by Fiona Harper
He jumped to his feet. ‘Don’t go.’
She bit her lip and shook her head, still backing towards the exit. ‘I have to…You know that, don’t you?’
And then she was running down the corridor to the lifts, leaving her handbag, her coat—everything—in her office. The lift door glided open and she bolted inside, pressed herself against the brushed steel interior. It seemed an age before the doors closed again, but no one came. No hand suddenly appeared on the edge to stop its progress.
Easy to be with? Easy to let go, more like.
He hadn’t followed her.
He’d understood, damn him.
The opening ball for the new Orion Solutions headquarters was only hours away, and Cameron was in a foul mood. His PA had disappeared some time ago, squeaking something about an urgent errand, and hadn’t returned yet.
Alice was also nowhere to be seen.
Why had he kissed her?
Alice had been nowhere to be seen since Thursday evening. And while his head told him she was probably at the new building—overseeing stage construction, briefing caterers—some other, more stubborn part of himself was taking it personally.
Even Jessica and Sierra had known the score. Nothing serious, no strings. When it was over, it was over. Women didn’t just kiss him and then run. Basically women stayed, until he was ready to dismiss them.
Hah! That sounded so…so…pompous! He told himself he was being monumentally unbearable. So full of himself he’d really like to have given himself a slap. Had he really got that bad? Why had nobody told him?
Alice told you. When she looked at you with shock and horror and ran away. She knew what she’d done—what you’d become.
And, stupidly, all he could think about was that kiss. When he kissed other women it was all about playing a part, playing games—a subtle shifting of power back and forth, testing each other, seeing who had the most control.
He hadn’t thought about any of that when he’d kissed Alice; he’d just been. Caught in the moment, thinking of nothing but how soft and right she felt pressed up against him, feeling nothing but a sense of completeness.
There was such an honesty about Alice. She didn’t pretend to be something she wasn’t. She wore what she wanted to wear, said what she wanted to say. She hadn’t constructed some larger-than-life persona that she now had to live up to. So why had he?
It was as if he’d been forging ahead in one direction, never looking back, consuming everything in his wake, and Alice had made him stop and take a look over his shoulder at where he’d come from, who he’d once been. It had been a shock to see how much he’d changed. And now he couldn’t switch off that knowledge. His other, truer self was like a ghost at his shoulder, whispering things in his ear, making him second-guess everything he now had and everything he’d attained.
Even this blasted ball tonight.
It now seemed like a three-ring circus rather than a stupendously elegant affair. The only reason he hadn’t pulled the plug on the whole thing was that he knew he’d see Alice again there. Exactly why he wanted to and what he was going to say he wasn’t sure; he just knew he had to see her.
Fighting a rather over-enthusiastic Coreen about hair and make-up was something Alice just wasn’t up to at the moment. For the last forty-eight hours she’d been able to block out the memories of Cameron’s lips on hers, of her flight headlong into the night, by working herself to a standstill.
But now everything was done, and the only remaining job was to get herself ready for the ball. Ready to be a knowledgeable, outgoing representative of Coreen’s Closet. Meanwhile, her head felt like fudge.
It didn’t help matters that she was standing in the middle of Cameron’s office—his new office—now gloriously furnished. It was his personal space, and although he hadn’t actually inhabited it yet, the rich intense colours—the midnight-blue carpet, the dark glossy wood of the desk and paneling, even a brass desk lamp identical to the one he had in his other office—made it impossible for her to ignore that the space belonged to him. She was in his territory.
Since Coreen and Alice would be on site all day, dealing with last-minute preparations, it had been agreed some weeks ago that they could get ready for the ball here. Because, tucked away behind a door in the panelling, there was a spacious bathroom and even a small dressing room.
Thankfully, even though she was on his territory, there was no sight of Cameron.
Thankfully?
What a lie! Every cell in her body was aching to see him again. Her brain was doing its best to argue back, but she thought it might be outnumbered.
