Callie remembered she had made that suggestion. But only jokingly. Probably hysterically, considering her state of mind at the time. She hadn’t seriously expected Lijah to arrange for the two of them to attend an event at which the senator would also be present.
Could she do that?
Could she go to this musical recital, where the man responsible for killing Michael and her father was also going to be?
Where he might also see and recognize her, and possibly guess he was her reason for being there?
If it meant avenging her father and Michael, then yes, she could do it.
She flexed and forced some of the tension out of her shoulders. “What if he recognizes me?”
“How were you dressed the night of the gala at the gallery?”
She frowned. “Plain black long-sleeved dress. All the female staff were wearing the same thing.”
He nodded. “How did you wear your hair?”
“In a French knot. We were all working that evening, and Michael liked us to look professional,” she explained the formality.
“Then tonight you wear the sexy gown in the box and your hair down, and leave it up to me to ensure you’re never close enough to Stockton so that he gets a good look at your face.”
“Going to wear your Stetson with a tux?” She made the joke because imagining Lijah in a tux at all was doing strange things to her heart rate.
Despite his preference for casual clothes and the ubiquitous Stetson, Callie had absolutely no doubts Lijah was going to look devastating in a dinner suit. His wide shoulders and chest would be shown to perfection in a tailored evening jacket, as would his taut abdomen, narrow hips, and long legs.
Yes, Lijah was going to look breathtakingly elegant in a tux.
His expression lightened. “Just for you, I’ll leave the Stetson at home this evening.”
And just as quickly as that, there was suddenly a stillness in the air, a physical awareness that hadn’t been there seconds ago. A knowledge of exactly what had happened between the two of them the previous night.
Lijah was aware of Callie’s tension and inwardly kicked himself when last night was probably something she would rather forget had ever happened.
He wasn’t a fool, knew she had been traumatized and grieving last night, but was sure to be having completely different feelings about it in the bright light of day. Which was why he hadn’t made so much as a reference to it this morning.
What his own excuse was for his behavior last night was something else entirely. Yes, he was also upset and angry about Peter’s needless death, but he faced those sorts of dangers and losses on a daily basis. He didn’t fuck the first available woman on a daily basis afterward.
He hadn’t had sex with Callie for that reason either.
Be honest with yourself, Lijah, you wanted her from the first moment you looked into those sapphire-blue eyes.
That want had only increased the more time he spent in her company.
Culminating in them being together last night. Being together? The sex with Callie had been nothing like his usual skirmishes of two bodies seeking pleasure together. He and Callie had connected on a different level totally, making it so much more than the usual good time physically.
Lijah couldn’t allow it to happen again. No matter how much he might want to. “Callie, last night—”
“‘Was a mistake’? Or maybe you prefer ‘it never happened’?” She looked up at him challengingly.
What the hell—
She gave a shake of her head. “I’ve known men like you the whole of my life, Lijah.” She sighed. “Hard, battle-scarred men who prefer hit-and-run with a woman—usually with an emphasis on run—rather than happy ever after. It’s the reason I liked Michael so much—” She broke off abruptly before smiling sadly. “It’s okay, I know what last night was, and I’m really not the type of woman to read any more into it than there was.”
Fucking hell.
It was one thing for Lijah to decide he had to make it clear to Callie last night had been a one-off, simply an anomaly brought about by circumstances, and another thing entirely for her to second-guess him and say it first.
He looked at her blankly for several seconds before giving a hard bark of laughter. “You’re one kick-ass woman, Callie Morgan.”
“I’m my father’s daughter,” she came back wryly.
“Yes, you are.” Lijah nodded his approval.
Callie returned his gaze for several seconds before turning away. She had told Lijah what he wanted to hear. She couldn’t bear for him to see the truth in her eyes. That she was starting to care for this man. Not just a liking the way he looked, the macho power that surrounded him like a cloak, or the fact that he could arouse her with just a look. She liked Lijah Smith.
The timing was awful, and Lijah wasn’t a man it was in any way wise for her to care about, but she liked him anyway. Maybe more than liked him?
That was certainly a question—and an answer—for another day.
“So what time are we going out?”
Lijah shrugged. “It’s arrive for seven o’clock, music recital at seven thirty, so I guess we’ll leave here about six thirty. It will probably all be over by ten, ten thirty.”
“Our host isn’t a late-night party animal, then.”
“Hardly,” he drawled.
“Do we have dinner first, or is there going to be food?”
“Drinks and canapés.” His grimace showed what he thought of the food. “I could definitely eat a steak before we go. The whole cow, probably.”
She quirked teasing brows. “Then it’s as well there were half a dozen steaks in the food delivery.”
Lijah gave a grin. “Not an accident, I assure you.”
“I didn’t think so,” Callie acknowledged dryly.
“I’ll nuke the potatoes and cook the steaks, if you make up the salad. Deal?”
“Deal.” She nodded, determined to relax and try to enjoy this interlude with Lijah.
The rest of the evening was another matter entirely.
