“You look like a visiting princess,” Dee remarked under her breath. “Don’t blow the image by letting your knees knock. Look confident. Smile!”
“I’m scared to death,” Ivory whispered back. Even her voice was shaking, and for once, her carefully controlled accent was noticeable. “God almighty, Dee, the closest I’ve ever come to this in my life was a church party in high school! I don’t even know what to say to people like these!”
“Don’t panic,” Dee said, squeezing her arm comfortingly. “Take deep breaths and don’t look down!”
“Good advice for someone standing on a precipice,” a silky deep voice mused behind them.
Ivory actually jumped, because the unexpected voice was right over her shoulder.
She whirled, and there he was—the man she’d seen at the cathedral.
He wasn’t half as surprised as she was. His expression was one of amused mockery as he looked at her dress and then back into her flushed face. Her eyes were huge, gray as a sparrow’s wing and full of apprehension. Her short golden blond hair circled her face like spun silk. She wasn’t beautiful, but she was striking. Those gray eyes mesmerized him, but it was the faint fear on her features, the barely perceptible trembling of her slender body that touched him. He felt suddenly, shockingly, protective.
He caught Ivory’s upper arm in a gentle but steely grip. “Come with me,” he said. He looked over her shoulder. “Get her something nonalcoholic,” he told Dee, taking charge. “Not coffee,” he added dryly. “Something decaffeinated!” Dee chuckled as she went off to comply with the request.
“Don’t faint,” he said with soft mockery as he led her out onto the glass-enclosed balcony. It was icy outside, but this area was heated and filled with dozens of potted plants. It looked like a greenhouse.
“I wasn’t about to faint,” she replied, regaining some of her stamina. “I’m a little out of my depth, and strangers make me nervous, that’s all.”
He glanced back inside at the noisy crowd. “They’re just people,” he reminded her. “Some of them are probably as intimidated as you are.”
“I very much doubt that.” She looked up at him and allowed her eyes to linger. He fascinated her. She thought again, as she’d thought the first time she had seen him, that she’d never come across such a handsome man. He had a smile that made her insides feel warm, and there was interest and amusement in that black gaze.
He was looking, too. Her face was just a little rounded, just enough to make it vulnerable and soft without making it heavy. Her big gray eyes dominated it. She had high cheekbones and a straight nose and a firm little chin. Her mouth was a sweet curved bow that made his lips tingle just looking at it. Her figure was exquisitely displayed in that well-fitted gown, and he could not restrain his desire to linger just a moment too long on the line of her breasts. He was tall enough that he could see into the neckline, see the soft, firm swell of delicate pink flesh that the flat slash of the square neckline only enhanced.
“Please don’t stare,” she said in a quiet voice with a dignity beyond her years, clasping her hands over her bodice in quiet discomfort.
He lifted his gaze back to her eyes with a start. She was flushed with embarrassment. The white purity of the gown she was wearing seemed suddenly appropriate, and those annoying protective instincts began to stir in him all over again.
“Ivory Keene,” he said.
Her eyes widened. “You know who I am?”
He nodded. He didn’t add why. “I gave you a five-dollar bill in front of the church, didn’t I?” She had a face that wasn’t easy to forget. Neither was the kindness in those gray eyes.
She laughed at the memory. “I guess I did look tatty in that coat. I really must replace it.” She didn’t add that she couldn’t quite afford something nice just yet, because she sent half her paycheck home to keep her mother at bay.
“Surely you can afford a coat,” he chided. “Unless you’re making payments on a yacht...?”
“I have...a financial obligation,” she said evasively.
“We all have those.” He turned as Dee came onto the balcony with a glass of tonic water and a cup of coffee. She handed them to her companions with a grin. “The bartender mentioned that you never touch liquor,” she said to Curry, “and that you liked your coffee black and strong.”
“Thank you,” he said, surprised.
“Yes, thanks,” Ivory added belatedly with a smile.
Dee looked from one to the other quickly and excused herself. “There’s a gorgeous male model over by the bar, and we share a hobby. I have to get back before someone appropriates him.”
She was gone in a flash. Curry studied Ivory as she looked toward her departing friend.
“Dee and I came together,” she said involuntarily.
“If her new acquaintance wants to take her home, I’ll see that you get back to your apartment,” he assured her.
She lifted her eyes back to his face with breathless excitement. There was something she should remember; something, someone... Belle! Belle was dating him. She couldn’t infringe on the other girl’s territory, no matter what the temptation.
“Wouldn’t Belle mind?” she asked carefully.
He pursed his lips and smiled, balancing his coffee cup in one hand. “No.”
“Oh. I thought, well, I heard...”
“That Belle and I are an item? We were. We’re still friends,” he said simply. “But she doesn’t own me.”
“I see.”
“Probably not.”
“Why did you look so sad?” she asked impulsively, and regretted it at once.
“At the church?”
She nodded.
He sipped his coffee. “I’d stopped by to talk to the priest on my way to the office, but he was out on a visit. I was tired and I sat down on the steps because it felt comforting, somehow. My mother has cancer,” he added stiffly.
“I’m sorry. Do you have other family?”
“A sister and a mentally challenged brother. Severely challenged. He has Down syndrome.”
She frowned.
“That’s what they mistakenly call a mongoloid child. It’s caused by a defective chromosome. He was born late in my mother’s life.”
“You take care of all of them. All your family.”
“Yes.” He searched her uplifted face carefully. “I was rude to you.”
“You were hurting,” she said simply. “Wounded things always lash out.”
“You sound as if you know a lot about wounded things.”
She lowered her eyes to his spotless white shirt. “Oh, a little perhaps,” she said with a smile.
His lean, immaculate hand started toward her shoulder, then hesitated. “I’m keenly aware that some people dislike being touched,” he said when she looked up, surprised by this hesitation from a man who acted as if he never paused to ask permission.
“I don’t mind,” she said, surprising herself, because she was one of those people who didn’t like it.
He smiled, and his hand smoothed over the shoulder of