“At my age, worrying is an art form.”
Mel smiled and started to remove the sweater. The older woman shook her gray curls.
“Later. Do what you have to, Mel. I’m here if I can help.”
“You already have.”
Mel hugged her friend. For just a second, she let herself inhale the older woman’s familiar powdery scent. Claire had once been her grandmother’s best friend. Now she was Mel’s.
“I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Claire issued another ladylike snort. “You’d manage. You’re like your parents.”
“Not Grandma?”
Claire smiled. “She’d be proud of you.”
“Not after tonight’s debacle,” Mel said ruefully, “but thanks again, Claire. Oh, and happy New Year.”
“Stay safe.”
“That’s the plan.”
Mel was still smiling as she let herself inside the dark apartment across the hall. Without light, she crossed to the bedroom and began collecting what she needed. She pulled a pair of sweatpants from the dresser drawer and tugged them on over the dress. She couldn’t afford to leave the dress behind and she didn’t want to waste time removing it. Moving fast, despite the shivers plaguing her, Mel struggled into a baggy black sweatshirt that barely fit over the cumbersome sweater. The result was restrictive, but seductively warm.
She found heavy cotton socks by touch in another drawer before she reached for the shoe tree to feel for her black sneakers. Snatching underwear at random, she fumbled for the old scuffed duffel bag shoved in the back of her closet and stuffed it with the rest of the essential items.
Because she’d been listening hard the whole time, the anticipated sound of a car pulling up outside sent her rushing across the room to peer down at the sidewalk. Two men exited a long sedan that had pulled to the curb. They peered up at the building through the hurling snowflakes.
Mel knew they couldn’t see her, but she remained perfectly still anyhow until they looked away and mounted the steps. She was out of time.
Tossing the tennis shoes on top, she closed the bag, jammed her feet into black steel-toed work boots, grabbed her only other jacket and raced for the door. Claire’s buzzer shrilled. Hers a moment later. No doubt they were buzzing at random in hopes someone would let them inside. Sooner or later someone would.
Mel took time to lace her boots and relock her front door before sprinting down the hall to the laundry room at the far end. It took muscle, but she finally got the frozen window open. Tossing her coat and the bag to the ground, she climbed onto the narrow snow-covered ledge that circled the third floor. She maneuvered the window down until it snapped closed and wished she’d taken the time to pull the gloves from her coat pocket. Her fingers cooperated despite feeling numb as she worked her way along the ledge to the drainpipe. Testing the give, she found it still anchored securely. Using the pipe she worked her way down the side of the building.
A foot from the bottom, she kicked free and dropped. The wind had picked up, so snow would cover her tracks quickly. She scooped up her belongings and melted into the shadows of the neighboring building.
RODERICK WAS NOT in a good mood when he returned to the main ballroom. Shereen stood near the dance floor in animated conversation with Roderick’s most powerful competitor and that rarest of species—a wealthy, eligible bachelor like himself.
“Roderick!” Shereen greeted him when she spotted him. “Just look at my dress! It’s completely ruined! Some clumsy drunk dumped an entire glass of burgundy all over me! I don’t know what I’m going to do. I tried wiping the stains off in the bathroom, but I’m sure my dry cleaner will never be able to get them out completely.”
“Then it’s a good thing I brought your coat,” he told her.
Her perfectly plucked eyebrows arched. “You want to leave? Now?”
“It isn’t even midnight yet,” Larry Wilhelm protested.
“Wilhelm,” Roderick acknowledged the other man grudgingly.
“Don’t mind Roderick, he has a headache,” Shereen said with asperity. “I suggested he go take another aspirin or have another drink, but Roderick isn’t fond of parties, are you darling?”
“No,” he said tersely.
Deliberately, Wilhelm ran a knuckle down Shereen’s bare upper arm. “You know what they say about all business and no play, Laughlin.”
Shereen offered him a teasing smile. Roderick didn’t bother to conceal his annoyance with the pair. “I prefer to do my playing in private.”
Wilhelm raised his eyebrows mockingly. “Sorry, Laughlin, I didn’t realize I was treading on private property.”
The heck he didn’t.
“I am hardly anyone’s property,” Shereen stated archly.
Looking at the haughty arrogance in every line of her elegant body, Roderick realized how little he actually liked the woman underneath those superficial charms. Shereen was decorative and intelligent and extremely talented in the bedroom, but the world was filled with women like her. While they had suited each other for a surprising number of months now, he realized the relationship was no longer worth the effort.
Had he come to that realization because of Shereen’s apparent interest in Wilhelm, or because of a small, pointy face and two large eyes that had lit with an inner glow whenever that brilliant smile appeared?
It was an understatement to say the young woman he’d just helped wasn’t his type. She was short rather than statuesque, and far from model thin. And heaven knew she had no sense of style. Still, she intrigued him, and Roderick had always enjoyed a good puzzle.
“That was rather rude, darling,” Shereen told him as he led her away. “Larry was simply being nice by keeping me company while I waited for you.”
He didn’t have a chance to voice his opinion on that because just then the mayor and his wife flagged them down. Being rude to Wilhelm was one thing, but Roderick genuinely liked the young mayor and the group of people they were with. Shereen drifted away, leaving him sorely tempted to let her find her own way home. Good manners prevailed and they stayed until midnight after all. By the time he got Shereen out of the ballroom and onto the escalator, his headache was creeping close to migraine territory.
“…and I don’t know why we couldn’t take the elevator,” Shereen was complaining. “Escalators are so dirty.”
“Too crowded,” he told her shortly.
“This aversion you have for elevators is really quite annoying at times, you know that?”
He paused to regard her before crossing to the next set of moving steps. “If you want to take the elevator, Shereen, feel free,” he told her brusquely and turned away.
“You really are in a mood, aren’t you?” Shereen said waspishly as she hurried after him. “You’re still miffed because I was talking to Larry earlier. You know, just because you and Larry often find yourselves rivals at times, it wouldn’t have hurt you to make nice. Larry does move in all the right circles, you know. He was just telling me how his company got a juicy new contract working with Homeland Security. Instead of acting so rudely, you’d do well to encourage a relationship with him.”
Roderick didn’t look at her. “I’ll leave that to you.”
She inhaled audibly.
“Don’t tell me you were jealous, darling,” she purred after a moment.
“I won’t.”
He