She Hates Me Not: A Richer in Love Romance (4 page)

W
ith champagne glasses in both hands, Kip maneuvered his way around the dance floor.  Couples glided and spun to a jazzy song as playful as it was polished.  Others chatted in soft tones at round tables.  Kip had attended the Stratford Gala several times before, and it never disappointed.

This evening, however, he was enjoying himself – all thanks to Lou Aucoin.

With the auction finished, most guests had transitioned to what was normally the theatre’s pre-show bar.  Now it served as a dance hall and dining area with a sizeable buffet arranged along one wall.  Typically, Kip didn’t bother to eat.  Business tended to be a priority at events such as these, and his mother’s instructions outranked anything else.

But on this occasion he’d eaten his fill.  Chatted with Lou – much as she’d permit him.  Asked her to dance.  Even let her teach him something called the Cajun Traveling Waltz.  Kip’s ability to dance placed a close second to his mediocre skills on the football pitch, but he’d learned to forgive his own faults.

The smile Lou gave Kip while he approached was as reassuring as it was radiant.  He’d worried that she might rush off as soon as the auction concluded.  Now she seemed to be enjoying herself.  Her shoulders and hips swayed in tandem to the music.  A wistful poise had replaced her jittery reserve.

Kip was no more expecting a one-night affair than Lou appeared to be.  Nor did her green eyes have that devious “date & mate” gleam.  Those standards made her all the more enticing.  So did the numerous details she refused to reveal.  But whatever secrets she kept, Lou wasn’t a skillful liar which made Kip want to trust her.

And to perhaps do a few other things.  With her.  To her.  Whatever she would permit.

“So what should we toast?” he asked as he joined her beside a pair of doors that opened onto a spacious terrace.

“The Renoir?” she suggested.

He raised his glass.  “Do your parents not buy many Renoirs?”

Her gaze traced a wide circle.  “They’re more Blue Dog people.”

“I’ve seen those,” Kip told her.  “The blue sheepdog in the surrealistic settings.”

“Actually it’s a
rougarou
.”

“Isn’t that a type of soup?”

“No, you’re thinking of a
roux
.”  A smoky, staccato laugh trickled from Lou’s lips.  “My daddy used to tell us, when we were little, that the
rougarou
would get us if we weren’t back in the house by sunset.  It’s a Cajun werewolf.”

“And you believed him?”

“Growing up on the edge of a cypress swamp, you believe a lot of things.”

Kip wished he could ask to hear all of them.  It had taken several glasses of champagne, but at last Lou was sharing some details, and he didn’t want her to stop.

“Several times, from my window at night, I thought I saw the
fifolet
.”  She glanced outside like she might see it again.  “It’s a blue light that lures you into the swamp and then gets you hopelessly lost.”

Kip was starting to feel like he’d discovered his own
fifolet
.  “It is a mirage?”

Teasingly she shrugged.  “Some say it’s magic.  Others claim it’s the spirit of a murdered pirate guiding you to the treasure of Jean Lafitte.  Just depends on whose legend you choose to believe.”

As a subtle breeze crested through the doors, it tossed Lou’s auburn fringe where it grazed her freckled cheeks.  Wanting to reach for it, Kip stepped back.  He was staring too intently.  He was standing too close.  Whatever magic resided in Louisiana’s bayous, Lou brought some of it with her to England.

To steady himself, Kip emptied his glass in a couple of gulps.  Straightaway he craved another.

Before he could ask Lou if she wanted the same, a commotion arose in the lobby.  The telltale shouts of photographers made dancing couples spin toward the door.  Soon everyone scrutinized the room’s curtained entrance.

Like a diva making her grand debut, Catrella glided into the room.

A cocktail of panic and exasperation made Kip almost drop his glass.  The sight of Cat in a sleek red dress demolished his onrushing buzz.  In its wake, hindsight waggled a finger.  He should have left after the auction and not hung about trying to woo the elusive Lou Aucoin who gripped his arm with a different tension than before.

“Isn’t that…?”

“It is,” Kip muttered.

