Eve of Passion

by A. C. Arthur

  “Then let me give you what you need, Janelle. Let me give you what you deserve.”

  It was an honest plea, she thought. A very sincere admission and request and her heart beat so fast she thought it might beat right out of her chest. Her breath caught as she opened her mouth to speak, the words falling away like ashes in the wind.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me, Ballard.”

  And he did. He kissed her until the memories just about faded, the worries and concerns for her emotional safety drifting into the backdrop. She kissed him back with all the abandon, all the time she’d felt had been wasted, loving the feel of his strength beneath her hands, his lips on hers.

  When finally the limousine pulled up in front of the house she’d grown up in and still shared with her father, Janelle decided to take a chance, to make a move and pray for the best.

  “I’ve been planning the Wintersage homecoming dance for the past few weeks,” she began.

  Ballard held her hand as he walked her to the front door. She’d given him her house key before getting out of the car, so he was now poised to unlock the door for her and to escort her inside.

  She stopped just inside the dark foyer, turning to look at him. He stood in the doorway, the glow from the moonlight casting a romantic outline around him.

  “I’m sure it’ll be a wonderful event. You’re a very talented event planner. I could tell by how happy that singer looked earlier today after your meeting.”

  She smiled. “Thank you. But I wasn’t fishing for compliments. I was actually going to ask you to be my date to the homecoming dance.”

  Ballard didn’t instantly respond. Instead he stared at her, almost incredulously. That made her nervous and thoughts of making a mistake or moving too fast threatened to absorb her.

  Then Ballard’s lips lifted into a grin, his straight white teeth bright in the darkness. “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked to a homecoming dance,” he told her, and then stepped closer, lacing his arms around her waist.

  She was becoming quite comfortable in this position, wrapped in Ballard’s arms. “Well, maybe you should provide an answer,” she replied, snuggling up to him because the action was so irresistible.

  “Yes,” he whispered, lowering his forehead to hers. “Yes, Janelle Howerton, I would love to take you to the homecoming dance.”

  Chapter 8

  Janelle felt like Cinderella going to the ball, only in her fairy tale her Prince Charming had come to the house to pick her up. He was early, as she’d requested since she was both working and attending tonight’s dance. The traditional limo had been swapped with an Escalade SUV limo, white, the perfect contrast to Ballard, who was dressed in black slacks, a black collarless shirt and a black dinner jacket.

  As for her, there was no long billowy white dress and crystal slippers. Instead Janelle also wore all black, as she tended to do when she worked an event. Her staff, the event assistants she kept on payroll to help with day-of preparations, would also be wearing black. She’d mentioned this to Ballard yesterday when they’d had lunch because, for whatever reason, he’d been in Wintersage unannounced.

  “Dressing like the staff, Mr. Dubois,” she said once they were on their way to the school. “Be careful—the press might get wind of this and think you’re stepping down from Dubois Maritime.”

  She joked about the press, about the stories that had been hitting the tabloids and local papers on an almost-daily basis now. Janelle never saw a photographer or reporter, but everywhere she and Ballard went, even when they’d sat quietly on the back veranda of her family home, looking out at the sunset on the bay, someone had been there, watching, snapping pictures. Vicki and Sandra thought it was good for business. Her father was ecstatic with the implications of the two families joining, his mind focused solely on the election and the seeming inevitability that he would get the backing of Dubois Maritime.

  As for Janelle, she was just coping. She’d decided not to let it dictate her actions, to not give in to the pressure to please the world that in the end didn’t give a damn about her on a personal level. She’d decided to simply enjoy how things were progressing with Ballard. The comfortable smile he gave her in return and his next comment confirmed Ballard was on board with that decision.

  “I don’t care what they print. The truth rarely sells.”

  She agreed and when they arrived at the Wintersage Academy, they headed inside to the gymnasium where she’d spent so many of her teenage days.

  Wintersage Academy was made up of three main buildings and two dormitories—one for boys and the other for girls. The largest and by far the stateliest structure on the campus was the Great Hall, where all the administrative offices and the main function hall were housed. The building was surrounded by lush green grass and tall trees, while lively lavender hydrangea bushes skirted around the perimeter. The hydrangea were bright and cheerful in early spring, gracing the building with their beauty well into the summer. But as fall began its descent on Wintersage, the hydrangea would die off until the next year and all the leaves on all the trees would turn into the glorious golds and reds of the season—which, by the way, was Janelle’s absolute favorite time of year.

  They walked along the brick path until arriving at the steps topped by eight bright white pillars that Janelle used to think of as bars keeping them inside the school and away from the world. The white double doors were already open, leading the way into the foyer, already awash with the orange and white twinkle lights her staff had hung earlier today. The colors shimmered against the stark white walls marked with evenly distributed pictures of Wintersage dignitaries and glistened over the highly polished honey-colored hardwood floors. Her heels clicked against those floors as they stepped inside and Janelle paused.

  “You okay?” Ballard asked, touching a hand to her elbow.

