“Hi,” he said quietly. Nice eyes and a friendly smile made her heart constrict.
“Hi,” she said.
“You look wonderful.”
“Thanks,” she said, already feeling better. This wasn’t so bad. The first shock had subsided, and Jonas was himself. He wasn’t a bad person, not really. This wasn’t anywhere near as hard as she’d feared. She exhaled and gave him a polite smile.
“I hoped you would be here,” he said.
“You did?” Her voice was calm and level. And strangely enough, that’s how she felt, almost neutral.
“Yes, I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you too,” she mumbled, although she realized it wasn’t true. The last two weeks she hadn’t thought of Jonas even once.
A press photographer came over and asked if she could take Alexander’s picture. He always attracted the press, and they waited while he let her take some pictures. Then a young woman came over and lured Alexander away. Natalia watched her brother go. He was almost too attractive for his own good; women flocked around him, and he manically cultivated his playboy image. If only he was happy, she thought. If only he didn’t have that hunted look in his eyes. Wasn’t drinking so much.
She saw him stop by a stunningly beautiful redheaded woman who was talking to J-O. The woman wore a pale-pink dress that made her red hair glow, and whatever Alex said to her, she didn’t like it. Natalia heard Jonas say something to Åsa, but couldn’t bring herself to turn back to them.
And then Natalia felt it.
David’s presence wound its way through the buzz and the mingling and the guests, and she felt it, like an electric pulse. The hair on her arms stood on end, the quality of the sounds around her changed, her focus shifted. It was so strong that she thought she must be imagining it. She realized that she’d stopped breathing, so she took a deep breath and slowly set down her glass. She systematically activated all her muscles and all the strength years of horseback riding, dance, and sheer will had given her. She slowly turned her head, felt a tingle in her back. Her lips curled. And then their eyes met, his and hers.
Bang.
Åsa slid up close beside her. “Do you see?”
“Yes,” Natalia breathed.
“They’re both here.”
“Yes.”
“Damn, but they’re hot.”
Natalia thrust out her chin. She had new clothes, new shoes, and a new hairdo. She was ready. “But we’re hotter.”
“Yes,” Åsa agreed. “This is our scene, Natalia. Are you in?”
“All in.”
26
David saw her. She was standing there amid a crowd of partygoers, almost luminous. People moved around and behind and sometimes in front of her, but she stood out like a radiant star in a dark sky. How could he ever have thought that Natalia was anything other than breathtakingly beautiful? Had there really been a time when he had described her to himself as common and insignificant? There was nothing ordinary about her. She had done something to her hair—it fell around her shoulders in big glossy waves that continued down her back. And she was wearing red. A Ferrari red dress, short and made of some material that looked alive, swirling around her body in triumphant serpentine swaths. And those long, sexy legs that quite recently had rested on his shoulders as he brought her to climax.
At first he couldn’t identify the word he heard in his head; he was too preoccupied with drinking her in with his eyes.
But then he heard it again, a single word that drowned out all the others, a primal roar.
Mine.
She is mine.
Which was beyond stupid, of course. He had no right to her, never would. It didn’t matter what they’d done. It was only sex.
Only sex.
He wanted to walk over to her. He wanted to caress those bare shoulders, put his arm around her, pull her to him, kiss her deeply, thoroughly, satisfyingly. Wanted to see her face start to glow, see her eyes widen. It was almost impossible to resist. Impossible to remember why he should resist that impulse that was so primal in its force. He did what he apparently always did when it came to Natalia—he started bargaining with himself.
One last time, what did it matter? Because this would really be the last time, truly. This was the last night they would see each other before—well, before.
She cocked her head to the side and watched him, alluring and tempting him like a modern-day siren, and David just threw it all overboard. He dumped his good intentions and reason as if they were ballast, holding him down, and made up his mind.
Mine.
He was about to start walking toward her, had already taken the first step, when he suddenly saw a tall man slip up behind her, as if he’d been standing there the whole time and was now staking his rightful claim. With a slow wink Natalia looked away from David. She turned to face the man. He whispered something in her ear, she nodded in response, and David saw the couple move a little and then they were swallowed by the crowd of party guests.
The moment was past.
He swallowed. He should be grateful it had happened. Now he had the chance to move on.
But he didn’t move on.
He just stood there.
And he wondered: who the hell was that man?
Michel had tried not to stare at Åsa. But it was like starving to death and trying not to stare at a buffet. And every time his eyes were drawn to her, Åsa looked back at him, through ever more narrowed eyes. She was wearing something tight-fitting, like a second skin. As Natalia De la Grip moved away with an unknown man, Åsa remained.
Michel pushed his way over to her.
“Åsa,” he said as he reached her, his heart pounding so hard he thought it must show.
She raised a blond eyebrow and gave him one of her truly aristocratic looks.
“Yes?” she said.
Åsa had always been good at putting him off-kilter. A word, a look, and he started waffling like an idiot.
They were the same age, had both been twenty when they first met. Michel still remembered it. The first day of the semester at university, studying pre-law. He had sat there, exhilarated, eager, the pride of his family, extremely early in the very front row.
