I’m on my way to a charity ball.”
“A what?”
“When I got in, I received a message from Wayne Lawrence, the head of Legal for LynTech. A command to appear at this ball, wearing something fancy. It’s black-tie, so I had to get a dress at the boutique at the hotel.” A shimmering silver cocktail dress falling to just above her knees, with a low neck, deep back and narrow straps. The bill would go into her business expense folder when she got back to San Francisco. “The ball’s a big event, and apparently everyone who’s anyone at LynTech is going to be there. From the sound of it, I don’t think anyone was given a choice. Mr. Lawrence didn’t give me a choice, that’s for sure.”
“Did he fix you up with an escort, too?”
Ryan and she had known each other for three years, almost from the time she’d been recruited by LynTech out of law school into their San Francisco branch offices. She and Ryan had been engaged for the past month. They understood each other, and he understood what she had to do. He knew the rules of business. He played by them every day as the vice president of a large import-export company in the city. He knew that if this was a command performance by a superior, chances were she’d be paired up with someone else who was in the same boat. Thank goodness that hadn’t happened.
“No, he didn’t fix me up,” she said, and scanned the signs coming into view.
The last time she’d been “fixed up” had been in law school, when her roommate had decided that she needed a social life and matched her with a recent graduate. Morris, she thought his name had been. No, Norris. And Norris had been divorced with three kids, and after the first excruciatingly boring hour, she’d finally realized that he was frantically looking for a woman to take the pressure off of him with his kids so he could further his career. She hadn’t let herself be talked into a blind date again and never would. “I figure I’ll get there, meet whomever I need to, memorize some names, then plead jet lag and leave.”
“Now, that sounds like a plan,” Ryan murmured. “Too bad I couldn’t get away, or I could be your excuse to leave.”
They played well off of each other at business functions. Another way they were well-matched. “I’ll do this on my own,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.” She’d been “doing” it on her own most of her life. Her parents had been middle-aged by the time Megan made her appearance. And her only brother headed out for college before she even got home from the hospital. She was very used to being on her own. “The jet lag excuse is just fine.”
“Sorry, I’ve got another call coming in. Probably Brandson. I’ve been waiting for his update,” Ryan said suddenly.
“Okay, go take your call.”
“And you go to your ball,” he said.
“Love you,” she stated quickly.
“Same here,” he answered. Then the line went dead.
She pushed the phone’s Off button, then gripped the steering wheel again, the diamond on her ring finger glittering in the low light. She held her hand up in front of her. Ryan’s grandmother’s engagement ring, the Baron diamond, was on her finger now. Four carats, marquise cut. And sometime, somewhere down the road, his grandmother’s wedding band with inset diamonds in platinum would join it.
It had been a good decision to accept his proposal. In a few years, they’d get married, and that would be a good decision, too.
They hadn’t told too many people about the engagement, not even her brother or her parents. Megan told herself she wanted to give them the news in person, but she knew she was hesitant to tell them at all because they’d ask all the wrong questions. Quint especially. He’d had a bad marriage early on, and hadn’t been terribly romantic. But when he’d met his new wife, the man had turned into a moonstruck Romeo. All he did was talk about Amy and the two kids they had.
And their mother would go on and on about “being in love” and how exciting and wonderful it was. Being in love was nice, Megan thought. Nice and sensible. That’s what she and Ryan had. Nice and sensible, and if people found that boring, so be it. It worked for them.
She glanced at the clock on the dash of the rental car and grimaced. Mr. Lawrence had requested her presence at the ball by “no later than nine.” It was already eight-thirty, and she still hadn’t found the right exit to get to the E. J. Sommers’s estate. She’d been born and raised in the Houston area before leaving six years ago, but she hadn’t recognized the name of the road to the estate from the directions she’d been given.
“Meet me on the lower terrace,” had been included in the note, too. She didn’t know where the lower terrace would be. She’d never met Wayne Lawrence. But she’d find both the man and the lower terrace as soon as she found the estate.
She shifted, adjusted the hem of her dress, then glanced at herself in the rearview mirror. She’d chosen simple over fussy, confining her shoulder-length blond hair in a French twist held by diamond clips. She’d brushed color on her lips, put on a hint of mascara, and her only jewelry was the ring.
She looked ahead and saw a sign. The right road. She took the off-ramp onto a narrow, two-lane highway and turned the only way she could, south. As she drove around a curve, she sighed with relief when she saw the glow of lights ahead on the right, at the same moment she noticed a sign by the side of the road: Charity Ball, with an arrow pointing straight ahead.
She followed it, and pulled into an expansive entry space paved with cobble stones and faced by massive wrought-iron gates framed by stone pillars. She stopped by another sign: Check In Here. But she didn’t see anything except a security keypad. She hadn’t been given a code of any type. She looked through the gates and saw the glow from the main house. Even from this distance she could see a lot of activity going on.
She reached for her purse to get out the embossed invitation Mr. Lawrence had sent over for her, figuring there might have been a code on it she’d missed when she’d read it earlier. She skimmed the card, but didn’t see anything that resembled a code. All it said was: “Valet service at the ballroom entrance.”
She pushed it back in the envelope, rolled down her window and heard the faint sounds of music and voices drifting on the evening air. She looked at the security pad and spotted a phone by the keys. She was reaching for it when a deep male voice startled her.
“Good evening.” She turned to see a security guard on the other side of the gates, a tall man in the shadows, moving toward the left pillar. “I’ll be right there,” he said, then disappeared, only to reappear out of a gate set into the fence on the other side of the pillar.
He came toward her, backlit by the lanterns that framed the entry. “Am I glad to see you,” she said as he got within a few feet of the car. She could see now that he was carrying a clipboard in one hand, and there were a gun and two-way radio at his waist.
“Sorry for the wait.”
She had to crook her neck a bit to look up at him. He was probably over six feet, lean, in a tailored uniform, but between the night shadows and his uniform cap, his face was almost indistinguishable. “I just need to get in to the ball.”
He came close enough to touch the frame of her window with one hand, and leaned nearer. “Okay, no problem,” he said as she noticed how strong his hand looked, tanned, with square, short nails and a simple gold wedding band on the ring finger. “What’s the name?”
“Megan