So she let Coreen powder and brush and pluck and tease. That only made things worse. With nothing to keep her distracted, the rational side of her was overpowered by the side of her she’d tried to ignore. In her mind she started to regurgitate the events of that night in Cameron’s other office.
Why had Cameron kissed her? Really?
She had theories, but no solid facts. Sympathy? Because they’d connected on some level? Had she finally got her wish and merely been the nearest available pair of lips?
She sighed, and Coreen, who was busy applying foundation, ticked her off for moving.
There was no future between a man like Cameron—he was probably a multimillionaire, for goodness’ sake—and an ordinary girl like her. She was a second-hand girlfriend. And she knew for a fact that Cameron didn’t do second-hand.
‘Will you stop with the incessant sighing, please?’ Coreen snapped. ‘I almost took your eye out with the mascara brush.’
Alice blinked and came back to the real world. ‘Sorry.’
Coreen was standing in front of her in a little black dress that was fifties restraint and pure sin all at the same time. It had a medium-length full skirt, a tiny, tiny waist, and a halter-necked bodice covered with sequin-studded chiffon. The four-inch red stilettos that finished off the look would make grown men weep.
She made a last little flourish of the mascara wand and stepped back to survey her handiwork.
‘Fabulous. Even if I do say so myself.’
The only difference Alice could see was that her eyelids seemed to be weighed down with more gunk than usual.
‘Next—the dress!’
Coreen was like a runaway train tonight. She suddenly dashed into the dressing room and Alice heard a rustling sound, then Coreen reappeared, looking smug.
‘I’ve put my coat over the full-length mirror. No peeking until both the dress and shoes are on. You’ll want to get the full effect.’
Alice just nodded, and trotted obediently into the little room. Her dress was hanging up in there, and she took it out of its protective cover and slid it on over the insanely expensive underwear Coreen had practically made her buy. Not that she’d actually needed to be forced that hard. Not when most of her bras were a little less than pristine white and held together with safety pins. She’d needed something to do this dress justice.
The dress went on easily, zipping up at her side, and then she reached for her shoes. Her Lucite-heeled shoes. The emerald of her dress reflected in the clear heels as she held them, making them seemed enchanted. It was the first time she’d felt worthy of wearing them—at least was wearing a dress that was worthy of them. She slipped them on and stood tall.
‘You can come in now,’ she said, staring at the fluffy collar of Coreen’s coat draped over the full length mirror.
She turned slightly as Coreen entered, expecting to see a self-satisfied look on her friend’s face—Coreen liked to think she was queen of the makeover—but found her looking slack-jawed.
‘Wow. I mean…wow.’
Alice made a face. Coreen was such a drama queen. It was just the fact that for once she was wearing a dress and had a bit of…
Coreen whipped the coat off the mirror.
...make-up on.
Now it was Alice’s turn to feel her jaw hit the floor.
‘Told you!’ Coreen had obviously got over her shock and was
practically jigging from foot to foot. ‘Told you it was your dress!’
The dress had felt exquisite as she’d put it on, but she’d been too busy stressing about the whole Cameron thing to think about how it would look. This was it. What Coreen had been talking about—the sum being greater than its parts. This was her dress.
The bias-cut satin floated over curves she hadn’t even realised she had—maybe because she spent all her time hiding them rather than accentuating them with scary underwear. The colour was…It made her skin look like porcelain. And her hair…It was still as bright and fiery as ever, but it was parted on one side, falling in soft waves over her face, her long fringe almost covering one eye. Coreen had been mumbling about Rita Hayworth and Veronica Lake when she’d been doing it, but Alice hadn’t really been paying attention. In this dress her hair…worked! She loved it. All of it. The hair, the dress, the shoes—especially the shoes.
‘Thank you,’ she whispered to Coreen’s reflection in the mirror, suddenly finding herself all emotional.
