Bill suggested as the orchestra began playing a soft, sexy ballad that had always been one of her favorites.
“A dance would be nice,” Eloise agreed, remembering a long-ago night when they had held each other close, swaying to a similarly slow rhythm in a smoky club somewhere in Greenwich Village—a world away from the ballroom at the Waldorf Astoria.
“It’s been a while,” he said quietly, seeming to recall, as well, their last dance together as he stood to help her from her chair.
“I’ve been told dancing is like riding a bike,” she quipped as he took her hand, wanting to recapture the lighthearted mood they’d been sharing. “Once you learn, you never forget.”
“There are a lot of things I’ve never forgotten, Eloise,” Bill murmured as they reached the dance floor and he took her in his arms. “Holding you like this is definitely at the top of the list.”
Her heart fluttering, Eloise leaned against Bill wordlessly as he guided her into a simple box step. She had never forgotten completely the feel of his arms around her, either, even though there had been times when she had tried desperately to do so.
And now, as his long, lean, masculine frame seemed to curve protectively around her shorter, slighter self, the heat of his body melding with hers, she breathed in the fresh, clean scent of his aftershave and experienced a sense of peace and happiness she hadn’t known she’d been missing.
It felt so good, so right, to be held in Bill Harper’s arms. And though she knew these moments she shared with him were fleeting, she closed her eyes and pretended they would last forever.
As the music played on, one song segueing into another, he didn’t speak and gratefully neither did she. The spell would be broken soon enough without any help from her. The orchestra cooperated a little longer, playing a third slow and easy ballad, then finally picked up the tempo by several beats with an old disco favorite.
“I’m still not much good at the faster dance steps,” Bill admitted with obvious regret.
“Neither am I,” Eloise said.
Taking his cue, she stepped out of his arms, but didn’t pull her hand away when he seemed inclined to hold on to it.
“How about another glass of champagne?” he asked as he led her off the dance floor. “Or maybe something from the dessert table?”
Before Eloise could reply, they were waylaid by an investment banker who had been an associate of her husband’s, and his bejeweled wife. While Eloise spoke to them, Bill flagged down a waiter and got them each another glass of champagne. Then they seemed to be swept up in another round of pressing the flesh as late arrivals sought to make their presence known to the ball’s guest of honor and his lovely companion.
To his credit, Bill made sure they passed by the long, linen-covered table filled with desserts. Acknowledging in a teasing tone his recollection of her notorious taste for sweets, he helped her select a sampling of the luscious pastries on offer there.
But they weren’t able to slip away alone again. Instead, they were invited to sit at a large round table full of corporate leaders, an invitation Eloise knew they were both wise to graciously accept.
These were the men and women most likely to support nonprofit organizations like Manhattan Multiples. Of course, they were also just as likely to support major cuts in city funding, especially if it meant there wouldn’t be any increase in corporate taxes as a result, Eloise reminded herself as she nibbled on a tiny slice of sinfully delicious chocolate cake. Thankfully, no one at the table was boorish enough to bring up the subject, though.
But Eloise sensed an avid interest among their table mates in her rather odd and obviously unexpected appearance at the ball as Mayor Harper’s special guest when everyone knew they held opposing views on such an important and potentially volatile issue. She should really be much more concerned about what people thought, Eloise admitted. But she was feeling so mellow that it was easier to just drift along, nodding and smiling and occasionally offering an appropriate, if inane, comment whenever necessary.
“How about a last dance…for tonight?” Bill asked as the conversation around them fell into a lull and the orchestra once again slowed the tempo of the music.
“Yes, please.”
The rhythm of her heart quickening once again, Eloise smiled at him graciously, ignoring as best she could the raised eyebrows of several of the women as she took his proffered hand. She hadn’t missed Bill’s “for tonight,” and apparently, neither had they. But she knew better than they that he was only trying to charm her.
Under the circumstances, they wouldn’t be spending any more time together after tonight unless one or the other of them changed their political position. And that was highly unlikely to happen.
“Excuse us, everyone,” Bill said, and whisked her onto the dance floor as if afraid she would change her mind.
Fat chance of that happening, either, Eloise thought, as she stepped into his open arms and allowed herself to be enfolded in his masculine embrace one last time.
“I hope you didn’t mind my dragging you off the way I did, but it’s getting late and I wanted to dance with you again before we left,” Bill admitted somewhat sheepishly.
“I didn’t mind at all,” Eloise assured him, smiling as she met his questing gaze.
“Good.”
He drew her closer, his arms tightening around her imperceptibly as he brushed his cheek against her hair.
As the music played on, Eloise had a good idea of exactly how Cinderella must have felt, the clock ticking away the moments until she would be dropped back into the real world again. Her party was about to be over very soon, too. And in the morning she would once again have to face her own version of the real world, along with the very real problems she had come no closer to solving that night.
She had spent several hours with Mayor Harper, and although most of that time had also been spent with other people, as well, she’d had more than one opportunity to broach the subject of his proposed cuts to city funding. But she hadn’t done it, and she wasn’t going to.
Not as they danced together one last time, and not on the short ride back to her apartment, sitting close beside him in the privacy of his black limousine, the bright lights of the city muted by the tinted glass in the windows.
Certainly she was entitled to a little downtime, she reasoned justifiably. And certainly she was entitled to spend that downtime in harmony with an old and very dear friend, renewing an acquaintance that would be of benefit to her and, by association, to Manhattan Multiples, as well.
Or so she tried to believe as she tucked her head against Bill’s shoulder and allowed her hand to remain firmly clasped in his.
Whatever differences they had—and there were some—could, and would, be addressed. But at another time, in another place, she vowed, aware of how fleeting peaceful moments like the ones they now shared had lately seemed to be in her normally hectic life.
Bill appeared to be no more inclined to talk than she was, either in the limousine or on the all too speedy elevator ride to her apartment, though he did seem to want to keep ahold of her hand. Eloise was grateful on both counts. Tonight had been a very special night for her, one she would never forget. But just like Cinderella,
