The next day was my parents’ last in New York. With their plane departing in the late afternoon, they wanted to spend the morning shopping for souvenirs for their friends. They also wanted me to come with them, and my father mentioned rather pointedly that I hadn’t set foot outside with them the entire time they’d been there. I reminded him about the storm, and how I hadn’t been feeling well, and that I had a ton of work to do, and wanted to kick myself when I finished with, “If you guys had told me about your plans before coming, I’d have told you this was the worst possible time for it.”

In other words, yes, I blamed it on them. And hated myself for it. Would I ever be able to come clean about the whole thing and tell them what had really happened? No, they’d never believe me. For that matter, I wouldn’t believe it if it had happened to anyone else.

They looked a little hurt when they left for their shopping. And I felt immensely guilty. A few hours later, saying goodbye to them was bittersweet.

On one hand, I hadn’t seen them in so long that saying goodbye after so few days felt too soon. Promises that I’d visit when I could, and an offer from Mr. Ward to pay all expenses for their next trip “because I robbed you of precious time with your daughter this time and I’m very sorry about it” attenuated the sting, but not all that much.

On the other hand, I couldn’t deny that their departure would simplify things. Let me say it one last time: I hated lying to them. That final lie about how, of course, I would accompany them to the airport, only to receive a phone call at the last minute and have to stay at the mansion when an important meeting was rescheduled… Yes, that final lie was hard. Saying goodbye in the foyer, being unable to even walk them out to the car, watching Mr. Ward close the door on them… It hurt. Me, and them, too, I’m sure.

Alone in the mansion, with no meeting to actually attend, I felt numb. I still had a lot to do to prepare for the party, but at that moment I couldn’t. My mind wasn’t up to the task. With heavy steps, I went to the kitchen. I pulled a bottle from the wine cooler, opened it after needing to think for a second about where I’d seen Stephen stash the corkscrew, then took a glass from the cupboard. With the bottle in one hand and the glass in the other, I started for the door, but changed my mind and came back to get a second glass. It might not get used. Then again, maybe it would be.

I took it all to the sun room and poured myself a full glass before leaning back into one of the armchairs, my feet propped on the massive wood block that served as coffee table. I sipped the wine slowly, my gaze fixed straight ahead, although I didn’t really see anything of the beauty around me. My mind drifted from thought to thought, replaying the past few days, my parents’ visit, what I’d hoped to show them and that they’d seen without me, the many ways Mr. Ward had distracted them, my many lies and untruths.

It was useless to pretend otherwise: I was feeling sorry for myself. And while I’m not a big drinker as a rule, getting drunk seemed like an attractive idea at that moment. I didn’t even stop to think that, after my last migraine, it might not be such a good thing.

One small sip after the other, I drank half the bottle and would have continued until it was empty if Mr. Ward had not joined me.

“Getting drunk on Reserve Lapeyre,” he said, pouring himself a glass. “What grand tastes you have, Angelina.”

There was the slightest teasing in his words, and I had to look at him as he sat in the armchair next to me to make sure that it was, in fact, teasing and not something less pleasant. His faint smile reassured me: no, he didn’t care that I was treating his God-knows-how-expensive bottle like some cheap booze hardly worth its hangover.

“What can I say?” I was almost proud when I didn’t slur my words even though my head felt very, very light. “I live in a mansion with artwork valued at millions of dollars. I can’t really get drunk off wine coolers, can I?”

“Invention of the devil,” Mr. Ward agreed before taking a sip.

The words tickled my mind; I’d heard him say that before, hadn’t I?

“Is there such a thing?” I asked without thinking. “A devil, I mean. If vampires exist… What else is out there?”

He shifted in his seat, putting his back to the armrest to look at me full on for a few moments. Emboldened, maybe, by the wine, I returned the look without flinching.

“Do you really want to know?” he murmured. “Think about it, Angelina. You’re already unhappy knowing about vampires. Do you really want to be told there are worse things out there?”

Did I? No. But I didn’t want to sound like a coward, so I said instead, “I’m not unhappy knowing you.”

What I had meant to say was, I wasn’t unhappy knowing about vampires, but my tongue or brain tripped somewhere along the way for a Freudian slip that didn’t go unnoticed. He’d been raising the glass to his lips again, and at my words he paused, his eyes widening fractionally. I held my breath, waiting for him to say something, anything—to acknowledge my words, or admit that he, too, wasn’t sorry he’d met me.

