“Two hundred fifty!” a woman shot up from the front row.
“Three hundred!” cried another.
“Three twenty-five.”
The bids were rapid-fire. Pauline didn’t have time to announce one before another woman offered fifty bucks more.
“Well, he’s out of my budget,” Jenna moaned. “I can’t afford to go over three hundred.”
I patted her knee. “Don’t worry. He’s overrated, anyway.” I glanced at Tess, who was holding her number halfway, summoning the courage to jump in and make a formal bid.
Aww, hell. I guess I’d have to head her off at the pass. I stuck up my number. “Three seventy-five!” I yelled.
Jenna nudged my ribs. “What are you doing?”
“Shh. Trust me. I’m an expert at this.”
Silence. Several people turned to stare my way. Stiletto smiled and shook his head ever so slightly.
Uh-oh. Maybe I needed to put up money in advance. I mean, I only had three hundred twenty-five dollars in my checking and savings. And then there was that four thousand dollars or so I owed Visa. I was a goner if Pauline did instant credit checks.
“I’m sorry,” Pauline said, “but we passed three seventy-five a while ago. I believe the last bid was four fifty.”
Thank heavens. Not that I had four hundred and fifty dollars, but what was the worst that could happen when they found out I didn’t have the dough? Sue me? Ha!
I made a point of making eye contact with Tess as I announced, “Five hundred dollars!”
Pauline swallowed. “That’s our highest bid yet this evening.”
I squinted. Was Stiletto laughing?
“I thought you said he wasn’t worth it,” Jenna whispered.
Across the room I could see Lorena wagging her finger at me in warning.
“I’m telling you, Jenna, it’s not what it appears. I no more want a date with Steve Stiletto than a flat tire on my car outside. I’m bidding for reasons totally unrelated to him.”
“Oh. Could have fooled me.”
Tess sat rigid, her hands clasping the number firmly in her lap.
“Five hundred,” the auctioneer said. “Do I hear five twenty-five?”
More silence. My nails dug into my palms.
“Wow,” Jenna said. “Looks like you’re gonna get him.”
“You don’t know Wendy Ritter. Snakes are always still before they strike.”
Tess glanced over her shoulder. Slowly, slowly, she lifted her number. “Five twenty-five.”
Damn. Five twenty-five. That was serious business. That was way, way more than I had to spend. That was millionaires’ money. Well, I supposed there were worse outcomes than Tess getting a night with Stiletto. Just as long as Wendy didn’t, I was okay.
“Five twenty-five. Do I hear five fifty?” Pauline held the gavel aloft.
“Going once, going twice . . .”
Tess threw me a victorious smirk. I pouted as if desperately disappointed.
“Five fifty!” a woman with a piercing nasal twang yipped.
Tess and I quit making faces at each other. Quickly, I looked to Stiletto, who was maintaining a stoic demeanor, giving no clue as to whether he was pleased or displeased by whoever had offered the latest bid.
“Excellent!” Pauline declared. “My, this certainly is shaping up to be quite an auction. Then again, with such impressive figures on display . . .”
There was a round of naughty titters. Some women over on the far right side of the room leaned forward to slap the highest bidder on the back. I stood slightly for a closer look and had my worst fears confirmed. Pencil thin. Black hair. White hair band. Cobralike neck. Skeletal bone structure. Two tiny horns sticking out of her head.
The devil incarnate. Wendy.
Wendy turned to high five her evil socialite friends and, in so doing, caught sight of me. She formed those two bloodless lines that passed for lips into a smirk.
I was sunk. I couldn’t beat both Tess and Wendy.
“Don’t worry,” Jenna said, patting my knee. “He was overrated anyway.”
Touché.
“I’ll bid six hundred!”
A collective gasp. Stiletto raised his hands to his face in mock shame.
Tess was beaming. She had outbid Wendy by an outrageous amount of money.
“Six hundred!” the auctioneer repeated. “I don’t think we can top that.”
Wendy could. Wendy loved a challenge. More important, she loved rubbing other people’s faces in her cold cash. Or, rather, her father’s cold cash. Even if she was going head to head against her own friend, Tess.
“Do we have six twenty-five for this devastatingly handsome man?” Pauline raised the gavel.
