CHAPTER ONE
Ainsley
“Oh, for...” I sighed and put my head on my desk. It was one of those days – a Wednesday, but really an undercover Monday. My office-mate, Emmy, frowned at me across the space between us.
“What?”
“Nothing,” I sighed. “Really. Nothing.”
“Okay.” She shrugged an elegant shoulder and got back to work.
I ran a hand through my unruly honey-brown hair and made myself focus on the email in front of me. It was from an irritated French author. That might need some explaining.
I work for Edge Enterprises, a multicultural publishing company. To put it more precisely, I translate books from French and into English all day. Sometimes, authors who don't like the way I've translated something. Like today in this very e-mail in front of me.
Evelyn Roche – a gaunt and extremely elegant lady, to judge from the author photo – had just told me, more or less, that my translation of the first six chapters of her work were rubbish.
If it was her weekend she'd just spent on that translating, I bet she wouldn't think so, I thought resentfully.
“Having a hard day?” a voice spoke from behind my shoulder. My friend Lacey from admin was responsible. I turned to face her. I knew my brown eyes were probably displaying some major heavy under-eye bags, so there was no hiding the truth.
“I guess,” I acknowledged ruefully. “A hard week, actually.”
Well, a hard month, but I wasn't going to burden anyone else with my misery right now. I had a difficult time managing it on my own without passing it around. With finally breaking up with Keith to my mom's recent illness and increasing pressure from work, I thought I wasn't going to be able to take much more bad stuff.
“Want to talk?” she asked.
I blinked. “Can I? I mean...what's the time?”
“It's lunch break,” Lacey replied. “Come and join me in Starbucks?”
I nodded. “I'd love to.” I turned to Emmy, “Want to come too?” I asked politely. I wasn't particularly good friends with Emmy, despite – or maybe because of – the fact that we shared an office. I tried hard to like her but her close resemblance to the “popular” girls turned me away from a friendship.
Emmy shrugged. “I'd better finish this. Have a hectic deadline coming up. In, well...a couple hours from now.”
“Ouch.”
She grimaced. “I know.”
I stood and stretched, easing out the cracks in my neck, and took my jacket off the rack. I was already chair-shaped after this weekend, much less after this morning. Outside in the street, the early spring air lifted my spirits, ruffling my hair and bringing the scent of the sea to my nostrils.
“Whew!” I breathed in, letting the ocean air clear my head.
“Okay?” Lacey asked. She of all the people in my life knew about me and Keith. She'd been great about checking in with me during the getting-over-the-breakup phase.
I nodded. “I guess so.” I pulled my coat around me, turning up the collar to keep out the worst of the wind, and headed on down the street. “It's just the memories now. Dealing with all that...stuff he said.”
“I understand,” Lacey said feelingly. “That's the worst bit.”
It was. I couldn't quite erase from my mind the year's worth of undermining that Keith had ladled over me. By the time I'd finally walked out on him, I had microscopic amounts of self-esteem and barely the same amount of confidence. I still found it hard to look in the mirror without hearing the things he'd said. Klutz. Frump. Bitch.
“I'm doing okay, though,” I told her. I had joined a dance class and was starting to make myself socialize again. Seeing couples didn't exactly ease my sense of isolation, though.
“Good,” Lacey said. Ah. Here we are!”
Lacey and I blew in through the door of the cafe and found a seat in the already-crowded space.
“Cappuccino?” she asked.
“Mm. Thanks, Lacey.”
She headed to the front and made the orders, and I went to claim a table. I took a seat and there I leaned back and closed my eyes. When I opened them, I found Lacey looking at me. Her big blue eyes looked excited.
“Ainsley?”
“Mm?”
“I forgot to mention it earlier, but I have some exciting news.”
“Oh!” I leaned forward, taking the cappuccino from her hand and opening it. “What's happening?”
“I have an invitation to the Steelcore Charity Gala. It looks pretty fancy. Happening at the Hilton. Want to come?”
I almost dropped the coffee she had just handed to me. “What?” I stared at her.
The Charity Gala was a big event. I knew because my cousin Shane went there with his girlfriend, an employee of Steelcore. It was super-stylish and star-studded. And I could go?
Lacey laughed. “I got the tickets from my dad. He's got a friend who works there, my Uncle Mark. He said I could take a friend and me. Would you come?”
“Lacey!” I felt my cheeks lift in a big grin. “I can't believe it! Of course I want to come!” I felt like hugging her.
Lacey had gone pink, two small spots of blush appearing on her high, contoured cheeks. “It would be no fun on my own, would it? You know it's not easy for me to get out sometimes.”
Lacey had social anxiety issues and sometimes asked me to come with her when she had to go to the bank or post-office. But inviting me to one of the biggest social events of the year? I was really moved. I reached across the table and squeezed her hand.
“Thanks, L. Really. That's super-sweet.”
Lacey just blushed. She's like that. Pretty and lovely, with a shy grace like a deer. If she wasn't my best friend, I would be jealous. As it was, I was just very, very protective.
“Well, then!” I said. “This calls for a shopping spree! When's the gala?”
“Next weekend.”
“Wow! So soon?”
“Yes!” She nodded. She looked somewhere between nervous and excited. “We don't have much time to prepare, do we?”
“Maybe we can shop this weekend?”
“Great!”
That settled it. I was going, more or less, to a ball.
That weekend, Lacey and I met on Saturday morning at the mall. I was fizzling with excitement and felt better than I had for months.
