“Really?” Bess’s thoughts began to perk. “What’s it like to—”
Alex held up a hand. “Don’t get her started. She’ll pick your brain clean before you know she’s had her fingers in it. Look, McNee—” he turned to Bess, determined not to be charmed by her easy smile “—we’re a little busy here.”
“Of course you are. I’m sorry.” Obligingly she swung her huge purse on to her shoulder. “We’ll talk tonight. Nice to meet you, Rachel.”
“Same here.” Rachel ran her tongue over her teeth, and both she and Alex watched Bess weave her way out of the squad room. “Well, that was rude.”
“It’s the only way to handle her. Believe me.”
“Hmm… She seems like an interesting woman. How did you meet her?”
“Don’t ask.” He sat back down on his desk, irked that the scent of sunshine and sex still lingered in the air.
“I can’t believe we’re doing this.” Holly, Judd’s pretty wife of eight months, was all but hopping out of her party shoes. “Wait until I tell everyone in the teachers’ lounge where I spent the evening.”
“Take it easy, honey.” Judd tugged at the tie she’d insisted he wear. “It’s just a party.”
“Just a party?” As the elevator rode up, she fussed with her honey-brown hair. “I don’t know about you two, but it isn’t every day I get to eat canapés with celebrities.”
Ominously silent, Alex stayed hunched in his leather jacket. He didn’t know what the hell he was doing here. His first mistake had been mentioning the invitation to Judd. No matter how insouciant Judd pretended to be, he’d been bursting at the seams when he called his wife. Alex had been swept along in their enthusiasm.
But he wasn’t going to stay. Holly’s sense of decorum might have insisted that she and Judd couldn’t attend without him, but he’d already decided just how he’d play it. He’d go in, maybe have a beer and a couple of crackers. Then he’d slip out again. He’d be damned if he’d spend this rare free evening playing soap-opera groupie.
“Oh, my” was all Holly could say when the elevator doors opened.
The walls of the private foyer were splashed with a mural of the city. Times Square, Rockefeller Center, Harlem, Little Italy, Broadway. People seemed to be rushing along the walls, just as they did the streets below. It was as if the woman who lived here didn’t want to miss one moment of the action.
The wide door to the main apartment was open, and music, laughter and conversation were pouring out, along with the scents of hot food and burning candles.
“Oh, my,” Holly said again, dragging her husband along as she stepped inside.
From behind them, Alex scanned the room. It was huge, and it was packed with people. Draped in silk or cotton, clad in business suits and lush gowns, they stood elbow to elbow on the hardwood floor, lounged hip to hip on the sapphire cushions of the enormous circular conversation pit, sat knee to knee on the steps of a bronze circular staircase that led to an open loft where still more people leaned against a railing decked with naked cherubs.
Two huge windows let the lights of the city in. More partygoers sat on the pillow-plumped window seats, balancing plates and glasses on their laps.
Paintings were scattered over the ivory-toned walls. Vivid, frenetic modern art, mind-bending surrealism. There was enough color to make his head swim. Yet, through the crowd and the clashing tones, he saw her. Dancing seductively with a distinguished-looking man in a gray pin-striped suit.
She wore an excuse for a dress, the color of crushed purple grapes. He wondered, irritated, if she owned anything that covered those legs. This number certainly didn’t. Nor did it cover much territory at all, the way it dipped to the waist in the back, skimmed above mid-thigh and left her shoulders bare, but for skinny, glittery straps. Multihued gemstones fell in a rope from her earlobes to those nicely sloped shoulders. Her feet were bare.
She looked, Alex thought as his stomach muscles twisted themselves into nasty knots, outrageously alluring.
“Oh, Lord, there’s Jade. Oh, and Storm and Vicki. Dr. Carstairs, too.” Holly’s fingers dug into her husband’s arm. “It’s Amelia.”
“Who?”
“‘Secret Sins,’ dummy.” She gave Judd a playful punch. “The whole cast’s here.”
“That’s not all.” Because he remembered in time he was supposed to be jaded, Judd stopped himself from pointing and inclined his head. “That’s Lawrence D. Strater dancing with our hostess. The L.D. Strater, of Strater Industries. The Fortune 500’s darling. The mayor’s over in that corner, talking with Hannah Loy, the grand old lady of Broadway.” His excitement began to hum in his voice as he continued to scan the room. “Man, there are enough luminaries in this room to light every borough in New York.”
But Alex hadn’t noticed. Furthermore, he didn’t give a damn. His attention was focused on Bess. She’d stopped dancing, and had leaned up to whisper something in her partner’s ear that made him laugh before he kissed her. Smack on the lips.
She kissed him back, too, her hands lightly intimate at his waist, before she turned and spotted the new arrivals. She waved, made her excuses, then scooted and dodged her way through the crowd toward them.
“You made it.” She gave both Alex and Judd a friendly peck on the cheek before holding out both hands to Holly. “Nice to meet you.”
“My wife, Holly, this is Bess McNee.”
“Thanks for as king us.” Holly caught herself starting to stutter, as she had the first time she faced a classroom of ten-year-olds. She flushed.
“My pleasure.” Bess gave her hands a reassuring squeeze. “Let’s get you something to eat and drink.” She gestured toward a long table by the wall. Instead of the useless finger food and fancy, unrecognizable dishes Alex had expected, it was laden with big pots of spaghetti, mountains of garlic bread, and generous trays of antipasti.
“It’s Italian night,” she explained, grabbing a plate and heaping it high. “There’s plenty of wine and beer, and a full bar.” She handed the plate to Holly and began to dish up another. “The desserts are on the other side of the room. They’re unbelievable.” As she passed Judd a plate, she noted the gleam in Holly’s eyes. “Would you like to meet some of the cast?”
“Oh, I…” The hell with sophistication. “Yes. I’d love it.”
“Great. Excuse us. Help yourself, Alexi.”
“This is really something,” Judd said over a mouthful of spaghetti.
“Something,” Alex agreed. Deciding to make the best of it, he fixed himself a plate.
He wasn’t going to stay. But the food was great. In any case, he didn’t have anything else to do. It didn’t hurt to hang around and rub elbows with the fast and famous while he was helping himself to a good hot meal. It certainly made a change from his daily routine of wading through misery and bitterness.
After washing down spaghetti with some good red wine, he found himself a spot on a window seat where he could sit back and watch the show.
Bess dropped down beside him, clinked her glass against his. “Best seat in the house.”
“Some house.”
“Yeah, I like it. I’ll show you the rest later, if you want.” She broke off a tiny piece of the pastry on his plate and sampled it. “Great stuff.”
“Yeah. You got a little…here.” Before his good sense could take over, he rubbed a bit of the rich cream from her lip. Watching her, he licked it from the pad of his thumb. And tasted her. “It’s not bad.”
For