At dinner, the bride and groom worked the room, pausing at each table.
“I’ve finally found my path,” Emily was saying as she stood by Elizabeth’s table. “I’ve designed clothes, bags, perfume, but nothing can make a connection with people like the culinary arts. I intend to create the ultimate experience for my clients, allowing them to see new cultures through foods of the world. I’ll be like Anthony Bourdain—only without the travel. I wanted to study with Iron Chef Batali—but he’s always booked. So I’m studying on my own. A lot of the great chefs were self-taught. I’ll be the next Julia Child—without the hump, of course.”
Elizabeth caught Nick’s smirk. She knew that smirk all too well.
“I always thought Parker would be smart enough to pick brains over eye candy,” Nick whispered.
“Emily is not stupid,” Elizabeth said. Except for marrying Parker, she finished silently. Parker’s brains were on a perpetual elevator between his head and his pants. She thought about all of his come-ons and propositions to her when they first met. She marveled that it took him so long to figure out there was no way it would happen.
She came back to the present, smiling as she felt Nick nuzzling her neck. “Would you like a wedding like this?”
Liz pulled back to gaze into his handsome, sturdy features and ran a light touch across his cheek. “Maybe.”
“You’re going to keep me guessing. Okay. I like a woman of mystery.”
And I intend to remain that way, she thought, dropping her gaze. You must never know about California, about my mother. Suddenly Karen’s words about her past came to mind. She did everything she could to destroy you, Liz.
I should never have gone to my mother’s after Josh left me, she thought. If I hadn’t gone home, everything would’ve been different. She chided herself again for being so stupid about William. Listening to him when he said he just wanted to comfort her, be a support for her. Why did I keep letting him get closer? I should have told her…apologized…done something.
“Hey, are you still with me?”
Elizabeth found Nick viewing her quizzically.
“Yes, I’m here.”
Even as she forced a smile, Elizabeth stole a glance at the next table. Ian looked her way, giving her a bemused smile. She ignored him, turning back to Nick.
The reception was over. A steady stream of limousines pulled up, picked up, and pulled away. The stifling heat had given way to still, humid air, clinging to everyone like a damp blanket. Ian said good night to Robert and Karen, raising a hand in farewell as they disappeared into a limo and it pulled away.
Later that night, lying in bed, Ian smoked a final cigarette, letting his thoughts wander. After Michele left, everything had gone wrong. He couldn’t paint anymore. It was as if he had never picked up a brush in his life. Now, he felt his ability returning. He could concentrate here and start over. He took a last drag and thought of Elizabeth, her silky dress clinging to her soft curves, her serious, stern eyes locking with his. Robert was right, of course. Uptight, cool, calculating money managers weren’t his type. But he sensed there was more to her than that. He was intrigued enough to pursue her. He stubbed out the cigarette in the ashtray on his nightstand, switched off the light and began to formulate a plan. A tea and a chat with Karen would be his first step. She seemed a decent sort and he detected a guileless openness, even a subtle sense of helplessness. If that didn’t work, he would have to resort to doing Emily’s portrait. He frowned at the thought. Robert would keep his word and not say anything about his past. He was glad he hadn’t told Robert about the last two years. What was there to say about tramping about Europe, producing nothing but quick tourist portraits for a few euros to barely live on, and a parade of girls with pretty faces and busy lives in and out of his bed?
But the past was the past. He was making a fresh start, leaving it all behind, and he hoped to make the ever-intriguing Elizabeth a part of it.
Chapter 3
Two weeks later, on a Monday morning, the blaring of the alarm pulled Elizabeth from a fitful sleep. She yawned, scrunching further beneath the sheet, drifting in and out of impure drowsings. Feeling a spike of heat within her, she jolted awake, realizing thoughts of sturdy, solid Nick had morphed into lean, cool, blue-eyed Ian.
Feeling disloyal, she shook her head to clear her thoughts and refocus on Nick. His dark, predatory features should have conveyed warmth, and yet the thought of Ian caused her temperature to rise. It’s nothing, she told herself, nothing at all, a stupid daydream. A sexual fantasy, she corrected, and a steamy one at that. “And that’s all it’s ever going to be,” she muttered, throwing off the sheet. Nick was strong and in control, orchestrating their evenings of waiting limousines, intimate dinners uptown, parties with his friends. Exactly the life she wanted. She forced herself out of bed and decided a morning run was in order.
When Karen had provided refuge at her mother’s Park Avenue penthouse, Elizabeth looked down from the window every morning to watch the runners, mere specks, intent on beating their bodies into submission, and laughed at them, rats on a wheel.
Call me Ben, she thought.
When she returned an hour later, she checked e-mails and messages, showered and dressed, padding barefoot in and out of the rooms of her L-shaped apartment. By seven-thirty, she stepped outside again in a sleek Escada sleeveless dress and jacket. Walking to the corner, she raised her arm for a taxi.
She gazed out of the window of the cab at the black, white, and gray of the city. It was a far cry from the Laguna art colony and a landscape made for gentle watercolor washes, cerulean blue, raw sienna, even a splash of alizarin crimson, flowing together, wet into wet, blending seamlessly. That was fifteen years ago, she thought, still hearing the voice of the celebrated watercolorist Lillian Montgomery ringing through the studio, her arm waving, her ever-present drink in hand. You’ve taken my talent, why don’t you just take everything else? Do I even need to be here? Why don’t I just end it all so you can take everything?
She couldn’t tolerate her daughter in her midst, surpassing her, creating paintings she could no longer produce. Elizabeth blinked at the remembrance of her own work, years of work, torn into pieces, destroyed: Lillian Montgomery’s final statement on her love for her daughter. The taxi pulled up to the curb, but she didn’t move. I was a painter, I’m not anymore.
“Ten seventy-five,” the driver said.
She looked up and nodded.
She handed over some bills and, grasping her attaché case, she exited the cab. She stood at the curb for a long moment, the sun warm on her back. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to relax and then headed into the building.
Elizabeth stepped off the elevator on the twentieth floor. Sometimes she still marveled at how far and fast the last decade had taken her. Chartered financial analyst, private wealth adviser, Director of Private Banking. She had built a reputation for handling some of the wealthiest and most difficult of men, billionaire Stanton Perry being the feather in her cap.
At first, her male clients greeted her with skepticism, throwing their questions at her like rapid gunfire. She answered them all, never giving an inch. Eventually, they regarded her with surprise and then amused acceptance.
As she came into the office, her team of advisers greeted her as she passed their desks. Some were bright-eyed, others were still trying to erase the hangover of yet another Hamptons weekend.
Elizabeth stopped at the desk of her assistant, Debbie, an inheritance from the last director. A small, thin dynamo in her thirties, Debbie had a flawless memory, a quicksilver mind, and a unique talent for surviving every company shake-up that left her with a new boss.
“Good morning,” Elizabeth said.
“Good morning,” Debbie said. “Your personal decorator is here.”