by Alison Kent
“I should just go home. I’m not in the party mood,” she said as the cab drew closer to their destination.
“You have to party. We made a pact,” Isabel reminded her.
“Hey,” Natalie said, putting a hand on her arm. “Something’s up with you. What gives?”
She debated not telling them, but they were her best friends, so she sighed and opened her evening bag.
She wasn’t one of those women who had nothing but a tissue, a lipstick and her house keys in her evening bag. Arianne bought them large enough to squeeze her wallet inside. She liked knowing where her driver’s license and credit cards were at all times.
She withdrew her wallet and flipped it open to the half a dozen photo sleeves. She took a quick glance at the picture of the little bundle of pink-and-white with the tiny mouth pursed in sleep and passed it over.
“Cute kid,” Natalie squinted in the dim light and handed it to Isabel. “Whose is it?”
“Charlie’s. His Christmas card was late. I just got it in today’s mail.”
“Charlie, you-used-to-be-engaged-to Charlie?”
“Yes.” She stared out the cab window at the brightly lit streets of Manhattan. “If I’d married him, that would be my baby.”
“Since when do you want to be married to a guy living in some hick town in the Midwest?”
“He was transferred. He couldn’t help it. We’re still good friends, sometimes I wonder—”
“Honey, Charlie was born to live in a hick town in the Midwest. You weren’t.”
“Love isn’t about geography.”
“Oh, I don’t know. Every time I see the Monticello mansion I fall in love with Rafe,” Natalie teased.
Arianne laughed, put the photo back in her wallet and decided to get over herself. Isabel was right. This was a night to party. So her entire apartment could fit into Charlie’s double garage, along with his snowblower and his ride-on lawn mower. So she might always be a godmother or an aunt and never a mother herself.
So, she might end up as a single career woman, so what?
“Masks,” she reminded the others as their cab drew up to the mansion steps.
She dragged her plain black silk mask from her pocket and slipped it over her eyes.
Isabel’s mask was handmade and as wild as its wearer—an extravagant concoction of glitz, feathers and trailing satin ribbons.
Natalie’s was gold satin bordered in matching sequins with a plume of gold feathers. It coordinated with her gold-beaded dress, which was so lethally short, Arianne asked, “Have you got gold panties on under there?”
With a wicked smile, Nat whipped up her dress, revealing a gold-beaded thong. Figured.
“Arianne.” Isabel put a hand on her arm. “You’ve got to lighten up, girlfriend. This is a party. Drink some champagne, have some fun, go wild.”
Natalie nodded, her gold feathers flapping like an extremely expensive bird’s wing. “She’s right. Life doesn’t always have to be serious. This is a night to let loose. Behind a mask, you can be anyone you want.”
“Or have anyone you want,” Iz insisted.
In the bustle of getting out of the cab, she didn’t have to answer.
They trod up the steps, three single New York women, a blonde, a brunette and a redhead. Just the sort of trio Rafe enjoyed welcoming.
The party was in full swing when they arrived. Once their invitations had been checked and they’d handed their coats to an attendant, they hovered together.
It always took Arianne a minute or so to adjust. The place was like something out of a fairy tale. Old and grand, it had been built in the gilded age by an industrialist who wanted to show off his wealth. Opulence was everywhere, in gilt sconces and antique Venetian mirrors. The floor was rose Carrera marble, stripped out of an Italian castle and brought over to America especially for the ballroom. The domed thirty-foot ceiling was painted in the Renaissance style with pink-cheeked cherubs and gauze-draped angels floating against a cloudy blue sky. She never tired of gazing at it.
For her friends to be back this year was a no-brainer. Isabel was at her most hedonistic during the holidays. For her, Rafe’s party was like an all-you-can-eat-boy-toy buffet. Nat was here for the shoes and the fashion. But Arianne was damned if she knew why she was here.
She told herself she came because it was politic to schmooze with the man who had helped her rise in her accounting firm. But she knew Rafe didn’t want to be schmoozed at his own party—besides, there were plenty of other women schmoozing and doing God only knew what else whenever he was around.
