UNINHIBITED

by Candace Schuller

  Resisting the urge to turn tail and run, Zoe lifted her chin instead and followed her hostess around the room to be introduced to the rest of her guests. These people were the movers and shakers of Boston society, she reminded herself as she smiled and made small talk, the very people she would need to cultivate to make New Moon the success she knew it could be. Her knees might be shaking beneath the flowing bronze silk of her gown, but these people would never know it.

  "You remember Katherine Hightower, don't you, Zoe?" Moira said as they approached the formidable old dowager. "I think you met her niece Margaret, too, that day at the hospital when Reed's secretary had her darling baby boy."

  "Yes, of course," Zoe said politely, struggling, suddenly, against the inane urge to tug the bodice of her dress higher on her chest. It was perfectly modest, by any standard; she'd just have to remember not to turn her back on the old biddy. "It's a pleasure to see you again, Mrs. Hightower," she lied blandly. "Miss Hightower."

  "I understand you and Moira have gone into business together," Katherine Hightower said when Moira excused herself to greet another guest.

  "Moira has invested in New Moon, yes," Zoe said. "We signed the agreements a few days ago."

  "Cosmetics." Katherine Hightower sniffed disdainfully. "A frivolous business. You do know, don't you, young woman, that the vast majority of such businesses fail miserably within the first year?"

  Zoe's chin lifted a notch higher. "Mine won't," she said.

  "That's telling her, darlin'," said an unfamiliar voice in her ear.

  Zoe turned her head toward the owner of the voice and found herself nearly eyeball-to-eyeball with a golden Apollo of a man. He was lean and loose-limbed, with a shock of thick blond hair that fell over his forehead and a knowing twinkle in eyes the color of a summer sky. He wore his tuxedo with a casual air, and his slow, sweet smile was an invitation to a myriad of sinful pleasures.

  "You've got to stand up to the old girl or she'll grind you into dust," he advised, grinning unrepentantly when Katherine Hightower tried to glare him into submission.

  "My grandnephew. By marriage," she said with another disgruntled sniff, but the disapproval in her voice was belied by the glint of approval in her eyes.

  Even Katherine Hightower, it seemed, wasn't impervious to the wicked appeal of such a charming rogue.

  "Jesse de Vallerin," said the rogue, "and my wife—" he slipped his arm around the waist of a stunning woman in a slim column of rich ivory satin as she came up to join the group "—Kate," he said, and bent his head to kiss her bare shoulder. "Kate, darlin', this pretty lady is Miz Zoe Moon. She's the one made that hand cream you've been ravin' about."

  "I've been looking forward to meeting you," Kate de Vallerin said as they shook hands. "I'd like to talk to you about selling your products in my shop down in New Orleans. Early next week, perhaps, before Jesse and I head back home?"

  As they stood talking business and making an appointment to meet the following Monday, a corner of Zoe's mind was busy putting two and two together. Kate is her great-niece… When Kate and I announced our engagement… The bride-to-be ran off three days before the wedding and married someone else.

  Without a doubt, Kate de Vallerin—elegant, understated, refined Kate de Vallerin—was the woman Reed had once been engaged to. She was the woman he'd wanted to marry. He'd said he wasn't sorry to have lost her, implied he no longer cared that she'd run off and married another man. But as he stood across the room by the fireplace, talking to Moira and a sleek blond, Reed kept glancing their way. And the looks he was giving Jesse de Vallerin were definitely sparked with the green-eyed monster.

  "Yes," Jesse said, noticing that Zoe's attention wasn't entirely on the conversation they were having. "The whole scandalous story is true."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I really did snatch Kate practically out from under the nose of our illustrious host. I'm pretty sure he's gotten over it, but Aunt Katherine still hasn't completely forgiven me." His grin flashed when Katherine glared down her nose at him. "I keep hoping that if Alicia snags him, she'll finally let me off the hook for marryin' her favorite grandniece and keepin' her down in New Orleans."

  "Alicia?" Zoe murmured.

  Jesse tilted his head toward the group in front of the fireplace. "The tall cool glass of water in the black dress," he said, indicating the young blond woman conversing with Reed and Moira. "She's another great-niece. Aunt Katherine thinks she'll do nicely for Reed. Don't you, Aunt Katherine?"