Wendy’s number fluttered. “Six . . .”
There have been many moments in my life when I’ve longed for a peashooter and this was one of them. Without a peashooter to shoot Wendy in the neck or to knock her number out of her hand (personally, I preferred the neck), Stiletto was toast. He would have to pay yet one more price for my marrying Dan; he would have to go out on a date with Wendy.
Or would he?
For just as Wendy was about to utter the “twenty” in the six twenty-five Pauline was requesting, a blur of brown hair, teal blue toile and jeans streaked across the ballroom. Lorena hurled herself at Wendy with such force that she knocked her off her chair and slammed her to the floor.
On the stage, Pauline kept up appearances.“Going . . . going . . .”
Wendy’s muffled cries rose from the corner. I bit a nail and nearly broke my tooth on the purple plastic. The anticipation was killing me.
“GONE!” The auctioneer slammed the gavel. “To number ninety-three. Congratulations.”
It was over. Tess had won. Wendy had lost. Lost a couple of teeth, too, if I knew Lorena.
Stiletto made his way off the stage to congratulate Tess. I averted my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see him kiss her.
“That was exciting,” Jenna said, “though I don’t think you were right about this Steve Stiletto not being worth it, what with the way everyone was bidding. How do you know him, anyway?”
“I’ve heard stories,” I said in a faraway voice. “From all accounts, he’s a womanizer and a thrill seeker who couldn’t settle down for a half an hour if he—”
“Thanks.”
Jenna covered her mouth. Stiletto was standing over us, glorious in his authentic British tux.
“I’ve been in Afghan war camps, Bosnian trenches and once—because of a slight misunderstanding over some property I happened to be carrying—a Mexican jail. But nothing could have prepared me for a date with Wendy.”
I smiled. Stiletto did, too.
Then he took my hand and we were off.
Chapter Thirteen
S
tiletto led me by the hand, out of the packed ballroom, all eyes watching.
Deep down I knew that this was all I’d wanted, to be alone with him. This is why I had worked my way to “Talk of the Town.” This was why Flossie Foreman was hobbling about on one maimed knee.
I don’t know if Stiletto was a secret Mason or what, but he seemed familiar with every back hallway as he led me first this way, then that, until we were several flights up, in a small room with a window that looked out onto the Hill-to-Hill Bridge.
Our bridge.
In one swift movement, he shut the door and seized me. His hands stroked my face lovingly and then pausing, hesitating, he bent down and kissed me without so much as a “Do you mind?”
His mouth was hot, almost feverish, though it never left mine as he took me by the shoulders and, tripping over carpet, chair, whatever, forced me against the wall. I gave in, wrapping my arms around him, feeling the smoothness of his tux over his broad shoulders, his hair brushing against my fingers.
I opened my mouth more and let his tongue slip in. His powerful legs gained the upper hand, wedging their way between mine so that I could sense every inch of him. I was dizzy again, dizzier than I’d been downstairs. Dizzier than I’d ever been in my life.
I couldn’t take any more of him with his clothes on. I wanted us skin on skin. My fingers began fumbling for his shirt buttons, clumsily, uselessly trying to work. His hands were already up my dress and debating what to do when all of a sudden he pulled back, gasping.
Passion. Torment. Pure old lust. All the primal emotions twisted what I could make of his face in the dim light. He looked away and rubbed his brow. “I’m sorry, Bubbles. It’s just that”—he loosened his collar—“ever since I saw you this afternoon, I’ve had one thought running through my mind almost obsessively. All I knew was that I had to have you alone. That I had to kiss you like that. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not sorry. Not one tiny bit. However, I am afraid I’m paralyzed. If I step away from this wall, I might very well collapse.”
Stiletto leaned on a desk I hadn’t seen was there. The only light came from outside, from the illuminated Christmas tree on the Fritch Fuel sign. We were in shadows and that was good because I didn’t think I could take him under full-force fluorescents, undiluted.
I gripped my dress and yanked it down to more lady-like proportions.
“Where’s your ring?” he asked.
At first I wasn’t sure to what he was referring: the gaudy cubic zirconia Dan had given me, which I’d promptly dropped into my jewelry box next to my collection from Claire’s Jewels, or the Harry Winston gem that I’d returned to Stiletto last month.