“The White House?” Callie turned to look at Lijah incredulously once they, and their car and driver, had been passed through the security gates.
Duncan was chauffeuring them tonight. He was even wearing the hat as they joined the queue of other guests sitting inside their cars, waiting to disembark beneath the portico at the real front of the historic building, the fountain in the middle of the garden lit up in the early evening.
Lijah shifted uncomfortably beside her, and not because of the restricting tux, formal white shirt, and bow tie he was wearing. “I didn’t think you would agree to come if you knew where we were going.”
“You were right!” she all but squeaked. “How the hell did you manage to get the two of us an invitation here on such short notice—scrap that question, how the hell did you manage to get us an invitation here at all?”
He shrugged. “Told you I know a lot of people in a lot of places.”
Callie eyed him suspiciously. “Does this have anything to do with the fact that you went to Eton and Harrow?”
“It might have,” he answered her guardedly.
“The ‘old boys’ network?”
“Something like that.”
He was still being far too evasive for Callie’s liking. “Lijah, is there anything I should know before we go inside?” She could hardly believe she was talking about The actual White House, official residence of the president of the United States for over two hundred years.
“About what?”
“You!” She frowned her frustration.
Lijah looked just as splendid in a tux as Callie had thought he would. He also looked and moved as if he had been born to wear the perfectly tailored black evening suit. His hair had still been damp from the shower and brushed back from his face when he joined her downstairs a short time ago, his jaw freshly shaven and revealing that endearing cleft in the center of his chin.
For a man who had more resembled a disrepu
table tramp the first time she met him, Lijah Smith scrubbed up spectacularly well. He looked more like a movie star this evening than a tramp.
“Well?” she challenged impatiently.
“Just follow my lead, okay?” he muttered as the car came to a halt and the back door was opened by a manservant who stood patiently waiting for them to get out. “Make sure you keep the car ready and waiting in case we need to leave in a hurry, Duncan,” he instructed the other man quietly, before following Callie out into the cool evening air and taking a firm hold of her elbow as they entered the residence together.
“Sure there’s nothing you want to tell me?” Callie’s wide gaze took in everything. The formal staff. The other glamorously suited and gowned guests all slowly making their way up the deep-red carpeted staircase, toward the reception room where the musical recital was to be held.
It was all so surreal, she almost forgot the real reason they were here.
Almost.
Because she couldn’t stop herself from casting surreptitious glances at the other chattering and laughing guests, searching for that one distinctive silver head that would reveal Jacob Stockton had also arrived. So far, she hadn’t seen anyone who looked even remotely like him.
“Have I told you how beautiful you’re looking this evening?”
Callie sent Lijah a reproving frown. “Stop trying to avoid answering my questions.”
He feigned a look of innocence. “Was that what I was doing?”
“Oh yes!”
Lijah shrugged. “Just go with the flow, Callie,” he advised as they neared the top of the stairs and the member of the household announcing the names of the guests as they passed through into the reception room where the president and his wife were waiting to greet them. “And I meant it,” he murmured against her ear. “You do look beautiful tonight.”
“Thank you,” Callie accepted the compliment huskily.
She had almost been afraid to look inside the gold-embossed box earlier once she knew what was inside it. She needn’t have worried. She had loved the sapphire-blue sequined gown on sight. She hadn’t needed a price tag—just as well, because there wasn’t one—to tell her the gown would have cost more than most people earned in six months. There was also an evening bag and shoes to match, along with a midnight-blue silk pashmina for her to drape about her shoulders as the evening cooled.
What could she say? Even in adversity, she was still a woman, and she hadn’t been able to resist trying on the knee-length gown after lifting it out of the box and seeing how gorgeous it was. A simple sheath in style, it was also high necked and sleeveless, and clung to every curve of her body. Callie had never seen, let alone owned, such a beautiful gown before.
It was also the exact same shade of sapphire blue as her eyes.
Because Lijah had described the color of her eyes as well as her size to the “sales assistant”?
Lijah Smith was turning out to be a man of many surprises.
He was also a man of illusions, Callie realized. The Stetson. The long unkempt hair. The disreputable clothing. The scuffed cowboy boots. All a deliberate illusion, she realized now, designed to hide the real Lijah Smith.
His hand tightened on her elbow as they were next in line to enter the reception room. “Remember, just go with the flow.”
Callie’s nervousness was increasing, not diminishing, as she sensed Lijah’s own increasing tension, his fingers painful on her elbow and his expression remote as he handed over their gilt-edged invitation.
The White House staffer turned to address the room before announcing, “The Most Honorable Marquess of Stanford and Miss Caroline Morgan.”
Chapter 12
“The Most Honorable—”
“Don’t start, Callie,” Lijah bit out between clenched teeth. “Just say hello nicely to the president and the First Lady, and let’s move on.” He kept grimly facing forward as they approached the presidential couple.
