by Susan Wiggs
Now Elaine needed Axel more than ever. Acquiring the business of the Swiss billionaire would lessen the humiliation and soften the betrayal of losing Byron.
“If we manage to sign him, he’ll open the door to major accounts in Europe,” Elaine said as they went over the final details of tonight’s event, known for decades in the society pages as the St. James affair. Each year, as her grandparents had before them, her parents invited everyone who was anyone to their annual Christmas Eve bash. Unlike past years, however, this time they’d allowed Elaine’s firm to handle the planning. She didn’t want to screw up.
“What’s he like?” asked Bobbi. “I’m ninety-seven-percent sure I’ve never done it with a billionaire.”
“He’s perfect.”
“What, you’ve done it with him?” asked Mel.
“Of course not. But Axel and I go way back. Boarding school days, actually. Looks that good should be banned from boarding school. You’ll see.” Elaine felt a surge of ambition. Playing the power matching game and teaching someone else the ropes were what she did best. She never stopped playing or thinking of the next move. It was what kept her going, how she made sense of the world.
Melanie and Jenny put their heads together like a couple of battle commanders, mapping out a seating strategy for the party.
“I guess I’ll find out tonight.” Bobbi lowered her voice. “Um, Elaine … do you think I could get a teeny weeny advance on my check? I’m a little strapped.”
Elaine gritted her teeth. “Your advances are already taking you into the summer,” she said.
“I know, but it’s so expensive to keep up this lifestyle. Everything just piles up. My credit cards are totally maxed out. Tomorrow’s Christmas, Elaine. What do you say, honey?”
She forced her jaw to relax. Honestly, some people had no self-control or work ethic. “Stop by the office in the morning and I’ll write you a check.”
“Actually, I wasn’t planning on coming in tomorrow.”
“It’s our busiest time of year, Bobbi.”
“It’s Christmas.”
“I rest my case. Busy.” Elaine took a gulp of her drink.
“It’s only once a year.” Bobbi’s tone wheedled. “I was hoping to fly home to see my family. My sister Jimmi just had another baby. Oh, Elaine. What could be sweeter than a baby at Christmas?”
“A contract with a Swiss billionaire,” Jenny said.
Melanie ran a shiny-tipped finger down a list in her planner. “By the way, Elaine, your mom’s a peach to work with.”
Elaine forced a smile over the rim of her glass. “Isn’t she just?” In fact, Freddie St. James had given only the most grudging approval to Elaine’s list of suggestions. Despite her skepticism of the edgy menu items and trendy guest list, her appreciation of Elaine’s handling of the press had persuaded her.
To Freddie, the only thing more important than putting on a successful affair was having the papers report that she’d put on a successful affair. Perversely, having this goal in common had brought Elaine closer to her mother than she’d ever been. Now they were merely oceans apart instead of galaxies.
“You look nervous,” Jenny commented, tilting her head to one side to study Elaine. “You’re never nervous. What’s up with that?”
“It’s my parents’ party, for heaven’s sake.”
“So? We do parties all the time. We’re the best in town. People are still talking about the Helpline Foundation fundraiser we did last Thanksgiving in Bridgehampton. What’s really eating you?”
Elaine took a deep breath. She might as well spill. “I hate Christmas. I hate my life. Byron dumped me for a bra model.”
The announcement fell into a collective, stunned silence.
“But you were supposed to marry him,” Jenny said after a horrified pause. “His father practically owns a broadcasting empire. You two were going to be the ultimate media power couple.”
Bobbi leaned in close to give her a hug. Her forgiving nature made Elaine feel small. “Oh, honey,” Bobbi said in her delightful Southern accent, “We’re so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m more annoyed by his timing than anything else.”
“It’s not too late to find another plus-one for tonight.” Mel started a search on her Palm. “It’s Christmas. You can’t be dateless.”
Elaine bit her tongue. The truth was, she didn’t want a date. Or even Christmas, for that matter. She just wanted to make it through the holiday rush and get back to work.