“She’s a little late for this party.”

“It’s her trademark.  She shows only for the last hour or so – just as everyone’s grown drunk and bored.”

“Are you drunk and bored?”

Kip noticed the concern in Lou’s voice.  “Not at all.  I’m less than thrilled to see Cat, however.”

Lou’s eyes narrowed as she watched other socialites flock and fawn around his former fiancée.  “I’ll bet you anything she’s here to see you.  Did you two ever come to this as a couple?”

“All three years we were together.  But it was always business.  Never like tonight.”

“What’s different about tonight?”

“Well…”  Kip rallied the courage to be utterly frank.  “Tonight I’m with you.”

Her bashful smile reappearing, Lou tucked her hand into his.  “
Allons
, Kip.  Let’s hide on the patio, and maybe she won’t catch you.”

It was warm on the terrace, even for July.  Gas lamps mounted along the balustrade cast flickering shadows upon the Avon.  On its far shore, narrowboats moored for the night bobbled atop the river’s surface.  The moon’s reflection was a globe on the water.  Sleeping swans floated past.

The charm of it all was lost on Kip who kept his focus on Catrella.  Lou hadn’t been wrong.  Cat was hunting for him with a cunning eye no matter how distracted she seemed.  Effusively she worked her way toward the terrace door.  She must have spotted him before his escape.

Although Kip knew he wasn’t an impotent man, somehow Cat undid him.  Their initial infatuation became a routine, one Cat nurtured while Kip endured.  She’d been good for him during those first few months, but he realized, gradually, as months turned to years, that he’d traded one habit for another.  Relationships could be as addictive as drugs.

Even with twelve Cat-free months now under his belt, he still feared what she might make him feel.

Above all else, he hated how things would appear to the other guests.  Anyone who believed the tabloids would assume that Kip was philandering.  His reputation was as fragile as the champagne flute which Lou pried free of his fingers.

When she squeezed his arm, Kip refocused.  “Sorry?”

“I didn’t say anything.”  Smirking, she set both glasses on the railing.  “I’ve got a sure-fire way to chase her off, but it might be awkward for all of us.  She’s not the type to pitch a fit, right?”

“Cause a scene, you mean?”  Kip shook his head.  “Never.  Cat would rather play the damsel than the shrew.”

“All right then.”  Lou stepped forward until nothing – not even a champagne flute – could wedge itself between them.  “One good turn deserves another.”

Her hands threaded themselves at the back of Kip’s neck as she rose up on her toes to kiss him.  At first he was too startled to do anything more than grunt and rear back.  Lou responded with her smoky laugh.

“This is only going to work if you do your part.”

Stunned, Kip studied her face.  Nothing bashful there.  Only freckles and spirit and a come-hither smile that emphasized her loveliness.  If he bowed out now, he was a bigger fool than Liam McGreevy.

Slipping his arms around her waist, Kip leaned forward to meet Lou halfway.  Their second kiss was less tentative and more tender than the first.  As Kip felt Lou relax against him, his hand drifted upward until it found the bare skin exposed by the open back of her dress.

He’d kissed other women he barely knew.  None compared to the one he now held.  Lou wasn’t some passing dalliance to be avoided or dismissed.  For Kip, she was a discovery, one that lured him away like a magical light from his sterile, grey world.

Unwilling to end their kiss, Kip waited for a hint from Lou that he’d begun to press his luck.  If anything, she held him tighter.  Kip mirrored her intensity until he was roused by the repeated sound of his name.  The voice wasn’t Lou’s.  Neither was it kind.  It was unmistakably familiar.

Letting go of Lou, he stepped aside and wiped his lips.  “Cat.  Hi.  How’ve you been?”

If Catrella heard him, she didn’t bother to reply.  Instead, she stared at Lou like they’d completed Round One of a game Kip had no clue to how to play.  Even defeated, Cat was staggeringly beautiful.  And very aware of that fact.

“Who is this?”

