Catherine shrugged. “He had questions about the business.”
“It was all business?” Sybil asked, her eyes disappointed.
“Completely,” said Catherine, even though the muscles in her thighs were starting to shake from holding them so tight. Tension, what a killer.
“We’re going to McCarty’s,” said Sybil. “Want to go?”
McCarty’s was the bar down the street from Montefiore’s, a mix of college students and the young professionals who worked in the area. On another night, when Catherine didn’t feel so…tight, she would have gone. However, right now she wanted to go home alone.
“Not tonight. I’ve got some work to do,” she answered, fumbling for an excuse.
“Now?” said Brittany, black brows shooting above her black frames.
“Just reading. There’s a new Dürer, and I picked up some reference books from the Met. That’ll put me right to sleep,” she said, smiling happily.
Sybil shook her head. “I don’t know what’s up with you lately, Catherine. You’re turning dull. If I didn’t know your secret hankering for drawing naked guys, I’d be worried. You are still drawing naked guys, aren’t you? Please tell me you haven’t given up your only vice.”
Catherine laughed. “Don’t worry. Not giving that one up.”
After they left, Catherine walked down the one block to her apartment. She needed the night air, she needed the time to shake off the aftereffects of the amazing Mr. O’Sullivan. He was sneaky, and devious, and completely underhanded.
He’d never been flirty before and tonight he was definitely flirty. The moments were subtle and small, but they were there. Touching her, whispering in her ear, devouring her with those hungry eyes—as if she couldn’t read exactly what he was thinking. Exactly.
It wasn’t right. She’d made her decision that she wasn’t going to have a steamy, hungry, passionate affair with him and she thought he respected that decision. Before tonight, Daniel had been aloof and brooding. When he was like that, she could maintain her distance. But this subtle flirtiness? She was toast.
Very sneaky.
And to remind her how sneaky and devious and completely underhanded he was, she went home and spent the evening sketching him without clothes. It didn’t help. She finally went to bed, her hands snaking under the covers. Pretending it was him. That did help some, but not enough.
AFTER THE AUCTION, Daniel went home and took a long, hot shower. Cold showers were his usual thing, but tonight he needed to feel the warmth, the scalding heat. He stood under the spray, eyes closed, her perfume still floating in his head. The water burned down his chest, and he could feel her touching him, stroking him. He braced a hand against the tile, grateful for the steam that hid so many weaknesses. Her lush mouth brushed against his neck, his stomach, and he moaned, low and loud, because here, he was hidden from everyone.
Her hands were like velvet against his skin, and he could feel the blood stirring and boiling inside him. Feelings. So many feelings, so many sensations, pelting down on him, beating against him, harder than the water, hotter than the water. His hips moved back and forth, slowing pushing, slick flesh surrounding him, and it was almost as if she was there. So good, so full, so strong. He moved faster, one hand tracing over the tiles. Slick water gliding down her rich breasts, full hips.
He wanted…
Daniel opened his eyes, hot water pouring over his face. No matter how he tried, he was still alone, touching himself in some bastardized imitation of human contact.
When he came, Daniel’s roar was long and anguished.
11
THE NEXT MORNING, he woke up, reached out to touch her and immediately remembered his promise. Daniel pulled his hands back firmly under his pillow.
After he dressed he headed out to the storage building in Queens where the photographs of Michelle were. It had been nearly nine years since he and Michelle had been here last. His wife had loved Christmas, had boxes upon boxes of Christmas things, none of which were designed to fit inside a one-bedroom apartment.
He had kept the key to the padlock on his key ring, as if there could be a storage emergency and he’d need to get there in a hurry. The worst part about being painstaking and careful is in the case of an actual emergency because it’s impulsive and thoughtless that saves the day. Painstaking and careful doesn’t get you shit.
Daniel jerked open the door, the rusted metal groaning like a long-forgotten ghost.