“Tonight will be perfect,” Jenny declared, raising her glass. “Your parents will be blown away, we’ll have Axel eating out of our hands and everyone will live happily ever after.”
Elaine’s smile felt stiff as she lifted her champagne flute to her friends’ highball glasses. “To happily ever after.”
The bright sound of clinking glasses penetrated the din of piped-in music and high-octane conversation. She would get past this, Elaine told herself. Loneliness and yearning were for losers. Tonight would be perfect.
She watched the bubbles in her champagne cocktail. Through the half-empty glass, she spied something—someone—that made her freeze. She forgot to breathe, to move, to think.
Everything receded into a blur of color and sound, everything except him. He came into sharp focus, each detail about him familiar despite the passage of—she counted quickly in her head—seven years. Seven years this very day, in fact.
She felt trapped, yet at the same time helplessly enchanted, as though she were drowning in honey. All the intensity of first love came roaring back at her, possessing her, waking up feelings she had thought long dead.
It was, she discovered, physically impossible to tear her gaze from that broad-shouldered stance and easy smile, that air of assurance and electric sex appeal. Time had only deepened and sharpened the attributes that still sometimes haunted her dreams.
A classic Bob Marley tune filled the air.
“Elaine, what’s the matter?” asked Jenny. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
Ducking her head to hide the flush in her cheeks, she set down her glass. “The ghost of Christmas past.”
CHAPTER THREE
“WHOSE PAST?” Jenny demanded.
“My past.” Shaken, Elaine propped her chin in her hand and continued to gaze across the room at the tall, unforgettable silhouette, outlined by frosty winter light streaming in through the wide window.
Memories flooded her, of a brief time when Christmas had meant more to her than juggling a social schedule with a business plan. Against her will, she remembered those nostalgic days when the softest, most vulnerable part of her had felt safe with an unexpected stranger.
They never should have met in the first place. She belonged to a social class governed by strict but invisible rules. One of those rules prohibited her from fraternizing with guys like Tony Fiore. He came from a different world entirely, and that world had rules of its own. He’d been raised in a large Italian-American family in Brooklyn that believed, as much as the St. Jameses did, in sticking to its own kind.
At eighteen, she was only just discovering the world outside her privileged, insulated life. He was definitely a major discovery.
Now an older, possibly even more interesting, Tony Fiore stopped at a crowded table across the room. He started talking to the well-dressed patrons there. Every face at the table turned toward him as he spoke.
Elaine’s friends followed the direction of her rapt stare. “Holy mistletoe,” Mel said. “That guy?”
“Who is he?” asked Jen.
Bobbi patted Elaine’s arm. “Whoever he is, he’ll make Byron seem like a bad dream.”
“His name’s Tony Fiore. We met a long time ago, when we were in college.” Their lives had intersected for the first time at the ice rink at Rockefeller Center during Christmas break. Tony was attending Notre Dame on a hockey scholarship. She’d never forget her first glimpse of him. Crowds of tourists and regulars had jammed the ice, yet Tony Fiore had glided effort
lessly between couples and children and daredevil teenagers. His imposing profile and swift athletic strokes across the ice had caught her attention.
“Fiore.” Jenny studied him, her expression that of a jeweler inspecting a flawless gem. Elaine followed her gaze. Pale daylight flickered on his thick indigo hair, which lay in glossy, unruly waves that defied a conservative haircut. “I’ve never heard of him,” Jen continued. “How can that be?”
Elaine struggled to act blasé. She reminded herself of the way things had ended between them—or failed to end, depending on how you looked at it. They’d been Romeo and Juliet without the messy final act.
Hardening her heart, she said, “You wouldn’t have. He’s nobody.” Even as she said the words, her throat went tight. Nobody but the only guy who had ever convinced her that magic was real. Nobody but the guy who, on the night she’d gone to offer her heart to him, had stood her up.