“Where do we start?” Lacey asked with a big smile.
“How about Free People?” I asked, pointing at the store on our left.
“Great.”
We tried on several dresses, but nothing seemed to quite work for me. Lacey found a blue dress with a chiffon overlay and floaty sleeves. It looked stunning.
“You have to take it,” I told her.
“You think so?” she asked.
“Yes.”
I waited while she made her purchase, feeling a little restless. Why couldn't I find the one I wanted?
“What's up?” Lacey asked when she turned back to me, her bag slung over her arm.
“I don't know.” I shrugged.
“You're trying too hard,” she commented. “Trust your instincts on this one.”
I sighed. “I'll try.”
“You always dress well,” she said. “So you can just forget about what some people might have said.” She gave me a grin, making wide eyes that told me she knew exactly how undermined I'd been in that department. I nodded.
“Thanks.”
We walked past a shop window and I stared.
“That one.”
“You sure?” Lacey raised a brow. The dress was reasonably plain – a cream sheath dress made out of pulled silk, with a “V” neck and ankle-length skirt, no waist. I loved it.
“Yes. I'm sure.”
Lacey shrugged. “Let's go.”
The shop was a small boutique called Jade. The sales-girl seemed surprised when I marched straight in and up to her.
“Can I try that on?” I asked, pointing to the dress in the window.
“Sure,” she said. It was the only one in the shop, so she took it off the model in the window and handed it to me. I barely needed to try it on. But when I did I loved it. It was discounted, too. A lot to pay at once, but worth it for what it was.
Lacey grinned at me as we walked out, the paper bag slung on my arm.
“Will we meet at my place to get dressed?”
“Hurray!” I said. “Let's do it.
On the weekend, I drove to Lacey's downtown apartment, my overnight bag on my arm. She met me at the door with loving warmth.
“Ainsley! Hi!”
“Hi!” I grinned at her stupidly. I was so excited. My blood was fizzling in my veins like champagne and my head floated.
“I'm excited,” she commented.
“Me too.”
“Whoops! Mind the books...I was just reorganizing the shelves in the sitting-room.”
We tiptoed round the stack of books in the way, ducked under the ceiling-lamp and headed through her small chaotic apartment to her bedroom. I shrugged off my jeans and t-shirt and let the whisper-soft silk fall down around me. It fit like a glove. I reached for my gold heels, gold earrings and a thick gold chain for my neck. When it was all put together, I stepped back and looked in the mirror.
“Wow,” my best friend said. I blushed.
The girl who looked back at me from the mirror was middling height, with a well-contoured face with high, angled cheekbones and big brown eyes. My mane of brownish hair shone with gold lights: My mom always called it “clover honey”, and I guess it did have golden streaks in it, seeing it now. The cream dress brought them out. I pulled the top to sit properly across my full breasts and narrow waist. Then I did a little turn in the mirror, loving the silky feel of the dress on my ankles.
“You look gorgeous too,” I said to Lacey. She smiled at me in the other mirror, busy with makeup.
“Thanks.”
With her platinum-blonde hair and the knee-length dress with fluttery sleeves, she looked like a flower-fairy. I told her that and she pulled a face at me.
“Thanks. I think.” She giggled. “Not sure it's the right look for a gala, but I'm doing it anyway.”
We both laughed. Then we hurried down the stairs, feeling a little giddy with excitement, to her car.
“You sure it's safe to drive in heels?” I asked as we headed outside.
“I got flip-flops in the car,” she explained succinctly. She jumped in and we headed off.
My stomach was a churning mass of nerves when we pulled up to the hotel. There was a small row of cameras and reporters, security personnel and limos, and a red carpet trailing its way up the front steps – alluring and intimidating all at once. Were we really going to go in there? In front of the press and all those people?
I looked out through the windshield. We were sitting in Lacey's secondhand BMW with its faded red paint and missing front wheel-cap. I felt a bit awkward.
She looked at me.
“Where do we go?” I asked.
“In the front like everyone else,” Lacey said with a rebel grin. “Though I guess we'll leave the car round the back somewhere...”
I laughed. We did that. Clutching a butter-cream chiffon shawl around my shoulders, shivering in the capricious breeze, I climbed out of the car, following her up the sidewalk. The pair of us were giggling like schoolgirls at a prom as we approached. We stopped at the edge of the crowd.
“Well?” Lacey whispered nervously. “What should we do?”
“Go up?” I said pragmatically.
“Well...” Lacey looked nervous.
“We're invited, just like them,” I reasoned. I was trying to psych myself up as much as I was encouraging her. I was so tense with nerves I wasn't sure my knees would bend properly.
“Well, I guess so,” Lacey shrugged slight shoulders under her thin evening coat.
I nodded. “Let's go.”
Me being me, with an impulsive streak I sometimes wish I didn't have, I put my foot forward and strode onto the carpet. It was with boldness and force that I strode up the stairs and through the door.
Straight into a guy in a suit.
Oh, for...
I rolled my eyes. Keith always said I was clumsy. I drew in a deep breath.
“I'm so sorry!” I stammered. Lacey looked like she wanted to turn to stone. I felt like I had. I looked up into the man's face – he had just turned round.
I stared.
It was Drake.
No. It can't be. But it was. With those big square shoulders and a square-cut jaw and a long, sensitive face, it couldn't be anyone else. Teamed up with a long, magazine-front-cover nose, black eyes and a mobile, expressive mouth, it was Drake.
I wished the floor would open up and swallow me.