  “Fine,” she replied, her voice small, unsure. She was fine. This was silly. And by this, she meant the icy tendril slipping ever so slowly down her spine and the heated sense of dread that circled her stomach. What was this about?

  She cleared her throat, then took a breath and began walking again. “The entrance to the hall is just down here and around the corner. I should go into the back area to check on the caterers. Guests should begin arriving in the next forty-five minutes. The Parents’ Association will be here in about fifteen.”

  When she looked over at Ballard, he was nodding while she talked.

  “Am I babbling?”

  “Not at all. I believe you’re working,” he offered with a smile.

  She groaned. “Is that bad since I asked you to be my date?”

  Ballard chuckled, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close. “Remember who you’re talking to here. If my cell rings right now with news about the Chan deal, I’ll be heading back outside to take it. So, no, it’s not bad that you’re working. In fact, what can I do to help?”

  “What?” she asked.

  Before he could answer, a woman’s voice interjected. “Oh, there you are. We’ve been wondering when you would get here. There’s a problem with the caterer and the approved menu,” Brenda, mother of two, wife to the chief of police, said as she rounded the corner and came face-to-face with Janelle and Ballard.

  “Ah, okay, thanks, Brenda,” Janelle said as Brenda’s gaze shifted.

  The fifty-something-year-old woman who swore the part-time work Janelle had offered her was the current joy of her life lit up like a Christmas tree as her gaze settled on Ballard. “Well, well, well. We wondered when we’d get to see you for ourselves. All the pictures in the papers don’t do you justice. Great catch!” she said, finally turning back to Janelle with a wink of her eye.

  Janelle bit back a moan.

  “You go with me to check on the caterer, Brenda,” Janelle said in her employer voice. “Ballard, if your offer s
till stands, could you go inside and check to make sure the entertainment is ready to go and there are no fires in that room that I need to put out at the moment.”

  She’d already begun digging down into the top of her blouse, searching for the earpiece she’d dropped there before leaving the house. As she pulled it free and tucked it into her ear, she looked to Ballard, who seemed to have been frozen in his spot, his gaze on her breasts.

  “It’s easier if we can all communicate with each other,” she said tapping her ear, then pointing at the identical mechanism in Brenda’s ear. “I’ll be in the back. Call me on my cell if something’s wrong.”

  He didn’t speak, only nodded.

  Brenda chuckled all the way to the back where the caterers were getting set up, mumbling about sexy, virile young men and what she used to be able to do with them.

  Janelle tried to focus on the event and not on Brenda’s inappropriate remarks.

  She did not give the reservations or the leeriness she’d felt upon entering the Great Hall another thought. Maybe she should have.

  * * *

  Janelle looked fantastic.

  Ballard had spent most of the night watching her move throughout the large room with confidence and efficiency. He was beyond impressed with how calm she seemed as she balanced minor issues and worked through the big ones of the caterer bringing some of the wrong food and the building not providing enough electricity for Candice Glover’s band to plug in all their equipment.

  She talked with clever enthusiasm, accepted compliments, gave out a few of her own and found moments to stand in the corner and laugh with her girlfriends, the way Ballard suspected she had when they were younger. He’d finally had the opportunity to meet Sandra Woolcott and Vicki Ahlfors and watched the love and loyalty between the three of them with envy. He’d never forged any close friendships while growing up, never thought there was a need. He’d known where he was going in life, known what his job would be and how he would be successful at it. There hadn’t seemed to be a need for friends or emotional entanglements of any kind.

  Until now.

  All night he’d been able to find her wherever she was throughout the room, refused to let her out of sight. Even when the clever and interminably curious women of Wintersage came to pump him for information about his relationship with Janelle, he’d still tracked her, his body adding an unfamiliar emotional response to the physical he’d grown accustomed to.

  The room was still surprisingly full for the past half hour of the event. In the middle of the dance floor, members he now knew were from the infamous Parents’ Association, the same people who had given Janelle a hard time since she began planning this event, danced and laughed. Ballard smiled smugly as if he’d had something to do with the fact that they were so obviously enjoying the evening. Later he planned to report to Janelle how great a job she’d done and how he’d seen with his own eyes the shock and pleasure of the citizens of this quaint little town at her accomplishment.

  There were some other things he hoped to share with her tonight that didn’t include anything about this event or the phenomenal entertainment or the food or... Ballard paused. His gaze focused across the room to where Janelle had just walked down the winding staircase that led to the balcony section of the hall. The sound technicians were up there and she periodically went up to make sure everything was working well since they’d had to compromise on the electrical hookups.

  Janelle stopped at the last step, her hand gripping the railing. She stared straight ahead toward the door, her entire body going tense. Ballard followed her gaze and felt a wave of jealousy so high and mighty he might have gasped if he weren’t in a room full of people.

  She was staring at a man. A tall and debonair-looking man who was gaining other stares and whispers as he moved through the crowd. In fact, as this stranger walked across the floor, the dancing ceased, women and men moving to the side to let him through. Overly dramatic and slightly pathetic, Ballard thought, his feet were already carrying him in Janelle’s direction.