Åsa had sailed in, late, swishing past him without a second glance, surveying the whole lecture hall. He hadn’t heard a single word of the lecture, had just sat there, sneaking peeks at her as she sat with her pen in her mouth, swinging her foot back and forth. After the lecture the other students had swarmed around her, girls and boys. She hadn’t even looked at him once. And Michel, who didn’t drink alcohol, had started going to student pubs. He had hung around, his beer untouched, watching her, seeing her go home with different men each time.
One night they’d started chatting. She was flirty but also smart, and strangely enough, they had a lot in common. They started studying together, eating lunch together, but no more. Åsa kept going home with different men, and he kept fantasizing about her. And then one night . . . Michel couldn’t really think about it without feeling the familiar anxiety: one night it had all changed and they weren’t friends anymore. After school they’d disappeared from each other’s lives, and scarcely a day had gone by in the last ten years when he hadn’t thought of her.
If anyone asked him, love at first sight was damned overrated.
“I called you,” he said. All the complicated old emotions made him sound terser than he’d intended.
She cocked her head slightly, a lock of blond hair grazed her cheek, and he wanted to run his hand over it, twist it around his finger, smell it. She was more beautiful now at thirty-something than she had been at twenty.
“But you didn’t say anything, just called and hung up. No message. I’m not a mind reader, Michel,” she said, and his name sounded like fire and sex in her mouth.
“I know,” he said. “I apologize.”
“What do you want?” she asked nonchalantly, as if she were asking him his favorite color or something else equally insignificant.
What do I want?
Michel wasn’t sure there were words in any of the languages he spoke that described what he wanted.
“I want us to be friends,” he said. Their friendship had been genuine. He hadn’t realized how much he missed it.
“Åsa!” a loud voice behind them cried out. “Oh my God, it’s been ages!” There were people everywhere, and Michel heard the loud voice and the hollered words from behind him. He saw Åsa automatically look to see who had spoken, mentally starting to pull away from him, and something just snapped.
That’s what she did, pulled away, turned off, shut people out. He wasn’t sure he could survive it again. He moved, stepping in to block the path between Åsa and whoever was trying to get her attention.
Åsa’s eyes widened. “What do you think you’re doing? You have no right to . . .”
But Michel shook his head and took a step closer to her, moving into her personal space. He was taking the right. He grabbed Åsa’s wrist. Oh, the scent of her, always this vanilla scent that made him think of Åsa, no matter where he was.
“You and I need to talk,” he said. He pulled her to him and their eyes met.
It was like looking right into her soul.
“Talk about what?” He saw a sliver of fear before she shut him out and sneered instead.
“About us,” he said.
Her eyes narrowed. “There is no us.”
But he was running on new fuel now. The insecure student was gone, and he’d seen something in her eyes, something soft and vulnerable, something that revealed that she wasn’t anywhere near as chilly as she seemed, and that gave him hope. He just said, “There most certainly is. Come on.”
He hoped the gamble would pay off, that if he were pushy enough, she would be sufficiently flummoxed to just go along with it. He really hoped so, because he didn’t have a plan B and he didn’t have all that much courage in reserve.
He held out his hand.
Åsa looked at it for a while, as if she were trying to figure out what it was, but then she laid her hand in his, and he squeezed it hard, and she didn’t try to pull away as he turned around and started walking.
She was completely silent behind him as he pushed his way through all the people. She didn’t say a word as he pulled her up some stairs, searching aimlessly for a quiet corner where they could be alone.
Finally he opened the door to a room and saw with relief that it was empty. A sofa, an armchair, a coffee table, and a small TV—some sort of family room. He shut the door behind them.
He looked at Åsa; she was breathing hard.
“Michel,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t know. He had just acted, without thinking. But they had never talked about what had happened. Maybe it was too late, maybe it was crazy to try to pick things up where they’d ended ten years ago. Maybe he needed to understand.
“I want to talk,” he said.
“I hate talking,” she said sharply.
He smiled a little. “I know.”
She turned her turquoise eyes on him and said, “I’ll give you ten minutes.”
Natalia smiled at Jonas, another one of those reflexively polite smiles she’d bestowed on everyone for the last fifteen minutes. Jonas chatted with a man she didn’t know about something she couldn’t really concentrate on. They were surrounded by people she certainly knew but had never had anything in common with, well-heeled women her age, dressed in low-key pastels, so similar to each other they were practically interchangeable. The men talked in this world. The women stood next to them and smiled.
A couple that Natalia and Jonas used to socialize with stopped and said hello. The woman kissed the air next to her cheek and complimented Natalia’s appearance. The man shook hands and laughed loudly and heartily. The man joined in the conversation about golf or sailing; the woman admired someone’s shawl.
Natalia tried to look like she was listening, but her mood was tanking. She tried as best she could to cling to the festive, expectant feeling she’d had. But Åsa had disappeared with Michel, who had looked like he had seriously important intentions. And David had also disappeared without a trace.
Their eyes had met, and every single one of her hairs and limbs had been electrified. She’d thought he felt the same way. She couldn’t deny it any longer, at least not to herself. She’d fallen for him.