Amid all the extra furniture, the boxes were exactly where they had put them. He spotted a Christmas-tree box, three red-and-green boxes of ornaments, a cardboard box of wrapping paper, probably long ruined, and Michelle’s Elvira Halloween costume from before they were married, sitting in the corner. He couldn’t picture Catherine as Elvira. Diana, goddess of the moon, yes. Sleeping Beauty, yes, but Elvira? No. Slowly he got the necessary boxes out, shoved them into Cain’s truck that he’d borrowed and drove back to Manhattan.
He spent the next two hours sorting through the pictures, making two neat piles. One for Claudia to have, one for him to keep. The Claudia pile was getting bigger and bigger until he realized what he was doing. So he carefully pulled out some pictures from her pile, the ones of Michelle at New Year’s, the ones of Michelle trying to pour drinks at the bar and the last ones that he’d taken the day she bought a digital camera. Vibrant and alive, she stared at him as if he were the only man she would ever love.
Eventually Daniel had adjusted the numbers, so that his pile and Claudia’s pile were exactly even.
In fact, by the time he was finished everything was back in balance.
CATHERINE SPENT the morning at Barney’s with her mother and Sybil. The pink and black fashionista destination of choice was the perfect backdrop for Sybil’s pink sundress with strappy heels. Her mother was in her suit—Armani, her favorite. As a matter of protest against such refined taste, Catherine wore a white blouse and jeans, if only to remind them that she was the stylistically challenged stray in the bunch.
Andrea Montefiore, when given an ounce of encouragement, could shop like a woman possessed. Sybil provided way more than an ounce. They piled Catherine’s arms high with sweaters and shirts, and slacks, and skirts, and shoes, and Catherine struggled along behind them, not saying a word.
Finally, Andrea turned, giving her daughter her best appraiser’s stare. “I think that’s it.”
“Thank you. My arms have stretched a mile.”
Sybil laughed. “You are such a wimp.”
“Yes. Yes, I am. I wear the wimp banner proudly.”
Sybil pointed to the dressing rooms. “Go forth, so we can see what we’ve done.”
By the time Catherine had put on the fourth skirt, her mother frowned. “Why doesn’t that hang right on you?”
Sybil tapped a finger against her cheek. “Are you lopsided?”
“No, that’s your vision,” teased Catherine. “Handbag, mother.”
“I’m getting hungry,” said Sybil, who had never had a buttercream-cupcake fetish in her life, and was probably thinking of salad.
“Canal Street,” Catherine said, firmly standing her ground. “We’ll get a knockoff and Chinese, all at the same time.” Quickly she checked her watch. She was supposed to meet Daniel at two, but assuming they were efficient, she could make it with plenty of time to spare.
Sybil shuddered in horror. “Knockoff? No one said anything about Canal Street. Do you know how many designers are starving while you buy the cheap merchandise for the masses?”
“It’ll be fun,” answered Catherine.
Her mother shrugged, looked at Sybil. “I did promise.”
Catherine nodded. “This is the start of the run-up to my pre-birthday birthday. Learn to deal. When it’s your pre-birthday, we’ll hit Saks or Soho, your choice. Promise.”
Sybil sighed, knowing she was beaten. “Canal Street, here we come.”
THE SHOPS IN Chinatown were set up with storefront after storefront featuring row upon row of purses, bags of bright silk clo
thes in shiny red and royal blue, round paper lanterns in pink, square paper lanterns dripping with gold tassels, ivory figurines shaped like elephants and ancient warriors and elaborate daggers studded with jewels. The colors of a drunken Picasso, and the thrown-about style of post-Imperialistic China. Somehow it all worked.
Catherine looked at her mother and smiled, but Sybil kept scanning the crowd, praying she wasn’t going to run into somebody they knew.
The owner of the first store was a little old lady, who led them to a tiny room in the back where the good stuff was—a smorgasbord of fake Prada, fake Hermès, fake Gucci and some fakes that she didn’t even recognize.
“I stand by my earlier position and am dissenting on principle,” stated Sybil.
“We won’t be long,” said Catherine’s mother, taking a cigarette from her purse and sticking it between her lips.