  Ballard stopped right beside her just as the newcomer stepped in front of her.

  “Janelle,” the man said in a low, almost-intimate voice.

  “Jack,” she replied, her voice a little shaky to Ballard’s ears. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “It’s homecoming, remember? You said you always wanted me to take you to a homecoming dance.”

  With those words, Jack reached for Janelle’s free hand, bringing it up to his mouth in preparation for a kiss. She yanked it away and brought it back quickly to land with a loud slap against Jack’s cheek.

  The room went totally silent. Jack frowned. Vicki and Sandra suddenly appeared at Janelle’s other side. And Ballard stood wondering what the hell was going on.

  * * *

  Janelle moved as fast as she could out of the hall, away from the staring and the whispering. Her heart thumped wildly in her chest, her eyes stinging as she blinked repeatedly.

  “Just chill. He’s here—so what?” Sandra was saying as they made their way out into the hallway with her.

  “So what?” Vicki chimed in. “Did you see how he walked right up to her and tried to touch her? He’s got a lot of nerve.”

  “Assholes normally do,” Sandra added. “But she fixed him good with that slap.”

  All the while Janelle paced a little path back and forth. She used a hand to fan her instantly flushed face. Why was he here? She’d asked him that and he’d replied. A true but totally inappropriate answer that she’d wanted to stuff right back down his smug-looking mouth. She hated him! No. She hated what he’d done to her. And lately, she’d hated how long she’d allowed his actions to rule what she had become.

  “Janelle?”

  At the sound of his voice, she stopped pacing.

  “We need to talk,” Jack told her.

  “The hell you do,” Sandra insisted, stepping in front of Janelle. “The time for talking has long since passed. You knew when you boarded that plane and left her two weeks before your wedding. That’s when you should have been man enough to talk. Now you need to be smart enough to leave.”

  Vicki stood right beside Sandra, creating a barrier in front of Janelle. Protecting her as they’d done since the breakup. Unfortunately, they had no idea what they were really protecting her from. And Janelle didn’t want the protection anyway. She wasn’t going to hide from Jack and she wasn’t going to avoid him. Way too much of her life had been given to this man involuntarily and it was time for that to end.

  She stepped around her friends, looking at both of them. “Give us a minute, please?” she requested, and when they stared back questioningly, she nodded her consent.

  “We’ll get Ballard,” Vicki announced as they moved away slowly.

  Janelle didn’t reply, had barely heard Ballard’s name as she looked at Jack, the man she’d been madly in love with and wanted to marry and have babies with just five years ago.

  He looked exactly the same. No, he looked better. His butter-toned complexion highlighted by unique green-hazel eyes. His strong jaw decorated with a thin-cut beard to match the close cut of his sandy-brown-colored hair. He was six feet three inches tall, had played basketball in high school and college and spoke three foreign languages as fluently as if he hadn’t been born in Naples, Florida.

  There was a certain quality that Jack Trellier possessed, an aura that followed him around like a shadow. At first glance he was the successful athlete, the ladies’ magnet and possible catch of the century, heir to the Trell Cosmetics fortune, the gorgeous face of a multibillion-dollar corporation. Then there was the truth, the man beneath the glamour, the person Janelle knew all too well.

  “I asked why you are here. I’ll give you sixty seconds to respond,” she said without flinching.

  Her entire body was shaking, whether with anger o
r a touch of fear, Janelle didn’t know and wasn’t in the mood to analyze. Tonight had been going so well. The party that had paid her a good fee but had been somewhat of a thorn in her side for the past five weeks had come to a successful culmination, the mayor and the president of the Parents’ Association giving her their gratitude and already making hints about next year.

  To top that off, her date had been the gorgeous Ballard Dubois. He’d been attentive to her every need, checking on whatever she asked him to do, standing quietly beside her as she talked with the mayor, the chief of police, a reporter from the Wintersage Journal. While they hadn’t had time to dance, or to eat, for that matter, she’d known he was there and had appreciated every second of his support.

  “You’ve made quite a name for yourself,” was Jack’s deliberately slow response. “I remember a time when you hated publicity, hated how your name was always linked to your father’s, to the company. You wanted a more normal existence, a quieter life filled with success and money and those girlfriends that stuck to you like glue.” He chuckled then, letting his head fall back as if he’d recited the funniest joke of the century.

  “Is that your answer to my question?” She had no patience where Jack was concerned. At one point, that had been no resistance, no backbone, no self-respect. Now things had drastically changed.

  His laughter stopped, the gleam in his eyes still there. He lifted a long arm out, his fingers touching her, tweaking her nose the way he’d always done. She slapped his hand away.

  “You’ve grown a little more violent over the years,” he quipped.

  “Maybe if I’d been more violent five years ago, you wouldn’t be standing here right now,” she spat, then sighed. This wasn’t her, trembling with rage, shaking with the urge to do more than slap this person who stood before her.

  “Still clinging to the past, I see.” Jack sighed. “Look, I just came for a visit. I’ve been reading a lot about you in the papers lately and felt the urge to see you face-to-face.”