But then Jonas had come back, and she’d lost sight of David, and now he was gone, swallowed by the five hundred guests, at least a quarter of whom were ridiculously attractive women. Maybe it was just as well. No one needed to convince her that it was a genuinely bad idea to fall for David Hammar. For a host of reasons. Not least of which was the tiny detail that he didn’t appear to have fallen for her; rather, he seemed to be keeping his distance. Besides, she was a sensible person, Natalia convinced herself, a person who would never stoop to being with a man who wasn’t into her.
And yet, all the same: She wanted to be with David. She wanted whatever she could get, whatever he would give. He’d made her greedy. It was as if she had become aware of what she was entitled to expect from life. She nodded automatically to a question, said something vapid, and just wanted to get out of there.
Jonas touched her now and then just as he used to. It was actually a little creepy. She pulled her arm away. She was worried about Alexander. He hadn’t looked happy. And she scanned the crowd for J-O, hoping he was satisfied with the party and with her. She was tense about running into her father, and on top of all that there was the draining uncertainty about how things actually stood between her and David.
Suddenly Natalia saw the whole thing as if in an abundantly clear light.
Men. Everything had to do with different men and how she related to them. It felt like an important insight, like something she wanted to pull back and dissect in peace. Why should everything she knew and thought be defined in relation to a man?
She emptied her glass and took a new one, swirled it with her brow furrowed. She felt that she was onto something important. She finished the champagne, which was ice-cold. It was hot out—hundreds of guests, a late-summer evening, and all those hot barbecue grills were gradually making it even hotter. She took another glass from a tray and took a few quick gulps.
“Shouldn’t you drink a little water?” Jonas whispered.
“What?” she asked sharply. She looked into his eyes and saw consideration but also a little worry, and something clicked inside her. Slowly, without taking her eyes off Jonas, she drained her glass, set it down, and then took another.
“Natalia,” he began.
“You . . . ,” she started, pointing at him with her glass so that the champagne sloshed. “You are not my fiancé.” She made a show of drinking another gulp. “You,” she said. Everyone else around them looked at her in curiosity. She had raised her voice. A woman never raised her voice, never drew attention to herself, not in these circles. It was vulgar. “You’re the one who broke up with me,” she continued, her voice finally breaking a little at the end. “So, Jonas Jägerhed, you no longer have any right to an opinion on anything I do. None. Zippo.”
Jonas looked as if he were thinking of saying something, but Natalia held up her hand. “No,” she said, handing him the empty glass. “I’m going to go find my brother now. And my boss. And maybe someone else.” She covered her mouth and burped as discreetly as she could. “Coming through,” she said, pushing her way past the startled onlookers and allowing herself to be swallowed up by the sea of people. Let them talk. She continued on aimlessly before she gratefully spotted her little brother’s broad back.
“Alex,” she called, pushing her way through and tapping him on the back. He turned around with a broad smile. “Natalia, I thought I heard you chewing someone out back there. Fascinating. And exactly what that pompous Jonas needs.”
“I thought you liked Jonas?”
A hard glint flickered in Alexander’s eyes. He was blond as a Viking but had long, dark eyelashes
and cheekbones a woman would kill for. “That was before,” he said. And then he smiled and his standard cheerful expression slid into place. “My dear sister, may I present you to—pardon me, I’ve forgotten your name?” Alexander turned and Natalia saw whom he’d been talking to.
Aha.
“I know him,” Natalia said. “His name’s David. He’s a venture capitalist.” She wobbled a bit in her sky-high heels. “You know, the kind of person our family hates.”
Alexander grinned. “My dear big sister, are you by any chance a little tipsy?”
She sniffed dismissively. “Aren’t you?” she asked.
“Always,” Alexander said. He turned to David again. “Sorry, what did you say your name was?”
Natalia saw David’s eyes twinkle, and she thought he had no right to look so darned good.
“I’m David Hammar,” he said. “And if it’s okay with you, I’d really like to speak to your sister for a moment.”
Alexander was about to say something, but Natalia interrupted him. “What do you mean, if it’s okay with him?” she asked, irritated. “Don’t I have free will?”
David looked at her, for a long time. The look in those gray-blue eyes was impossible to read, but if anything he seemed amused, and she felt so drawn to him. Her body was starting to lean toward him; her fingers wanted to slide over his biceps, into his hair.
The silence dragged on, and then with a dry laugh in his voice, Alexander said, “Well, I suppose I’ll be moving along.” He gave Natalia a quick kiss on the cheek and said, “My offer to kick Jonas’s ass is still good. I’ll be here somewhere if you need me.” His eyes fixed on a young woman with large breasts and long hair, and he smiled broadly. “For a little while anyway. Ciao.” He sauntered off.
David was still looking into Natalia’s eyes. “How are you?” he asked once Alexander had left.
“Just dandy,” she said with feigned nonchalance. “And you, how are you?”
“Good. I’ve been working a lot this week.”
His voice was quiet, and she leaned toward him until she smelled the scent of his aftershave. She wanted to close her eyes and just breathe in his scent. Pull off his clothes, rub against him. Damn, she had it bad.
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