Isadora placed her palm over her half-exposed, pushed-up bosom and pressed her palm against her aching heart. I will not feel this way. I will not feel this way. I will not feel this way.
She took in a steadying breath and twirled away from the mirror and faced her mother. “Do you like the color?”
“It will have to do, I suppose. There’s nothing else, after all, and it’s so last-minute.” Her mother took a long drag from her gold-tipped black cigarette and then tipped her head back and released the gray smoke through her red-tinted lips. As she flicked a long ash into the silver tray on the table next to the Louis XIV chair she sat in, she said, “You realize, do you not, that you are only back in my good graces now because of Chas? If it weren’t for his coming to my rescue with that tale of your video shenanigans being a well-rehearsed joke, then you’d never have been allowed entrée into my home again.”
Isadora smoothed the front of her periwinkle blue satin gown with her hands. So. That’s how the fairy managed it. She’d wondered, but dared not bring up the subject for fear of opening up a better-to-remain-sealed can of worms.
Her mother tamped out her cigarette and took a sip of her martini. “In any case, where were you the past two days? Tell me you weren’t with that purposeless sluggard, Sam Slade, the entire time. ”
Isadora shrugged.
Her mother sat forward. “Do not even think of starting that up again, my girl. I had a hard enough time getting you to untangle yourself from that decidedly inappropriate prospect eight years ago.” She pressed her sharply tipped red-lacquered nails to her brow. “My. What an absolute ordeal that was.”
“Yes, mother. I know. I remember.”
“We are Perraults, we do not marry scuba diving nouveau riche cowboys, no matter how wealthy their family is. It is not only about money, it is about position as well, my girl.”
“Yes, mother. I’m aware. That’s why I came home.”
“Well then,”—her mother tilted her head back and swished her jeweled hand at her—“push on, push on. We mustn’t dally or we’ll be late.”
* * *
“Hello?” Sam said into the phone.
“Hey, man. It’s Chas.”
“Yeah. What’s going on?”
“Look, we didn’t get much time to catch up the other evening, and I really want to talk to you about something. So I was thinking: There’s a gala tonight in town and we still need one more person to fill the table we bought. How about it?”
“Will Isadora be there?”
A short pause. “Yes. Is that a problem?”
“No. No. Just curious.”
“Hey. You and me—we’re good, right? I mean you’re not still pissed at me. After all this time. Are you?”
“We’re good.”
“Great! So—tonight? Can you make it?”
Sam gripped the phone so tight his hand shook. He was a masochist. He had to be. “Yeah. Give me the details.”
He hung up a few minutes later and fell back onto the couch. Okay, now what, genius?
* * *
“Champagne?”
Isadora flashed an eye at the waiter standing next to their table and nodded. After taking a long swig of the crisp sparkling wine, she absently scanned the gathering again and sighed.
“Yes,” her mother said, casting her own eye around the room, “a rather dreary lot. Not really our people, but this is a pet cause of Chas’s, so we must be seen.” She came in closer and said less loudly, “I do hope the poulet au poivre isn’t overdone; I detest dry poultry.”
Isadora swallowed down the last half of her wine.
Her mother gripped Isadora’s knee. “Oh dear God. Jacinda James, that fat fossil, just lumbered in with her newest garçon de le nuit!”
Isadora smiled at her mother’s made-up euphemism, but she couldn’t resist getting a glimpse of the woman’s date. “Good lord! Is he on steroids? He’ll break her brittle bones if he climbs on top of her, padding or no.” Then a stray thought: Had Jacinda been one of Sam’s clients? For the first time in her life, a bolt of sheer jealousy traveled through her that had nothing to do with envy or loss of social place, and everything to do with possession. Unutterable terror nipped close at its heels. Get over it! You don’t love him. You won’t love him!
* * *
Sam met Chas outside the door of the ballroom. “I was beginning to think you’d changed your mind,” Chas said.
“No. Just running late,” Sam said as he walked into the ballroom behind Chas.
“The meal’s just being served. Our table’s up front in the V.I.P. section.”
As they came closer, Sam zoned in on the redhead in pale blue. Isadora. And the woman next to her,—black hair with skunk streaks of white framing her face—Eudora Perrault, her mother. Great.