No. She hadn’t come for that.
She didn’t have Natalie’s passion for shoes, either, though it was undeniably nice to have a new pair of very expensive, very chic black shoes every year. On the RSVP, each party guest was asked to give their shoe size. Arianne always added her color preference—black. It was the most sensible color and allowed her to get more wear out of the shoes.
But shoes alone weren’t enough to draw her. She didn’t want to have sex with a stranger, either, which was Isabel’s thing. However, Arianne was beginning to wonder if the hollow ache in her stomach had more to do with sex than shoes.
Somehow, walking into that ball was like walking into a fairy tale. The setting inspired high expectations as though the prince would dance with her, and the shoes she’d leave with would be glass.
How pathetic was that!
At that moment she glanced up and caught Rafe, stunning in a tux, and the only person not wearing a mask, watching her. He told anyone who asked that since he hosted the Venetian ball, it would be inappropriate of him to wear a disguise
Arianne had no idea if that was his true reason, but his face appeared startlingly naked in a sea of masks. He drew her gaze, and she was more than usually aware of the sensuous features that made up his face.
His hair was blacker than a cave at midnight, his eyes only a shade lighter. Dark as bitter chocolate. His skin was tawny as though he’d just stepped out of the Tuscan sun, though Arianne knew he’d been born right here in New York.
He was tall and the extreme sports he indulged in kept his physique in top shape.
She sighed. No wonder women were drawn to him like flies to flypaper. He was rich, successful, young and gorgeous. The two blondes flanking him at the moment were a matched set, like his gold cuff links.
Seeing what her friend was staring at, Isabel said, “You’ve worked for him for two years. How come you haven’t worked late and ended up in bed?”
2
SHE SHOOK HER HEAD. “I would never mix business with pleasure. It’s totally unprofessional.”
Also, Rafe had never made any move suggesting they be anything other than colleagues, though for some reason she didn’t feel like sharing that with her friends.
“I don’t know,” Isabel said. “The way he looks at you, I don’t think he’s thinking about debits and credits.”
“Nonsense. He looks at every woman that way. It’s called Italian charm. A major component of the Monticello gene pool.”
“He doesn’t look at me that way. If he did, I’d ask for a personal tour of his bedroom.”
“Maybe he’s just not interested in one-night stands.”
Isabel turned away, and Arianne thought she saw a flicker of hurt in her friend’s eyes. Maybe it had been a tacky thing to say, but Isabel was the first to admit her idea of a long-term relationship was breakfast together the next morning. Rafe might be casual, but he wasn’t that casual.
And she hated even to admit to the sharp flash of…irritation she’d experienced at the idea of Rafe and Isabel sharing intimacies.
Natalie, who’d been gazing around the room idly, suddenly gasped. Beneath her gold mask her skin paled.
“What is it?” the other two asked in unison.
Nat swallowed and shook her head. “I thought I saw someone I used to know. I was wrong.” She forced a smile, but even through the mask her eyes glittered oddly. In a bright voice she said, �
��Look, Rafe’s coming this way.”
And so he was. Alone. He’d escaped from the pair of blondes—ditched them so politely, no doubt, they didn’t realize they’d been ditched.
“He’s sexy as hell,” Isabel whispered.
“He’s a womanizing playboy,” Arianne reminded her friend, topping up her own memory bank at the same time.
“Hey,” he said when he was close enough to be heard. He might look like the embodiment of a fairy-tale prince, but his conversation was modern American male.
He didn’t even do the Italian double-cheek-kissing thing.
“Hi, Rafe,” Natalie said.
Isabel made a quick scan of the ballroom before turning to greet their host. “Ciao, bello!” She flung her arms around him and gave a lusty squeeze. “Another fabulous party. Bigger crowd than last year, hmm?” She licked her lips in anticipation.
“More pairs of shoes being comped,” Arianne said.
A flash of amusement showed in his expression. “You’re always counting the cost, Arianne.”
