Claire’s stomach fell to the floor as she turned to face her colleague.
Roberta was swiveling back and forth, smiling broadly. “Of course, just one moment. I’ll put you on hold and patch you through.” All three women stared at Claire as the small black dot on the phone blinked patiently, showing that Ben was on hold waiting to speak to her.
“Call for you on line seven,” Roberta added with a wicked grin then burst out laughing.
Hilary and Erin started laughing quietly.
“Will you all quit it?” Claire pleaded in a hoarse, desperate whisper. There was no stopping the blush this time. She tried to ignore her juvenile coworkers and took a deep breath. She tapped the phone line and picked up her receiver. “Claire Heyworth.”
“Hi, Claire. It’s Ben. Hayek.”
“Oh. Hi, Ben.” Damn it. Why did she have to sound like such a cold fish?
“Oh. Is this a bad time? I thought since it was the end of the day, you might be able to talk for a few minutes, but you sound busy. And you just started working there, so you’re probably trying to make a good impression. Sorry. Let’s catch up later.”
Nooooooo!
“No!” Well, that came out a bit stronger than Claire had intended.
“Oh, okay. Maybe some other time then—”
“No,” Claire laughed. She decided to ignore the Greek chorus of eavesdroppers behind her. “I didn’t mean
no
like that. I only meant, oh never mind. Thanks for sending over all those work orders. Boppy just brought them all down, all approved and everything.”
“Yeah, I’m not sure if you’ve heard, but it looks like I am going to be the sole owner of Rockledge. So—”
“Yes,” Claire interrupted to prevent him from going on when she already knew. “Boppy copied me in on the email from…Ms. Pinckney.”
Ugh
. Why was it so awkward to say his ex-wife’s name? So immature.
“Oh. Okay. Well, good. So…”
“So.”
Come on, Claire. Go for it
. “Right, so, I have reservations at someplace called The Spotted Pig tonight and—”
“Oh, so sorry. You must be running late. Sorry again to bug you at work.”
God. Could Sarah be right? Was he just as nervous as she was? He was so broad and confident…looking. “No.” Claire cleared her throat. “I meant, Boppy Matthews made the reservation, as a little perk.”
“Dinner with the boss. Look at you rising up the corporate ladder in a flash. Have a great time.”
Were they ever going to be talking about the same thing at the same time? “Oh, no, no.” Claire laughed lightly, probably sounding as nervous as she felt. “She told me to go with a friend…and take Monday off.”
“Oh. Okay. I was just calling to see if you wanted to go to a movie or something, but sounds like you’re all set.”
He’d been calling to ask her out! Her heart hammered and the inner girl in her head screamed,
HE LIKES YOU!
“Actually, I hadn’t asked anyone yet. I just found out…so…do you want to go?” Silence. “With me?” Oh. God. What was she? Twelve? She was a grown woman inviting a friend to dinner. Preposterous, but his silence—
“Yes! Sorry. My assistant just handed me some X rays, and I was momentarily distracted. What time should I meet you?”
Just like that? Yes? “Oh. Okay. Right. Eight o’clock sound good?”
“Perfect. I’ll see you then. Bye, friend.” Click.
Ohmyohmyohmy
. Claire put the phone back into its cradle with slow precision.
Roberta coughed. “Well?”
“Well, what?” But Claire was smiling despite herself.
“Oh, man. He’s going to make mincemeat out of you.”
With all her newfound professional success and womanly confidence, Claire replied, “Maybe I’ll make mincemeat out of
him
, so there!” The other three started laughing again, and Claire turned to her computer screen and began inputting all the work orders.
An hour later, the office empty of her distracting coworkers, she input the final order and stuck the paperwork into a neat manila folder with the rest of the orders for the Hayek account.
She tried to hold onto that thread of assurance she’d felt earlier, but the mere mention of his name, the mere sight of the word
Hayek
on a piece of paper, made Claire a little loopy.
Enough
. She powered down her computer and cleared up her desk.
When she left the office and felt the cool October wind against her cheeks, Claire felt a physical reminder of all her years in northern Scotland. She tugged her knee-length coat a little bit tighter around her neck and enjoyed the bracing feel of the air. She remembered how she’d welcomed that cold harshness when she’d married Freddy. Some of her friends had balked at the idea of leaving high-flying London to molder away in the wilds of Caithness. Claire had loved it.