“No smoking,” muttered the owner, because yes, you can break all the New York City laws with knockoffs, but no smoking laws are strictly, strictly enforced.
“It’s all right,” said Catherine, defending her mother. “She doesn’t really smoke. Nerves,” she whispered, as if that explained it all. Her hands stroked the buttery imitation leather, fondled the gold-plated trim and caressed the lopsided double CC logo. When you grew up in an auction house, forgery was one of the seven mortal sins.
In Catherine’s world, handling a fake was like watching an R-rated movie when she was thirteen, scarfing an extra three cookies from the cabinet or being so gullible as to believe that if it looked like a Gainsborough, it might actually be a Gainsborough.
She was deciding between the faux Gucci and the faux Chanel when the shouting broke out. The old woman scurried to the front of the shop, slamming the metal door behind her.
Catherine, her mother and Sybil were locked in.
“What the—” said Sybil.
Uh-oh. “I think it’s because of the police,” said Catherine, acting calm, because she knew the drill here. Sybil was a rookie when it came to dealing with crime and corruption. The gates were shut until the cops disappeared, and then voila, the gates were rolled back up, and the mad buying and selling started all over again.
Sybil’s eyes appeared to grow four times their normal size. “We’re going to get arrested.”
“Oh, please,” Catherine said confidently, acting as if she were the expert. “We’re safe as long as the gate stays down. Give it ten minutes.”
It was a good twenty minutes later and there was no sign of the old woman. The charm of being locked in a sardine can of a store in the last days of August was starting to wear off. Especially without the A/C.
Catherine’s mother fanned herself, her perfectly applied Elizabeth Arden makeup starting to melt. “I think I’m going to faint.”
While her mother melted, Catherine idly weighed the benefits of the faux Prada against the faux Chanel, thinking that maybe she was going to get the Chanel after all, if only because the lopsided logo vaguely resembled her butt. “It’ll only be a few more minutes.”
“Maybe it’s not the police. I think we should call them,” stated Sybil. “Or someone.”
“Not the police. Bad idea,” said Catherine. “I bet that’d make the papers. Members of Montefiore’s caught with fake merchandise. Again.”
Sybil rolled her eyes. “You’re the only one who’s ogling the fake merchandise.”
“Am not.” But Catherine regretfully put the purses aside. Sybil was probably right. “We could call Grandfather. He’d come and let us out.” She looked at her mother.
“You want to explain this to your grandfather?” shot back her mother.
“No,” said Catherine. She looked at Sybil. “What about your family?”
Sybil arched a brow beyond her hairline, eyes narrowed in street-fighter fashion. “No one will know I was here. Ever. I will make each of you swear in blood.”
Okay, no help there. They were stuck.
Another thirty minutes went by, and Catherine was starting to get worried. She was supposed to meet Daniel in an hour, and if the woman didn’t appear soon, she was going to be late. She should call him at Montefiore’s, but Sybil was only two inches away, with that piercing X-ray vision that could probably spot a fake Gainsborough at twenty paces. Catherine decided to wait.
Even Sybil was sweating now. Her hair was slightly mussed, her complexion wan. “Do you think the owner’ll come back soon? I can feel my blood pressure rising.” Sybil said, smoothing her hair back, mussing it up even more.
Catherine checked her watch. Two o’clock, straight up. They’d been here for an hour and a half. “Any second now,” she said, and knew she was going to have to call Daniel. At least tell him something. If she was businesslike and professional, Sybil wouldn’t catch on. After all, this was about work.
Right then, her mother muttered something colorful and foul, and Catherine looked at her in surprise. “Does that mean I can say that, too?”
“No,” her mother snapped, her mouth crippling what was left of the cigarette’s remains, but at least she wasn’t smoking. They really needed to get out of here soon, or her mother was going to take out the matches.
Catherine pulled out her phone. “I was supposed to meet the auditor this afternoon. Now, in fact. Let me call and tell him that I’m running late.”
She opened her mobile and dialed the after-hours switchboard at Montefiore. “Daniel O’Sullivan, please,” she said, trying not to blush, because wan, mussed Sybil was watching her with X-ray eyes.
