply stopped taking her calls. She doesn’t need the publicity. She’s been nominated for best supporting actress.”
“Say no comment! Say no comment!” Gervais screamed into the earpiece.
“I—I’m not gonna comment on that,” I replied.
“Right, of course not. Here’s the thing, Dane. Guys like you usually have some deep-seated mommy issues.”
“Excuse me? Cut the interview.” I stood up and exited the stage.
“Wait, wait, Dane! Come back and talk with us, buddy,” Denny called, laughing. “It’s just a friendly conversation!” I flipped him the bird on camera and stormed to the back. “We’re going to take a quick commercial break, everybody, but we’ll be back with more on Denny Timmons Live in the Apple!”
Gervais met me in the back hall. “Get Lamont on the phone, now!” I commanded angrily. I pushed past a hair and makeup girl and shoved open the door to my dressing room to collect my stuff. Gervais grabbed his electronic notebook and followed me out of the studio.
An exec tried to stop me near the exit, saying, “Dane, I know that was unexpected. Denny likes to break with the script every now and then. It makes for more natural television.”
“I don’t give a fuck what Denny likes to do! We had an agreement! You got your fucking ratings, asshole. Get the fuck out of my goddamned face,” I growled. I threw him out of my way, and Gervais and I slipped out into the late summer night.
“Where the fuck is my car,” I said. My breath steamed like a puff of smoke in the frigid air. I felt like I could blow fire.
“You parked over—right over there, sir.” There were few cars parked in this area of the lot, which was reserved for the talent and his guests. I was glad to have taken the Aston and have no need to wait for a driver to bring a car around. I opened the door and crammed my tall body inside.
Dane (A Foster Family Saga #1) Page 6
