For Lily, it had been a relief to be offered a job outside of Chicago, though she missed her new house and her best friend, Emma Carsten. She and Emma worked together at the agency and often talked about breaking out and starting a company of their own. But the practicalities of paying a mortgage had made a promotion at DeLay the primary goal for the moment.
Hopefully, Richard Patterson would have some juicy crisis that she could sink her teeth into, some touchy political problem or maybe a community relations issue that she could solve. She’d fix what needed fixing and have a nice addition to her portfolio when she went back to Chicago in a few months. Then she could demand that promotion.
“Lily?”
She turned to find Richard Patterson standing behind her. He was a handsome, forty-something guy with graying temples and impeccable grooming. He wore a beautifully tailored tuxedo, probably from one of the best menswear designers. If he hadn’t been a client—and he hadn’t been married—Lily might have considered him a possibility. But she never mixed business with pleasure. “The party is wonderful,” she said. “You’ve done a terrific job as chairman, Mr. Patterson.”
He forced a tight smile. “I didn’t do anything. I hired a party planner and my wife took care of the rest. Listen, I have to leave. I’ve got a flight to catch. An emergency with a group of investors from Japan. I know we haven’t had a chance to talk and I’ll be out of town for the next few days. But I want you to call my secretary on Monday. She’ll set up appointments with my key management people. You’ll be up to speed when I get back.”
“Good. I need to know everything I can. Maybe if you tell me what you’d like me to work on, I can get a head start and when we meet I—”
“We’ll discuss that on Tuesday,” he interrupted, glancing over his shoulder.
“All right.”
“If there’s anything you need, call Mrs. Wilburn. Boston is beautiful in the month of June. Get out and see some of the sights.” With that, he turned and strode away, leaving Lily to wonder why it had been so important for her to arrive today—and to attend this party.
Lily glanced around, deciding that she’d wait until she was sure Richard was gone and then call it a night. She took another sip of her champagne as she studied the couples on the dance floor. The ballroom at the Copley Plaza was beautifully decorated to look like the gardens at Versailles. Fountains trickled and arbors were laced with heavily-scented flowers and tiny white lights making an incredibly romantic scene. She sighed softly.
There were other reasons she was glad to leave Chicago. Her engagement to attorney Daniel Martin was now officially off. After two years of dating and a four-month engagement, she’d thought she’d finally found the man of her dreams—until she’d discovered him naked and in bed with an exotic-looking brunette and her two artificially enhanced breasts. She’d never expected him to sink to such depths and his only excuse had been that he just wasn’t ready to commit.
Lily had planned her life around this man, had invested her future with him, and suddenly it was over and she had been forced back to square one in her personal life—forced to admit that she’d surrendered far too much for love. Sometimes Chicago felt like a desert for single women. Plenty of great-looking men on the horizon, but when you got too close, they were simply a mirage, a figment of a desperate imagination.
She took another sip of her champagne and glanced around the room. Maybe it was time to stop being desperate, to quit looking so hard for love and just settle for…a little lust. She’d made the first move toward independence, buying a house of her own. “I know exactly what I need now,” Lily murmured. “A nice, tidy, but very passionate, one-night stand.”
She hadn’t gone looking for creeps and jerks, but the men who wandered into her life had always been strangely unavailable—engaged to someone who didn’t understand, married to a woman they’d forgotten to mention, emotionally cold, commitment-phobic, fascinated with ladies’ footwear, contemplating a change in sexual preference, and then Daniel, a unrepentant philanderer. She’d even tried to make a bicoastal relationship work with a Los Angeles writer which racked up an impressive number of frequent-flyer miles but ended with him falling in love with a vapid starlet.
But now she had an opportunity to have a man on her terms. She was the unavailable, commitment-phobic party, living and working in Boston for only a few months, uninterested in a long-term relationship. She could play the field, have a little fun and avoid all the messy strings that seemed to keep two people tied together for far too long.
Lily sighed. This fund-raiser was the last place she’d find a single man. The only reason men attended a charity event was that their wives insisted. In truth, most of the men in attendance probably didn’t want to be there at all. Lily had always wanted to plan an “un” event. An imaginary charity dinner and dance that people paid not to attend. Then all the money could go to charity rather than to overblown decorations and overpriced foie gras and over-the-top designer gowns.
She quickly snatched another glass of champagne from a passing waiter and stared up at the balconies, deciding to find a table on the second level where she could observe the party in peace. A few minutes later, she settled down in a quiet corner on the opposite end from the dance band. She kicked off her shoes and rubbed her feet together, finally feeling a nice buzz from the champagne she’d gulped down. A waiter stopped at her table and offered her another glass and she took it and set it across from her, as if she were expecting someone to join her.
“A woman as beautiful as you shouldn’t be sitting here alone.”
Lily’s gaze slowly rose to a man standing beside her table, wondering at her luck. But though he was attractive enough, his smile was just a little too…practiced. His dark hair was slicked back and he wore an ill-fitting tuxedo. Still, she decided to at least give him a chance. “Actually, I’m fine,” she said.
He pulled out the chair across from her and sat down, despite the champagne goblet. “Well, I’m not,” he said. “I’m here alone and everyone else is here with a significant other. I’m Jim Franklin.”
“I’m Lily,” she said.
“Just Lily?”
“Lily Gallagher.”
“Well, Lily Gallagher, since we both seem to be alone here, maybe we can be alone together. Tell me about yourself.”
Lily opened her mouth to respond, but Jim Franklin didn’t wait for an answer. “I’m an investment analyst with Bardwell Fleming. Let me tell you, these parties are a great investment. My bosses buy a spot at the table and then send us guys in to drum up some business. We don’t sell stocks and bonds, but we offer analysis services for all types of investments. I’ve lived in Boston for about five years. Got transferred up here from our New York office.”
After all her bravado, when it came down to it, lust was a tricky thing. Either a girl felt it or she didn’t. And Lily already knew that this was a guy who didn’t make her pulse pound.
“So, what do you do, Lily?”
“Mr. Franklin, I’m really not—”
“Jim,” he insisted. “Do you have a retirement plan? Have you invested your money wisely?”
Lily grabbed her glass and drained it, then quickly stood. “I’m just going to get myself some more champagne. If you’ll excuse—”
“And here’s a waiter now,” Franklin said, flashing her a blinding smile.
Lily bit back a curse and sat down again. If this wasn’t pure torture, she didn’t know what was. It wasn’t her habit to be rude, especially in a business situation, but she doubted that Richard Patterson was friends with Jim Franklin, investment analyst.
As