“He’s a total babe,” Sybil whispered to Catherine’s mother, just as Daniel answered.
“O’Sullivan.”
“Uh, this is Catherine Montefiore.”
“Yeah, I figured that one out.”
“I’ve been detained.”
“Chickened out, didn’t you?”
“No,” answered Catherine, keeping a tight smile pasted on her face. “I’m just stuck.”
“In traffic?”
“Mmm-hmm.”
“I can wait.”
“There’s no need for that.”
“It’s okay, there’s no traffic in New York that’s that bad.”
“It might be some time,” she said, her voice slightly stressed.
“Where are you?” he asked, hearing the stress.
“Chinatown. There’s been a bit of a problem.”
“Do you need help?” he asked, because he was that type of man.
Sybil, obviously listening to the conversation—the snoop—nodded her head desperately.
Catherine shook her head at Sybil. “No, there’s no need. Really,” she said, with heavy emphasis.
“Catherine, what’s going on? Are you hurt? I can come down there.”
“Everyone’s fine.”
“Everyone except your mother, who’s going to pass out at any moment,” added Sybil.
“Who was that?”
“Sybil Aston. You remember Sybil from last evening at the auction.”
“Ahhh…” he said, a wealth of meaning in one tiny utterance.
“We can reschedule at a time that’s more convenient,” she told him, completely professional and businesslike.
“Of course—assuming that you want to reschedule,” he said silkily, and she bit her lip. Now he wanted to flirt? Why now?
“The audit’s very important to me and to the company,” she answered back.
He was silent for a moment. “I know,” he said, and then gave her his cell number. “Are you sure I can’t help?”
“Positive.”
After that, she heaved a sigh of relief. Mission accomplished, and Sybil didn’t catch on to a thing.
“You like him?” asked Catherine’s mother. At first Catherine assumed she was talking to Sybil, but then she realized the question was addressed to her. Not having appropriate armor, she stuck the faux Chanel bag against her chest like a shield—a fake shield, crafted in the finest imitation leather, but a shield nonetheless. She looked at her mother, chomping a
t the cigarette, no longer Armani cool.
“He’s nice,” said Catherine. “Very professional. Well-mannered.” And he has a body that not even Michelangelo could have crafted.
Sybil pushed the damp hair back from her face. “I’d hit that.”
Catherine’s mouth fell open. Shocked. Shocked. “You’d sleep with him, not caring one way or another about how he felt about you?”
Sybil looked at her in amazement. “Sure.”
Catherine looked at her mother. “What do you think about this?”
Andrea Montefiore pulled the cigarette from her lips. “I’d hit that, too.”
Oh. My. God. “Mother!”
“I’m sorry, Catherine. But it’s hot as hell in here, and I think we can be honest.”
“But he’s—” heartbroken, faithful to the memory of his wife, and obsessively tenacious “—nice.”
“Are we talking about sex here?” asked Sybil, stuffing the stack of soft-side messenger bags behind her head and crossing her ankles. “If so, what does nice have to do with anything? Is it so wrong to have a blood-pumping, bedpost-shaking, hoo-haw busting sexual experience and not be emotionally involved?”
“I think so,” said Catherine weakly. “People get hurt that way.”
“Catherine, Catherine,” said her mother, shaking her head sorrowfully, and—oh God—Catherine knew her mother was two seconds away from talking about sex again.
She threw a faux Prada clutch in her mother’s direction. “I don’t want to hear this. Not. A. Word.”
“Grow up, Catherine,” her mother muttered.
Grow up. Spoken by what she now considered two malfunctioning adults trapped in the sardine can. So now the question became, were they right?
Catherine hugged the Chanel knockoff close to her chest, and contemplated a future that contained blood-pumping, bedpost-shaking, teeth-rattling, hoo-haw busting sexual experiences—hers for the taking.
But that wasn’t Catherine. Catherine was “sensitive” and as such was too fragile to deal with that sort of emotional quicksand.
Oh, that was such crap.
She was scared.
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