  "Yes, I do." Katherine Hightower's gaze rested on Zoe for a long moment, as if making sure she understood. "Reed and Alicia are suitable in every way."

  * * *

  From where he stood shaking hands and making small talk, Reed discreetly scanned the faces of the party guests as they filed in through the open doors of the Tapestry Room on the second floor of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

  "Where's Zoe?" he whispered, leaning down to kiss his great-grandmother's cheek as she came even with him in the receiving line. "Didn't she ride over with you?"

  Moira shook her head. "She asked Eddie to take her home shortly after you left with Katherine and Alicia to come over here."

  "She what?" The sharp rise in volume caused several heads to turn. Reed lowered his voice. "Why?"

  "She said she had a beastly headache coming on and needed to lie down before it got worse," Moira said as she started to move along the receiving fine.

  Reed curled his fingers around her elbow, heedless of the holdup he was causing. "And you just let her go?"

  "Well, really, Reed. I could hardly insist she come with me when she wasn't feeling well, could I?"

  "No." He let her arm slip from his grasp. "Of course not."

  "I do hope it's nothing serious." The dulcet voice, rife with spurious concern, came from Alicia Hightower, who stood directly to Reed's left in the receiving line.

  "I hope so, too," Reed muttered, wondering what the hell had happened since he'd left Moira's house that made Zoe change her mind about coming to the benefit.

  The possibility that something had happened before he left occurred to him, too. He hadn't been as attentive as he might have been, partly because his duties as host kept him busy circulating, partly because every time he got close enough to touch her, he wanted to. Since it really wouldn't do to start groping his great-grandmother's guest of honor, he'd kept his distance.

  But Zoe wasn't the type to succumb to a headache because she was miffed at being ignored. There had to be something more to it than that. Something that had hurt her feelings or—

  "You hope what isn't serious?" Katherine Hightower demanded from her place on Alicia's other side.

  "Moira's little protégée went home with a headache," Alicia said sweetly. "She won't be joining us, after all."

  "Won't she?" Katherine Hightower's solemn expression couldn't quite hide the note of satisfaction in her voice. "How … distressing. I'll have to remember to ask Moira to convey our regrets at her absence."

  "Please don't bother, Aunt Katherine," Reed said. "I'll convey them myself." He inclined his head slightly, bowing to each woman in turn. "If you'll excuse me, ladies?" he said politely, and stepped out of the receiving line.

  "Well, of all the…" Katherine Hightower rapped her gold-headed cane against the floor in frustration and rounded on her young relative. "You certainly played that one all wrong," she said irritably. "He's gotten away again."

  * * *

  The North End on a Saturday night was a happening place, making the parking situation even more impossible than usual. Reed dealt with the problem by tossing his keys to the red-coated valet in front of the Ristorante Marcella, then wended his way through the cocktail tables that had been set up outside to accommodate the throng of patrons waiting to sample Mama Marcella's cooking.

  The laneway between the restaurant and the building next door was silent compared to the busy, bustling street, and shadowed with wavering patches of light that shone down from th
e windows on the second floors of both buildings. Reed paused a moment at the mouth of the alley, letting his eyes adjust to the difference in light.

  "So you have a fight with our Zoe, yes?" said a voice from somewhere above his head.

  Reed looked up to see the wizened old woman from the bakery staring down at him from one of those second-story windows. "A fight with Zoe?" he said "What makes you say that?"

  Signora Umberto shrugged. "Zoe leaves here in your fancy black car, all dressed up so pretty. And then she comes back, alone, with her chin up in the air. And now you are come after her. Is a fight. You should have brought flowers," she advised. "Men should always bring flowers to say they are sorry."

  Reed shook his head. "We didn't have a fight."

  Signora Umberto shrugged again, then waved toward the gate at the bottom of the stairs. "Try and see," she invited him, and crossed her arms on the windowsill to watch the show.

  It was a full five minutes before anyone bothered to answer the buzzer. Five long minutes in which the vague anxiety that had prompted him to abandon his post in the receiving line turned to a steadily growing irritation. And the longer she made him wait, the more irritated he became.