Something about his tone made her think he wasn’t just talking about money. So she was a careful woman. She wasn’t going to apologize for the fact.
“Someone has to,” she reminded him tartly. “You’d bankrupt yourself on Tiffany’s trinkets alone if I didn’t keep an eye on things.”
The gleam of amusement became more pronounced. “Ah, but the pleasure I receive from…giving gifts is worth it. There are still things money can’t buy, Arianne.”
“Like the love of a good woman?”
“Exactly.” And what on earth was that supposed to mean? she wondered as she stared into his unmasked eyes, knowing hers were much less readable.
“Rafe,” Nat interrupted the silent clash of gazes, “who is that man over there in the black leather mask?”
Obligingly, Rafe turned and scanned the crowd. “There must be fifty men out there in black masks. Could you be more specific?”
“It doesn’t matter. There was a man I thought I recognized, but I think he’s gone into another room.”
A waiter walked up at that moment to offer them flutes of champagne. Arianne’s accountant brain shuddered at the extravagance even as her tongue quivered with delight when she tasted French champagne. Vintage, probably.
She caught his gaze on her, amusement once more crinkling his eyes in a disturbingly attractive way and she had the uncomfortable feeling he’d read her mind.
“What do you think? This is the nineteen-ninety vintage. I would have served the eighty-five, but there wasn’t enough in the cellar.”
Since she refused to lie and pretend she hadn’t been calculating how much this champagne cost when he knew damn well she had, she was stuck standing there, speechless. The other two were no help in rescuing her from being labeled a cheap spoilsport.
Isabel was already searching the crowd for single men who might be interested in a private party, and Nat…it was hard to tell what Nat was doing. Deep-breathing exercises maybe. She appeared to be on some whole other plane.
Which left Arianne standing with Rafe unable to come up with a single thing to say.
Usually they were friendly in a businesslike way, had been ever since they’d worked together on a charity event two years ago. He’d been a celebrity auctioneer as well as a major donor, and she’d been the event treasurer. They’d hit it off instantly. He’d enjoyed the challenge of driving up the bids, knowing it was for a good cause, and she’d been delighted to count and record the generous donations.
Shortly after, he’d transferred his personal business to the large international accounting firm that employed her, specifying he wanted Arianne assigned to his account.
She’d been flattered—was still flattered. It hadn’t hurt her career at all, either.
In spite of his playboy reputation, she knew how hard he worked and respected his intelligence and business savvy. However, he played just as hard, and while she didn’t much mind the heli-skiing, mountain climbing and scuba diving, she had less patience with the women.
But it wasn’t her business. She tracked his expenses, raised her eyebrows sometimes and teased him whenever she felt like it.
She had the odd feeing sometimes that he enjoyed flaunting his extravagant girlfriend-gifts under her nose. Like the time he spent three thousand bucks on an ice-blue camisole he’d carted home from some fancy lingerie place in L.A. frequented by celebrities.
“For three thousand bucks you’d think they could include panties,” she’d snapped.
“But that would be a waste,” he’d taunted her. “And I know how much you hate waste.”
Why was she thinking about that now? It was nothing to her if he bought ridiculously overpriced underwear for his women. She needed to get away from the disturbing thoughts his presence was generating.
“I haven’t seen your mother,” she said politely, firmly pushing thoughts of ice-blue camisoles from her mind. “Did she fly over for the party?”
Lucia Monticello spent long stretches of time in Milan in her design studio and overseeing production of her shoes. She was a perfectionist and a hard taskmaster, but she had enormous personal charm and inspired loyalty.
Her son had inherited his mother’s flair for business, but, Arianne thought, not Lucia’s passion for family. The only one who gave him a harder time than Arianne did about his disposable bimbos was his mother. She wanted grandchildren from her eldest son, and she wasn’t subtle about it.
“Yes. Mother flew home in time for Christmas. She’s around somewhere. I know she’ll want to see you.”
“I’d like to see her, too.”
