Chapter Thirteen
“Is that a dress?” Couldn’t be. But why was she coming out of the kitchen wearing lingerie ten minutes before the guests arrived?
“Vintage Donna Karan, if you can believe it.” She turned from loading her playlist in the stereo. “And from your expression, I can tell the importance is lost on you. Trust me, the other wives will drool.”
“It’s really short.” And low cut, with a sparkling pendant drawing attention to just how low the gauzy fabric dipped between her breasts.
“You’re telling me.” She returned to her work on the stereo. “I couldn’t wear the thong I planned, so I’m stuck with panties.” She turned back around with a smile, but her face fell instantly. “You don’t like it?”
She nervously smoothed her hands down the black crepe of the draped pleats. Guilt crept in. She looked amazing. From the low ponytail she’d coaxed her hair into, to the dress, to the sparkling heels on her feet. And bright red toenail polish. That hadn’t been there last night.
“I’d like the dress better if we were alone.” Stepping to her, he placed a hand on the textured material at her hip, grazing her cheek with a kiss.
Her smile showed her relief. After all she’d done for him, he didn’t want to make her self-conscious. Thanks to jet lag he hadn’t woken before her, so he opened his eyes to a note detailing her busy day. Somehow, she and her team managed to cater a retirement luncheon and set this party up.
“Promise me you’ll eat tonight, Cam.”
He thought about pointing out he ate last night, but didn’t want to steer the conversation down a road they couldn’t travel with a dozen people about to descend on their privacy, and another handful in the kitchen.
With a sigh, Lauren turned on the stereo and stepped to the dining room, now warm and inviting with rich earth tones everywhere. The sounds of a demanding orchestra opened, fading to opera.
“I hate opera.” Cameron’s lip curled and he thought about changing her music selection. Would have if there’d been investors coming tonight. But since the guests included a hydroelectric lobbyist, wind power aficionado, two junior partners from the firm, and an environmental journalist, he knew he didn’t have to impress. They had to impress him.
“Opera isn’t a favorite of mine, either. We’re going Italian tonight, so it fits.” Lauren grabbed a bowl of grapes, setting a bunch in front of each place setting and nestling a name card between the grapes.
She was more comfortable in his house than him. Where did she expect things to go with them? He knew she’d stepped into the agreement for her business, but if he could keep her interested in him with sex, all the better. Because he felt something for her.
Not the scars of suspicion and jealousy that usually kept him form investing too much in a relationship, but a comfortable playfulness he’d always envied in others. A compatibility and understanding he’d never known. He warned himself not to get too used to it. Like every other woman who traded up for a bigger fish in the sea, she would move on to the next man who could do more for her.
Except, he had more money now than ever before, and in a few years he’d be running a venture capital firm with the best record in the country. Tamping down the wave of insecure speculation he vowed to do what she’d asked. Try them out and see where it went.
Cameron leaned against the entry and watched Lauren and her team flutter about the room. Laying a brown runner down the center of the mossy green tablecloth and putting outsmall bowls of olives with curls of lemon on top. Next came two baskets of artisan breads with sprigs of rosemary tucked between. Diego emerged from the kitchen, decorating the wet bar near the entry with bottles of wine, a large salami, red grapes, and wedges of cheese.
He didn’t know how to feel about Diego, about any man working so closely with a woman as stunning as Lauren and not considering taking more from her. But then, he worked with women and never thought of them as such. Maybe Diego saw Lauren the same way. Or maybe he was gay. That would be great.
“Did you buy her that dress?” Diego asked once Lauren disappeared into the kitchen. He didn’t look up, too busy arranging his salami.
“No. She says it’s vintage and the other wives will like it. I say it’s too damned short.” Cameron stepped to the entry table and poured himself a glass of wine.
“She never dresses like that,” Diego said next to him, adding a clear vase filled with skinny breadsticks to the arrangement. “Did she dress that way in New York?”
“She never came to see me in New York.” Cameron hoped he hadn’t tripped over a cover-up. “It’s a classy dress, there’s just not much too it.”
“You’re right. I never see this side of her, so it shocked me.”
“Do you want to see this side of her?” He had to know. Just because there was nothing on Lauren’s side didn’t mean the man wouldn’t become a problem later.