Coreen came up behind her and gave her a quick squeeze. ‘Don’t you dare!’ she warned. ‘The ball starts in twenty minutes and I don’t have time to do our eyes again. Come on—it’s time to go downstairs and discover what last-minute snags have cropped up.’
They left the dressing room, and Alice went over to an abstract-looking chair to retrieve her handbag.
‘Leave it,’ Coreen said. ‘We’ll need both hands once we get downstairs.’
Good idea. She hadn’t been quite sure how she was going to manage a clutch bag without looking as if she was clutching onto it. And, compared to the dress, it looked a little—well, downmarket.
‘Showtime!’ Coreen grinned at her, her bright red lips making her look like a Varga girl.
Showtime. Cameron’s show. And, after all the work she’d done, hers too.
There was the last-minute snag—right there. It was her show, and it was time to step up and become the leading lady rather than just the understudy.
The exterior of the new Orion Solutions building was floodlit—the stark white lights throwing the carved stonework into relief, making it seem as if the columns rose into the sky and just kept going. Low box hedges framed the clipped squares of grass where only recently mere rubble had been, and as they arrived the guests marvelled at the transformation the indomitable Cameron Hunter had wrought. It was truly magical, they said. How amazing that this wonderful building had been under their noses all this time and nobody had ever paid it the slightest bit of attention.
They milled inside, continuing to exclaim at every little thing: the wonderful black and white marble floors, those darling Art Deco glass lights on the ceiling, and oh, look at that original dark wood!
Old Hollywood glamour.
The theme had been whole-heartedly embraced by those lucky enough to get an invite. Fabrics shimmered and swished, jewels sparkled, and everyone had an air of quiet self-importance. Some of the men had top hats and canes like Fred Astaire. One man had even gone to the trouble of putting on spats—although the general consensus was that they made him look more like a mobster than anything else.
The chatter increased as the guests wandered through the entrance hall into the atrium, and there everyone took a breath, a moment, and fell silent for a few seconds. Then they all started talking again, this time louder and more emphatically.
The lighting was deliberately low, and tiny white spotlights glinted in the glass roof like stars that had swooped down to see what all the excitement was about. Creamy white flowers were everywhere. At one end of the long rectangular courtyard was a wide stage, with chairs arranged in rows in front of it, and at the other end a large space for dancing and a forty-piece jazz band complete with a singer in a long white dress and an orchid tucked behind one ear.
But no one was dancing yet. That would come later—after the fashion show. For now an army of waiters offered trays full of colourful cocktails, and the topic of discussion became whether it really was better to have a martini ‘shaken’ and what exactly was in a Sidecar.
In the centre of the atrium was the fountain, flowing with water that fizzed and bubbled like champagne. It was surrounded by a thick black border in the marble tiles, marking out a square, and at each corner of the square stood a towering potted tree, leaves delicately draping themselves downwards as if reaching for the spray of the fountain. And there, standing under one of those trees, was Cameron Hunter, as calm and poised as everyone expected him to be. The perfect host. He greeted his guests warmly, remembering all their names, making them all feel welcome as he ushered them in to his little corner of the universe.
Cameron, however, was feeling far from calm or poised, but he was—as always—doing an excessively good job of hiding the fact lest anyone suspect, lest anyone judge.
He turned, a smooth smile on his face, at the sound of his name. Only a microscopic twitch of an eyelid gave him away as he saw who had spoken.
‘Daniel Fitzroy.’ He omitted to say how pleased he was to see the man who’d made his schooldays a living nightmare, because it really wasn’t true.
‘Cameron.’ The man grabbed his hand and shook it warmly. ‘Thank you so much for inviting me—us.’ He flicked a glance at the woman standing next to him, a small brunette with sharp eyes and an obvious bump under her stretchy black dress. ‘We’re really thrilled to be here.’
This was what he’d wanted—to see and hear Daniel Fitzroy bowing down before him, smiling like a weasel and pretending the past hadn’t happened because he was so desperate to impress him. Cameron had always known that when this day finally came he’d have won. The memory of all those beatings would be erased and he’d be free.