Wick Castle had felt like another planet—a nearly abandoned one—when she’d first arrived, but it was hers, so she didn’t care. All of her short life until then had been spent in her mother’s shadow. It had been a very luxurious shadow—Claire wasn’t complaining—but her life had never felt like her own. When her mother and Freddy’s mother introduced them at Claire’s seventeenth birthday party that spring, it was pretty much a known fact that they were meant for each other. Claire had been modest, attractive, soft-spoken. She had been trained.
Freddy had been plain old fun. He drank and didn’t care if his bawdy stories were a little too loud at Annabel’s. He was a fabulous dancer. The way he pulled Claire into his arms with that casual possessive strength of his had made her feel, if not swooning in love, at least able to contemplate the idea of spending her life with someone who fit into her world, who would take charge. He might not have been the most reliable of men, but Claire never could have anticipated the depth of his conniving in those early years.
Her own parents had spent plenty of time apart during their marriage, so that hadn’t seemed very odd to Claire. When she’d become pregnant with Lydia almost immediately after their wedding in September, Claire didn’t find it terribly unusual that Freddy was frequently called back to London for business meetings or social obligations. In a way, it helped her put the emotional confusion of her time with Ben more firmly behind her. She was married. She was pregnant. She lived at the opposite end of the earth.
After Lydia was born, Claire more or less convinced herself that the summer before with Ben had been nothing but a youthful aside. It was easy in a way. Less than a year later, she was the mother of a beautiful baby girl, a marchioness left almost entirely to her own devices. In many ways, she felt quite free.
Claire focused all of her attention on renovating the castle and starting her family. For many years, that was more than enough. As her mother used to say, she’d always been a grateful little thing.
She shook off the memories and stared out the bus window as she headed down Lexington Avenue. One of her favorite parts of New York City was riding around on the public buses. It made the feeling of being a ghost among the rest of humanity a little less pronounced. She could be regular. She could be a normal person who had a normal job and rode around on normal buses. It wasn’t slumming either. She remembered how her mother used to drill her about the importance of who she was and how she was to behave. The Duchess of Northrop was not in the business of raising a slapper.
Claire smiled and hit the call button to indicate her stop was coming. The bus slowed, and she stepped out the back door and walked the two blocks to Bronte’s apartment. At some point, she needed to think about getting her own place, but for now, she couldn’t afford it, so she called Bronte as often as she could to voice her gratitude.
Just then, her cell phone rang, and it was Bron.
“I was just thinking about you,” Claire said.
“What are you doing? No moping around at home on a Friday night. I won’t allow it. I demand you come out on the town with Max and me and no argument—”
“I have plans.”
“What? With whom? Oh my god, are you going out on a date? Who is it? You’re such a player!”
Claire laughed into the brisk night air. “I’m about as far from being a
player
as one person can be.”
“Apparently not. Well?”
“Well, what?” Claire was nearly to the building and the doorman saw her coming and opened the front door for her. She smiled and walked into the lobby as Bronte persisted.
“Well what?” Bronte mocked. “Well, who’s your date, duh?”
“Oh, just an old friend I bumped into—”
“Oh. My. God. It’s the oral surgeon, isn’t it?”
After spilling everything to Sarah on Sunday morning about bumping into Ben, Claire had decided to take a wait-and-see attitude before telling Bronte anything. At the time, it had seemed like a whole lot of nothing. Or at least that’s what Claire was trying to tell herself as her heart pounded every time she thought about him. Lately, her mind was particularly inclined to picture his long, strong fingers on the strings of his guitar, the way he had pulled and strummed—
“Claire!”
“What?”
Bronte laughed again. “Where are you? I’ve been asking you a million questions, and it’s like you aren’t even listening.”
“Sorry, Bron. I’m in the elevator and I need to get ready, so I should probably hang up.”
“
N. F. W.
There is no way you’re going to leave me hanging like this, especially now that it’s too late to call Sarah in London to find out what has gone on while you’ve been avoiding me.”