He actually laughed. “I’m not a masochist. We work well together, but beyond that we’d be disastrous. She always has to be right. And in control. Every second of her day is planned so she can get the most done. It exhausts me to look at her sometimes.” Diego gathered his empty bags. “I wish you luck.”
“I need it. Turns out she can’t be with a man who doesn’t own an espresso machine and an ice cream maker. Do you know where I’d get those?”
…
What a boring clutter of people. Absolutely no interesting flirt factor. The lobbyist couple was almost predatory in their attentions to the other guests, and it put a pall over her party. She’d told Cameron not to invite them.
Trying to revive the night with tiramisu, Lauren flitted about the room like a butterfly, trying to keep each swirl of conversation light, fun, and on task.
“Lauren, tell me how the wedding plans are coming,” Denise, the wife of Cameron’s associate, Rich, asked.
“No wedding.” Lauren shook her head with a broad smile, enjoying as Cameron seemed to choke on his tiramisu. “I hate weddings, all the pretense and politics. I think everyone should find a nice warm beach to elope on, take at least two weeks for the honeymoon to relax and enjoy, then come back and throw a surprise party for themselves.”
“Two weeks,” Denise exclaimed. “I don’t think Rich has ever had two weeks off in a row. Surely you can compromise.”
“Lauren refuses to compromise on the kind of man she’ll marry.” Cameron said with a smile. “You wouldn’t believe the list she gave me. I’ll be eighty before we set a date.”
Everyone enjoyed the dessert, her specialty thank you very much, but the lobbyist leering at her, and the other wives looking at her like some kind of high maintenance trophy had Lauren escaping to the kitchen for a breather.
“What a night.” She leaned against the spotless countertop and watched her crew packing the items they’d finished with. “I swear, it was like trying to keep a campfire going in a rainstorm. The second I walked away from a group all conversation stopped. And this creep Cameron invited won’t keep his hands to himself.”
Anne snickered and sat in a kitchen chair. “It’s the dress.”
“You like it?” She twirled for effect. “I borrowed it from my mom’s closet. Vintage Donna Karan.”
“Every man in that room liked it, so much so their tongues hung out of their mouths when you walked away. Their wives had to slap them to stop the drooling.” Anne tapped a finger against her wrinkled cheek.
Lauren sat in the chair next to Anne and lowered her voice. “Come on. Surely this dress isn’t that scandalous.”
“It’s gorgeous. And so are you. You’re also a good decade younger than any other woman in that room. The husbands didn’t want to say the wrong thing, and the wives didn’t want to say anything at all.”
“That’s so…archaic.” Lauren wrinkled her nose and smoothed her hands against the skirt of the dress.
“Some people never evolve.”
Abruptly, the music piping through the house shut off. Muffled voices from the living room sounded strained. Anxiety coursing through her, Lauren returned to her guests, watching as they collected their coats at the door.
“Why is everyone leaving?” she discretely asked one of the wives of Cameron’s employees.
“Cameron said he wasn’t feeling well and the party was over, then he went upstairs.”
Lauren ushered the guests out of the house as quickly as she could, annoyed that the couple who upset the swirl of her party waited for last to leave.
“We’d love to have you over for dinner.” The wife reached out and touched her face, making Lauren take a step back.
“We’re really quite busy with work and the holidays right now. I need to make sure Cameron is all right.” She opened the door wider, and waved her hand in suggestion they get the hell out of her house.
“I’m sorry if we upset you both.” The lobbyist started in as Lauren tried to close the door. The back of his hand brushed against her bare arm and she stepped part way behind the door. It was one thing to shrug off his too familiar touches for the sake of a smooth party, but if he laid a hand on her again she’d slam it in the heavy steel door.
“It’s been a long night. If you’ll excuse me.” She slammed the door, wanting to open it just to slam it again in their faces. What had the man implied to Cameron that had him bailing on his own party?
…
She’d promised. Cameron shook his head, realizing her hormone driven promise held as much power as a pinky swear, as much weight as the flimsy curtains blowing in the frigid December breeze. He could still hear the murmur of voices downstairs, the clatter of decorations being packed and carried away. It took all he had not to sneak out the garage and go for a good long run.
Sinking down onto the bed, his aching head fell into his hands. He’d known better than to try for more than casual. Her empty promise couldn’t shield him from the reality he’d witnessed. He’d been blind to it the first time, but he wouldn’t be in that situation ever again.
