A Black Tie Affair Read online

  “I’m giving you a private tour of the existing exhibit. I want you to see why I need the dresses to expand it to what it should be.”

  He hesitated for two thuds of her heart against her ribs before he nodded.

  “Great! See you tomorrow.” She waved and swung away before he changed his mind.

  At the museum, where she felt the most confident, she’d clear the air at last. Find some kind of closure with their past so she could stop thinking about what might have been and concentrate on what had to be done to keep her job and keep her promise to Makayla and her own family.

  CHAPTER

  10

  Drew slowly climbed the curved staircase to the second floor of the Fashion Institute of Chicago.

  He’d promised Connor he was immune to Athena. Impervious to old memories, old hurts. He’d meant it then. Now he wasn’t so sure.

  He’d come tonight to see Athena. See if she looked happier, like she had when they went sailing. Like she had yesterday when they found the second dress and stored it safely away. He’d come to make sense of their past.

  On the steps of the ambulance, had she felt his rush of desire when, her breasts crushed to his chest, he’d held her too tight and too long? If she hadn’t been wearing those damn glasses, he’d be able to see if it had affected her at all.

  I won’t let her break my heart again.

  He stopped, wondering why in the hell he’d think such nonsense. Hearts didn’t break. He knew about grief from personal experience. Knew losing a partner, parent, or child constituted the greatest stress the human psyche could ever suffer. He’d learned that, with time and help, people mended. Like he’d mended. Or he would finally mend, once he raced in the Fastnet for his parents.

  At last the time had come. England. The Fastnet. His gut clenched with raw excitement. Only a few more details to work out. Decide among the different types of sea anchors to stop the boat’s bow dead into the waves and the proper equipment to slow the boat when running before the wind. He’d been scheduled to look at some new technology tonight.

  Instead he’d come here, because Athena asked and the promise he’d made himself had changed.

  He stopped, realizing that again Athena had kept him from doing what needed to be done.

  He shook off the feeling at the top of the staircase and turned left toward her office. Before he could knock, the door swung open.

  Athena, still wearing those damn glasses, stood smiling up at him. “Welcome, Drew. I’m delighted to have this opportunity to show you what your generous support will do for the museum.”

  Her voice sounded different tonight. Determined. Curious, he peered past her, noticing picture frames scattered over a desk. The urge to get reacquainted, learn who she had become, got the best of him. “Let’s start with your office.” He strolled in, and she stepped back as if startled.

  “Are you all right, Drew?” She shook her head, her light golden hair swinging against her neck. “No headache? No effects after being so close to Bertha’s gown yesterday at Shelby’s?”

  He shrugged. “I’m good.” He paced around, trying to rid himself of a sudden rush of adrenaline. The pictures on her desk were of her sisters, parents, and two cats. Obviously, Drusilla and Junior. He strolled past another neat desk and a small, well-organized table of files in the corner. He knew Athena would love the charm of the marble fireplace and had probably chosen the large red sofa in front of it. The room looked like her. Carried her light floral scent with a hint of spice. “Nice, big light room. As a trustee, I’m happy to see the museum provides a healthy work environment.”

  “Seen enough?” she asked, clearly confused.

  Christ, I’m confused, too!

  He needed more time. He looked around for an excuse to prolong this. “Hey, what’s this?” He strolled over and opened a heavy carved door with a brass doorknob. The closet held nothing but one long black dress and a sachet of her perfume, more intense and exotic in the smaller space. “Roomy closet. Pretty dress. Yours?”

  She stepped in front of him and closed the door. “I’ve seen your closet. It’s much bigger than mine. Yes, thank you, it is my very special dress. My first vintage piece, which started my passion for all things old.”

  Does she have a passion for old relationships? I sure as hell do.

  The idea smacked him in the face. Knocked all the other nonsense out of his head. He knew he’d come here tonight for this. To close the door on the past.

  Or did I come to open a new one?

