Wasn’t it?
“The timelessness,” she clarified, watching him more closely now. “The sculpture looks as if it could have been created in this century instead of 1862.”
“You’re familiar with the work, then?”
“With the artist,” she amended. “I know that Auguste Rodin was heartbroken when his sister died and this was his way of honoring her. It’s the first known piece he ever did.”
She got nothing more. The waves she’d thought she detected had faded. Her imagination? Maybe her new-found freedom was playing havoc with her perception.
“A pity,” she went on, “that it’s been hidden all this time.”
So, she was an art enthusiast. Cole felt a little relieved. Right now, he was more interested in her than in the sculpture. “Speaking of being hidden, why haven’t I seen you before at one of these openings?”
Her smile was slow, he thought, like early-morning heat in New Orleans, spreading languidly, poking invasive fingers into the shadows. “Maybe you weren’t looking.”
Her voice was like Southern Comfort being poured into a tall glass, thick, smooth. It suited her.
The undercurrent of excitement didn’t leave.
“Trust me, you’re not the type to be overlooked.” He extended his free hand to her. “Cole Williams.”
She raised her eyes to his, innocence and sin mingled in equal proportions. It went with the smile. “Yes, I know who you are. Ariel Lockwood.” She told him the name that was on the invitation. The woman had connections to the world of the rich and famous, but was currently in Europe, according to something she remembered reading. That meant she couldn’t put in a sudden appearance. “And is that your best line?”
He laughed softly, keeping his other thoughts from registering on his face.
“Does sound like a line, doesn’t it?” He subdued the urge to slip his arm around her waist and guide her to a more private corner. There was no more private corner. He didn’t need a head count to know that everyone who had gotten an invitation had shown up. “But it’s not a line,” he assured her. “It’s merely an observation. Where are you from?”
Because the din had increased, she leaned into him before answering, “Here and there.”
Magnetism, that’s what she had, he thought. The fact that he felt it intrigued him. “I’m acquainted with the life. Jet-setting on Daddy’s money, or your own?”
She raised her chin and he saw the pride in her eyes. That, too, was something he was acquainted with. “My own. Definitely my own.”
Cole paused to take a sip of his champagne. As he did so, he looked around, anticipating being the target of unveiled daggers. But there was only envy in the eyes of the men who were close enough to inhale the pricey fragrance the woman in red was wearing.
In control of every situation he’d ever been in, Cole felt the stirrings of possessiveness taking hold. It surprised him.
“Are you here with anyone?” Even as he asked, he couldn’t imagine an exquisite creature like this woman being alone.
Elizabeth smiled up into his face. “Right now I’m with you.”
Her smile was working its way under his skin. Heating his blood. He began to wonder what it would be like to make love with her. He could see those long nails of hers raking his flesh. Nails as red as the dress she was wearing. “I mean, did you come with anyone?”
Knowing the value of mystery, she said, “Not this time.”
The disappointment that reared its head was a complete surprise. “But there is someone.”
She thought of Anthony, who had always been such a part of her life. There’d never been a time when she’d been without him. He would have insisted on coming with her to the gala, even though art held no allure for him. Protecting her from the world, however, did.
“There is someone,” she told him, the words leaving her lips casually. “But we’ve come to a parting of the ways.”
He pitied the man who had lost her. “Must be my lucky day.”
Her eyes touched his. He could all but feel them making contact. She was bewitching him.
“There you go,” she said softly, the words rippling on his skin, “resorting to lines again.”
He definitely wanted to make love with this woman. Cole lowered his face so that his lips were just by her ear.
“The funny thing about lines is that they’re entrenched in the truth. Repeated too often, they become clichéd. But that doesn’t make them any less true.”
Straightening, Cole saw Harold Reiner waving a raised hand in his direction. The CEO of one of his holding companies was beckoning him over to a semicircle of some rather heavy-duty investors in the media empire he’d fashioned. A small frown crossed his lips. He was no one’s lackey, but he’d gotten where he was by keeping his ear to the ground and paying strict attention to the noises he heard, ably differentiating between the ones that required attention and the ones that were strictly noise.
Time to discover which was which.
A sigh escaped his lips. Any further exchange between him and this lovely creature was going to have to be put on hold temporarily. “If you’ll excuse me for a moment, duty calls.”
Elizabeth followed her companion’s line of vision. Starved for input, she absorbed two newspapers daily and recognized the collection of men from a photograph she’d seen on the business page just yesterday.
“Heady company,” she observed. Reiner gestured again. She looked back up at the man beside her. “You’d better jump.”
Cole’s eyes held hers for a moment. Was she putting him on or just fishing? He had no clear handle on her and that bothered him. “I never jump.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Inexplicably, anticipation traveled through him like a bullet. Not the time, he cautioned himself.
Inclining his head, he murmured, “To be continued,” as he touched her shoulder.
The connection sent another jolt through her.
Except for the day she’d been shopping and had heard a scream echo in her head, a scream that had come from Dani’s little boy, Alex, and had been uttered countless miles away, to her knowledge she’d only connected with the other triplets. To date, she’d never detected any ability to read the minds of strangers.
She hadn’t really read Cole’s, but she’d felt something, something she couldn’t quite put into words. It was a mingling of feelings, for lack of a better description. She had no idea what was on his mind, but she’d strongly sensed his reaction to her.
Anthony’s kept you out of the game much too long, she told herself. This is nothing more than a male-female connection.
Overprotective, Anthony would jump into the fray, acting as a human shield any time any man caught her attention for more than a fleeting second or vice versa. He was part pit bull, part chaperone, bound and determined to keep every male over the age of twelve away from her.
But Anthony wasn’t here tonight and she was, Elizabeth thought with no small feeling of triumph.
Watching, she saw that Cole had found his way to the circle of men who had commandeered his attention.
For now, she turned back to the statue in order to try to figure out just what it was about the sculpture that bothered her. It was like a grain of sand embedded in her shoe, chafing her with each step she took.
As he listened to Reiner talk, Cole looked over toward the woman in red. She was frowning slightly as she regarded the sculpture.