“He looks like somebody to me,” Melanie said. “I can’t quite place him.”
“Maybe he’s a movie star,” Bobbi suggested, reaching across the table to snatch the cherry from Mel’s drink.
“If he was a star, we’d know who he is.”
“What’s he doing?” asked Bobbi.
Holding a clipboard with a pen attached, Tony Fiore moved to another table and greeted the people seated there. Again, everyone turned to him, and their faces lit up as though he’d flipped a switch.
“Maybe collecting pledges or donations,” said Jenny. “Who cares? Look at him.”
He set down the clipboard, bracing his hands on the table and bending slightly to lend someone a pen. They could now see the reflective lettering on the back of his bulky parka.
“Well, how about that,” said Melanie. “He’s a cop.”
Elaine stared at him. A cop? He was supposed to be a hockey star. That was the only way she’d made sense of what had happened to them. She’d assumed he’d realized he wouldn’t be able to juggle a professional athlete’s career with falling in love. Now she was forced to consider the idea that he’d thrown her over for the dubious glories of being a cop.
Bobbi shifted in the booth and fussed with the pashmina bunching in her lap. “He’s coming this way, isn’t he?”
Before anyone could reply, he approached their table.
Oh, that smile, Elaine thought, suppressing a groan. Those eyes, the color of melted chocolate. This man, she realized, had a face she couldn’t seem to stop dreaming about no matter how many Christmases had passed.
“Afternoon, ladies,” he said. That voice was another haunting memory that wouldn’t leave her alone. It was deep and self-assured, faintly brushed with the real-world tones of his native Brooklyn.
Elaine fixed a smile on her face, though everything from the neck down froze in panic. “Tony Fiore. It’s been a long time.” She wondered if he realized that tonight was the anniversary of their doom.
“Six years tonight,” he said, staring down at her with appreciation.
Well, thank God, she thought. If he’d failed to remember her, she would have died, right in the middle of Fezzywig’s. But the warmth in his eyes, the extra layer of color in his face, confirmed that he had not forgotten her.
She wondered if he recalled the feeling of holding hands, gliding across the ice, if he could never listen to Christmas music without thinking of her, if he lay awake nights and wondered what his life would be like if only he had dared …
“Seven,” she corrected him, not at all surprised he’d gotten it wrong. “But who’s counting?”
He smiled, his generous, sensual lips forming a dangerous curve. Yet, like the young, unpretentious man she’d known, he appeared to be completely unconscious of his devastating effect on women. There was nothing so sexy as a guy who didn’t realize he was sexy. His gaze frisked her from head to toe. “You look good, Elaine.”
“You, too.” She glanced questioningly at his clipboard. What she was really doing was looking for the expected wedding band. Surely a guy like this had a plump, happy wife and a couple of bambinos. Long ago, he’d told her he wanted exactly that, along with his NHL career. But to Elaine’s surprise, she saw no ring. “What’s up with that?” she asked.
“Fund drive,” he said unapologetically, nodding to greet her companions.
Aha, she thought. He was just like Larry the elf. Only taller. Darker. Handsomer.
Then he did the grinning thing she remembered so well. His eyes, with their thick, criminally long lashes, took possession of everyone around the table. Elaine’s friends opened to him like budding flowers to warm sunshine.
She had never been able to figure out how he did it, but he had a mesmerizing effect on people. Maybe it was the way he leaned forward a little, the warmth in his expression reaching out to everyone. It was like … magic. She flashed on another memory of the elf, promising her miracles.
Even Melanie, who was so cool she made ice cubes shiver, sighed audibly.
Elaine felt curiously exposed, running into Tony again like this. The past was behind her for a reason—so she wouldn’t have to look at it. Straightening her shoulders, she was determined to hide her vulnerability and brazen it out.
She made the introductions in the smooth, polished way she had perfected over the years, and with a little laugh that completely covered everything she was feeling, she said, “This is Tony Fiore, who broke my heart back when we were in college.”
