Hauling him along by one ear, I dragged my adorable and maddening boyfriend out to do his mingling duty.
One hour in that ballroom was like an hour spent inside a huge, dizzying disco ball. Sure, the floor didn’t move and the ceiling stayed fastened firmly in place far above our heads, but everything in between pulled at us from six different directions at once, as every spinning sensation demanded immediate attention.
Music rolled out of dozens of hidden speakers, jazz and soft rock and classical flowing together into a single river of sound. Hundreds of voices blended into one low rumble, spiked with occasional bright laughter as friends found each other, jokes were told, and deals were struck. Technicians worked through a series of sound checks on the towering stage at the front of the room, producing squeals of feedback as they tinkered with the state-of-the-art sound system that would bellow Dave’s speech into everyone’s ears. Glasses clinked, footsteps echoed, and my heart hammered.
Toto, we are so not in Kansas anymore.
Ice sculptures of soaring angels stood on every side, water dripping from their wings beneath the heat of the overhead lights. Sprays of orchids and roses glowed with color from porcelain vases. Curtains of wine-dark velvet covered the walls, silver platters of steaming meats and crystal goblets of Chablis lined the white-draped tables, and floor-to-ceiling photographs of Dave and his dad faced each other from either side of the stage. My breath sped up, nervous sweat beaded on my skin, and why was an antique Bugatti convertible being used to display silver buckets full of crushed ice and bottles of champagne?
Toto, I can’t even see Kansas from here.
And the people … men wearing Zegna and Canali and Hugo Boss suits circled each other like sharks scenting blood, while women just as predatory and sleek moved from one conversation to the next like drifting flowers of silk and satin and chiffon. Supermodels with faces like goddesses and bodies like stick figures chatted with actors who posed with actresses who air-kissed senators who fake-smiled at everybody, and no, that was NOT the First Lady coming out of the bathroom surrounded by stone-faced and staring Secret Service agents – but it was.
Toto, are we still on the same planet as Kansas?
I clung to Dave’s right arm, I watched Sasha Hollins spot-check her makeup in a mirror held by a shivering and cowed assistant, and then my sensible self spoke up.
Cassie, these are just people and this is just a party. You know people, you know parties, so how’s about you put on your personal assistant panties and deal with this?
Gotcha, sensible me – felt a little overwhelmed for a second there, but I’m on it.
I took a deep breath while I consulted my memorized list of schmoozing victims. Then I picked the nearest one out of the crowd and steered Dave right at the guy.
“That’s Thurston Grundy, he’s seventy-something and fighting domestic abuse charges brought by his third ex-wife, he owns a nuclear waste processing facility in Ohio, and your dad’s buying him out because Dallstrom Defense Systems needs access to radioactive sludge for some reason I don’t want to know. Now, go say something empty and charming while I choose your next target.”
Dave allowed himself one small groan of disgust. Then he stood up straight and fake, he pasted on his Public Dave smile, and he peeled away from my side, moving in on Mr. Grundy like a champ. He shook the old bastard’s liver-spotted hand, he complimented the slutty piece of professional arm candy clinging to the guy’s elbow, and he made enthusiastic conversation about how nuclear waste was swell stuff, huh?
Over the next hour, we worked our way through senators, major political donors from both parties, and a federal judge who’d retired just ahead of being indicted for corruption. Dave posed for photographs with Emmy winners and Oscar nominees, he chatted with a series of runway models who sported identical staring ribs, pancake chests, and raccoon eyes, and he offered smiling and neutral opinions to a network anchor about the state of the global economy.
I kept him supplied with glasses of champagne so he’d look like Sophisticated Party Guy, and every one of them got dumped into various potted plants when nobody was looking. I rescued him from motor mouths who threatened to dominate his valuable mingling time, I glared at high-society whores who got all pouty when he politely rejected their advances, and I stood by offering moral support as he suffered through conversations with representatives of six more companies about to be inhaled in hostile takeovers by Einar “I Want It All” Dallstrom.