Although Cat glowered at Lou, Kip assumed she spoke to him.  Swiftly he introduced them and prayed his earlier statement about Catrella was right.  Perhaps she never caused a scene because she was always in command.  Now, however, the tables were turned.

“Pleased to meet you.”

Lou’s singsong greeting was not well received by Cat.  “Kip, may I speak to you alone?”

This particular ploy he remembered.  Divide and conquer.  It was both effective and transparent.

To bolster himself, Kip took hold of Lou’s waist, drawing her closer than he probably ought.  If she wished to slap him later, he would gladly hold still.

Then again, she had kissed him first.

“Not tonight, Cat.”

Soon as he uttered the words, Kip suppressed a wince.  Not tonight implied possibly tomorrow.  Cat would pounce on that option if he allowed it.

“Not any time soon either,” he continued.  “Lou and I are quite occupied for the next several days.”

“Weeks,” Lou added.  “It’s a while until I go back home.  If I decide to leave England at all.”

Kip wished that were true.  Catrella, he could see, did not.

“Right.”  Cat assumed a distracted air.  “I’ll leave you to it, then.”

As she whirled around, the train of her crimson dress billowed and swished in her wake.  Cat had bought it during a weekend jaunt to Monte Carlo.  On that same holiday, Kip had given her jewelry to match – the ruby earrings and pendant she also wore.

He pivoted toward the river so no one inside could see his face.  “What if she returns?”

“She won’t come back out here,” Lou promised.  “Not with all those witnesses.  Right now she can act jilted, but another visit makes it look like she’s fiddling in our business, and she doesn’t strike me as the type who plays second fiddle. Or settles for being a third wheel.”

In spite of his worries, Kip laughed.  “Not for all the stars in the sky.”

Craning her neck, Lou clutched the railing with both hands.  “My mama used to tell me that every star in the sky represents an answered prayer.  That’s why there are too many to count.  At night we’d stand on the pier and say which prayers of ours were answered that day.  Then we’d try to find the star for each one.”

“You had a pier?”

“A pier, a fishing boat, and an old pirogue.  My Uncle Jacques used to row us deep into the swamps along Bayou Gauche.  We’d see spiders as big as your fist and gators as long as the pirogue.”  Lou suddenly looked startled.  “I’m talking too much.”

“Not at all.”  Kip hoped she would continue.  He wasn’t quite sure how to encourage it.  Lou’s voice was mesmerizing, as evocative and complex as the faraway place she described.  “I’ve been to Florida.”

Lou dismissed his admission with a snort.  “Every Brit’s been to Florida.  Florida and New York.  That’s all I ever hear.  No one goes to New Orleans.”

“Say that again.”

“What?”  Her bashful look reappeared.  “
N’awlins
?”

Kip drifted near enough for his arm to brush Lou’s.  “If I visit New Orleans, will you show me the town?”

Instantly he knew he’d gone one question too far.  Lou pulled away with a tension he still couldn’t interpret.  Was it him?  His reputation?  Or something else?  He was used to being the prize, not the player.  Women tripped over themselves to win – not his love or his companionship but his money and his family’s influence and the security both seemingly brought.

But Lou didn’t need his inheritance.  And she wasn’t pretending to chase him.

Perhaps he wasn’t so different from Liam McGreevy.  Nothing irritated a cocksure man more than feeling forgotten.  And nothing irritated a coveted man more than being disregarded.

Was he pursuing Lou because she wasn’t pursuing him?

Kip hoped he wasn’t so shallow.  Lou clearly wasn’t.  What details she did share about her life showed it was rich with love and meaning.  Briefly he envied her childhood.  His own had been lonely and cold.

“Sorry,” he said.  “I didn’t mean to impose.”

“I should be getting home.”

“Home?”

“Back to my hotel.  I turn into a pumpkin at midnight.”

“One more drink,” Kip urged.  Somehow he refrained from grasping Lou’s hand.  “Then I promise to get you home safely.”

“One more,” Lou conceded.  “Out here, where it’s just you and me.”

Again, she gazed at the stars with unguarded affection – the way Kip hoped she’d someday gaze at him.