by July Hall
Sandra sat up and scowled. “I don’t like being the rope in tug-of-war.”
“Too late,” Charles said. “You already said yes. Although I suppose you could change your mind and decline when the invitation arrives.”
“Not if he sends it to my workplace with Arnaud’s name on it too,” Sandra said. “I got the message loud and clear. I can’t decline. I told you why. I’d be crazy not to go, even if it is…awkward.” Yeah, awkward. She’d have to dodge Bradley, plus the glares of death Rosalie would undoubtedly level at her.
Something else occurred to her then. It seemed to occur to Charles as well. They looked solemnly at each other. “Are there going to be people from that dinner party at the wedding?” she asked.
“Some of them will be invited, yes.”
Sandra squirmed. It wasn’t common knowledge that she and Bradley had been dating—her official introduction to his circle had been the dinner party at Charles’s apartment, and they’d broken up only days later. But word might have gotten around. People at the party would certainly remember that the Magister heir had finally found himself a girlfriend…only for her to disappear and then reappear at a wedding when she wasn’t even dating him anymore.
“What’ll they think?” she asked in a small voice. “They’ll know something’s fishy. What excuse do I give them?”
Charles’s eyes narrowed, and he appeared to come to a decision. “Nothing,” he said. He put his arm around her shoulder. “Never make excuses. You don’t owe them to anybody. Tell them you’re happy to be invited, and that’s that.” To her amazement, his reservations appeared to have vanished.
But she shouldn’t have been amazed. Charles liked telling the world to fuck off when it got in his way. It was a pride thing. She managed not to sigh.
To put the icing on the shit cake, she’d be thrown into a high-pressure social situation with him, and she probably wouldn’t even get a chance to talk to him. It wasn’t like they could go for a spin on the dance floor.
And to put the cherry on top of the icing— “Stephen said he was going to find you a date,” Sandra said. She hadn’t meant for her voice to sound so small.
Charles looked at her in astonishment. “You had quite the discussion, didn’t you?”
“No, not really. I said I’d go to the wedding, and pretty much bounced after that. They wanted to be alone.” She bit her lip. “When he tells you about the invitation, you could say you don’t want me to come.”
Charles frowned. “I could not. It’s Stephen’s day. If he wants to make a gesture, it’s his to make.”
Sandra gaped at him. “I can’t believe you said that. Did you say that?”
He glared. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re actually going to be hands-off?” She sat up so she could see him eye to eye.
“I’m going to pick my battles,” he said. He looked very serious. “When wealth is involved, marriage is no joke, Sandra. I’ve got to push the prenup. I’ve got to push the name change—which, yes, I will do. I’ve got to decide the roles Craig will and will not be allowed to play in the company. And I’ve got to do all this and keep my brother speaking to me.” He shrugged. “If he wants to play with the guest list, then let him. It’s not like you won’t behave yourself.”
“Of course I will,” Sandra said indignantly. “But Bradley—”
“That’s something else I’ll manage.” Charles tugged on a damp lock of her hair. “Put on your favorite dress, shake hands with your future clients, and don’t worry about anything else. I’ll look after you.” His lips twitched. “I think you told me that’s my job, correct?”
Affection softened the lines of his face and the intensity of his eyes. Sandra felt warm all over. Charles might not feel as much for her as she did for him; the ghost of Eleanor still lurked in a few corners, and besides, he wasn’t silly and young like Sandra. But he really liked her, and shared himself with her, and wanted to give her things, and…
“I’m going to find another cup!” she heard herself blurt, without meaning to at all.
Charles let go of her hair. She couldn’t blame him for looking baffled. “You’re what?”
But the words were out. She couldn’t take them back, and besides, she’d meant them. The resolution had solidified in her heart the moment she’d spoken. She licked her lips.
“I was looking for something to put in the study,” she said. “The finishing touch. To match another piece I found.” Charles nodded, still appearing confused. “And I thought—well, I thought that porcelain cup in the parlor would work. The…um…Ru ware cup.”