“Here he is,” Chas said. “My surprise number ten. Better late than never.” He turned to Sam, who, no matter how hard he tried, could not take his eyes off Isadora. “We put you between Delilah and her sister.”
Isadora turned her gaze to him then and for a split second, she looked as if she’d swallowed a goat.
“Absolutely not. You’ll sit next to me,” her mother said. “Move, Isadora.”
“Oh, but that will destroy the symmetry,” Sam said. He dashed around to the vacant chair next to his runaway lover and sat down before she could get there herself.
For some reason, now that he knew how much his presence here disturbed her, he felt impelled to torment her more.
* * *
“Come to the powder room Delilah, your coiffure needs touching up,” Eudora Perrault said and stood up. “You must come along, too, Isadora.”
“No thank you, mother,” Isadora said. I’m not in the mood for a lecture.
“Hmph.”
“I’ll be right back, darling,” Delilah told Chas, and then rose to her feet and followed her stepmother across the ballroom to the exit.
“So Chas,” Sam said as he wiped the side of his mouth with his napkin, “You and I should compare notes sometime.”
A creepy feeling crawled up Isadora’s spine.
“Oh, yeah? About what?”
“Why, our Izzy, of course. She’s a real wildcat in bed, don’t you agree?”
“I see a friend I need to speak with.” Isadora nearly knocked the chair over in her hurry to flee. The balcony! Air!
She rushed to the railing and took in several ragged breaths. Okay, so she’d hurt him and he wanted a little payback. Understood.
“If it’s any consolation,” Sam said from behind her, “Chas came real close to clocking me one good in there.”
Isadora shrugged.
“So we’re back to that again, huh?”
“Go away, Sam.”
“I can’t. I can’t go away until I know why you made me admit that I still loved you and then you left.”
She turned and looked at him then. The pain she saw reflected in his eyes mirrored the pain in her heart. “I was cursed by a fairy, Sam.”
His jaw visibly tightened. “Stop bullshitting me and tell me the fucking truth for once.”
“My family has a long history with the fey folk.”
“Bullsh—”
“This is not bullshit, I swear. They followed us here from the old country. My family is forever entwined with them. An ancient oath or something. Ask Delilah. You’d believe her, wouldn’t you? She’s a saint.”
His eyes narrowed as he studied her for a minute. Then he said, “Okay. I’ll play this little game with you a while longer.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You were cursed by a fairy. What exactly does that have to do with you telling me you wanted me to love you?”
“It was the curse.”
Sam flinched.
She put her hand on his arm but he jerked away from her touch. “Whatever I meant to say and what I ended up saying were two different things.”
“And what did you mean to say?”
Nope. Not going there. She shook her head. “I can’t remember now.”
“So…the curse, it was somehow miraculously lifted while I was gone to the store?”
Isadora crossed her fingers behind her back. “Yes. I’m not sure why.”
“That’s what was going on the other night when I picked you up, right? Let’s see, you had to—what again? Un-puzzle something or other?”
She shrugged. “I guess I did it without realizing it. Anyway, I’m not under the influence anymore, thank God.”
Sam leaned out over the railing. He was quiet for a long time. So was she. She had no idea what more she could, or should, say to him. She just knew it was for the best to make as clean a break as possible with him. Painful, but clean—just as she’d done the last time—so they could get on with their lives.
“You never loved me, did you?” he said at last.
Oh Sam! Don’t make me do this. “No.” The word left a heavy, bitter taste in her mouth.
He swung around and grabbed hold of her arm. “Then why did you agree to marry me?”
That was the question. “I wanted to make Chas jealous.” The acrid taste of that lie burned her tongue.
“And yet, Delilah’s his bride-to-be, not you. Was it because he couldn’t make you come?”
She slapped him hard across his face. “That does not qualify an answer,” she said, and stepped around him to go back into the ballroom.
He stopped her with both hands on her shoulders. “I’m sorry, Izzy. I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t go. Not yet.”
“I think we’ve said enough. Don’t you?”
His fingers gripped her tender flesh, but only for a mere second, before they slackened and fell away. “Yeah, I guess we have.” Then, in a more stiffly formal move, he placed her hand in the crook of his arm. “I’ll escort you back inside.”
