Power Play (Crimson Romance)

by Nan Comargue

  A tiny shift in the world around, a mere scratch of noise, brought Lila back first and her slow resistance forced him to surface.

  Their hostess spoke into the resulting gap. “Wow.” Her eyes were round. “I’ve never seen anything like that off of a movie screen.”

  Her husband let out a loud woof. “That was certainly something I’m glad I didn’t miss.”

  Jenn Efflin cleared her throat. “I think we have a winner.”

  Cahal held Lila for an endless moment and when she finally lifted her head it was to survey an empty room.

  “Where did everyone go?”

  “To the living room for drinks.”

  Lila flickered her eyelashes. “I’ve had enough to drink tonight.”

  “Do you want to leave?”

  “Yes.” She wanted to end the evening as she began it: in her husband’s bed.

  Cahal’s mouth curved. “I can have us home in fifteen minutes flat.”

  It took him twelve.

  Chapter Eleven

  A stream of limousines ejected passengers out onto the frozen sidewalk where men in stiff uniforms, nearly indistinguishable from the tuxedoed guests, ushered each chilled couple indoors.

  The brown-and-gold lobby of the hotel was unchanged, its furnishings formal and subdued. A few of the regular guests gaped at the newcomers in their fancy clothes, recognizing faces from newspapers and Saturday night television. The constant flash of cameras and innumerable loitering bodies combined for a spectacle that made Lila light headed.

  “This way,” a young woman in the hotel uniform guided them.

  Small signposts lined the way to the main ballroom where the photographers would be only those pre-approved by the team and charity. The hotel colors gave way to a predominance of blue and silver, the Toronto colors flying high in every corner of the massive room. Tiny team pennants graced the centerpiece of each of the eighty tables.

  “Eight hundred guests,” Lila murmured as she did rapid calculations in her head. Each ticket cost a thousand dollars and every ticket had sold. The overhead was not to be laughed at; the venue was the best in the city and the entertainment and food matched it, although some of this was donated. “The cancer foundation should come away with a quarter million dollars.”

  This figure spilled into Cathy Monahan’s ear as they passed her table. The blonde woman was beaming.

  “That’s leaving out private donations made tonight, the auction and proceeds from the sale of any merchandise,” Cathy said by way of a greeting. “If we’re lucky we might reach three hundred grand.”

  Lila, who had produced similar events in the past, suspected that more than a hundred thousand could be raised through the auction alone. Perhaps more. The room was filled with the city’s economic elite. These were people who wouldn’t hesitate to spend dearly for autographed equipment or a day with their favorite hockey player.

  The other woman stared at Lila. “That’s a nice dress,” she said with some reluctance. “Great color.”

  Lila’s gown of startling winter white was unique among the crowds of black, gold and the occasional crimson or sapphire dress. The color played off of her raven hair, pulled away from her face, and smooth golden skin. A single shoulder upon which her husband’s hand rested was left bare.

  “I like your dress, too,” Lila responded.

  Cathy nodded in the direction of a nearby table. “That woman over there is wearing the same one in beige.”

  As this was undeniably the case, Lila could only say, “I like it better in black.”

  By silent assent, they turned their attention to their husbands’ conversation.

  “Terrence Brantford sent a big check along with his regrets,” Ed Monahan was telling Cahal. “Twenty grand toward the cause.”

  “That’s good of him,” was Cahal’s comment. “Whose idea was it to invite the owner of a rival team?”

  Although each team’s charitable events were not officially off limits to players or owners of other teams, an unwritten rule kept each team’s endeavors restricted to their own cities.

  The man averted his eyes. “I can’t rightly remember. It could have been mine.”

  His wife’s voice rose above the unconvincing statement. “It was my idea,” she said. “After all the bad press his daughter created for our team I thought it was only right that he should give something back to this city.”

  Lila looked into her husband’s eyes and she suspected that he was thinking the same thought. Twenty thousand dollars was considerably less expensive than the payoff Brantford previously offered. But no one would ever know that.

  “Interesting crowd,” her husband commented when they finally arrived at their table near the front of the room. He spoke in a dry tone, having already been accosted by a clutch of wealthy autograph seekers who all expressed disappointment at the fact that their hero couldn’t give away for free what was going to be put up on auction later that night.

  “Have you seen your agent yet?”

  Cahal shook his head. “He couldn’t make it tonight. He gave his ticket to one of his clients.”

  “Does Billy represent other sports?”

  Again the answer was in the negative.

  Since all of the Toronto team mates were coerced into attendance, without any reduction on the price of their tickets even though it was a working night for many, the ticket could only have gone to a member of a rival hockey team.

  “You don’t think it was … ?”

  A hard silver glitter came into his eyes. “He said client, not former client.”

  From that point, it was impossible to keep from sweeping the room in search of a familiar figure.

  He arrived late, of course, when dinner was just being served and Lila had long stopped looking for him. He made his way through the tables, stopping at several to exchange a word or two. Nearly everyone seemed to know him but judging from the stiff smiles and curt handshakes not many liked him.