Charles’s face went blank. Even his eyes showed no expression. Sandra felt like she was taking her life in her hands when she added, “Warrick told me what happened. Don’t be mad at him. I’m going to find you another one.” She swallowed. “I promise.”
Charles’s face still showed no particular emotion. He hadn’t looked this inscrutable since before they’d begun their affair. “Well, that’d cost me, wouldn’t it?” he asked.
“I didn’t say you had to buy it,” Sandra said. “You don’t have to buy it if you don’t want it. You don’t have to do anything.” She leaned forward, never looking away from his eyes. “But I’m going to find one for you.”
“They’re impossible to find.”
“There’s a lot you don’t know,” Sandra said, thinking back to her reflections of last week. “There’s a lot you don’t know about me.”
Charles’s expression still didn’t change. But he leaned forward and pushed her back on the mattress, his large form looming over her. Before she could say anything else, he bent down and began covering her with kisses, her mouth and throat and shoulders and farther down, pushing her shirt out of the way.
“I’m serious,” Sandra gasped, even as she arched up against the brush of his lips, the roughness of his beard. “I’m going to do it.”
“I believe you.” Charles looked at her with blazing eyes before he returned to her mouth for more and more kisses that grew hungrier every time.
They made love again. Sandra was shocked at his recovery. But perhaps nothing about Charles should surprise her anymore, especially not when it came to sex or tenacity.
It was only the next morning, when she was taking a cab back to her apartment, that she realized he’d never said anything about Stephen getting him a date.
CHAPTER TEN
“A Christmas wedding!” Rosalie groused. “Does he think I’m superhuman?”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Charles asked, offering her the cream pitcher.
“No, I don’t want cream. I’m watching my weight for the holidays—even more, now. I’m back on Paleo,” she added.
That explained the waffles made from sweet potatoes. Charles and Rosalie were having Sunday brunch at her townhouse on East Seventy-Third. As usual, he felt too tall and awkward for his surroundings. He was not a clumsy man, but Rosalie was small-boned and dainty, with tastes to match—she preferred fine china teacups with minuscule handles, and plates that cracked if you looked at them too hard.
Still, even if Charles dropped every plate in her home, nothing would ever be worse than the look on his mother’s face when she’d caught him trying to clean up the cracked pieces of the Ru ware cup. He’d already told Stephen and Rosalie to hide, so it all fell on him. His mother never hit him, but his father spanked him with a sort of half-hearted bewilderment. “Why the big fuss?” Father had asked Mother. “Your grandmother got it sixty years ago, so what?”
Charles brought himself back to the present, where he could only fit one fingertip through his coffee cup’s handle. “I’m sure you’re up to the job,” he said.
“Practically everyone will be out of town,” Rosalie said, as if she hadn’t heard. She was peering at her laptop, where she kept a copy of her massive address book. “Can you imagine telling the Fitzgeralds to delay their annual trip to the Mediterranean?”
“Yes, I can,” said Charles, who would.
“It’ll be fine,” Charles said. “You bring the caterers, I’ll bring the lawyers, and we’ll all have a wonderful party.”
She glanced at him. For a moment, her green eyes sparkled and her lips twitched. Sometimes she still reminded Charles of the girl she’d been once, laughing and mischievous.
“I don’t mind, you know,” she said. “I really don’t. I’m glad for him. He deserves his happy ending.”
“Said the divorcée to the widower.”
“Yes.” To his surprise, Rosalie pressed her lips together and looked a little hesitant. “Do you know what he told me to do? Put Josephine Banks on the guest list.”
Charles nearly spilled his coffee all over himself. “Josephine Banks!”
At that, Rosalie laughed. “And why not?” she said. “You like Josephine, or you used to. I don’t think it ended badly, did it?”
