by Jo Leigh
Rebecca was sidetracked by movement at the front door. William West had finally arrived. Although she couldn’t make out the details, how he ripped off his coat told her everything about his mood. So much for getting him to commit to an endowment tonight.
Then again, maybe not. Once he’d turned back from getting his coat checked, all signs of tension had vanished and he appeared to be his usual confident self as his gaze swept the room. He found her quickly, giving her a courtly nod.
He wasn’t much to look at. Average height, brown hair, a body that spoke of a golf hobby instead of a gym membership. He counted on his net worth to give him sex appeal.
Dani met him at the door, but West turned his back on her, which made Rebecca sit up damn straight. A woman Rebecca didn’t recognize then entered, wearing what looked like a very politically incorrect full-length fur. She was tall and slim and beautiful, and she looked good as she smiled at Mr. West. She also looked very young, but that was par for the course in this crowd.
Interesting that while West had sent his RSVP in for two, he’d led her to believe that his CFO was going to join him. Well, perhaps the leggy brunette was the CFO.
West took the woman’s arm and Dani led them to their table, making sure the waiter was on her heels with both wine and champagne.
Dani went from there directly to the kitchen. Rebecca relaxed, knowing the next course would be delayed in order to give West and his guest time to catch up. Luckily, the fourth course was salad, and when it did arrive, the removal of plates would be handled perfectly. She may have begrudged spending the money on this particular ballroom, but the catering staff at the Four Seasons was impeccable, always.
For the first time that night, she lifted her wineglass. Part two of fundraising: the hard sell, would come all too soon, but she could handle it. Jake said so.
JAKE HAD LOST BOTH BREE and Charlie. Him to the bar in search of pineapple juice, and Bree to the ladies’ room. Jake had watched in amazement as the banquet tables had been replaced by a dance floor and a number of cocktail tables had been set up on the periphery of the room. The entire operation hadn’t taken ten minutes. Impressive.
He’d found a spot far enough away from the dancing to avoid being stepped on while leaving the tables for the more needful among the crowd. He normally didn’t mind standing; he just wasn’t sure how his leg was going to hold out.
A hand on his arm had him turning, expecting Bree. It was, in fact, a woman he’d noticed earlier. He’d place her age in her late fifties, mostly because of the obvious work she’d had done. He doubted very much lips that large had come direct from the factory, or that she’d been born looking so surprised. What had struck him before was that, according to the papers, she and her husband owned a large portion of Manhattan, so obviously the woman could have afforded the best in plastic surgeons. Hell, maybe she was actually in her eighties and the doctors had outdone themselves.
“I don’t know you,” she said, her words slurred with whiskey. He imagined she wore a very nice perfume, but it couldn’t compete with the booze. “But you know Rebecca. Very well, I’m thinking.”
“I’m glad to say she’s a friend,” he replied, smiling as pleasantly as he could.
“Friend, my ass. I’m Paulina.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said, holding out his hand. “Jake.”
“You’re the best-looking thing at this dinner. Did you know that?”
He bit back a laugh. “That’s very kind of you.”
“Oh, don’t get excited,” she said, waving her hand so that her jewels flashed against the lights. “I’m not going to do anything about it. My husband doesn’t even mind. He knows I like to look.”
“Paulina!”
Jake looked up at Charlie’s voice, more grateful than he could say.
“We haven’t seen each other in ages,” Charlie said, taking her hand and spinning her away from Jake. “You get more beautiful every time I see you.” He gave her two air kisses and a smile that looked one hundred percent real.
“Charlie. Honey. You’re the best-looking thing at this dinner. Did you know that?”
“I did, Paulina, I did. There doesn’t seem to be a damn thing I can do about it, though. I’m just that handsome.”
She waved her hand again, laughing, and Charlie shoved a glass of juice at Jake before he guided the woman into the crowd.
“So he’s thrown me over for another woman,” Bree said, making Jake jump. The damn orchestra made it hard to know when people were approaching. “Is that my drink?”