We made a great team, the schmooze train rolled along uneventfully, and we kept our energy up by grazing at the buffet tables in spare moments here and there. I relaxed a bit and decided it was all going pretty well, considering that I was making up my job as I went and we’d both rather be somewhere else doing naughty naked things – and then Dave leaned over me from behind and hissed into my ear.
“Hide me!”
I looked up from sampling a butter-drenched chunk of lobster. “What’s up? Is somebody hot heading this way, intent on making mad, passionate love to you? To me? To both of us, right here in the middle of this great spread of seafood? Because hey, that would –”
Dave darted a frantic look back over his shoulder. “I’m serious, please! I need to disappear now, before the Wicked Witch of the East spots me, I’m begging you, let’s go!”
I popped down the last bite of my lobster and grabbed his elbow, glancing around for possible escape routes through the crowd – but who were we running from?
I leaned around him to look back for incoming bitches. “Help me out here – who’s the guilty party? Is it some ex of yours?”
“Hell NO! Dad tried to fix us up a few years ago but she hated me on sight, and can we please get out of here?”
Making a snap decision that we’d done close enough to an hour of making nice with the rich assholes, I worked out a route that wound us through the well-dressed mob in the general direction of the backstage area. Once he was backstage, Dave would be out of sight and also look ever so responsible for arriving early for his speech – take that, Dad Dallstrom.
I maneuvered us behind a support pillar, looked back again because I still didn’t know who we were running from – and there she was. If I knew my bitches, that had to be her.
“Let me guess – it’s Queen Skeletor in the tiara, right?”
“Yes! Let’s haul ass before she incinerates us with a glance!”
Dave took his turn tugging me along by one arm, while I turned and scoped out the evil whore who somehow hated the sweetest guy in the world, and what was her problem?
Thinner than a ghost and twice as pale, she stalked through the crowd, brushing people aside as if their very atoms offended her. She was beautiful, technically – a heart-shaped face balanced atop a swan-like neck, with waves of deep brown hair crowned with an honest-to-God diamond tiara – but it was the kind of beauty without a single ounce of heart to it.
Her delicate rose-pink lips rested in a permanent sneer, her smoke-grey eyes were as cold as an empty room in winter, and that uplifted chin and huffy glare said that everyone in sight was disappointing her simply by existing.
And she was so achingly thin – you could count every rib beneath the ivory chiffon and feathery lace of her ball gown, her cheekbones could have cut glass, and when she turned and the waterfall of glowing brown hair spilling down her bare back swung to one side, her shoulder blades stood out like knives.
Jesus, lady, force a cheeseburger down your throat once in a while.
Dodging this way and that and muttering apologies with every step, we made it around the stage and to within two feet of the door marked ‘staff only’ that let to the backstage area and safety – and just to make sure we were in the clear, I took a quick look back.
Yeah, she was right behind us.
“You, girl!”
Her Slavic accent was as thick as syrup. Sergei would have sounded like a corn-fed Kansas native by comparison, and ‘you, girl!’ came out sounding like ‘yew, gurrl!’ – but her rag
e needed no translation.
She pointed a single shaking finger right at my face. “You will keep that stupid boy AWAY from me! Away, away, away! It is a shaming thing, to be near to such a gabbling fool! AWAY!”
I forgot my personal assistant manners, because fuck this crazy bitch. “Look, you followed us, you cunt from hell, so back off and we’ll be more than happy to get out of your way! And if you think for one minute that –”
She cut me off with a disgusted look up my body and then down again.
And that was when she said it.
She glared past me at Dave, and hatred dripped from every word. “This fat filthy thing is like a pig playing at being a woman and she disgusts me! You disgust me! Such a whore from the gutter is what you deserve, idiot child!”
Dave elbowed me out of the way, pushing in front of me and shielding me with his body – well, maybe he was protecting me or maybe he knew I was about a millisecond away from punching Skeletora right in her perfect button nose, whatever.