No, it hadn’t, and he did like Josephine. At the time, he might have liked her too much. Eleanor had been dead for two years when he’d tried seeing someone else. Josephine Banks was old money from the Main Line who spent most of her time living off her alimony in Monte Carlo. Her husband had been a fool for cheating on her; she was lively, intelligent, beautiful—everything a man could wish for.
And they’d been good together in bed, but that had only made Charles feel guilty. It had been too soon. He hadn’t been ready for anything serious. Josephine had sensed that, known it wasn’t a rejection of her personally, and moved on with her usual grace.
“It ended as well as it could have,” he said. “But it ended.”
“Oh, Charles,” Rosalie sighed.
“What? I’m one of the hosts. So are you. We’ll be busy. I don’t have time for any nonsense.”
Rosalie narrowed her eyes. “If Stephen wants to invite Josephine, I’m inviting Josephine. I have to invite that little bitch, don’t I?”
Charles’s skin crawled. He kept his voice cool when he said, “You mean the woman Bradley cheated on with prostitutes” —Rosalie flinched— “and who nevertheless went away quietly?”
“She hasn’t gone away,” Rosalie snapped. “She’s still in our house. Stephen said he thinks she ought to be allowed to do more rooms! It’s absolutely preposterous! And whatever happened to that confidentiality agreement you were going to have her sign?”
Oh, hell. He’d decided that Sandra would sign no such thing and then had forgotten all about it. “That doesn’t concern you,” he said.
Rosalie’s face went red. “He’s my son.”
“I noticed. If it helps, I also wish S—” He almost said Sandra wasn’t coming. “Stephen hadn’t invited Miss Dane.” To say the least. They wouldn’t be able to exchange more than a few words without arousing suspicion. People would notice if he stared. Surely anyone with eyes would be able to see his desire for her.
For a moment—a moment of absolute insanity—he’d almost asked Sandra to come with him as his guest. Ridiculous, of course. But when she’d earnestly told him that she’d help him get a cup-sized piece of his history back, he’d wanted the world to know she was his. If Stephen could make gestures, why couldn’t Charles?
She’d have shot him down, and rightly so. She didn’t like being the rope in a tug-of-war. She’d like being a scandal even less. And besides, it would be the height of poor taste to upstage his own brother’s wedding.
“Can’t you stop him?” Rosalie pleaded. “It’s just a petty whim or something. It’s not like he knows the girl and is dying to have her there. Talk him out of it before I actually have to send the invitations.”
Charles shook his head. The evening would be difficult, but he couldn’t hurt Sandra like that. “Stephen framed it as a professional opportunity,” he said. “He told her to bring her boss as her plus-one. It would look even pettier to take it back now.” He held up his hand when she opened her mouth. “It’s done, Rosalie. Put her at a corner table, and we’ll make the best of it.”
Yes, a corner table, where she could be out of sight and out of mind. Surely she’d understand. He’d explain it to her—that she’d be unbearably distracting, that the temptation was too great.
“Well,” Rosalie grumbled, “I’ll say no more about it if you keep her away from me and Bradley.”
“Believe me,” Charles said, “I will do that.”
“And the music!” Rosalie glowered at her laptop again. “Honestly, trying to book someone the week before Christmas at this date! I couldn’t possibly ask Barbra after your co-op turned her down. Do you think Idina could make it?”
* * *
“Let me make this clear,” Kristen said. “We’re not here to talk about boys.”
“Um,” Sandra said. “Good?”
They stood in line at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On a Sunday morning, the crush of people was almost unbearable, but she didn’t have time to go during the week, and she missed the frequent visits she’d made in the past. Besides, it was time for her to learn a little something about ancient Chinese ceramics.
She was shocked when Kristen had announced that she was coming too. So Sandra had cooled her heels while her sister threw on her favorite worn T-shirt, threadbare jeans, beat-up sneakers, and grubby hoodie and joined her for a subway ride into Manhattan and up to Museum Mile.
The location made Sandra feel a little restless. Charles’s home was only a couple of blocks away from the Met. So was Rosalie’s, where he’d be having brunch right about now, no doubt planning Stephen’s wedding and discussing the date Charles was supposed to bring.
