Claiming Her_A Romance Collection

by R. R. Banks

  I groaned.

  “Can’t you do it? You’re much more comfortable there than I am, and you could scope out your next rich guy for when Aaron fires you.”

  “Flattering. Thank you for that. No. I’m not going to do it for you. You’re the one who got yourself into this. Besides, there’s no way that dress would fit me. I’ve got about four too many inches and a little bit extra of everything else.”

  That comment gave me pause.

  “What exactly does this dress look like?” I asked.

  Molly grinned and rushed back toward her bedroom. She appeared a few moments later with a garment bag in her hand. She unzipped it and pulled out a bright red dress. My mouth fell open. It was cut so low that I wasn’t entirely certain that it could really qualify as a complete dress, and a slit up one side of the skirt seemed that it would nearly meet the neckline.

  “Isn’t it fabulous?” Molly asked.

  “I can’t wear that!” I gasped.

  “Why not?” Molly asked, looking toward the dress as if I was seeing something that she wasn’t. “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s obscene!”

  “It’s not obscene,” Molly said. “I remember plenty of days when you wore less than this when you went out.”

  “That was when I was much younger and before I had Edmond.”

  “Come on. You’re a mother. You aren’t a grandmother. Besides, at this point, you really don’t have any other option. Unless, of course, you want to just walk back up to his door through all of his guests and say, ‘I’m sorry, Mr. Dupree, I snagged this on the way out of your apartment and I figured that you might want it back.”

  I let out a long sigh.

  “How fast can you do my hair?”

  Stupid shoes. Stupid fucking pointy shoes. Stupid fucking pointy shoes that probably weren’t designed to be walked in. Stupid fucking pointy shoes that probably weren’t designed to be walked in, but that look so good.

  I was concentrating so hard on my teetering walk down the sidewalk that I nearly walked right past the building. Molly had dropped me off a block away so that no one would notice the aged and well-worn sedan gliding up in front of the sparkling Avalon among the luxury cars and chauffeured limos. While it seemed like a good idea at the time, the shoes that were half a size too big and had heels the size of pencils quickly made it less of a good idea. Molly had driven off the second that I got out, however, so I didn’t have any choice but to make my way toward the door and hope that I didn’t end up sprawled on the sidewalk.

  “Ma’am?”

  I turned toward the voice and saw the doorman holding the door open for me and gesturing toward the inside of the building.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you here for Mr. Dupree’s event?”

  “Um. Yes. Yes, I am.”

  He seemed taken aback by my uncertainty, but continued to smile at me.

  “Right this way.”

  “Thank you,” I said, walking past him and into the lobby.

  I was expecting to see glamorous people swarming the lobby and streaming into the elevators, but the building seemed nearly as empty as it had when I left earlier, with only one couple making their way into the Avalon Café for dinner. I gripped the beaded bag that barely accommodated the frame closer to me and hurried as much as I could to the elevator. With any luck, I would be out in a matter of minutes and would never have to look at the shoes again. Or The Avalon. Or Mason Dupree.

  I wasn’t quite as pleased with that last one as the first two. The truth was that I hadn’t been able to get the gorgeous man out of my mind since walking away from him. He was even sexier than the pictures I had seen or his appearances on TV, and the heat that I had felt instantly when we looked at each other had taken me completely off-guard. I hadn’t expected to ever feel that again, especially so strongly, and it made me feel off-balance and unsure of myself.

  I took a breath as I approached the door to the apartment, but still gasped slightly when it flew open before I could even knock. A stern-looking man stared out at me.

  “Good evening,” he said.

  “Hello,” I stammered. “I’m sorry – am I early?”

  “You are the first to arrive.”

  Did that answer my question? Did that mean yes, I was early, or no, everybody else was late?

  I stood staring back at him, unsure of what I was supposed to say. I felt the urge to curtsey.

  “Should I come back?” I finally asked.

  He looked at me as if I had just said something wholly offensive and took a step back. I briefly thought that he was going to close the door in my face, but instead, he pulled it open further and gestured toward the apartment.

  “Please come in,” he said. “Your host will be with you shortly.”

  Damn. I hope not.

  I smiled as casually as I could, hoping that the man hadn’t seen the borderline panic in my eyes as I stepped past him and into the foyer. He reached out one hand.

  “Coat, please.”

  He said it in just enough time to save me the humiliation of trying to tip him with the two dollars and piece of gum that were the only other things in my purse, but I could still feel the embarrassment burning on my cheeks. It was a tendency of mine that I had hated since I was a little girl. Any time I was even the slightest bit embarrassed or upset, I blushed so red anyone near me would be able to tell what was going through my mind. I slipped out of my coat and handed it over to the man before I even thought about it. He gave me a thin-lipped smile and walked out of the foyer, leaving me alone. I immediately reached for the frame in my bag and then turned toward…nothing.

  The table wasn’t there.

  Where did it go? This was where it was, right? Could there possibly be more than one foyer in this place? No, I know the door was right after the elevator. Wasn’t it? Well, there it is. I’ve lost my mind.