And then, as if the universe had decided that granting his every desire tonight wasn’t enough, and it was going to go ahead and grant his every thought as well, there she was.
Jessica.
Strolling towards him, resplendent in a long, deep pink dress with a bow that reminded him of a scene in a Marilyn Monroe movie—the one where she sang about diamonds. And Jessica hadn’t scrimped on those either.
Why was she here? How had she got in? He definitely hadn’t added her name to the guest list. But, then again, she was Jessica Fernly-Jones, and she never needed an invite to turn up to anything.
Despite the fact he hadn’t seen her in weeks, and she’d not been happy when he’d left her standing in her swish apartment with a scowl on her face and an ‘ordinary’ white diamond in her hand, she seemed perfectly at ease. She sauntered up to him and placed a soft kiss on his cheek before turning to smile at Fitzroy and his wife.
Cameron made the introductions. Everyone smiled at each other.
But, to his credit, Fitzroy’s tongue stayed in his mouth, and he gave his little wife an affectionate squeeze. Bizarrely, that pleased Cameron. The small, serious woman at his side didn’t deserve to be made to feel second-class, whatever he thought of her husband.
‘Actually,’ Fitzroy said in a low voice, pulling him to one side, ‘could I have a word with you?’ And he drew Cameron a few feet away, behind the potted tree and out of view of the guests spilling in through the doors.
The fashion show was due to start in fifteen minutes, and backstage was bedlam. Models were running around in their underwear, clothing rails filled every available space, and the clouds of hairspray necessary for some of the elaborate retro styles were starting to make Alice cough.
Even with all their friends from the market to help dress everyone and take care of the clothes it was madness. Alice took a moment to rest against a table and wonder why—for the thousandth time—she’d ever got suckered into doing all of this. She hadn’t even managed to get out from backstage to see how the rest of the party was going. She was having to rely on reports from Stephanie, Cameron’s PA, who actually seemed to be thriving in all the high-stress excitement.
Suddenly a hand clapped on her shoulder, and she jerked to a standing position.
‘We’ve got
an emergency,’ Coreen said, a deathly serious look on her face.
It had to be at least the fifth time she’d made such an announcement this evening.
Coreen must have read her thoughts, because she added, ‘No—this time it’s a real emergency! One of the models, Amber—you know, the one with the hair?’
As far as Alice was aware none of their models was bald, but she let it slide.
‘Well, she’s throwing up in the toilets. Blaming it on a rice salad she ate at lunchtime. Boy, she does not look good! There’s no way she can do the runway.’
Alice frowned. ‘Can we give her dresses to some of the other models—share them out?’
Coreen shook her head. ‘The changes are too quick. We’ll have gaps in the show if we wait for them, and that will look unprofessional.’
Alice frowned even harder and put her thinking cap on. Everything was silent for a few seconds.
Hang on a minute. Coreen lived for drama. Why wasn’t she relishing the moment, wringing her hands and gnashing her teeth? She turned to Coreen, who was still standing patiently next to her.
‘You’ve got a plan, haven’t you?’
A bright smile lit Coreen’s face. ‘I have got a plan!’
‘And the plan is…?’
A manicured finger poked her in the chest. ‘You. My plan is you.’
Cameron had followed Fitzroy behind the potted tree, too taken aback by the thought of Fitzroy wanting something from him to say anything. Now they were effectively in private Fitzroy shuffled a little, and couldn’t meet Cameron’s eyes.
‘Actually, I wanted to apologise to you.’ He glanced up, then returned to looking at the floor. ‘I should have done it sooner, but…well, I just didn’t. Perhaps I’m a coward.’
Yep. Pretty much what Cameron had always thought.
But Fitzroy suddenly squared his shoulders and looked Cameron in the eye—something Cameron didn’t think he’d ever done before, not even when he’d been punching seven bells out of him.