  The need grew stronger watching Athena move with an unconscious grace across the room. He felt reckless, and the desire to see where this might lead drove him to smile and take her arm when she purposefully walked out into the hall. He felt her tense, but she didn’t ask him to stop touching her. He didn’t want to stop. They weren’t teenagers any longer. He wasn’t her hero, fallen off his pedestal, and she wasn’t the perfect goddess he’d expected her to be.

  “We’re going to the Georgian Neoclassical room,” she said quietly.

  Still he held her arm, letting her lead him though the dimly lit museum. He knew from being a trustee that by this time the staff would be gone and the lone night guard made his rounds only every two hours.

  Her heels clicked on the tile floor as she led him into the part of the museum full of arches and pillars. Even in the diffused light, the display cases of glassware and china gleamed in rich, vibrant colors along the circular walls.

  She stopped in front of a long, low case. “This exhibit is the china and crystal that Chicago’s founding families, the Palmers, Fields, and Clayworths, would have used for their lavish black tie dinner parties. These gold chargers and gold-rimmed crystal goblets are from your family.”

  He scrutinized the case, trying to appear interested. “Yeah. I remember these. We used them every night.”

  “You did not!” She laughed.

  Captivated by the catch of happiness he heard in her voice for the first time, he grabbed her hand, rubbing his thumb lightly over the bruise at her wrist. “C’mon. Show me more.”

  Her blush made his blood pound.

  He allowed her to slip out of his fingers, but he didn’t take his eyes off her as she twirled around the room.

  “For history to have social value, it needs to be personal and intimate, revealing the problems, the passions of people in the past. Then it connects with the present. Comes alive. I want you to imagine how this room will look when we get funding. This will be a ballroom. I want everyone to be able to see, feel, what it was like with music and beautiful people dancing. It’s important to appreciate our rich history. It helps to better understand our more sterile world today. Perhaps encourage putting more beauty in our daily lives. Bertha’s dresses will help make that happen.”

  The urge to do just that pulled him across the room to her side. “I’ll make sure you get the dresses on two conditions.”

  She stared up at him. “There are no conditions. We have a deal.”

  God, I want to see your eyes. Need to know how you feel. Here. With me. Tonight.

  He laughed, but the sound caught deep in his chest. “Humor me. Take off those glasses. They’re always falling off your nose anyway.” He slid them off her adorable nose before she could stop him.

  “What are you doing? Give those back,” she demanded, the words echoing against the high ceiling.

  She cringed, looking guilty for not whispering in these hallowed halls.

  Her eyes seemed bigger and a deeper aquamarine than they had in the hospital.

  He held the glasses up and peered through them. Nothing but plain tinted glass. “You don’t need these to see.”

  “What are you up to this time?” She glared and grabbed again for the glasses.

  He jammed them into a front trouser pocket. “Come and get them,” he dared.

  He saw a nerve throbbing at her throat. His pulse seemed to be matching the beat.

  She put her hands behind her back and glared at him.
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  “Hey, I’m performing a public service. On behalf of the museum, aren’t you interested in my other condition?”

  She thrust her chin to the ceiling. “I didn’t ask you here to play games, Drew.”

  “You asked me here to prove your point. Fair enough.” He rammed his hands into his pockets, fingering the delicate glass frames. “You get the Bertha gowns for your exhibit if you put on your black dress and help me feel a black tie affair here.”

  Her breasts beneath her white, silky blouse rose and fell. “Now you’re hallucinating. I’m not putting my dress on for you.”

  Faking indifference, he shrugged. “As a contributor to the museum, all I’m asking is a sample of what the exhibit will look like. Your development department has done it many times before to solicit underwriting for exhibits. Think of it as your bit for historical preservation.”

  He saw faint amusement curve her full mouth, and her eyes widened like she’d thought of something exciting.

  “All right. I’ll do it. But it will cost you the dresses plus your help with Edna Keene and the board of trustees to gain support for the new scholarship program.”