He handed her the glass, then took a sip from his own. “He rescued me. Don’t give him any grief.”
“Well, damn, there goes my night.”
“You’re good together, you two.”
She grinned happily. “I think so. It’s weird though.”
“What?”
“Him being Charlie Winslow. I’m from Ohio. Before I moved in with Charlie, I shared a tiny one-bedroom apartment with four people. Now we share a floor. A whole floor.”
“It is kind of overwhelming,” he said. “How really rich they are. But most of the time, I don’t think about it.”
“I ignored it when Charlie and I first started going out, but it’s too big to ignore. It takes adjusting, on both our parts. He doesn’t even get it half the time. What he has access to is insane. His normal is about fifty times grander than my wildest fantasies.”
Jake thought about Rebecca’s condo; the view alone let him know he was in over his head. “I don’t think I’ll be around long enough to have to adjust.”
“Oh, no.” Bree stepped in front of him, pouting. It was actually very cute. “Don’t say that. Why did you say that? You guys are so great together.”
“We’re not even dating. Not for real. I have no idea why I’m here. We were a kind of setup thing. A mutual acquaintance. In theory, it was for one night only.”
“Huh,” Bree said, trying to hide her grin. “That’s a familiar tale.”
“Oh?”
“Our mutual acquaintance was Rebecca.”
“Huh,” he repeated.
Bree just wiggled her eyebrows.
Behind Bree, he caught sight of Rebecca, and the urge to join her was strong despite the fact that he knew she was working the room. She’d told him as much, apologetically, which he appreciated, but leaving no room for misinterpretation. Tonight was business, and he was…not.
On the other hand, her glass was empty. She kept bringing it up to her lips to drink, then lowering it as she recalled the tonic was gone.
“Charlie’s on his way back,” he said to Bree. “So if you’ll excuse me.”
“Sure,” she said, glancing from him to Rebecca then back. “Go get her, tiger.”
He ignored the crazy girl and went toward the bar. It took him longer than he’d like to get Rebecca’s drink, but when he found her again, she was still talking to the same guy, and her glass was still empty. Jake’s approach was stealthy, not wanting to disrupt the flow of her conversation, yet keeping the man’s back to him so that Rebecca had a little warning.
Only, when he got close enough, he heard the guy laugh. The sound stopped Jake short. He’d heard that laugh before. One other time, twelve years ago. He’d never forgotten it, not a chance, because it had belonged to Vance Keegan.
“Lip” Keegan had been part of a very large drug bust. He’d escaped, along with about half a dozen others, when things had gone to hell. Unlike the other runners, Keegan had seemed to vanish into thin air.
Jake moved in slowly, trying to avoid Rebecca’s attention until he could convince himself that he’d been mistaken. Even though the laugh was a dead ringer for Bender, a Futurama cartoon character, there had to be more than one person who sounded like that. Jake had been in charge of getting Keegan into the bus. He’d cuffed the guy, had him by the arm, and he’d let him get away. The piece of crap had laughed the whole way across the rooftop, a full block, right in Jake’s ear. But that had happened a lifetime ago, when Jake had been
a rookie.
The man with the uncanny laugh stepped closer to Rebecca. He reached over and touched her above the elbow. Jake moved in, right up between them, no excuses. Keegan stepped back, which was the point. Except it wasn’t Keegan.
The face wasn’t the same. The eyes were different, the shape of his jaw, his nose had been bigger. But shit, shit, under the mustache, this guy had been born with a cleft pallet. Same as Lip Keegan.
“Jake,” Rebecca said. “Is everything all right?”
He forced himself to look at Rebecca. As soon as he did, the time and place came back to him with a jolt. He must have made a mistake, which was weird and embarrassing enough, but he’d intruded on what could have been a crucial moment. “I apologize. I lost my footing,” he said, even more embarrassed that he was using his injuries to excuse himself. “I meant to refresh your drink.”
His lame excuse, God, the pun made him wince, had done its job. Rebecca visibly relaxed and her smile wasn’t at all forced.