“Yeah?” Jenny aimed a blatant invitation at him. “He’s breaking mine now.”
“I broke your heart?” He grinned, incredulous. “Very funny, Elaine. I did you a favor.”
She gulped down the rest of her drink. Could he really believe that?
“So spill,” Mel said. “You two were an item?”
“We dated like … three times,” Elaine said blithely.
Jenny gave a low whistle. “For most guys, that’s a long-term relationship.”
“So what are you collecting for?” asked Bobbi, squirming in her seat.
“Kids’ hockey league,” Tony said. “It’s a pet project of my division. We fund coaching and ice time in all five boroughs.”
Elaine wasn’t surprised. Hockey used to be his life. It was supposed to be his future, his career. She couldn’t help wondering about him as she studied this new, different Tony who hadn’t changed a bit, who still set her heart on fire. What was his life now? Expired licences and shoplifters?
“What can we do for you?” Melanie asked.
That entrancing smile never wavered. “Anything you can spare. It’s Christmas Eve,” he reminded them needlessly.
“That’s great that you’re helping out inner-city kids,” Jen said.
“It’s an outstanding idea,” Elaine announced.
“Thanks. I’m sorry to say, funds are low this year. We’re going to need a miracle to keep the league going.”
“You ought to have a gala.” Jenny beamed at him. “Trust me, we know about this stuff. We’re publicists.”
He looked blank.
“We are responsible for getting our clients’ faces in front of the press, or getting their products mentioned in magazines as the hot new must-have. That sort of thing,” Elaine said. “I’ve never heard of your organization. You should do some PR for exposure. It would increase your contributions tremendously. Trust me, I know the benefits of PR.”
“Yeah? What do you charge?” When she didn’t answer, he grinned. “I can’t afford you. Anyway, the time I put in is just as important.”
Everyone went for their bags. It struck Elaine that she hadn’t always hated Christmas. Sure, her self-disciplined approach to life had never allowed her to indulge too freely in the frivolities of the season. But, now that she thought about it, she once loved the warmth and joy of the season, the sentimental music and the spirit of generosity that took over even the most miserly of individuals. When had that hardened into annoyance and exasperation?
Watching Tony, she knew precisely when. It began the night he’d let her down. Right
then had begun a slow erosion of the spirit. Hope had deflated, giving way to bleak reality. She’d begun to view the world through the eyes of a cynic. In the most holy of seasons, she saw greed instead of generosity, phoniness instead of sincerity. She’d learned to expect the worst of people and she was never disappointed.
Hiding her troubled thoughts, she rummaged deep in her handbag, sifting through gear she toted everywhere but the shower.
No wallet.
She frowned and rummaged some more, searching for the smooth leather case stuffed with plastic cards and folded bills.
No wallet.
“Something’s wrong here,” she muttered. She dumped the contents of her purse on the table, then put them back one by one. She felt Tony watching, and realized he had focused on her key chain, the one with the silver skate. It had been a gift from him, years ago, the only thing he’d ever given her. So what? she thought. Let him make what he would of it. She knew why she carried it.
As she sifted through the clutter on the table, a sinking feeling plummeted through her. “Somebody stole my wallet.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“YOU’RE IN LUCK,” Melanie said, gesturing at Tony. “We got a professional right here.”
“It was the elf, or maybe the panhandler,” Elaine said, jumping up.
“You were with an elf and a panhandler?” asked Jenny. “Honey, you really do need to take some time off.”
“I dropped everything right in front of him and he must have grabbed it.” Elaine headed for the door.
A hand on her shoulder stopped her. “Don’t be in such a hurry.” Tony’s voice was the same slow, intimate murmur that used to melt her knees.
“What do you mean?”
“Your friend’s got it.” He nodded in Bobbi’s direction.
“Bobbi?” Confused, Elaine turned back to the table.
Bobbi’s face hardened, and suddenly she looked like a stranger, not the sister Elaine had brought into her heart. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bobbi said.
