by Kara Isaac
Fourteen
THE ROOMS AT THE HURLINGHAM Club buzzed with a strange mix of euphoria and simmering disappointment. Emelia ran her palms down the front of the cocktail-length navy blue dress she’d picked up on sale the day before. As if smoothing her dress would somehow calm the butterflies flurrying up a hurricane in her stomach. It was only because Allie had somehow sourced a last-minute spare ticket that she was even there at all.
The rowers, rowing alumni, and other guests had been seated in two separate rooms for the meal, but now that dinner was over and the music had started, people were crossing between the rooms.
She sucked in a breath, trying to convince herself she’d dreamed up the chemistry that had arched between them on the riverbank. But the way her nerves were contorting themselves insisted differently.
“Go dance, you guys.” She gave Allie and Jackson full props for not making her feel like the third wheel for most of the day, but the two of them didn’t get enough time together as it was. She certainly didn’t want them wasting any more of it babysitting her.
Allie laughed as she put her water glass down on the tabletop. “I’m not sure my toes are up to being mangled quite yet.” She slid a teasing look at Jackson.
“I’m pretty sure I specifically mentioned my lack of skill the first time we danced.” Jackson’s arm rested around his fiancée’s shoulder, his fingers twisting a lock of hair that had fallen out of her chignon. The strands shimmered like spun copper under the lights.
“But not with enough conviction to make me realize it was really true.” Allie giggled as Jackson nuzzled her hair. Right, time to leave.
Emelia pushed back her chair as the music changed to something slow. “I’m going to get another drink. Either of you want anything?” They both shook their heads. Despite Allie’s protestations, Emelia was certain by the time she returned they’d be dancing, lead feet or not. You didn’t put your fiancé in a tux, bring him to an event like this, and not get in at least one slow dance.
Dodging the limbs and elbows of people who had already imbibed a bit too much, she threaded her way to the bar. The lights had dimmed, turning people into moving shadows.
The crowd parted for a second, and her breath stuttered as she thought she saw a familiar profile. It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t be here. She stood on her tiptoes, scanning the room, heart threatening to break out of her rib cage.
She was seeing things. The room was filled with plenty of tall blond men in their twenties who thought they were God’s gift to mankind. There was no reason for him to be here. Last time they’d crossed paths, he’d been well entrenched in the LA party scene, using his title to cultivate a harem of socialites and C-list TV stars. The entitled son of the Viscount Downley belonged here about as much as she did.
She forced herself to let her breath out as another scan of the room yielded a number of blond men but not him. Then, in the middle of the crowd, she felt her hand being grasped and tugged.
It was over. She’d been found out. Somehow she’d always known it was going to happen. It had been a nice time while it lasted.
Preparing herself for the worst, she turned, ready to see the person she had one horrible thing in common with: the same person’s blood on their hands.
Peter.
If it hadn’t been for the crowd, she might have hit the floor as a wave of relief weakened her legs.
Peter’s brow furrowed. “You okay?”
Emelia placed her palm on her chest. “You scared me.”
“Sorry.” He bent down low, close to her ear. “Didn’t want to risk losing you in the crowd.”
The guy was like six foot three, and she stood a good half a head above most of the women. There was no chance he would lose her in the crowd. Her insides warmed like the hand he was still holding.
“How was dinner?” It was the best she could manage as she processed that she still had her boring, normal English life. Her cover hadn’t been blown.
He shrugged. “Fine. The boys are in great form. But considering I’ve spent the last six months with them, I’m glad to be done.”
“So, how can I help?” She had to half yell the question to be heard over the background noise. The guy was easy on the eyes, she couldn’t deny it, but for her own good she needed to maintain distance with her quasi-boss. Especially when just looking at him made her think inappropriately of slow dances against a certain broad chest.
“Do you have a second? I’ve had an idea.”
“Sure.”
He placed a hand on the small of her back. “Let’s go outside, where we can hear ourselves think.”
Cutting through the crowd, it took them a couple of minutes to work their way outside, where a few ball-goers stood around smoking and one ardent couple pressed up against a wall seemed to have forgotten they were still in public.
The sudden change from hot packed ballroom to cool spring night had Emelia suppressing a shiver. But Peter’s eyes didn’t miss anything. “Here, take this.” He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it around her shoulders before she could protest.
“Thanks.” Emelia tucked it around her torso and tried to ignore the scents of cedar and sandalwood enveloping her.
Of course he had good taste in cologne.
“So, tell me about this idea.”
“We need something big for our final event, right? Something to make lots of money. Put the charity back in the black but also something high-profile.”
“Yes. All of the above.”
Peter gestured around him. “What about this?”
“This?”
“A ball. A big black-tie charity ball.”
He looked so excited she didn’t have the heart to tell him that she’d already considered it and nixed the idea. Balls cost a bomb. You could just as easily come out of them in the red as make lots of money. And there was no way the charity had the money to pay a lot of the up-front costs that would be required before tickets even went on sale.
She gripped the silky inside of his jacket. “Peter, balls are really, really expensive to put on. There would be a huge risk we wouldn’t even make back what it cost to do one well.”