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Sam walked back out onto the balcony. He didn’t know how much more torture he was willing to put himself through. Isadora was now knee-deep in men eager to get a taste of what he’d partaken of the night before and he was having a hard time keeping himself from whaling on them.
Plus, his pathetic attempt at revenge had backfired. He guessed he just wasn’t the vengeful sort. He’d always been more of a lover than a fighter when it came to women.
And a woman he was in love with? Well, she pretty much had him wrapped around her finger. Case in point: She almost had him believing her about that crazy fairy stuff. Almost.
No, it was more likely that her ego had needed a boost after that humiliating fiasco with her mother, coupled with her discovery of his memoirs, which no doubt made her think he could ‘fix’ her sexual problem.
And once he was firmly under her thumb and the lock on her box had been jimmied wide open, she was off on her next conquest.
He looked at his watch. Ten-twenty. Late enough to head home.
A couple came through one set of doors, laughing. As he turned and looked at them, he saw the top of Chas’s head through the crowd inside. He’d surprised him earlier when he’d asked Sam to be his best man. But he’d be a liar if he said it hadn’t pleased him, too. He’d missed their friendship over the years. ‘Course, he’d nearly blown it with that vulgar outburst earlier, but thankfully, that was all water under the bridge now.
So—just Chas and Delilah’s wedding next year, and then Isadora would be a short, painful blurb in his life’s history book.
He turned and went back inside the ballroom. He’d say his farewells, then get the hell out of here. As he approached the table, he saw a middle-aged society matron speaking to Isadora and the two sniping girlfriends of hers that had seated themselves at their table a few minutes ago.
After the woman moved off to greet another table of guests, Isadora said to her friends, “So she had cancer—big deal. Must we hear her drone on and on about it, for Christ’s sake?”
Her friends tittered. “Good heavens, Isadora, it is so good to have you back!” the dark-haired anorexic one said.
“Yes,” the one with the fire-engine red lips and loud perfume said, “we thought you’d lost your mind, like your father—or gotten Tourette’s or something. Didn’t we Missy?”
In that instant, he decided he’d dance with Isadora first, and then he’d leave.
He swept her up onto her feet and led her to the floor without saying a word. They’d only danced a few steps before he said, “You know, I prefer the real Isadora. This society bitch façade doesn’t fit you well.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about the fact that I’ve seen you nearly drop from weariness for lack of sleep when we worked forty-eight hours straight to get donations to the Red Cross. I’m talking about the fact that I’ve seen you neck-deep in clothing and supplies for the rescue workers.” He squeezed her hand. “I’ve seen you cry, Iz. Like a baby, when you read all those thank-you letters from the victims. It’s what made me fall in love with you.”
“That’s not me. I was doing that as part of my extra credit grade for Contemporary History. You know that.”
“So the real you is this hard, brittle bitch?”
She tossed her head. “I guess it is. Just like the real you is a two-bit man-whore.” Her short, derisive laugh exploded from her throat like a gunshot. “I’m trying to envision Jacinda James, that old cow, bouncing on top of you like thread on a bad spool pin.”
“Believe me, she didn’t take nearly as long to prime.” Isadora stiffened in his embrace but her expression remained smooth. She didn’t need to know he’d made that part up—how would he know about old Mrs. James? His clients had been younger, his mother’s friends. And, technically, he hadn’t been a gigolo in the strictest sense. He’d been a nineteen-year-old guy enjoying the amorous attentions of a few forty-something socialites. It had been the publishing house who’d thought up the title.
A couple danced past them and the man said, “Good evening, Isadora.”
She turned her head and nodded, and as she did so, the scent of her hair crowded his senses. For a split second, he was transported back to last night, to this morning. “Come away with me, Izzy,” he said in a rush. “I’m leaving on a private expedition soon to Micronesia. Tomorrow, I’m heading back to Hawaii—I’m a marine biologist there, did you know that?—Go with me.”
For a moment, a spark of wild enthusiasm flared in her eyes, and her bosom rose and fell with excited breaths. Then her eyes shuttered once again. “Not a chance,” she said. With a laugh, she shook her head. “Live with you on some nautical motel? On sea rations? Are you insane?”
His ears burned with the heat of self-castigation. Dropping his arms to his sides, he stepped away. “Well then, I guess this is goodbye. Have a nice life.”
He turned and strode away.
* * *