Something sharpened in Tristan’s gaze as it fastened on her face. A sense of purpose that she instantly recognized for what it was: he would go to the polo match, all right. And he would use the opportunity to quiz people about her.
“That’s right, Frank. Anybody who’s anybody will be there.” She smiled, but the effort felt as forced as her jovial tone. “Unfortunately that means all the invitations were snapped up months ago.”
Frank waved that away with a tremulous hand. “Delia will rake up a ticket if need be. Let me know, lad.”
With a sinking heart, Vanessa watched his unsteady meandering departure. Delia could wangle an extra invitation if she set her mind and her saccharine-sweet charm and Frank’s checkbook to it. There was nothing Vanessa could do without appearing petty or vindictive, and right now all she wanted was escape.
But as she gathered up her purse she felt Tristan’s focus switch to her.
The instant she turned into the sharp cast of those blue, blue eyes, she knew what was coming next. Like a freight train barreling through the night, she saw the oncoming light and couldn’t do a thing to divert the wreck.
“Who is Delia?” he asked, right on cue.
Twenty years ago, when Tristan left Eastwick, Frank had been married to his first wife. Now Vanessa would have to explain the new, younger, recently acquired model and he would draw the inevitable comparison. Vanessa had heard it all before. She and Delia were not kindred spirits—as Delia had wanted to believe when she first sailed into the choppy waters of Eastwick society—but they had both improved their financial and social status immeasurably when they married significantly older men.
She could not speak for Delia’s motives, but she had married Stuart for his money. It was the one fact Tristan had got absolutely right.
Four
“Delia is Frank’s current wife.”
“His current wife?” Tristan asked. “How many Mrs. Forresters have there been, exactly?”
“Delia is the third.”
Not unusual in a place as affluent as Fairfield County, with men as wealthy as Frank Forrester. Or Stuart Thorpe. “Has she been the current Mrs. Forrester for long?”
“Delia and Frank met at this same charity polo event last summer. She was working as a freelance journalist, I believe, and she chose to feature Frank in an article on business leaders who’d retired here on the gold coast. They married soon after.”
Alerted by the measured choice to her words and the defensive tilt of her chin, Tristan narrowed his eyes. “Love at first sight?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“I haven’t met Delia. You tell me.”
“You know, that’s never come up in conversation,” she countered coolly. “I’m not that close to Delia and, frankly, I’m not comfortable discussing her.”
Tristan studied her for a moment, his interest piqued by the words and the attitude. Obviously she got along fine with Frank … but not his wife? He had to wonder about that.
And since she was tucking her dinky little purse under her arm with a note of I’m-about-to-leave finality, he might as well wonder out loud.
“Is there something I should know about her before I start making social engagements?” He gestured toward the door, indicating she should precede him. Wariness clouded her green eyes and her mouth tightened slightly because, naturally, she’d have liked to walk away. Alone.
Too bad because he intended seeing her to her car.
And getting a response to his question about Delia.
“Is there a reason you’re not close?” he persisted after they’d cleared the tables and were crossing the restaurant foyer. She wasn’t exactly dawdling but he kept up easily, a hand low on her back steering her toward the elevators. “Because I’d have thought you would have plenty in common.”
Halting abruptly, she turned to him. Green sparks flared in her eyes. “Don’t presume too much, Tristan. You’ve never met Delia. And you only think you know me.”
For a moment the inherent challenge in her words was secondary to the impact of her nearness. She’d turned into his ushering arm, so swiftly that the swing of her hair brushed his arm and shoulder. Several strands had caught against his dark jacket, and when he inhaled—a quick flare of his nostrils, a sharp suck of air—he breathed her delicate floral scent and the combination rocked his brain and libido with dizzying temptation.
He knew better than to touch but he did it anyway.
With his free hand he lifted those rogue strands from his jacket and coiled them around his fingers. Her hair was as fine and silky soft as he’d imagined but surprisingly cool, unlike the flush of heat in her throat and the softening of her full lips.
Completely unlike the bolt of energy that crackled in the air as their eyes met and held.
“Is that a challenge?” he asked.
She blinked slowly, as if lost in the moment and the dangerous vibration pulsing between them. “What do you mean?”
“To get to know you better.”
Behind them the elevator announced its arrival. The subtle electronic distraction brought her head up and back, breaking eye contact and forcing him to release her hair. A couple exited the elevator, hand in hand and so absorbed in each other they’d have walked right through him and Vanessa—or a herd of stampeding buffalo—if he hadn’t backed out of the way.
“Not at all,” she responded once they were alone again. “It was a statement of fact. You haven’t met Delia Forrester and yet you presumed a similarity between us.”
“You’re unalike?”
“We are different.” She held his gaze. “Very different.”
He thought she would say more—it was there in her eyes, a darkening of purpose, a fleeting moment of gravity—but then she made a little gesture he interpreted as forget-about-it and started walking.
He caught up with her in two strides.
“I’m going to take the stairs,” she said crisply. Then, when he continued at her side, she cut him a sharp look. “There’s no need for you to accompany me.”
“I’ll see you to your car.”
“I am valet parked. There’s no need.”
He didn’t argue, he just kept walking, not to be difficult or perverse but to see her safely to her car. It was the right thing to do. So was letting go the subject of Delia Forrester—he would find out the differences soon enough.
He would make up his own mind.
While waiting for her car, they made stilted small talk about the hotel and its first-rate service and, when her Mercedes Cabriolet appeared, about the car itself. Then, before she slid into the driver’s seat, came a moment of awkwardness, as she said goodbye in a stiffly formal way.
“Not goodbye.” Tristan dismissed the valet with a look and met her eyes over the sports car’s low door. “I will see you at the polo match. Frank said everyone will be there—I assume that includes you?”
“Please don’t do this,” she said in a rush of entreaty. “Please don’t use this as a venue to ask questions about me.”
“This afternoon you didn’t have any qualms. I recall you wishing me luck.”
“This afternoon you caught me by surprise.”
The surprise of that kiss, of each touch, of their unwanted attraction,