“There you are, Rafe. Wonderful party!” Arianne turned to see a good-looking, very distinguished man, perfectly recognizable in the tiniest mask she’d ever seen.
“Glad you could make it, Senator.”
“Excuse me,” Arianne said, making a smooth exit, knowing she added nothing to Rafe’s consequence in the politician’s eyes. Now, if she’d been one of the well-known actresses at the party, or a model, it would be different. But a woman whose biggest asset was her brain…
What was the matter with her tonight? She should be having fun, sipping expensive champagne, dancing, flirting. Why should she care what Rafe’s fancy friends thought of her?
She walked away, disgusted with herself.
Isabel and Natalie had already melted away. She caught sight of Isabel chatting up a man whose assets were clearly visible. He had a stone jaw and a torso suggested he bench-pressed tour buses to keep in shape. Definitely Isabel’s type, she thought with a smile.
Natalie was nowhere to be seen. She’d seemed sort of odd a minute ago; maybe Arianne would try and find her.
She sipped her champagne as she wandered through the rooms. She knew a lot of the people present. Not everyone wore their masks. Some had the kind on sticks that you hold in front of your face.
Rafe’s mother, gorgeous and exotic in dark red velvet, was in the main ballroom. Her mask was black silk and sported two silhouettes of shoes outlined in something sparkly. Could be rhinestones, but Arianne wouldn’t be a bit surprised if they were diamonds. Vintage champagne for hundreds of guests, real diamonds on a costume mask—really, she was going to end up with an ulcer tonight.
Still, Lucia had worked hard all her life and earned her success. She was generous to her family, her friends, her staff and to charity. If she wanted to wear diamonds on her mask, she’d earned the privilege.
“Ah, Arianne, it is wonderful to see you.” Lucia’s eyes sparkled right along with the diamonds in her mask as she grabbed her and kissed her on both cheeks. Not air kisses, like most New Yorkers, but real loud smackers. Smooch, smooch. Arianne smelled her perfume, something heavy and exotic that she had made specially, and also a whiff of the Gitane cigarettes she insisted she couldn’t give up in spite of repeated nagging from her doctor and her son.
“You look simple and elegant, as always,” Rafe’s mother said. Her fashionista’s gaze was la
ser-sharp as it inspected Arianne from top to bottom. She could probably tell the dress was from last season as well as the Monticellos on her feet. “And those shoes? You like them?”
“They’re wonderful.”
Lucia nodded, agreeing. “And black. Always you choose black.”
“It’s the most practical color.”
She laughed, a deep, husky full-bodied sound. “Nonsense. A Monticello is never practical.” Arianne wasn’t sure whether she referred to the shoes or the family members and decided it was true on either account.
“I’m not sure why Rafe hired me, Lucia. All I seem to do is spoil your fun.”
“That’s ridiculous, my dear. We need your sensible streak and we love you for it. Besides, without us, you’d wear nothing but pumps.”
Another laugh shook Arianne at the truth of those words. “I’m sure I drive Rafe crazy.”
“Of course you do, that’s why you two work so well together.” A glittering smile, almost as bright as the diamonds she wore, crossed the woman’s face as if she were harboring a delicious secret.
3
RAFE WATCHED his two favorite women in the world chatting together. He’d been amazed when his mother and Arianne hit it off almost immediately.
It was a case of complete opposites attracting each other.
He wished the same chemistry had worked with him and Arianne, but she was never more than friendly with him.
She was driving him crazy.
Her cool ice-princess beauty had appealed to him instantly but it had been easy enough to resist because, in his experience, a decent accountant was a whole lot tougher to find than a beautiful woman.
It hadn’t been long, though, before he realized that what he felt for Arianne was different than what he felt for most women.
He enjoyed her company, her conversation, her smarts, her quick wit and considered her one of his few female friends. Within a month of her coming to work for him he’d felt she was the one. He’d known enough women in his time to recognize that what he felt for Arianne was more than fleeting attraction. He was Italian enough to believe in love at first sight.