The elevator doors opened and Claire stepped out into the narrow hall with the old, but practical, tile floors from another century. She tucked her cell phone into the crook of her neck and reached into her bag to take out her key. “At least let me get into the apartment and put my bag down so I can give you my full attention.”
“Ugh. Oh, all right. But hustle—the suspense is killing me.”
Claire smiled and pushed open the door. She put her bag down on the small kitchen counter along with the cell phone, then clicked it onto speakerphone.
“Can you hear me, Bron?”
“Sure. This’ll be fun. You can get ready while you tell me how dreamy he is.”
Claire rolled her eyes as she took off her jacket and then her boots and set them neatly by the front door. “He is kind of dreamy now that you mention it.”
“Listen to you…not a hint of ice.”
It was starting to hurt less and less, Claire realized, when Sarah and Bronte would rib her for her old way of behaving so coolly. She realized it was partly the shyness she had thought it was, but it was also a weak fear. As much as her mother had taught her to behave in certain ways and how to be a lady in all situations, the duchess’s training had also instilled a strange isolation. Claire had worked with her therapist for the past few years to break it down, but it was so ingrained, it hadn’t been easy. Claire didn’t want to feel apart from the rest of humanity any longer.
“Claire!” Bronte cried again. “Back to earth! What are you wearing tonight?”
Claire looked down at her work outfit. “Do you think I need to change out of my work clothes? I’m wearing those pretty beige trousers with the creamy silk top. You know, the one with the oversized buttons—”
“Are you crazy? You are going out with the man of your dreams—”
“He’s just a guy—”
“The hot oral surgeon—”
“He’s just a dentist—”
“Cease!” Bronte laughed her command. “Of course you’re going to change into something pretty and flirty. Go tell me what’s in your closet.”
Claire smiled silently toward the phone and walked the short distance to the closet. “A lot of beige…”
“I was afraid of that. What about that emerald green satin top we made you put in? The Catherine Malandrino—”
“How do you even remember things like that?”
“Oh, don’t start with me,” Bronte said. “I refuse to be questioned when I’m trying to help you. Do you have the top?”
“Yes, it’s here.” Claire flipped a few hangers in the closet until she was staring at the blouse in question. She hesitated as she touched the slippery fabric. “I don’t know, Bron. It just seems so flashy—”
“Oh my god. You sound so much like your mother.
Flashy
? As if you could ever run the risk of being taken for a Vegas show girl?” Bronte started laughing, and it was contagious. Claire was laughing within a few seconds, envisioning herself in a gold-spangled bikini and peacock-feather headdress sashaying into the restaurant to meet Ben.
“Oh dear,” Bronte said as her laughter abated. “Okay, here’s the deal. You have to have a little pizzazz. Either on top or bottom. I’d go for the top, because I’m assuming you’ll be sitting—because it’s dinner—so why bother with the black satin pants, right?”
Claire groaned. The idea of wearing black satin pants for anything but a formal dinner struck her as ridiculous.
“And no groaning. It’s not like you have to procure an engraved invitation to Buckingham Palace to wear a bit of satin.”
“I’m too old to be getting all dolled up on a Friday night. I’ll look like a teenager. And not in a good way.”
“I know it’s an act of faith, but I think you need to trust me on this one. Wear your favorite jeans if you must, but please wear something shiny on top and some super high heels.”
“Heels with jeans? Bronte. I’m not sure I can do it.”
“Do I need to hop in a cab and come down there?”
Claire burst out laughing again. Bronte’s tone of voice was exactly the same as when she was disciplining her toddler son, with that hint of don’t-make-me-come-in-there.
“No!” Claire cried. “I will obey. And when the dentist catches a glimpse of me in my trollopy heels and jeans and rolls his eyes, I will report back to you and prove my point. I’m a practical khakis and flats kind of woman.”
“Are you picturing me with my arms folded and my toe tapping impatiently? Because that’s what I’m doing. If he even tangentially suggests that you are trollopy, I will…oh, I don’t know what I’ll do, but I’ll eat my hat and all that. You can think of something gruesome like I have to call your mother and tell her how much I’m looking forward to spending Christmas with her at Lyford.”