“I’ll leave you to it,” he said, trading glasses with her.
“Wait,” she said, touching his arm. “I’d like you to meet William West. The CEO of West Industries.”
“Bill,” he said. Dammit, that wasn’t the same scar. Lip’s scar had been jagged, a mess. “You are?”
Jake took the offered hand. “Jake Donnelly. A friend of Rebecca’s.” The handshake was tight, and Jake supposed he was fifty percent responsible, but all his instincts were telling him that West was not who he claimed to be. Jake thought about Paulina and her artificial face, and he wondered. With someone good on the end of a scalpel, it was possible.
“Thanks for the drink,” Rebecca said, startling him again.
“My pleasure. I’ll see you later.” He nodded at West, then left, achingly aware of his limp and his confusion. He knew nothing about West Industries, but he did know that Keegan would have had twelve years to change his face, to reinvent himself.
On the other hand, the likelihood of Jake running into Vance Keegan at the Four Seasons was absurd. Still, he’d check it out, because even if the odds were he was as wrong as he could get, West was involved with Rebecca. If West did end up giving a grant or donation or whatever the hell people gave to foundations, Jake needed to be sure it wasn’t blood money. Rebecca would never want that.
She would want him here. Thinking about her, instead of a long-shot hunch.
He ordered a bourbon at the bar, left a tip, then went straight back to Charlie and Bree, still standing near the dance floor. Charlie had his arms wrapped around her and they looked completely into each other. In love. Jake put aside his concerns and played his part as if his life depended on it.
THE ORCHESTRA CAME BACK from their break as Bill West kissed the back of Rebecca’s hand. The gesture was creepy, but then the man was creepy, so what could she expect? It didn’t matter whether she liked him or not, or that he’d flirted with her right in front of his girlfriend, companion, whatever she was. It wasn’t difficult to see his friend hadn’t been too thrilled. Rebecca wasn’t either—not about the flirting, but how they’d ended the conversation. Even though West had said he was going to get involved with the foundation, no promise had been made, no dollar amount mentioned, and she’d needed both of those to happen tonight. On the plus side, they were going to meet privately later in the week. On the minus side, she’d have to see him privately.
Now the only pressing matter was finding Jake. She hadn’t yet introduced him to her parents, and while that prospect wasn’t thrilling, she figured she’d better. The last thing she’d want was for Jake to think she’d kept them apart. He’d never believe it was because she didn’t want him to meet them, not the other way around.
She missed Jake, even though he was in the same room. She liked him. He’d brought her a tonic and lime because he’d noticed her glass was empty. Didn’t sound like much, but in her experience it was almost unprecedented.
She spotted him on the other side of the dance floor. He’d been watching her. People kept blocking her line of sight, but only for seconds at a time as they danced by. He stayed where he was, watching, waiting. The room filled with the sound of strings, the violins romantic and dazzling, the cellos low and sexy.
They had to walk around the dance floor, but eventually, Jake was in front of her. She could reach out and touch him if she wanted.
She wanted.
Her hand went to the back of his neck and she drew him into a kiss. For a long moment there was nothing but his lips, the slide of his tongue, the warmth that spread through her body. He broke away, not far. She could still feel his breath on her chin.
“I’d sure like to do more of that,” he said.
“Me, too. Will you stay the night? I have a room upstairs.”
“Of course I will.”
She brushed the back of his hand with hers. She wanted to steal him away, forget the party, the introductions, the good-nights.
“I know you have to go back to your duties,” he said. “Dance with me first? Fair warning, it’s not going to be pretty.”
“Pretty is overrated.”
They put their drinks on the nearest table and went to a corner of the dance floor, where Jake took her around her waist, drawing her close. Rebecca slipped her arms around his neck, rested her head on his shoulder. They didn’t so much dance as sway, and even that was bumpy because Jake had to make adjustments.
It was altogether perfect.
The rest of the night would be so much more bearable knowing Jake would be there at the end.
