commanders, mapping out a seating strategy for the party.
“I guess I’ll find out tonight.” Bobbi lowered her voice. “Um, Elaine … do you think I could get a teeny weeny advance on my check? I’m a little strapped.”
Elaine gritted her teeth. “Your advances are already taking you into the summer,” she said.
“I know, but it’s so expensive to keep up this lifestyle. Everything just piles up. My credit cards are totally maxed out. Tomorrow’s Christmas, Elaine. What do you say, honey?”
She forced her jaw to relax. Honestly, some people had no self-control or work ethic. “Stop by the office in the morning and I’ll write you a check.”
“Actually, I wasn’t planning on coming in tomorrow.”
“It’s our busiest time of year, Bobbi.”
“It’s Christmas.”
“I rest my case. Busy.” Elaine took a gulp of her drink.
“It’s only once a year.” Bobbi’s tone wheedled. “I was hoping to fly home to see my family. My sister Jimmi just had another baby. Oh, Elaine. What could be sweeter than a baby at Christmas?”
“A contract with a Swiss billionaire,” Jenny said.
Melanie ran a shiny-tipped finger down a list in her planner. “By the way, Elaine, your mom’s a peach to work with.”
Elaine forced a smile over the rim of her glass. “Isn’t she just?” In fact, Freddie St. James had given only the most grudging approval to Elaine’s list of suggestions. Despite her skepticism of the edgy menu items and trendy guest list, her appreciation of Elaine’s handling of the press had persuaded her.
To Freddie, the only thing more important than putting on a successful affair was having the papers report that she’d put on a successful affair. Perversely, having this goal in common had brought Elaine closer to her mother than she’d ever been. Now they were merely oceans apart instead of galaxies.
“You look nervous,” Jenny commented, tilting her head to one side to study Elaine. “You’re never nervous. What’s up with that?”
“It’s my parents’ party, for heaven’s sake.”
“So? We do parties all the time. We’re the best in town. People are still talking about the Helpline Foundation fundraiser we did last Thanksgiving in Bridgehampton. What’s really eating you?”
Elaine took a deep breath. She might as well spill. “I hate Christmas. I hate my life. Byron dumped me for a bra model.”
The announcement fell into a collective, stunned silence.
“But you were supposed to marry him,” Jenny said after a horrified pause. “His father practically owns a broadcasting empire. You two were going to be the ultimate media power couple.”
Bobbi leaned in close to give her a hug. Her forgiving nature made Elaine feel small. “Oh, honey,” Bobbi said in her delightful Southern accent, “We’re so sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m more annoyed by his timing than anything else.”
“It’s not too late to find another plus-one for tonight.” Mel started a search on her Palm. “It’s Christmas. You can’t be dateless.”
Elaine bit her tongue. The truth was, she didn’t want a date. Or even Christmas, for that matter. She just wanted to make it through the holiday rush and get back to work.
“Tonight will be perfect,” Jenny declared, raising her glass. “Your parents will be blown away, we’ll have Axel eating out of our hands and everyone will live happily ever after.”
Elaine’s smile felt stiff as she lifted her champagne flute to her friends’ highball glasses. “To happily ever after.”
The bright sound of clinking glasses penetrated the din of piped-in music and high-octane conversation. She would get past this, Elaine told herself. Loneliness and yearning were for losers. Tonight would be perfect.
She watched the bubbles in her champagne cocktail. Through the half-empty glass, she spied something—someone—that made her freeze. She forgot to breathe, to move, to think.
Everything receded into a blur of color and sound, everything except him. He came into sharp focus, each detail about him familiar despite the passage of—she counted quickly in her head—seven years. Seven years this very day, in fact.
She felt trapped, yet at the same time helplessly enchanted, as though she were drowning in honey. All the intensity of first love came roaring back at her, possessing her, waking up feelings she had thought long dead.
It was, she discovered, physically impossible to tear her gaze from that broad-shouldered stance and easy smile, that air of assurance and electric sex appeal. Time had only deepened and sharpened the attributes that still sometimes haunted her dreams.
A classic Bob Marley tune filled the air.
“Elaine, what’s the matter?” asked Jenny. “You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
Ducking her head to hide the flush in her cheeks, she set down her glass. “The ghost of Christmas past.”
“WHOSE PAST?” Jenny demanded.
“My past.” Shaken, Elaine propped her chin in her hand and continued to gaze across the room at the tall, unforgettable silhouette, outlined by frosty winter light streaming in through the wide window.
Memories flooded her, of a brief time when Christmas had meant more to her than juggling a social schedule with a business plan. Against her will, she remembered those nostalgic days when the softest, most vulnerable part of her had felt safe with an unexpected stranger.
They never should have met in the first place. She belonged to a social class governed by strict but invisible rules. One of those rules prohibited her from fraternizing with guys like Tony Fiore. He came from a different world entirely, and that world had rules of its own. He’d been raised in a large Italian-American family in Brooklyn that believed, as much as the St. Jameses did, in sticking to its own kind.
At eighteen, she was only just discovering the world outside her privileged, insulated life. He was definitely a major discovery.
Now an older, possibly even more interesting, Tony Fiore stopped at a crowded table across the room. He started talking to the well-dressed patrons there. Every face at the table turned toward him as he spoke.
Elaine’s friends followed the direction of her rapt stare. “Holy mistletoe,” Mel said. “That guy?”
“Who is he?” asked Jen.
Bobbi patted Elaine’s arm. “Whoever he is, he’ll make Byron seem like a bad dream.”
“His name’s Tony Fiore. We met a long time ago, when we were in college.” Their lives