Callie was still so dazed by the announcement of Lijah’s title—she presumed it really was his title?— she was barely aware of meeting the president and his wife. Or what Lijah said to them both before the two of them moved farther into the room, where a string quartet played softly in the background as a precursor to the night’s entertainment.
Lijah accepted two glasses of champagne from a passing waiter and handed one to Callie. “Drink up,” he advised, as she couldn’t seem to stop staring at him.
Callie took a much-needed swallow of the chilled wine before even attempting to speak. “You really are a marquess?”
Lijah continued to survey the room through narrowed eyes. “Unfortunately, yes.”
“And your real name is?”
“Lord Elijah Barrington-Smythe, the Marquess of Stanford, and a couple of other titles I also never use,” he revealed with obvious reluctance. “And if you tell that to anyone outside of this room, I may just have to kill you!”
“Does that mean your father…?”
“Is a duke?” Lijah finished. “Yes.”
“And you’ll one day become a duke too?”
A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw. “When the evil old bastard dies, I’ll become the Duke of Northampton, yes.”
And Callie had thought coming to the White House was surreal.
She gave a dazed shake of her head. “I don’t understand…”
Lijah’s eyes glittered dangerously as he looked down at her. “There’s nothing to understand. You just heard my official current and future titles. I obviously choose not to use the former, and probably not the latter either when the time comes. I only resorted to using them this evening to get the two of us in here. End of story.”
Callie doubted that very much. The fact that Lijah called his father an “evil old bastard” spoke volumes. It definitely implied it was a situation between father and son that had caused the family rift she had referred to yesterday and to which Lijah had reacted so strongly.
She might be biased, but she was inclined to go along with Lijah’s opinion of his father being the one at fault.
Which didn’t change in the slightest that Lijah was actually Lord Elijah Barrington-Smythe, the Marquess of Stanford and future Duke of Northampton.
“What do I call you?”
He scowled darkly. “Bastard. Whatever. Any of the names you’ve already called me will do.”
“Lijah Smith was the best alias you could come up with?” She eyed him incredulously.
Some of his tension eased. “It satisfies most people.”
It had satisfied Callie too until a few minutes ago. Although she had doubted that Lijah Smith was his real name. As she had guessed, from the conflict of the aristocratic accent and those disreputable clothes he wore, there was something about him that didn’t add up. It added up now.
At the same time as it also posed more questions than it answered.
What could have happened between Lijah and his father to cause a rift so serious he chose to disown his own birthright?
Why did he refer to his father as “an evil old bastard”?
Where was his mother?
Did the other men working at Grayson Security know who Lijah really was?
What—
“Ah, there you are, Stanford!” a British voice greeted smoothly. “So glad you could make it. And this must be Miss Morgan?” The man smiled at her. “Would you care to make the introductions, Elijah.”
“Callie, this is Bill Bartholomew. He works at the British embassy here in Washington and is responsible for our invitation here this evening. Bill, Callie Morgan,” he made the introductions tersely.
“I’ve also been put in charge of taking care of the…situation, from last night,” Bill Bartholomew confided softly. “You have my condolences, Miss Morgan, and you may rest assured we at the embassy are available to be of assistance to you at any time.”
“Thank you.” Callie didn’t know what else to say.
“Bill and I were at school together,” Lijah supplied reluctan
tly.
Because Callie had been right in her surmise regarding the “old boy” network. “Eton or Harrow?” she prompted as she and the other man shook hands. “And please call me Callie.”
“Bill,” he reciprocated warmly. “Eton, of course,” he answered with a derisive glance at Lijah.
The two men were totally different to look at. Lijah was…well, Lijah. Bill Bartholomew was short and rotund, with warm brown eyes and a boyish grin.
Lijah certainly knew some interesting people—Lijah was an interesting person himself. And becoming more so by the minute.
“You can let go of her hand now, Bill,” Lijah told the other man dryly.
“Maybe I don’t want to.” Bill tucked Callie’s hand into the crook of his arm. “I’m taking Callie over to say hello to His Excellency Her Majesty’s Ambassador to the US. You can come with us, if you would like to,” he added to Lijah before moving away.
Lijah’s eyes narrowed as Callie glanced over her shoulder at him with an expression that clearly said he’s your friend, do something!
What he did was drain the champagne from his glass and place it on the tray of a passing waiter before following them. He knew from experience there was no stopping Bill once he had decided on a course of action. Besides, meeting the British ambassador would divert Callie’s attention from asking Lijah any more questions about himself. For the moment, at least.
Lijah hadn’t used his title in seventeen years, and he felt uncomfortable using it now. Wouldn’t have done so if it wasn’t for the fact that Callie needed to hear Jacob Stockton speak.
Coming here as the Marquess of Stanford left him open to all sorts of complications.
No one in the army had known his real name or title except his commanding officer, who happened to be Peter Morgan.
No one at Grayson Security knew his real name or title, at all.
But his father had enough connections to hear of his only son’s appearance at the White House tonight. Maybe not immediately, but he had no doubt his father would hear of it eventually.
Renegade Alpha (ALPHA 5) Page 12