  Exhilaration pumped through him. He sensed the dress had special meaning for her, and he wanted her to wear it for him. “Consider it done.”

  She shook her head, her hair looking like swirling liquid gold around her shoulders. “This is utter madness. Wait here,” she ordered. “I’ll be back.”

  He watched her walk away. Halfway across the room, she stopped and looked back, like she’d felt him staring at her.

  She flashed him a smile that had him drooling like those interns in the ER.

  “Since we won’t have any music for our ball, I’ll sing.”

  “I should sing. That would teach him a lesson for blackmailing me into putting on this dress.”

  In the full-length mirror on the inside of the closet door, Athena watched herself fumble with the tiny buttons on the black gown. “No wonder Bertha needed two people to help her into dresses like this,” she muttered to herself, finally managing to attach the last hook and eye.

  Sucking in her stomach, she turned to view the dress. Thank God, it still fit her.

  Her waist looked itsy-bitsy, her bosom full, her décolletage creamy against the jet and black velvet, her arms graceful in the long sleeves.

  She stared at herself in the mirror. Maybe she didn’t need the glasses. The haunted look in her eyes had faded. Now they looked wide and slightly wild.

  “Because I’m scared half out of my wits. And obviously I’ve lost the other half of my mind, or I wouldn’t be playing dress-up for Drew Clayworth. Dresses or no dresses.” She laughed at her reflection. “It’s official. I’ve totally lost my mind. I’m talking to myself.”

  She found the loop on the train, slid her finger into it, and lifted the hem. All right, she’d make him feel a black tie affair given in one of the great mansions on Prairie Avenue, old Chicago’s “street of the stately few.” His family had had a red-brick French-style mansion on the genteel, wealth-laden street back when Chicago’s fans called the city the gem of the prairie and its critics called it a universal grog shop. Before all the oldest, wealthiest families moved to Lake Forest.

  Inevitably, thoughts of the Clayworth estate brought visions of her and Drew on the fateful Christmas night. Tonight all the memories came out of hiding. She was coming out of hiding to close that door.

  Terrified—but determined, she reminded herself—she glided back downstairs to explain her actions the night everything changed between them, and then she’d ask about her father. If her courage didn’t fail her.

  She found Drew leaning one broad shoulder against a pillar.

  He lifted his eyebrows, straightened, and lazily strolled to where she waited in the center of the room.

  “You look beautiful. I’m sorry I’m not wearing black tie.”

  “You’re not sorry! I’ve seen the donor benefit guest list. You usually decline to put on your tux at the last minute.”

  “Guilty as charged.” His beautiful mouth curled into a deep smile. He reached out and pulled her gently closer. “Shall we dance?”

  A wicked little spark of excitement made her slowly smile back. “I’ll hum.”

  “Go for it,” he chuckled into her ear.

  Held in his arms, gliding around the dim room, she began humming, “I Could Have Danced All Night.”

  It sounded truly awful, and she thought of stopping to put him out of his misery, but then she felt his slight wince and his arm tightened around her, trying to disguise his reaction.

  Memories of other, happier times roared back. She hummed louder and broke into full song, sounding worse and worse.

  She felt him shaking with silent laughter as he twirled her faster and faster around the dim room, the faint light a halo around them.

  He chimed in with a nice clear tenor, as if trying to help her find the right key.

  Refusing to give in, she sang even louder, her voice rising to a high, squeaky croak. He twirled her faster, their dreadful duet broken by snatches of their gasping laughter.

  She tried to ignore the slow, warm, diffused excitement coming up from deep inside to glaze her skin with heat.

  In the middle of the room, at the height of the song and their laughter, he dipped her so low her shoulder-length hair brushed the floor.

  He brought her up, and his face looked alive with delight. “It’s reassuring to mere mortals that you’re not perfect. You still have a tin ear.” He laughed like he couldn’t stop. Deep, full of joy.

  She caught it, joining in, dazzled by him.

  He’s close enough to kiss.