  "Yes? Who is it?"

  "Zoe?"

  "No, this is Gina. Zoe, uh … isn't here."

  "Is here," the old woman at the window said.

  "I know she's up there." Reed's irritation was rapidly turning into annoyance. The emotion lent a snap to his voice that any employee of Sullivan Enterprises would have recognized as a harbinger of trouble. "I'd like to speak to her, please."

  Gina repeated her assertion that Zoe wasn't there.

  Annoyance turned into anger. He knew a brush-off when he heard one. What he didn't know was why. "I know she's up there," he said in a voice so deadly quiet it would have sent anyone who really knew him running for cover. Reed Sullivan IV didn't lose his temper often, but when he did, heads rolled. "And you can tell her from me, Miss Molinari, that I'm not leaving until I've spoken with her."

  * * *

  "I think he means it," Gina reported a moment later, peering down at him from behind the curtain at Zoe's window. "He's just standing in the ally, looking at the ground."

  "He's what?"

  "Looking down at the… No, now he's picking something up and—"

  A shower of pebbles bit the window. "Zoe!"

  "Just ignore him," Zoe said. "He'll go away."

  Another volley of pebbles hit the window.

  "Tell him to stop that," Zoe ordered. "He's going to break the window."

  Gina obligingly opened the window and told him to stop that.

  "I want to speak to Zoe," Reed said. "And I'm not leaving until I do."

  Gina drew her head back inside. "He says he's not leaving until you talk to him. I think he means it."

  "Oh, for pity's sake." Zoe stalked to the window and leaned out. Old Mrs. Umberto waved at her from across the alley. Zoe pretended not to see her. "What do you want?" she demanded.

  The anger inside him boiled over at her snooty tone. "I want to know why the hell you ran out on me," he demanded, forgetting that he never swore at—or in front of—women.

  "I didn't run out on you. I had a headache."

  His sneer was eloquent. "A convenient excuse."

  "It's not an excuse. I did—do…" She put a hand to her forehead. "I do have a headache." It was almost true. Now.

  "Liar."

  "Lecher," Zoe countered, and slammed the window shut.

  "Lecher?" he roared. "What the hell does that mean?"

  "Is a man who is fast with the ladies," Signora Umberto said.

  Reed ignored her.

  "Zoe, dammit, come down here and tell me what the hell you mean by that."

  Zoe had nursed her grievances—real and imagined—all the way home, building them up in her mind until Reed was a man who had manipulated her emotions for his own lustful purposes; a man who had taken advantage of her innocent passion; a man who'd deliberately made her fall in love with him and then, when she was hopelessly hooked, had callously discarded her for an icy blond Boston debutante with the right bloodlines. Zoe pushed up the window sash again and let him have the full brunt of her feminine fury.

  "It means I refuse to be used as your sex toy any longer, that's what it means," she shouted. "It means it's over. Finished. Kaput. It means that from now on the only thing between us is business."

  "Sex toy?" Reed shouted back. "Sex toy!"

  His bellow of outrage caused several of the people who were waiting for a table at the Ristorante Marcella to move to the mouth of the alley to see what all the hollering was about.

  "If anyone's been used as a sex toy, it's me," he charged indignantly, unaware of and unconcerned with his growing audience. "I tried to slow things down, remember? You're the one who insisted we have sex."

  "I did not insis—" she began, and then stopped, because she had. And quite emphatically, too.

  "And you're the one who wants to call it quits now that you have what you want," he accused.

  "Now that I have what I want? What do you mean, now that I have what I—" She broke off suddenly, as his meaning got through to her. He meant the money, of course. "How dare you insinuate that I—that I would…" Words failed her. "Oh, go away," she cried, and slammed the window down so hard it shattered.

  Reed had to jump out of the way to avoid the shower of falling glass.

  "Oh, now see what you made me do!" Zoe wailed.

  "What I made you do? I didn't make you do a—"

  "Stop this noise instantly!" The speaker clapped her hands together sharply, like a teacher calling for order in a noisy classroom. "Instantly, I say, and tell me what is going on out here."