But of course he said no such thing. He only used those words in daydreams and fantasies, as I knew quite well.

“I got your parents to the airport with plenty of time,” he said, his eyes sliding to somewhere that wasn’t me. “It sounded like they’ll be happy to come back. Next summer, they mentioned, if you have time for them.”

Would I? Summer seemed an eternity away. Would Miss Delilah have returned by then or would I still be Mr. Ward’s unwanted guest? I didn’t dare ask what he thought. I didn’t care to hear him say again that he had no idea.

“Also, it appears your father is under the impression that you and I are… dating, I suppose is the word he would use.”

I couldn’t help sputtering at that casual pronouncement, and the mouthful of wine I’d been drinking went down the wrong way. I sat up, coughing violently, my lungs burning. Mr. Ward took the glass from me and set it and his own down on the table before patting my back. Still coughing, my eyes watering, I struggled to catch my breath. When I did, he presented me with a neatly folded white handkerchief.

“I don’t want to stain it,” I protested, croaking a little. “Wine…”

He batted my concern away with a gesture of his hand.

“Don’t worry about it.”

I wiped my mouth, coughing a little more and still feeling bad about the handkerchief. It was only cotton, or at least I thought so, but really fine, and embroidered with the same elegant M and W that had been stamped on his party invitations.

“So… what did you tell my dad to disabuse him of this strange idea?” I asked, still coughing a little.

“I don’t think there is an appropriate answer to ‘You better treat her right, and it takes more than money to do that, son.’ So I didn’t say anything.”

Neither did I. What could I say, really? My father had called Mr. Ward ‘son.’ He’d all but given him the ‘she’s my little girl and if you hurt her there’ll be hell to pay’ speech he used to give my boyfriends back home. I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or feel nostalgic. I was a bit of both.

I started to reach for the glass and bottle on the table, but Mr. Ward was faster. His hand closed on the neck of the bottle, and he held it out of my reach.

“I think you’ve had enough, Angelina. Drowning your sorrows rarely helps. Even when the wine is excellent.”

“You’re one to talk. The night before my folks arrived, you got so drunk you slept up here.”

He shook his head and started to say, “I didn’t—” but he cut himself short and looked away.

I, of course, was curious about what he wasn’t saying.

“You didn’t what? Get drunk?”

He helped himself to another glass of wine but didn’t reply.

“Come on, Mr. Ward. Don’t go back to the silent act now. Aren’t you supposed to treat me right? What would my dad say if I told him you’re ignoring me?”

Would I have given him lip if I hadn’t been tipsy?

I guess you know me well enough by now that it’s useless to pretend I wouldn’t have. And he must have been getting used to it, too, because rather than getting upset, he rolled his eyes.

And—don’t faint in shock now—he actually answered.

“I was drunk, yes. But I didn’t sleep up here because I was drunk. I did because my room smelled like you.”

That was possibly the very last answer I had expected, and I couldn’t help blurting out, “Smell? What do you mean smell like me?”

He sighed.

“Nothing bad. Just… your soap. Your shampoo. Just the smell of you. Your arousal.”

Tipsy or not, I was mortified and tried to cover my discomfort with a snort.

“Nothing bad, but you didn’t want to smell it.”

“No. I didn’t want to get used to it.”

He’d finished his glass—and the bottle. He stood, and I just watched him in silence, having no idea what to reply to that. He didn’t want to get used to me? How did that mesh with what he said next?

“And I told you, you can call me Morgan, remember?”

I remembered, yes. Tipsy or not, I remembered perfectly well when he had said that and the conversation we’d been having at the time and what had followed. I remembered, better than I wished I did, that none of it had been real.

“You said that in the fantasy world,” I murmured. “I thought the whole point of it was to do things we’d never do in real life. Isn’t that what you said?”

Emotions flickered through his face, too fast for me to catch what any of them were. When he inclined his head once toward me, I had no idea what it might mean.

“You can call me Morgan,” he repeated, and then he was gone.

I remained up in the sun room for another hour or so, telling myself I was too tipsy to go back to planning. In the end, though, I couldn’t continue fooling myself. I hadn’t drunk that much, and once I had something to eat, it’d be time to return to work.

 

*