“Look, I know that SpringBoard doesn’t have any money. But the one thing we do have is some connections. Between the board members we would know enough people to be able to make a real go of this.”
How could she phrase this nicely? She didn’t want to kill the guy’s enthusiasm. Especially not when she was going to be stuck with him for the next eight months on whatever they did end up going with. “Look, I’m not doubting that the board knows a lot of people, but for a charity ball to be a success it’s not enough to know people, you have to know people.” She put the emphasis on the last word, hoping he would not ask her to spell out what she meant.
“I know.” He studied her face, the moonlight making his freckles stand out. “You think I don’t know what you mean?”
“Why don’t you tell me who you’re thinking of?” She hoped she was about to be surprised. She wasn’t sure what she would do if he said he knew the local ancient county squire or something. Was that even still a thing in England?
He crossed his arms, stretching his white dress shirt across his chest. “Well, before I injured my shoulder, I was on the Great Britain rowing team so I know quite a few Olympians.”
Emelia knew that her mouth had sagged but she couldn’t do anything to lift it. Peter was on the national team? How did she not know this? How had no one mentioned it? She stared at him, her mind spinning at warp speed through the Rolodex of opportunities she’d just been presented with. He was still talking but she’d missed the last couple of sentences until a name cut through.
“Anita had quite a few celebrity friends with good connections I’m sure we could tap as well.”
“Okay, great.” She tried to sound nonchalant. This changed everything.
Just then a couple of Oxford boys, easily identifiable in their blue jackets, stumbled toward them.
; “Oh, brother.” Peter muttered the words under his breath. “Sorry, those are mine. I need to make sure they get away okay. Should we pick this up next week? At the office.”
“Sure. Great. Yes.” She watched as Peter strode away, catching up to the boys in a few steps.
She turned, adrenaline suddenly buzzing through her system. She needed to go and tell Allie she was leaving, get back to the hotel they were staying at, and start working on some spreadsheets. She had a ball to start planning.
She half ran back toward the entrance. Coming around the front door, she barreled straight into someone with the height and width of a large tree.
“S—” Looking up, her apology cut out as the slate gray eyes of her worst nightmare drilled into her. Speak, Emelia. Then move! “Sorry, entirely my fault.”
The heir to the Viscount Downley unraveled one of the smiles that had taken many a simpering starlet out at the knees. The jagged scar that ran down one cheek twitched. “My fault. I insist.” Then he tilted his head and gave her a quizzical look. “You look familiar. Have we met?”
She shook her head, too fast, too desperate. “I don’t think so.” He couldn’t. Her hair was a different color and style, her eyes no longer enhanced by colored contacts. She stepped to the side, trying to go around him, but was blocked by some people coming the other way.
“Excuse me.” Someone brushed past her but she didn’t even look at them.
He narrowed his gray eyes at her, then they widened and he dropped an expletive. “What are you doing here?”
Think fast, Emelia, think fast. Show no fear. Pulling herself up to her full height, which was not much compared to his, admittedly, she stared Victor straight in the eye. “I could ask you the same question. Daddy recall you back home after our last meeting?” She forced the words out in a cavalier way. If she gave any hint that he had the power to ruin her, everything she was here for would be destroyed.
He averted his gaze for a second. Good. It showed he had something to lose. Maybe not as much as she did, but something. And she’d grasp at any straw, no matter how thin. She took her chance. “Look. I don’t know what you’re doing here and I don’t really care. London’s a big city. So how about we just stay out of each other’s way and let the past stay there?”
Victor was silent for a few seconds. Obviously weighing having no idea what she was doing in London and whether he had any leverage over her versus what she knew about him and what evidence might or might not exist to back it up. “I never saw you.”
She tilted her head at him and shrugged, as if it didn’t matter to her one way or the other. An Oscar-worthy farce if there ever was one. “Right back at you.”
It was only after he’d stormed past her that she realized she was still shrouded in Peter’s coat. And had wrapped it around herself so tightly it was practically a straitjacket.
Peter walked back toward the ball, having tipped his two drunken rowers into a taxi and dispatched them back to the house the team was staying in. He passed the spot where he’d spoken to Emelia and a smile tugged at his lips. A charity ball. He was sure they could pull it off. Between his connections and Emelia’s tenacity—something about her made him think that when she decided to do something she was all in—it was the one real shot they had.
Victor stood outside, leaning against the wall, bow tie hanging askew.
“You all right?” The guy looked like he’d seen a ghost.
“Fine.” His brother shook his head, his expression haunted. “Big day. Think I’m going to head back to base.”
Hmmm . . . that wasn’t like Victor at all. Usually he was the last one to leave a party. If he left at all, rather than being found the next day passed out somewhere.
“Okay.” Peter didn’t push it, too relieved that he wasn’t going to have to spend the rest of his night trying to keep Victor out of trouble. “See you in the morning.”