  Lila’s breath caught as he slowed next to her seat. He dropped a bruised hand to the back of her chair and it was pushed away by another. The buzzing conversation around them grew louder.

  “Why, cousin!” Chris’ voice carried across the room. “Don’t tell me you begrudge me a quick word with my best girl.”

  The words were as good as a battle cry and Lila felt every muscle in her husband’s tall tuxedoed figure stiffen.

  “I don’t begrudge you a damn thing, Chris,” he ground out. “It was always the other way around.”

  The other man didn’t like that, although he smiled through the sudden fire that leaped in his blue eyes.

  His voice dropped to a conspiratorial murmur. “Why would I begrudge you something I’ve also had?”

  In a deliberate movement, Cahal came to his feet. Seen next to each other, the two men were more than superficially alike. In a white tuxedo to match Lila’s dress, Chris looked trendy and fashionable. Cahal’s version in black was far more traditional yet he cut a dramatic figure, which somehow made the other man look lightweight.

  “One night compared to the promise of a lifetime.”

  Chris’ smirk reappeared.

  “And a lifetime was how long exactly? Five years? Six?”

  “It’s still going,” Lila’s husband pointed out with an edge of menace.

  The other man dropped a wink in Lila’s direction. “That’s because you don’t know the truth.”

  “I’ve heard the truth,” Cahal said.

  He swerved his blue eyes to the woman by his side and a sudden reserve covered Chris’ features.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “What I remember.”

  The frozen look disappeared. “Darling, did you have to? I thought that was private between you and me.”

  Lila’s mouth tightened. “Stop it, Chris. Stop acting like a fool.”

  Another audacious wink. “I can’t help what I am.”

  Cahal’s hand grasped her upper arm she moved to her feet.

 
“No, I guess you can’t help what you are,” he told his cousin. “You can help how you behave.”

  With that, he steered Lila toward the edge of the room where several couples were taking advantage of the slow tableside service to cross the dance floor to the strains of light jazz. She moved into her husband’s arms with a chill of foreboding; she felt as if she was dancing with a man made of tempered steel.

  “Did you enjoy that?”

  Lila blinked up toward the glittering mesh of chandeliers; he was a dark blur above her.

  Her voice shrank in her throat. “How can you ask me that?”

  “Because you seemed to be enjoying yourself,” he ground out. “I just wanted to know.”

  She fixed her eyes on a point behind his shoulder as her fingers dug into his jacket. “How could I enjoy myself this way? I’m not a monster.”

  “It’s perfectly natural to want to be fought over.”

  “Then I must be unnatural.”

  They swayed in silence for a minute, moving in their restrained little circle. Spurred by the lack of food, several other couples joined the dance floor, among them Chris and a beautiful redhead Lila was fairly certain was attached to one of the other players. At one point Chris appeared to maneuver his partner into the other couple’s path but a swift glide brought them out of the path of harm.

  Lila was dizzy from more than the giddy movement.

  “It’s getting crowded,” her husband said, leading them from the floor.

  The salads were at the table when they arrived and in the midst of eating and chatting with their fellow diners, there was no chance to speak to each other. Beneath the cover of noise and laughter, it was easy to conceal the fact that their eyes never met and across the room, Chris’ eyes barely left her. Lila felt every spoonful she took being monitored.

  When she moved from the table it was ostensibly to powder her nose, but in reality to draw a free breath away from her husband’s side.

  She bumped into a solid figure coming out of the washroom.

  “Lila.”

  Ignoring the urgent look he gave her, she tried to push past. “Not now, Chris.”

  “Cahal sent me.”

  She stopped and turned. “What?”

  Though she had taken a long time in the washroom, rinsing her face and then having to reapply all of her party makeup, she couldn’t imagine that her husband would send his cousin to retrieve her.

  “I’m fine,” she said. “I just needed some air.”

  Chris’ ironic eye went to the washroom door. “In there?”

  Lila ignored the question. “What do you want, Chris? Why did my husband send you to get me?”

  Instead of answering, he surveyed the hallway and pulled her into a secluded corner by the telephone desk. Though his touch made her skin crawl, she went with him. The constant traffic to both washrooms nearby made their location public.

  “My cousin wanted me to come clean about something.”

  He looked extremely uncomfortable, his face red and mottled above a no longer crisp white tie, and she became curious.

  “What have you been talking about?”

  The uncomfortable look was supplanted by a more familiar sulk. “It’s none of his business, of course, but he wanted to know about that night we spent together and … ”

  “Chris!” Her hand crept up to the large diamond pendant at her neck, a present from her husband for one of their anniversaries. “What did you tell him?”

  The sordid details of that night were a memory she never wanted back. She was glad that she only remembered Cahal’s glorious body and Cahal’s lovemaking.

  Her companion smirked. “Don’t worry, I spared him the details. Come to think of it, I’ve spared you the details, haven’t I? Don’t you think it’s time you learned the truth?”

  Lila tossed her hair to cover her bare shoulder; she noticed that he kept looking at that curve of naked flesh.

