she said, as if he had brought her a present. And then, nonsensically, again. “Yes, well. Thank you.”
“Ummm...” The young man shifted from one foot to the other and bit his lip. “Um, the thing is, someone needs to settle Mr. Westover’s bill.”
Brooke slowly turned and stared at the young man blankly. “His bill?” The word had no meaning, really. It was just a collection of sounds. How could Clarke have left her here? If she had imagined a hundred cruel paybacks, she could never have thought of this one. She didn’t know another soul in this room. Struggling single-mom nurses didn’t exactly hobnob with Tampa’s social royalty.
“Well, yes, you see... Mr. Westover bought some champagne at the auction, remember?” He looked pointedly at the glass she held in her trembling hand. “You’re drinking it now. But no one paid for it, you see, and now Mr. Westover seems to have left, and well, I wondered if maybe he had left his credit card with you....”
Brooke whirled, horrified. She set her champagne glass on the table as if it had been poisoned. Seven hundred dollars? Was Clarke insane? Where on earth was she going to get seven hundred dollars? Just five minutes ago she would have considered herself wealthy if she’d been able to dredge up a quarter. She dropped onto the chair, trying to make the suddenly tilting room stand still.
Brooke was hardly a socialite, but even she understood that people who bid at fund-raisers were as honor bound as poker players to make good their debts. She half expected someone to call the manager, to call the police, to tie an apron around her blatantly inferior party dress and send her in to wash the dishes.
Suddenly, she felt an overwhelming, irrational urge to laugh. Seven hundred dollars was a whole lot of dishes.
“No, no, he didn’t give me any instructions,” she managed to say. Somehow she forced herself to look at the man beside her, who had been a nonchalant spectator through the whole embarrassing scene. To her shock, he was smiling composedly down at the perspiring usher. And he was holding out a silver credit card between two long, perfectly shaped fingers.
“It’s no. problem at all,” he was saying soothingly.
“I’m sure it was just an oversight on Mr. Westover’s part. I’ll get him to reimburse me tomorrow.”
“Oh, no!” She couldn’t let this happen. Brooke reached up and clutched the man’s arm. “No, you mustn’t!”
But it was too late. The usher, not fool enough to let such a simple solution slip through his fingers, had already whisked the credit card out of the man’s dark hand. She stared at him, sinking back against the stiff iron of her chair.
“Mr....” she began miserably, wishing she at least could remember his name.
He smiled. “Call me Taylor,” he said graciously. “Taylor,” she repeated weakly. “You mustn’t do that. It’s not up to you to—”
“But I already did.” He pulled out the chair that Clarke had vacated and, settling himself comfortably in it, turned his beautiful smile toward Brooke.
“But you can’t be sure that Clarke will—”
“It doesn’t matter.” He held up the half-empty bottle that still perched in its nest of ice. “I was bidding on it anyway. I’ll be perfectly happy to own the case myself, if it comes to that. It will be reward enough if you’ll invite me to share a glass with you. I think I’d like to make a toast.”
She frowned. She must have had too much champagne. She couldn’t catch up somehow, couldn’t follow the dizzying turn of events. Catch up? Good heavens—when he smiled at her like that, she couldn’t even catch her breath.
“A toast?”
“Yes,” he said, pouring each of them half a glass, then lifting his. “To Clarke Westover, wherever he is right now.”
Her frown deepened. “Do you know Clarke?”
He nodded. “Oh, yes. I know him.” His voice had undertones she couldn’t decipher, but he didn’t give her time to dwell on them. “Let’s toast him, then, for being such a busy man. For leaving this chair empty.” He grinned disarmingly. “You see, I’ve been wanting to meet you all night.”
She knew her cheeks pinkened at the compliment, which pleased her inordinately. He was a very handsome man after all, and the room was ripe with beautiful women. The wriggle of sensual warmth, that delicious female awareness she had felt when she first saw this man, had returned. In spite of the awkward circumstances, she felt strangely exhilarated, triumphant, as if she had proved something. Proved, perhaps, that she wasn’t quite an old, dried-up woman yet.
After all, it wasn’t quite so terrible, not if he really knew Clarke. Clarke would reimburse him tomorrow, as Taylor had said. Still, a dim note of caution sounded. Something in all this didn’t make sense.
“But if you know Clarke,” she said, trying to verbalize that hazy uncertainty, “then why didn’t you come over when he was still here?”
He smiled again, and in that moment she almost felt as if he were an old, trusted friend. His eyes were so familiar somehow, so warm and full of intelligence, full of sympathy. And yet she knew she’d never met him before. If she had, she never could have forgotten it.
Already, though, her nerves were relaxing, and she picked up her glass slowly. Logic be damned. She liked this man, whoever he was. She liked him very much. Now if only he could answer the question, could still her suspicions, and let her give in to the pleasurable glow that was stealing through her.
“If you know Clarke,” she repeated, “why didn’t you join us when he was here?”
“That should be obvious, I’d think,” he answered, clinking the rim of his glass against hers. “Because I simply cannot stand the man.”
CHAPTER TWO
AT FIRST, she was speechless. He’d uttered the words casually, in the offhand way he might have expressed a dislike for broccoli, and she wasn’t at all sure how she should respond. Stalling, she brought her glass to her lips and drank, studying him over the rim, looking for a cue.
To her surprise, his green eyes were alight with an irreverent sparkle. It was infectious, and in spite of herself she felt a smile tickling at her lips. As she began to grin, she felt something odd happening inside her. It was as if a logjam of oppression burst loose with an almost audible pop, and she was washed by a sudden, delicious sensation of freedom.
“Now that you mention it,” she said, still grinning, “I can’t stand Clarke, either.”
“Oh?” He raised one brow.
Nodding, she took another sip, wondering whether this last glass might have pushed her judgment over the edge. Perhaps instead of being forthright and bold, she was merely being drunk. But did it really make any difference? She felt freer than she had in months. She felt good.
“Absolutely cannot stand him. So that makes two of us. Good thing we didn’t marry him, isn’t it?”
“Very.” The creases at the corner of his eyes grew more pronounced. “I for one am deeply relieved.”
“Me,