  Zoe caught her breath in abject horror and shrank back from the window, out of sight. Reed turned to glare at the woman who'd dared interrupt what he considered a private discussion in spite of the fact that it was being held on a public street at top volume.

  "Well?" Mama demanded imperiously, unimpressed with his glower. "I am waiting."

  "Is a fight," Signora Umberto said, when neither of the principals answered.

  "Yes, I heard that much for myself." Mama made a sweeping gesture with one arm. "So have all my customers heard, as well." She glanced at Reed again, and then up at the broken window. "Zoe."

  Zoe reluctantly reappeared at the window. "Yes, Mama?"

  "I would like you to tell me, please, why you and this young man are shouting at each other and disturbing my customers?"

  "Well, I … he … it's…"

  "It's my fault, Mrs. Molinari," Reed said, automatically stepping in to shield Zoe. "I lost my temper."

  "And you are?"

  "Reed Sullivan, ma'am."

  "Ahh." Mama looked him up and down consideringly. "I begin to see. Yes." She nodded to herself. "I definitely begin to see."

  Reed didn't know exactly what she was beginning to see, but he was pretty sure it didn't bode well for him. Zoe's surrogate grandmother already suspected him of being up to no good; the current situation could only serve to further confirm those suspicions.

  "You are the one who hired a detective to investigate my Zoe."

  "Yes, I am."

  "And you are the one whose grandmama gave her the money for her business."

  "Yes."

  "And you are also the one she chooses for her first lover."

  "And only," he said, before he realized what his statement would reveal. "First and only."

  Mama smiled. "You are in love with her, then?"

  "Yes, I am."

  "And do you want to marry her?"

  "Yes, ma'am. I do."

  "Good. That is very good." Mama nodded once more, emphatically, and looked back up at the window where Zoe stood, straining to hear what was being said. "You will let this young man in," Mama instructed.

  "But, Mama—"

  "You will let him in," she said firmly, "and listen to what he has to say. And if you want to cont
inue arguing, you will do so in such a way that it will not disturb my customers. Is that clear?"

  "Yes, Mama."

  * * *

  Gina retreated to her own apartment, leaving Zoe to face Reed alone. She waited for him at the top of the stairs, barefoot, her hair still gathered up on top of her head, her glamorous silk evening gown replaced by a pink terry-cloth robe that should have clashed with her hair but didn't. Her crystal-and-topaz earrings still dangled from her ears. She didn't even wait for him to get halfway up the stairs before she started babbling.

  "I'm sorry I called you a lecher. I didn't mean it. I was just mad, so I said the first thing that came into my head, is all. It's a bad habit of mine. Saying the first thing that comes into my head, I mean. I know you're not a lecher. And I did, um, initiate our, uh, our sexual relationship. I admit that. But it wasn't just sex."

  She backed up a step, and then another, and another, retreating into her apartment as he advanced, stalking her. This was one woman—the one woman—who wasn't getting away. If he had to track her to the ends of the earth, he'd do it. Happily. Because this was the woman he wanted for all time.

  "Well, okay, it was just sex, I guess," she admitted. "But it wasn't just sex in a bad way. I mean, I'm … I'm fond of you."

  "Fond?"

  "Well, more than fond, actually. That's probably the wrong word, anyway. What I meant to say was that I, um … well, you're a wonderful lover, you know, and I was naturally overwhelmed by the whole experience, being a virgin and all, I mean. So it's understandable that I'd be, well … infatuated with you."

  "Infatuated?

  "Oh, all right." She took a deep breath, squared her shoulders under the pink terry-cloth robe, lifted her chin and told the absolute truth. "I'm in love with you, okay? Are you happy now that you've made me say it? I'm madly, passionately, completely in love with you."

  She said the words defiantly, belligerently even, as if she expected him to gloat or throw them back in her face. Or laugh at her hopeless naiveté. But he just stood there, staring at her as if he'd been poleaxed. Her heart began to flutter wildly in her chest. Panic, she told herself. Embarrassment. Hysteria. It wasn't every day a woman made a fool of herself over a man. Or maybe it was.