Either way, seeing that gentle, goofy man burning with anger on my behalf hurt worse than a knife to the heart.
“Ilona, you are not going to say one more word to her. Get away from us now and stay away – be mad at me for no good reason all you want, but Cassie’s an angel and you will leave her alone. Do you understand?”
I think she did understand, because she spat in his face.
Dave didn’t react, beyond a quick blink.
No one’s ever been as dignified and decent as my guy was in that moment, with spittle dripping down his face and strangers staring at him from all sides. When a mid-fifties man stepped out of the crowd to clamp a hand onto the skank’s stick of an arm, Dave spoke to him in a voice as steady as a rock.
“Mr. Szörnyeteg, I think you should take your daughter away from here now. She needs to calm down, catch her breath, and understand that it’s not acceptable for her to talk to my girlfriend like that.”
Even though he was barely tall enough to be on speaking terms with his daughter’s shoulder, the other man’s face made it plain he was her father – they shared the same broad forehead and narrow chin, the same milk-pale skin and grey eyes, and the same air of assuming that the world and everyone in it was beneath them.
But unlike his raving daughter, this man didn’t yell or curse or spit. He was quiet and thoughtful, and his eyes were full of a scary intelligence as he spoke to Dave – while staring right past him at me.
His accent was faint and his voice mild. “Your girlfriend? Intriguing … unfortunate, but quite intriguing.”
Glancing up at Dave, he added, “But no matter – all that matters is duty, and all of us here will do our duty.”
Then he turned to his bitch queen of a daughter. “You also, Ilona. You will do your duty to our family. There is no other way.”
Ilona Szörnyeteg hissed to life, twisting in her father’s grip. “Papa, no! You cannot think to do this, how can you DO this to me?”
She abandoned English at that point, wailing and begging in a frantic stream of words from a language I’d never heard before. And why was she freaking out, anyway? What exactly did her father expect her to do, other than get her shit together and act like a civilized human being in public?
I didn’t know.
Forty minutes later, I found out.
16
Ten minutes after Crazy Eurobitch’s meltdown, Dave and I were hiding out backstage, Kristen was providing moral support, and Dave’s dad was ranting.
“Did you HAVE to call the daughter of one of the richest men in Europe a cunt?”
I didn’t look up, because I was busy trying to dab spit off Dave’s face without smearing his makeup. “It seemed like the thing to do at the time, Mr. D – and seeing as how she called me a pig and a whore, and also spat on your son here, I say she was lucky to get out of it with nothing more than bruised feelings.”
Kristen chimed in, “And in Cassie’s defense, Dad, that woman totally was being a cunt – a dripping and absolute cunt, beyond all human tolerance levels for cuntdom. Why did you invite her?”
Dave sighed. “Man, you try to impress one girl at a Hungarian state dinner by re-enacting the battle for the ice planet Hoth with salt shakers and salad forks and goulash noodles, and suddenly you’re an idiot child –”
“Goddammit, this is hopeless.” Dave’s father shook his head as the anger slowly pissed out of him, and then he headed for the door.
Just as he got there, he turned around. “David, I’m begging you, do not screw up on that stage tonight. Smile like a motherfucker, put your heart into that speech – well, fuck it, I know you won’t do that, so just pretend – and follow my lead out there, no matter how much it hurts.”
Then the old bastard looked at me. “No matter who it hurts.”
And he marched out the door without a look back, pushing past Kristen and disappearing down the hall.
At 9:10 p.m., Einar Dallstrom mounted the main stage, took his place in front of the giant screen that showed his every move in vibrant HD close-ups, and thundered through a speech that would have fit right in at a Saturday night tent revival – well, if it weren’t for all the references to guns, bombs, and cruise missiles.
With his squat fireplug of a body, he didn’t cut nearly as fine of a figure in a tailored suit as Dave, but the lord and master of Dallstrom Defense Systems made up for it with enthusiasm.