  “I told you, Chris, I don’t want to know.” She lowered her voice. “We had sex, that’s all it was. Meaningless sex.”

  He fixed his blue eyes on a point just beyond her. “Twice,” he said. “Once on the floor of the living room, in front of the fire, and then again, in the bed. The guest bed — you refused to go into the master bedroom.”

  She flinched, her shoulders meeting the cold wall.

  “I don’t want to hear this.”

  A sudden bark of laughter made her stiffen.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You,” Chris snorted between guffaws. “Your innocence. Your belief in me. Everything.”

  The parade of women he’d painted slipping in and out of her husband’s bed appeared before her. Had he lied about her husband? Cahal had always denied cheating but the way Chris explained it, all hockey players cheated. Most just didn’t get caught. Cahal was just unlucky to have delivered the proof into his teammate’s hands.

  “Of course I’ve believed you,” she murmured. “Why wouldn’t I believe you?”

  His shoulders moved beneath his white jacket. “Because I have every reason to lie, as my cousin has brought home to me several times in the past year. He said it again less than thirty minutes ago but you refused to listen. You’ve always taken Cahal’s side against me.”

  Perhaps this was true. Chris was talented in his own right but commercial success hadn’t diminished his habit of sulking and feeling slighted at the least remark.

  “I’d take your side now,” Lila told him, “but you have to tell me the truth. What is going on?”

  Taking her hand, he led her still further into the hotel, toward a private waiting area rich with gilt and crystal with an air of disuse. He led her to one of the armchairs but she refused to surrender into the wealth of pillows.

  Lila stood, arms crossed, waiting for an explanation.

  Chris’ gaze rested on a thin beautiful rug. “I lied about that night, the night we supposedly spent together. We didn’t have sex. You passed out from the alcohol and I took you upstairs to your bed. I spent most of the night staring at you while I came up with, uh, the plan.”

  “The plan?” She unconsciously dug her fingers into her arms, making the question harsh. “What plan?”

  He scratched behind one ear, ruffling his short hair into artful disarray. He still couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “The plan to tell you that we slept together, to get you away from him and make you open your eyes to reality.”

  “Reality,” she repeated. A dim spark flared within her breast. “The stories you told me about Cahal’s cheating, were they true?”

  Lila stared up earnestly into Chris’ blue eyes and his were the first to shift.

  “Yeah, those were true. Your husband’s got a reputation. Ask anyone in the league.”

  Lila would rather lead a parade around a rink in her bra and panties.

  But she didn’t have to ask, did she? She had the photos — and Cahal’s incomplete explanation.

  “Who?”

  Her companion’s pose against a matching armchair was a little too nonchalant. “Who what?”

  She was struggling with the urge to hit him. “Who has Cahal cheated on me with? Do you know their names?”

  “Names!” He hooted. “As if I would know the names of disposable puck bunnies.”

  The woman from the photograph hadn’t looked like a puck bunny. On the contrary, she might have been a businesswoman — or a high price prostitute.

  No, she wouldn’t even allow herself those thoughts. Cahal, of all men, would never have to pay for the company of a woman.

  “He went with those kinds of women?” Lila asked.

  Chris nodded. “I got it straight from Brad Drummond’s mouth.”

  Drummond was the Chicago teammate who shared a hotel room with her husband while they were on the road. The roommate was always considered the best authority on another player and often appealed to for inside stories by journalists hunting a scoop.

  “Brad Drummond is hundreds of miles away,”
Lila said.

  A reckless light entered his eyes. “Janet Parker isn’t a hundred miles away or even one. She’s back in the ballroom seated right next to her husband. She told someone who told someone else who told me that she had an affair with Cahal a few years ago. Nothing major.”

  Lila sat attempting to swallow this final piece of information. Her companion noted that while her features remained blank, her hands had clenched into little balls in her lap. It looked as if she might be drawing blood.

  After a few minutes, she got her voice back under control.

  “So which reality are you talking about?”

  For the first time that evening she saw a glimpse of the Chris Wallace she knew, vulnerable and oversensitive. The man she’d tried to protect. What a joke.

  “I’m talking about you and me, Lila. Us.”

  The heated emphasis was lost on her.

  “What about us?”

  Searching her face, he apparently decided that he didn’t care for what he saw.

  “Forget it.”

  After a moment, she asked, “So is that it?”

  “Yeah.” The cocky attitude was back in full force. “I thought you might like to know what you ruined your marriage for.”

  “I know what I left my marriage for,” she said, “and it wasn’t that. The night we spent together — or didn’t spend together — was only the last chapter in a struggling novel. The moment I found out about my husband’s cheating was the beginning of the end. I should have known from the very start that I couldn’t live with that kind of betrayal. I still can’t.”

  Chris’ fair head hung. “I guess you don’t think too much better of what I did.”

  “That was a betrayal of a different sort,” Lila acceded. “But one for which I don’t think I can ever forgive you.”

  His face stark beneath the mellow lighting, her companion turned and walked briskly away. He didn’t look back.

  • • •

  Lila went home with an armful of memorabilia from the silent auction and a rhythm drumming through her brain. It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.