  I heard footsteps approaching the door and scurried further into the apartment, not wanting to get swept up into any conversations with the actual guests of the party. My hand was still wrapped around the frame in my bag and all I could think to do was go to the drawing room where I had left Molly and Mason hours before. I slipped into the room and closed the door most of the way, not wanting to make any noise. Looking around, I chose the dark bookshelf sitting against one wall and crossed to it. Pulling the frame out of the bag, I set it in place on the shelf in front of me. I was starting to walk away, intending to find my coat so I could leave, when I noticed a smudge across the frame, likely from a piece of melted chocolate in my bag. Muttering obscenities to myself, I licked my thumb and went after the smudge, figuring if it was good enough for my son’s face, it was good enough for silver.

  Chapter Nine

  Mason

  “What do you mean one of the guests has already arrived?”

  The man I had hired for the night to act as greeter at the door stared back at me blankly as though he wasn’t entirely processing what I was asking of him.

  “A woman has arrived,” he said. “She is dressed for the party. I can only assume that she is one of your guests.”

  “She came alone?”

  “Yes.”

  I couldn’t think of any women who had been invited to the party who were unattached and would come without a date. That just wasn’t their style. I looked in the mirror a final time, smoothed my hair, and started out of the room to greet whoever it was who had come a good half hour before I expected anyone. If the fact that she was alone wasn’t strange enough, the idea that she had already arrived was even stranger. The start point of an event was never actually adhered to by the guests. It was more a suggestion, a guideline that they could follow as to when things would be ready, but most wouldn’t show up for half an hour or more after that point, and some would show up even later than that. This unpredictability in when they arrived often led into unpredictability in when they would leave, meaning that I was surrounded by people I barely knew and often disliked without a clear end-point i
n sight, compounding the reasons why I dreaded these events.

  I walked to the front entryway of the apartment and found it empty. Roaming through the rooms, I finally realized that the door to the drawing room was partially closed. I walked to the doorway and pressed the door open, stopping still when I saw the woman inside. She was wearing a bright red dress that hugged every curve of her lush body and her dark hair was swept up to accentuate her graceful bare back where it was exposed by the low dip of the dress that just grazed her hips. She turned to look over her shoulder at me and my breath caught in my throat.

  I hadn’t realized it when I first saw her, but now I could see that this wasn’t a guest. This was the beautiful woman who I had found decorating my ballroom earlier. She looked stunning now, but it wasn’t her sexy appearance and the intense heat that it caused to surge in my belly that made me pause. One of her hands was rested on the silver picture frame sitting on the bookshelf.

  So, I accused the wrong sister. It wasn’t Molly. It was Ella.

  I felt a flash of anger, but I could see the look of fear in her eyes and the enticing flush of color across her cheeks and knew that there was more to this than someone stealing from my apartment when they had the opportunity. My eyes roved across her dress again and I got a flicker of recognition.

  “You know,” I said. “Crashing a party in a dress that you stole from a guest who’s going to be there is truly bad form.”

  Ella’s face flushed even deeper and I saw tears forming in her eyes as she started to stammer as if trying to find the right words to respond to me. She looked up at the frame and then back to me, holding out her hands imploringly.

  “I’m sorry,” she finally managed to say. “I didn’t mean for you to see me. I thought that I was going to be able to get in and out without you ever noticing that I was here.”

  “I wasn’t going to notice that the picture frame that has been sitting on the front table for five years is suddenly in my drawing room?”

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice starting to shake. “I really didn’t mean to take it. When I was here earlier my son was playing with it and I didn’t want him to hurt it, so I took it away from him. I didn’t even realize that I had put it into my bag until I got back to Molly’s house.” She looked down at the dress and let out an exasperated sigh. “And it’s her fault that I’m even wearing this dress. She’s the one who stole it, not me. Well, not stole it. She picked up…”

  She was babbling now, and I held up a hand to quiet her, not wanting her emotions to spiral even further out of control.

  “It’s alright,” I said.

  She looked at me with a stunned, somewhat confused, expression in her eyes.

  “What?”

  “It’s alright,” I repeated. “Things happen.” An idea suddenly occurred to me and I felt a mischievous smile curve my lips. “I tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. I won’t even think about this again if you agree to be my date to the party tonight.”

  Ella’s sweet, full lips, even more luscious now that they were slicked with red lipstick that shimmered in the light as though she had licked them, parted in silent surprise. Her eyes slid to the side briefly as though she were thinking about it, and then met mine again. She nodded.

  “Alright,” she said.

  She sounded reluctant, but I wasn’t going to let that stop me. She had managed to dissolve away the anger that I had felt and given me a spark of hope about the evening, and I was going to ride that feeling as long as I could. I crossed the room to her and reached out for her hands, holding them out by her sides.

  “Good,” I said. “But you’re going to have to change.”

  “I know,” she said, sounding embarrassed again. “I told Molly that this dress was too much.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, shaking my head and looking down to get another full view of her. “It’s not too much. You look incredible. But like I said, Bankston is going to be here tonight and he’s going to recognize if the mysterious woman on my arm is wearing his girlfriend’s custom-designed dress.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking down at the dress and then back up at me, her head shaking slightly. “I don’t have anything else to wear.”

  I lowered her hands back to her sides.