He hammered the podium with his fist to drive home points such as “this country’s safety is EVERYTHING!,” he bellowed while advising his audience that “the men and women who defend our liberty at the cost of their own lives are HEROES!,” and he glared into the cameras like an angry and tubby little god as he shouted, “I will do my part to protect this great nation until my last BREATH!” – and the crowd ate it up, clapping and cheering for the idea of better living through blowing stuff up with the wild abandon of people who’d never been anywhere near the actual explosions.
I watched from the back of the ballroom, standing on a small raised platform that was used for presentations and speeches during lesser, non-Dallstrom events. My job back there above and behind the surging masses was to be Dave’s focus point during his speech, so I stood up straight and as tall as my five feet and not enough inches could manage, and I waited for the feature presentation.
Once his speech ended – “No price is too high to pay for FREEDOM!” – Dave’s dad stalked off the stage, his face looming large and sweaty on the giant screen for one last moment of applause before he disappeared backstage.
I wouldn’t have thought defense technology and military spending would wow a crowd like that, but it seems even rich people will cheer for anything that comes with free food and an open bar.
The governor of Illinois stepped up to the microphone next, saying boring political crap that I ignored, and he was followed by a company official who babbled for a few useless minutes about how Dallstrom Defense Systems had made even more billions than projected for the second quarter – yay, maybe Einar could buy himself a fully operational armored space station for his birthday.
The only thing keeping me awake was that Dave would be up next.
Time to psych yourself up for being a seriously inspiring focal point, Cassie.
I tugged a wrinkle out of my skirt. I shoved some wild red curls back behind my shoulder and decided I needed to go see that Tivoli guy, if he knew the secret to making hair like mine behave. I glanced down at my feet – was I perfectly centered at the back of the platform? My eyes said no, my nerves agreed, I took two steps to one side, and then my head snapped up as I heard it.
“And now coming to the microphone, the inspiration and the hope and the future of Dallstrom Defense Systems – David Dallstrom!”
Dave stepped out from behind the curtain, a beaming smile pasted on his face as he waved to the hundreds of rich and happily drunk party animals who cheered for him as if he’d won the World Series all by himself. Long legs swinging, he swept across the stage to the pod
ium, turning and waving in every direction, aiming that million-megawatt grin at all of creation as the overhead speakers pounded out a victory march that I could feel through the soles of my feet.
The bounce in his step, his delighted green eyes, his flawless suit showing off the sleek lines of his body, even just the way his swinging ponytail glinted gold beneath the powerful TV lights – every detail as he paraded before the cameras was perfect.
Then came a moment that was better than perfect.
He arrived at the podium to a new roar of applause, as his face filled the huge HD display hanging behind the stage. Towering larger than life on the screen, he adjusted the angle of the microphone with one hand and waved like royalty with the other, he seized the heart of every last person there with that fake-but-dazzling smile – and then he spotted me.
For a single perfect second, Public Dave’s smile was replaced by the heart-melting crooked grin of my favorite Kansas fry cook. I lifted one hand and wiggled my fingers at him – and from the far side of the ballroom, looming huge and beautiful on that huge screen, he winked at me. Just me, and no one else.
It flickered past in an instant, but that moment was ours and we were the only two people in it.
Dave tore into his speech after that. With his public face back on, he gripped the edges of the podium, leaning forward and declaring the Dallstrom Defense Systems gospel as if he’d gotten it on tablets straight from God, and not from his dad’s speechwriters. He hit every point in perfect style, fresh hoots and whistles filled the air whenever he paused to take a breath, and by the time he belted out the last bit about “global peace through strength!,” he owned that crowd body and soul.
It was fake and glorious, and I was so proud of him.
Take a long look, ladies – that perfect heart stopper of a man is mine, and you can all just bite me.
You too, Ilona Whoever, aka “Ice Queen From The Bowels Of Hell” – you’re nowhere near enough woman for my guy.
No Dreams Allowed: A Billionaire Romance Page 17