eyes widened. “I didn’t know that.”
“Nobody does. Everybody’s called him Gorgeous for years.”
“Well, he’s definitely that,” said Mara. “Here he comes!”
“I don’t want to read too much into this,” Signe said nervously. She was only a waitress in the museum’s café. It wasn’t exactly an esteem-building job, either. She tried not to compare herself to her girlfriends, but over the past year, she’d watched each of them achieve career ambitions. Diane had opened Wacky Weekends, C.C. had begun taking on her own accountancy clients and Mara had become a Realtor.
But Signe wasn’t giving up hope. In college, she’d studied art and library science. While working for the New York public library, she’d kept applying for jobs at the Met with no luck, so she was trying this new tactic. She’d do anything she could to meet the curators and get them to consider her for one of the coveted jobs in the archives department.
She loved everything about this museum. Its dark, gloomy corridors, marble staircases and smell of oil paint all made her heart sing. Just breathing the air inside the cavernous rooms quickened her blood almost as much as Gorgeous Garrity. Spending the past six months slugging coffee and helping at these private parties had finally paid off, too.
Tonight, her boss, Edmond Styles, had told her that one of the archives assistants was quitting. Come Monday morning, when the woman’s two-week notice was official, Signe would be offered the job of her dreams. She was so excited. Edmond knew everything about art, and was reputed to have connections with the Garritys, through the museum, since they frequently donated artwork.
Signe took another deep breath. It would be so wonderful if something—even just one sizzling night of sex—would happen with Gorgeous….
It was a fantasy, of course. Just a dream, but who knew? She could feel her own star peaking, bright on the horizon. Sighing with satisfaction, she drifted her gaze over the pagan statues the computer mogul had borrowed for tonight’s bash. Most had come from private collectors around the city, and all were displayed on lit pedestals. Yes, she’d done a great job, if she had to say so herself. Tonight, presumably anticipating her promotion, Edmond had entrusted her with the responsibility of logging the borrowed artworks into the archives department, arranging them on the pedestals and even flipping the alarm switch that protected the pieces from theft. From start to finish, this display was her baby.
“Those statues are something to behold,” commented Diane, catching her gaze.
“Well hung,” added Mara dryly.
Signe grinned. Most of the figurines were fertility gods with noticeably disproportionate male hardware.
Diane pointed, laughing. “I think I dated him once.”
“You wish,” joked Mara.
C.C’s voice sharpened. “Here comes Mister Wonderful!”
Signe braced herself. “He’s so…out of my league.” While her parents were professionals in Minneapolis—her father was a lawyer, her mother a history teacher—their lives were modest compared to Gorgeous’s jet-setting lifestyle.
“Don’t sell yourself short,” said Mara. “You’ve got that Winona Ryder thing going for you.”
“True.” Everybody thought she looked exactly like the movie actress. “But that might not be a plus. “She was arrested for shoplifting, remember?” Signe said nervously.
“That was years ago,” Diane assured.
Signe barely heard. Her knees weakened as Gorgeous came nearer. He was definitely…well, gorgeous, dressed as a seventeenth-century courtier. A richly embroidered purple cape swirled over a white doublet with a standing ruffled collar. A sword was strapped to his narrow hips, and it thrust from beneath the cape, its sheathed length brushing tight breeches. Signe’s eyes riveted to the pants fly, which was tightly laced over a bulge that the man was hardly bothering to hide.
All three women blew out a shaky breath in unison.
C.C. softly whispered, “You go, girl.”
Realizing that every muscle in her body had tightened, Signe forced herself to inhale as she lifted her gaze, taking in the rakish white-blond wig that hung to his powerful shoulders. He was wearing a conical velvet hat in lush purple.
“Well, we’re off, Sig,” whispered C.C.
“Don’t forget to get something from him,” coached Mara. “His pen. Or a lighter.”
“Something you can throw into the wiccan’s cauldron,” said Diane.
At the thought of casting a spell on Gorgeous Garrity, Signe felt pin prickles actually rise at her nape. Should she cast a spell to marry him, she wondered, or just have sex? “Casting a spell won’t work.”
“Probably not, but it’s worth a try,” said Mara.
C.C. was scissoring her fingers in a goodbye wave. “See you in the morning at Sarah’s. Let’s make it ten o’clock.”
Eyes on Gorgeous, Signe nodded. “See you.”
Her heart was still hammering when Gorgeous leaned casually over the bar a moment later. Somehow she managed to find her voice. “What can I get for you?” She paused. “George.”
He flashed a dazzling, hundred-watt smile that was like something straight out of the movies. “You can get me out of here,” he said confidentially. “If I’m accosted by one more milkmaid who wants a date, I’m going to scream.”
As Signe strained to hear him over the beating of her own heart, she vaguely wondered at the power this man seemed to wield over her. “Get you out of here?” she echoed. “Where would you like me to take you?”
“Where a woman like you could,” Gorgeous said with an easy grin. “We could start with heaven and just take it from there.”
When it came to flirtation, the man had a thousand smooth moves. Every time he got this close to her, Signe felt like Cinderella. Right now, she’d almost chuck her life dream of working at the Met, just to drag him into the cloakroom and divest him of his costume. Who cared what her boss would think? Despite her nervousness, she shot Gorgeous what she hoped was a game smile. “Well, you’ve got to admit that the art’s interesting.”
“Very. I think my uncle Harold lent Jack some pieces.” Jack was the computer mogul.
As Signe tried to imagine a life in which one lent others personally owned priceless artifacts for parties, she glanced around, noting the number of cute, costumed kids who’d been brought to the party by their parents. “Really?” she managed to say.
He nodded. “Among them, the statue of Eros.”
Her cheeks warmed. Given the elongated penis of the fetish, she didn’t exactly want to stare at it, but then, she didn’t want to glance away too quickly, either. If she did, Gorgeous Garrity might think she was what her friends accused her of being—a prude. “I read about Eros in an art history class,” she said, returning her eyes to Gorgeous Garrity’s, which were blue and sparkling. “They say it brings sexual potency to whomever possesses it.” Just saying the