“Shit. Didn’t he even give you a ring?”
“He did,” I said. “I don’t wear it.”
“Why?”
“You know,” I said. “You know why I don’t wear it.”
Silence. Stiletto reached out and I put my hand in his. He squeezed it gently and said, “I haven’t stopped thinking of you for one minute since I left for England.”
“I know.”
“You know? That’s awfully confident of you.”
I laughed. “I mean, I know because I haven’t stopped thinking of you, either.”
He gave my hand another squeeze. “How’s Jane?”
Horrible,
I wanted to say.
She’s an absolute mess. A skittish child in my daughter’s body.
“Okay. I think she’s getting better.”
“And you still are convinced marrying Dan will do the trick, will bring her back to what she was?”
“That’s the going theory, according to our expert.”
“Who?”
I explained about Dr. Caswell. Stiletto wanted her first and last names. Then he wanted me to spell everything. I had no doubt he’d investigate her thoroughly.
“When’s the wedding?” he asked.
“Saturday.”
“Then we have almost a week.”
I was dumbfounded. “What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you understand that’s why I came back, Bubbles? I came back for you.”
“I thought you came back for the auction.”
“Hardly.”
In all the months I’d known Stiletto, I had never felt such a surge of complete love toward him as I did at that moment. I pictured him in London, waking up in his Knightsbridge apartment and thinking,
What the hell?
I could see him tossing clothes into a duffel bag, slinging it over his shoulder and racing to the airport on a whim that his eleventh-hour flight to Pennsylvania would somehow prevent my wedding.
“Thank you,” I said, unsure what to do or say. “But it’s—”
He cut me off. “Listen, Bubbles. There’s something I have to tell you, something extremely important.” He paused.
“And?” I said.
“And . . .” He let out a self-deprecating chuckle, the kind people do when they’re embarrassed or have done something stupid. “The hell of it is, I can’t tell you.”
I found this slightly aggravating. “Why not?” Was I too dumb to understand?
“It has to do with Dan, why he’s so eager to marry you and . . . other stuff. Stuff that goes to the very heart of who you are. Jane, too. If you knew what it was, you’d cancel the wedding immediately.”
“Shit, Stiletto.” I pulled my hand away. Now I was getting annoyed. “If it’s that important, then I have a right to know.”
“You’re damn right you have a right to know. I’m with you on that one.”
“So?”
“So I can’t tell. Not now. I . . . uh . . . haven’t been
authorized,
” he added sheepishly.
“Authorized?” I got up, my anger now full-blown. “Since when have you ever waited for someone to authorize you? And what do you mean by
authorize,
anyway? Is this some new Associated Press rule?”
There was no answer.
I found the light switch and flicked it on. We were in some sort of storeroom full of office supplies and filing cabinets marked with nutty Mason stuff—Order of the Eastern Star, De Molay, Job’s Daughters, Daughters of the Nile—along with card tables and boxes and trophies that were nearly a hundred years old.
I clasped my hands together so Stiletto couldn’t see they were shaking. He looked guilty. He was frowning at the floor and—I thought, tellingly—unwilling to make eye contact.
“You know what I think? I think this is all bullshit,” I said. “I think you’re bluffing on the off chance that you can dupe silly, dumb Bubbles into calling off the wedding just so I won’t marry Dan, whom you can’t stand.”
“Goddamn.” He got off the desk and put his hands on his hips. “What kind of asshole do you think I am?”
“A pretty big one, if that’s the real story.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Try me.” I had to look away. Raspberry lip gloss stains dotted his fine white collar, which was rakishly undone along with several buttons on his tux—the best I’d been able to accomplish under the circumstances. Did he have to be so handsome?
I searched for a mirror so I could get myself in shape and settled for a plaque on the wall. A tribute to the founding of the Northampton County of the Order of the Eastern Star on January 5, 1914. I stared at the meaningless date, focusing on it so I wouldn’t start crying.
Stiletto’s reflection appeared behind me. “Bubbles,” he said softly. “Please . . .”
I shook him off. “I came here tonight because I had an assignment, Stiletto. That’s it. I don’t want or need anything else from you. And I suggest you get those lip gloss marks off your expensive tux before your new girlfriend sees.”