since it had been sitting there for so long. The rose, too, had begun to wilt, its petals blackening at their edges. Even the opera program looked limp and tattered already. All of them were at the end of their lives. Just as Charlotte had been the last time he’d sat at this table looking in the same direction.
She’d died two days after closing night at the Lyric. It had been seven months since her funeral, and Marcus still felt her loss keenly. He wondered, not for the first time, what happened after a soul left this world to enter the next. Was Charlotte still able to enjoy her occasional cosmo? Did they have performances of Verdi and Bizet where she was now? And was she able to enjoy the rare prime rib she’d loved to order at Palumbo’s?
Marcus hoped so. Charlotte deserved only the best, wherever she was. Because the best was what she had always given him.
A flash of red caught his eye, and Marcus glanced up. But it was only Emma Stegman, heading from the bar toward her father. Marcus scanned the room again for good measure but saw only more of the usual suspects. He knew everyone here, he thought. So why was he sitting alone? Hell, Stu the bartender wasn’t the only guy Cynthia Harrison had tried canoodling with. If Marcus wanted to, he could sidle up next to her and be headed to the Ambassador Hotel, which was adjacent to the club, in no time. And he sure wouldn’t lose his job for it. All he’d lose would be the empty feeling inside that had been with him since Charlotte’s death. Of course, the feeling would come back tomorrow, when he was alone again… .
He lifted his glass and downed what was left of his Scotch, then, for good measure, downed Charlotte’s cosmopolitan, too, in one long gulp. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment as he waited for the taste to leave his mouth—how had she stood those things?—then opened them again …
… to see a vision in red seated at a table on the other side of the room. He could not believe his good fortune. Seeing her one time had been chance. Seeing her twice had been lucky. Seeing her a third time …
That could only be fate.
Forgetting, for now, that he didn’t believe in such a thing, and before he risked losing her again, he immediately rose and crossed to where she was seated, signaling for Stu at the same time and gesturing toward her table. Without waiting to be invited, he pulled out the chair across from hers and seated himself.
She glanced up at his appearance, surprise etched on her features. But her lips curled into the faintest of smiles, reassuring him. That was another new experience for him. He’d never had to be reassured of anything. On the contrary, he’d taken everything in life for granted. That was what happened when you were born into one of the Gold Coast’s oldest and most illustrious families. You got everything you wanted, often without even having to ask for it. In fact, you even got the things you didn’t ask for. Usually handed to you on a silver platter. Sometimes literally.
“We have got to stop meeting like this.”
This time it was she, not Marcus, who spoke the words he had said to her at the Lyric.
“On the contrary,” he replied. “I’m beginning to like meeting you like this.”
A hint of pink bloomed on her cheeks at his remark, and delight wound through his belly at seeing her blush. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d made a woman blush. Not shyly, anyway. Not becomingly. Usually, if he made a woman blush, it was because he’d suggested they do something in the bedroom that most of society considered shameful. It was all the more reason, in his opinion, why it should be enjoyed.
But he was getting way ahead of himself. Anything in the bedroom with this woman was still, oh … hours away.
“Mind if I join you?” he asked. “I think you already have.”
He feigned surprise. “So I have. Then you’ll have to let me buy you a drink.”
She opened her mouth to reply and, for a moment, he feared she would decline his offer. Another new experience for Marcus. Not only fearing a woman would turn him down—since that almost never happened—but also feeling a knot of disappointment in his chest at the possibility. On those rare occasions when a woman did turn him down, he simply shrugged it off and moved to the next one. Because, inevitably, there was always a next one. With this woman, however …
Well, he couldn’t imagine a next one. Not even with Cynthia Harrison falling out of her dress less than ten feet away.
“All right,” she finally said, as Stu arrived at their table. She looked at the bartender. “I’ll have a glass of champagne, please.”
“Bring a bottle,” Marcus instructed before the bartender had a chance to get away. “The Perrier-Jouët Cuvée Belle Epoque. 2002.”
“Really, that’s not necessary… .” she began, her voice trailing off on the last word.
Deciding it was because she didn’t know how to address him—and because he wanted to give her his name so that he could get hers in return—he finished for her, “Marcus. Marcus—”
“Don’t tell me your last name.”
He halted before revealing it, less because she asked him not to than because he found her command curious.
“Why not?”
“Just don’t, that’s all.”
He started to give it to her anyway—never let it be said that Marcus Fallon ever did as he was told—but for some reason decided to honor her request. That was even stranger, since never let it be said that Marcus Fallon did the honorable thing, either. “All right.” He lifted his right hand for her to shake. “And you are …?”
She hesitated before taking his hand, then gingerly placed her own lightly against his. Her fingers were slender and delicate against his large, blunt ones and, unable to help himself, he closed his hand possessively over hers. Her skin was soft and warm, as creamy as ivory, and he found himself wondering if that was true of the rest of her. The blush on her cheeks deepened as he covered her hand with his, but she didn’t pull hers away.
His appeal for her name hung in the air between them without a response. “Della,” she told him finally. “My name is Della.”
No last name from her, either, then. Fine, he thought. He wouldn’t push it. But before the night was over, he’d know not only her last name, but everything else about her, too. Especially where each and every one of her erogenous zones were and what kind of erotic sounds she uttered whenever he located a new one.
Neither of them said anything more, only studied each other’s faces as their hands remained joined. She had amazing eyes. Pale, clear gray, the kind of eyes a man could lose himself in forever. The kind that hid nothing and said much. Honest eyes, he finally decided. Noble. The eyes of a person who would always do the right thing.
Damn.
Stu cleared his throat a little too obviously beside them, and she gave a soft tug to free her fingers. Reluctantly, he let them go. She lowered her hand to the table near his, however, resting it palm down on the white linen. So he did likewise, flattening his hand until his fingers almost—almost—touched hers.
“Will there be anything else, Mr.—?” Stu stopped before revealing Marcus’s last name, obviously having overheard the exchange. Quickly, he amended, “Will there be anything else, sir?”
Marcus waved a hand