No, Sandra definitely didn’t want to talk about boys.
“Buuuut,” Kristen continued, “you did come home yesterday morning and wouldn’t tell me anything, so come on, tell me something. Did it go okay or what?”
“You said we weren’t going to talk about boys!” Sandra protested as they inched their way forward to the admissions counter.
Kristen took hold of Sandra’s wrist and looked at her watch. “I’ll time us. We’ll take five minutes. What’s his name? Go.”
At least Sandra had thought this far ahead. “Larry,” she said.
“Profession?”
“Banker.” She’d thought about making him a bartender, but in that case Kristen might actually want to meet him.
Kristen stared at her. “What the hell was a banker doing at a Halloween party in Chelsea with a bunch of design freaks?”
“Slumming it.” Sandra was almost enjoying herself. “You know the kind.”
“Yeah, Bradley was that kind,” Kristen said. Sandra’s heart fell. “He and one of his douche friends showed up at a Pratt party, and he swept you off your feet. Jeez, don’t you ever learn? Some asshole in a suit comes along to mix it up with the hipsters, and you run right along after him.”
Sandra stopped in her tracks as her stomach grew cold. She hadn’t expected Kristen’s words to hurt so much. “Nobody’s asking you to spend the morning with your idiot sister, you know. If this is how you’re going to be—”
Kristen held up her hands as they continued forward. “Chill out,” she said. “Sorry. It’s just…” She got a strange look on her face. After a moment, Sandra realized she looked sincerely troubled. “You broke up with Bradley and you won’t tell me why, but you don’t seem all that upset about it even after you dated him for, like, half a year. I thought it was serious?”
“Uh…”
“But you seem fine, and you just spent the night with some guy you can’t have known all that long, and that isn’t like you.” Kristen actually patted Sandra’s elbow. “Are you shutting down or deflecting or something? People react in all kinds of ways when bad stuff happens. We talk about it a lot in Experimental Psych.”
Sandra sighed. “I’m fine. Just don’t turn me into a case study.”
Kristen looked unexpectedly crestfallen. This was weird. Weird, but kind
of nice, too. Hadn’t Sandra been thinking that she needed more friendship in her life? Even if it was her semi-stoner sister who came armed with the works of B. F. Skinner in one hand and Marx and Engels in the other.
Extending an olive branch, Sandra added, “Thanks, though. It’s sweet of you.” At that, Kristen rolled her eyes. Sandra checked her watch. “We’ve got two minutes left. What about you? Any guys?”
“Me? Oh, nope, not me,” Kristen said. “Oops, here we are!” Sure enough, they were next in line at the ticket counter. Sandra paid the “suggested donation,” and Kristen kept her wallet resolutely shut.
“The Met makes ass-loads of money,” she told Sandra as they walked past the velvet ropes. “I’ll donate to something else, thanks.”
“Like what?”
“Lunch.”
Sandra laughed, Kristen gave her a crooked grin, and they proceeded to have kind of a nice morning together. The development of Chinese ceramics was organized behind glass in the Great Hall Balcony. Sandra made sure to collect all the brochures and leaflets she could find, took down the numbers of particularly interesting pieces, and—when some tourists obligingly got out of her way—took a picture of a non-Ru piece from the Song Dynasty.
She didn’t see any Ru ware on display. The Met kept a ton of artifacts in storage, though. Surely they had to have at least one bowl or something? It was the Met, for God’s sake.
She sat down on a nearby bench and began searching the museum site. Nope. Nothing when she searched “Ru ware.” Goddamn it.
Sandra clenched her jaw. She’d promised Charles that she’d find something even the Metropolitan Museum of Art didn’t seem to have? She had—maybe, possibly—bitten off more than she could chew. Arnaud was just going to love this.
She’d been successful at finding old treasures for Mr. Mykoulos’s penthouse. She’d assumed this wouldn’t be that much harder. Idiot.