Striding back into the ball, he scanned the room. He was off the clock. All of the team were over eighteen and could look after themselves. Or not, as the morning might reveal, but none of them were his official responsibility. Not that it stopped him from keeping an eye out for them. He’d experienced what they were living. Could well remember what could happen when you were heady with victory and felt ten feet tall and bulletproof. His shoulder twinged and he rotated it, checking for pain. He wouldn’t wish what he was going through on his worst enemy.
He smiled as he remembered Emelia’s shocked expression when he’d told her he’d been on the GB rowing team. Her full, rosy lips making the kind of O he’d thought only happened in cartoons. It had been all he could do not to run his thumb across the lower one, to see if it was as soft as it looked.
He shook his head. He couldn’t allow himself to think like that when he had to spend the next eight months working with her. He didn’t know anything about Emelia. Not why she was in Oxford, her background, or, most importantly, her beliefs. And after having a front-row seat to his parents’ difficult marriage, he had promised himself he would never make the same mistake. A couple of meetings that belonged in a rom-com movie did not happily-ever-after make.
“Fancy a dance, stranger?” It was a familiar woman’s voice, but definitely not the one he’d been thinking of.
“Um, sure.” Sabine’s hand already rested on his arm, and he mechanically took her other hand, his movements awkward and stilted.
At five foot four, Sabine barely reached the top of his chest. Which made her perfect for the talented cox that she was, but not perfect for him. A thought he’d never had until meeting a certain brunette.
“For a guy whose team just won the Boat Race, you sure look glum.”
He turned his attention to the intelligent eyes staring up at him. “What are you doing, Sabine?”
She moved smoothly through the crowded dance floor, ignoring the fact that he was doing a lousy job at leading her. “I just wanted to say congratulations. Or is that not allowed?”
He sighed. “Of course it’s allowed. Sorry. Thanks.”
Sabine was a great girl. Any guy would have been lucky to have her. It wasn’t like they had parted ways badly. It had just become obvious, after his injury, that their shared obsession with rowing had allowed them to ignore all the other problems in their relationship. Ones that became as obvious as the neon signs at Piccadilly Circus once it became clear it would be a long time before he rowed competitively again.
“I hear you’re back in the boat.” She leaned up on tiptoes and had to practically shout the words to be heard above the music and crowd.
Where had she heard that? He’d been keeping his occasional forays on the river in his scull pretty quiet. He shrugged and leaned down so she could hear his response. “Barely. Just for a bit of exercise. Nothing serious. The last set of scans, well, they weren’t great.” It felt good to be honest about it with someone. Sabine got what the dream meant.
She tilted her head, staring straight into his eyes. “I’m really sorry, Peter. But I know you can come back from this. You are a great rower. You’re going to stand on that podium one day.”
That was one of the best things about Sabine. She’d always believed in him. Even more than he believed in himself. Even still. After everything.
“By the way, what’s happening with SpringBoard? How can I help?”
Peter blinked at the abrupt change in subject. “Actually, we’re looking at setting up some kind of friendly between the Oxford and Cambridge rowing teams. I’m sure we could use you with that somehow.” She would be perfect. If he failed at convincing some of the guys, there wouldn’t be a rower on either team who would be able to turn her down.
Sabine laughed. “Like there would be anything friendly about that. Sounds like fun. Just let me know what I can do.”
He shuffled them between a couple of pairs. “How about you? How are you doing?”
She shrugged a slender shoulder against his chest. “I’m thinking it might be time for me to retire soon.”
“What are you talking about?” He could no more imagine Sabine voluntarily giving up rowing than he could the queen giving up the throne. She’d coxed her women’s eight to the final in the London Olympics. There had been scuttlebutt about her maybe even coxing the men’s team one day. She still had years left on her career. He might have had the potential to be great, but she actually was.
Sabine tilted her head so that she was looking right at him. “Maybe I need to move on. Look at what rowing’s cost me.”
“Like what?”
“Like you.”
He stepped back, tried to subtly put a little more space between them. “Rowing didn’t cost you me. If anything, it held us together for far longer than we would’ve lasted otherwise. You know that.”
She stared up at him, her blue eyes full of consternation. “No, Peter. I don’t know that. What I know is that after you got injured, you were angry, and frustrated, and hurt. You wanted an excuse to push me away and you used that. When I think the truth was that it hurt too much to see me still doing what you loved, and I don’t blame you. You can’t pretend there wasn’t still something there that night we had coffee.”
She was right. There had been a night soon after they’d split up that they’d run into each other at Paddington station. Both the victims of delayed trains. They’d had a drink. And there had been something still there. But he’d told himself that was natural after three years. And then Anita had died and everything changed. “We were together for a long time, Bine. Feelings don’t die just because something didn’t work out.”
She shook her head, adamant. “It was more than that.”
“What are you saying?”
She looked up at him, all big blue eyes and pleading expression. “I’m saying I think you made a big mistake breaking up with me, and I think I made one letting you. I’m saying being here, with you, feels like everything is finally right again after it being all wrong for months.”
They’d stopped any attempt at dancing. Instead, they just shuffled along the edge of the dance floor as he stared at her.
What on earth was going on tonight? One second he’d been thinking about kissing Emelia, which would have been unwise at best. The next Sabine was making some kind of case . . . for what?