  “That’s fine. Just give me a minute.”

  I took out my phone and walked to the other side of the room as I made a quick call, looking back at Ella occasionally. She stayed in place, seeming unable, or unwilling, to move even a step. For some reason, this made me laugh and I felt some of the tension that I had been carrying in my shoulders all day slip away.

  When the call was over, I tucked my phone back inside my jacket and walked back over to Ella.

  “My actual guests should be arriving any minute, so I have to be ready for them, but come with me.”

  Her face lightened slightly as she noticed the teasing in my voice and she fell into step beside me as I guided her out of the drawing room and toward the guest room.

  “The table is gone, you know,” she said as we went.

  “What?”

  “The table. The little table in the foyer. It’s gone. If it had been there I would have been able to slip the frame back onto it and be gone and you never would have noticed.”

  I gave a short laugh.

  “I already noticed,” I told her. “I knew it was gone long before you even got here. I actually tried to accuse your sister of stealing it.”

  I opened the door to the guest room and stepped back to allow Ella to go inside first.

  “You did?” she asked, turning to me.

  I nodded.

  “When I realized that it was missing and my staff told me that they didn’t move it, I figured that she was the only other option. I went down to the concierge desk to get her information and called her to confront her. You should really let her know that there’s something wrong with her phone. It rang for a bit and then made this horrible screaming sound.”

  Ella muffled a laugh and looked down as if to compose herself before looking back at me.

  “There’s nothing wrong with her phone,” she said. “That’s the fake number that she gives to guys she isn’t interested in. I can’t believe that she gave it to the concierge, but she was pretty offended that he asked for her details before giving her the key, so maybe I’m not so surprised.”

  “Fake number?” I asked. I gave a slightly exasperated sigh. “Why is it that women do shit like that? If she’s not interested in the guys, why doesn’t she just buck up and tell them that she’s not interested? Why does she feel the need to string them along just so that they can call a number later and be embarrassed?”

  The laughter drained from Ella’s eyes and she shook her head.

  “I guess she never thought of it that way. The men just annoy her.”

  “Yeah, well, she should think about it. Being a liar is worse than being annoying.” She looked upset and I let out a breath. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I would just rather people be upfront, even when it’s uncomfortable.”

  She nodded.

  “No, you’re right.” Then her eyes narrowed, and her head tilted slightly. “Not that I actually believe that has ever happened to you.”

  I laughed.

  “I guess you’re right about that.”

  I heard the doorbell and glanced back toward the door, feeling disappointment in my chest that I was going to have to walk away from Ella even for a moment. I looked back at her.

  “Wait here,” I told her. “Sylvie should be with you in just a few minutes.”

  I walked out of the room and closed the door, starting toward the front of the apartment and the party I was dreading a little less now.

  Chapter Ten

  Ella

  What the hell just happened?

  Suddenly I had gone from potential felon to Mason Dupree’s date to his party and my mind was still spinning. I looked around the room where he had left me, not knowing who this Sylvie person he had mentioned was or
why she would be coming, but fascinated by the opulence I was seeing in something so simple as a bedroom. I could tell immediately that this wasn’t Mason’s bedroom. Even in the expansive state that made it larger than the bedroom that Edmond and I shared and Molly’s bedroom combined, it didn’t seem massive enough to be his. It also had the subtle, indeterminate, somewhat generic femininity that was often the case with guest bedrooms.

  Now that the door was closed, I dared to take the few steps away from the spot where Mason had left me and look around. The bed against one wall seemed thick and plush, expertly made with bedding in a subtle cream and navy floral pattern. It reminded me of the display beds that always tempted me when I was in department stores, only far more expensive. For a moment I wondered if it was even real, or just a stack of foam and wood like those display beds often were. It was a strange thought, but I knew that Mason had no family and I had a hard time envisioning him having friends over for billionaire slumber parties. It seemed much more likely that this was a room that was already in the apartment and he decided that the only proper thing to do was to have a guest room.

  A window to either side of the bed caught my attention. I peered out of one of them and noticed that there was a fire escape that curved elegantly down the side of the building, masquerading as a simple spiral staircase so that none of the wealthy people who came this way would have to be confronted with the reality of anything so un-luxurious as a fire. I checked the lock on the window and realized it was just a simple thumb turn not unlike the locks on my window at home.

  I suppose 57 stories would be a really, really far way for a burglar to climb just to try to break into a window.

  I briefly considered opening the window and slipping off into the night, but I stopped myself. As easy as it might sound to just duck out of the window and scurry down a million flights of spiral stairs in my spike heels, I knew it wouldn’t actually fix the situation. If he really wanted to, Mason could find me, and I didn’t want to add insulting him to the reasons why he might want to bring the law down on me. Deep in my mind, though, I knew that that wasn’t the only reason that I couldn’t bring myself to escape. The attraction that I felt toward Mason was stronger now than it had been when I first met him, and I couldn’t seem to pull myself away from him. As big a part of me wanted to just put this behind me and go home, a bigger part of me wanted to disappear into the extravagance, just for a night, and explore what it felt like to be on the arm of a sexy, powerful man who looked at me with eyes that could make me melt.