He’d noticed the other men’s appreciative glances, but had felt proud, not threatened, had found it amusing she never seemed to notice the way men looked at her.
Until he’d seen red. The lobbyist couldn’t seem to keep his hands to himself, and Lauren did nothing to brush him away. Cameron knew better than to open himself up to this.
He wasn’t ready to put a label on what he felt for her, but he did care for her more than he should. Until tonight he thought she felt the same way. So many things she’d said and done added up to make him think she was open to the possibility of more, should he give her the slightest hint he’d be agreeable to it.
“Are you okay?” Lauren’s voice tried to break into his thoughts.
Cameron said nothing, willing her to disappear and praying for the strength to let her go before he got in any deeper.
“What happened?” She stepped closer, putting a hand on his shoulder. He flinched, shifting out of her reach. He looked up at her, praying she couldn’t see the painful yearning he felt for her in his gaze. Uncertainty flickered briefly in Lauren’s green eyes.
Taking a breath to steady himself, Cameron looked her in the eye. “I can’t do this, Lauren. You need to leave.”
“No.” She crossed her arms across her chest, intensity etched on her face. “Tell me what happened.” She kept her distance and her protective stance.
He wanted her to leave. Knew she would bolt as soon as he confronted her with what he’d seen, so he hit her with it. “I saw you with him.”
“I didn’t—”
Cameron shook his head and tapped his temple. “I saw you. The way you flirted tonight, saw their hands on you. You never once brushed them off.”
“I didn’t want to make a scene.”
“Unless it’s what you wanted. To draw their attention, catch a bigger fish?”
“Omigawd, you’re jealous.”
“Maybe I’m just seeing you for what you are. Moving up, looking for a better deal.”
“If you really believe that, I will go.”
She leveled her gaze at him, chastising him with a glare. In light of what he’d seen, from her tonight and women who’d left before, he knew better than to trust her. Which was the real reason he couldn’t have more than a relationship in passing. After that night, he learned not to trust anyone but himself.
“This isn’t about tonight, is it?”
He closed his eyes. The scenes in his mind changing from imaginary to vicious memories. His stomach reeled and his mind went blessedly blank.
“What happened?”
“When your ex told you he’d found someone else, what did you do?”
“I ran away to Europe for the summer.”
“No, not after. What did you do in that moment?”
Her mouth moved, but no words came. He watched the pain cross her face before she swallowed and spoke. “I froze. I heard the words, and I saw what I would become if I accepted it and married him. I flashed to my brother and my father at their funerals and thought this was the first good thing about them being gone. If they hadn’t died I wouldn’t have postponed the wedding, and I wouldn’t have slept with him because I felt empty, and I wouldn’t have known any of it until it was too late.”
She reached up and wiped her eyes of tears she refused to let fall. She’d resolved never to cry about it again. Sobbing got her nothing but puffy eyes. She met Cameron’s gaze and held it, seeing his secret was far darker than hers.
“I opened the door and saw her, and him, in my bed. She still had my ring on. But his father was a millionaire, so I should understand her choice. It was never me she wanted, but who she thought I would be.”
“Was that the only time?” The cold pain of his devastation was warmed by the realization he trusted her. His jealousy could only mean she wasn’t alone in investing emotions into this relationship.
“That a woman used me? No. Just the last time I let anyone rub my nose in it.”
“And that’s what you thought I was doing tonight? Trawling in front of your face?”
“Weren’t you?”
With a groan Lauren wrenched her arms behind her, unzipping the dress and shrugging it off. When it hit her feet she stepped out and kicked it at his face. Clad only in panties and heels, she squared her shoulders and stared at him.
“Donna Karan is obviously too much for us to handle right now. I wore that dress because I wanted your attention. Instead, I got the attention of a bunch of personality deficient schmucks, and you on the verge of accusing me of something we both know I’m not doing.”
She reached for his cheek and he closed his eyes when she touched his skin. “We don’t know where this is going, so we think outrageous things to try and protect ourselves. I wear designer dresses to try to fit in with the other wives and show you we can be more than temporary, and you think because some idiots in your past traded up I will, too.”
“Don’t make excuses for me, Lauren. The urge to stop myself from being hurt is so strong, it’s primal. I don’t want to hurt you because of it.”
“There is only once choice I can see.” She slid her hands around his neck, slipping down beside him on the bed. “Indulge your primal urges with me.”