11
AT ONE IN THE MORNING, there was absolutely nothing Jake wanted more than to get out of the ballroom, out of his tuxedo and into Rebecca. It didn’t look like an escape was imminent, though.
He’d have figured the orchestra would have stopped playing by midnight, but nope. They kept on pumping out tunes, most of them a little peppier than the sleepy waltzes they’d featured when the crowd had been at its peak. Charlie and Bree had cut out over an hour ago, and William West had left an hour before them. Unfortunately, Rebecca was still being set upon by people who clearly didn’t have work tomorrow. For God’s sake, it was a Wednesday night.
Rebecca continued to look stunning. As if she’d just arrived. Not a hair out of place, her dress as beautiful and slinky as it had been when he’d first seen her. How did women do it? Stand up all night on tiptoe? High heels had to hurt like a sonofabitch.
He went over to the buffet table where they’d put out coffee and pastries a while ago. Since his leg was as tired as the rest of him, he was fingering one of his pain pills in his tux pocket. It didn’t normally knock him out, but he didn’t normally drink when he took the pill.
The coffee turned out to be a good idea. Sipping something hot and familiar made him feel more relaxed, let him give his obsessive mind a rest.
If he wasn’t thinking about Rebecca, he was thinking about West. Keegan. That damn laugh, the lip. It was driving him crazy. That’s what happened to a man when there wasn’t a problem to solve that was more difficult than how to install bathroom tile. The mind turned to mush.
He was sinking into a really good sulk when he saw Rebecca coming toward him. He straightened, not giving a damn about his leg now, or his need for sleep. The nearer she got, the better his mood. Until he realized why the couple behind her looked so familiar. She’d said she was going to introduce him to her parents.
Fuck.
He put his coffee down on the buffet table and surreptitiously wiped his right hand on his slacks. Rebecca’s smile would have put him at ease if her parents hadn’t been right behind her.
“I’m sorry it’s so late,” she said, placing her hand on his arm and moving to his side. “I did want to introduce you to my parents before we left for the evening. Marjorie and Franklin, this is Jake Donnelly.”
He shook their hands. He smiled, but only slightly, kept his cool because he had been trained by the best captain in the continental United States, and he did not give aw
ay the game under any kind of pressure. “Pleasure to meet you both.”
“Rebecca hasn’t told us much about you, Jake. What is it that you do?” Franklin’s nonsmile reminded Jake of politicians and backstreet lawyers. He was unnaturally tan for March in New York, and he was fighting lean.
His wife was a beauty, and Rebecca favored her. Same honey-blond hair, same long face that sat right on the border of attractive in Marjorie’s case.
“I’m unemployed at the moment,” he said. “Doing some work on my father’s house. Figuring out what comes next.”
“Unemployed?” Franklin said.
“Yes, sir.” Jake had been shot in the line of duty. He was under no obligation to explain himself. A glance at Rebecca told him she’d have no problem if he left it at that. But these were her folks. He didn’t need to prove anything by being a dick, either. “I was in the NYPD. Major Case Squad detective. I was injured in the line of duty and took early retirement. I haven’t decided yet where I’ll land when I’ve healed up.”
Franklin stopped looking at Jake as if he was infectious.
“That must have been terrible for you,” Rebecca’s mother said.
“It hasn’t been a picnic, but I’m still here.”
“And we’re still here,” Rebecca said, leaving his side to kiss her father on the cheek, then her mother. “It’s late. Go home. I’m going to sleep soon.”
“Tonight was very well done,” Marjorie said.
“Thanks, Mom.”
Franklin said nothing. He nodded, then took his wife’s arm and went for the coat check.
Rebecca turned back to Jake. “Thank you. I probably should have prepared them.”
“For what? That I’m so good-looking?”
She grinned. “That, too. They mean well. They’re dinosaurs, you know? Stuck in time with very rigid boundaries. Charlie’s parents, too. The whole family, actually. I think they stopped evolving when they got lucky during the thirties.”
“Speaking of which,” he said, sliding his hands around her waist. “That dress makes me think of smoky jazz clubs and men in fedoras.”