  Her laughter died in her throat and she took one step back.

  His arm tightened around her so she couldn’t move.

  Time fell away like it had in the Secret Closet. The past rushing forward to collide with the present.

  He lifted her chin with his thumb, and she felt him stroke her cheek. Ever so slowly, he lowered his head and she closed her eyes, wanting his kiss.

  His lips brushed against her mouth and a shock rippled through her body. For one insane instant, she opened her lips wider, letting his tongue trace the contours, tasting her. Tasting him. Molding her lips to his wonderful, warm, sensual mouth.

  No!

  Fear brought sanity, and she pulled away. She drew a deep, strengthening breath, trying to recapture her courage. “For a second you let me in,” she whispered.

  His eyes narrowed into slits, the concentrated cornflower blue seared through her. “I let you in once before. Remember?”

  He opened the door, and she had to walk through.

  “Yes, I remember. I betrayed you, and you’ll never forgive me.” She said it in all its stark reality.

  Something flickered in his eyes. He dropped his arms and stepped back.

  But he still seemed to be touching her. She felt his heat. Felt tension quivering around them. Time seemed to stand still. Waiting for her to make another mistake.

  No matter what it cost her, she needed to finish what she’d started a lifetime ago. “I don’t need your forgiveness for what I did. I’d like your understanding. I told your uncle that you were leaving school to go sail in the Fastnet because I was seventeen and terrified that you’d be killed like your parents. I truly believed that I was the only person on the planet who could keep you safe.”

  She forced herself to keep gazing into his eyes, to somehow penetrate the barriers he’d set up, so smooth, so light, so unassailable. “Maybe I could have done it differently, but I didn’t know how. All I knew was that I had to risk losing our relationship to save you.”

  She had to look away, couldn’t let him see what it cost her to dredge up these feelings of aching fear and love.

  He gave nothing away. His face was cool and beautiful in the dim light.

  I need to get away. Now!

  She gathered up the hem of the gown in both fists. “I’ll change and let you out. The secu
rity code is already set.” She turned and ran.

  She ran away from his silence The only answer he’d given. She knew it was stupid to go over the past like this, as if she could change it, or he could understand it at last.

  How could she stop memories, really? They lived inside, replaying over and over the feeling of being kissed by Drew with a slow, sensual heat and wanting to kiss him back forever. Wanting to give him everything like she’d once offered. Like she’d offered tonight.

  He’d rejected her then and now.

  Drew let her go, determined to regain his usual detachment. Determined to stop his urge to go after her and pull her back into his arms.

  Christ, he wanted to understand. Wanted to forgive. Wanted her.

  Somewhere, back in the recesses of his subconscious, the truth knocked every other excuse over like a game of dominoes until any fool could see it. Without truth serum, with nothing but the ache in his gut, he knew he’d never stopped wanting her.

  Just like he’d first wanted her at nineteen.

  It had been inappropriate then. Absolutely. Impossible.

  They had been too young, too inexperienced, and he had been too rubbed raw from pain.

  Restless, he roamed around the room. All this sexual energy, all his aching regrets, all his pounding yearnings building inside him needed an outlet, a way to make her understand his feelings.

  Christ, I need to understand.

  He let all the memories roar back in. Athena breaking her promise to keep his secret. His rage and pain at being betrayed by the one person he trusted above all others. He’d been vulnerable on so many levels he couldn’t admit. Sometimes he still felt like that vulnerable boy believing that he’d betrayed his parents with his judgment and they had betrayed him with their choice to leave him behind.

  Then he’d been an impetuous kid, lashing out at the world, lashing out at Athena. Yes, she’d hurt him and potentially saved him by doing it. Or so she truly believed.

  Maybe I believe her.

  He stopped and gazed down at his family’s trappings of wealth. The solid gold ornaments. The priceless jewels on the napkin holders. Beautiful, tangible symbols of their power. For one hundred and fifty years, Clayworths had taken chances, fought overwhelming odds to seize what they wanted.