By the time he had made his way around the perimeter of the mezzanine to the opposite side, where the festivities were scheduled to take place, at least a dozen people had nodded greetings at him and he’d returned them without having the slightest idea who any of the people were.
Ironically, when he finally did recognize two faces in the crowd, they belonged to the only two people who tried to avoid greeting him—Mr. and Mrs. Charles Hayward II. In fact, they swept past their former stable hand with their heads high and their eyes like shards of ice.
Cole paused outside the doorway of the room where the most expensive of the items to be auctioned were on display, and he heard his name being whispered occasionally as the patrons of the ball identified him, but the name that seemed to be most frequently on everyone’s lips was Diana Foster’s. Only tonight, she was being generally referred to as “Poor Diana Foster,” and by women who occasionally sounded more malicious than empathetic to Cole.
From his point of view, the White Orchid Ball fulfilled three distinct and different needs—the first was to provide an opportunity for the wives and daughters of the very rich to get together in elegant surroundings, to show off their newest jewels and latest gowns, and to gossip about each other while their husbands and fathers talked about their golf games and tennis matches.
The second purpose was to raise money for the American Cancer Society. The third was to offer Houston’s financially affluent and socially prominent citizens an opportunity to demonstrate their social consciousness by outbidding one another for dozens of extravagantly expensive items that were donated by other members of the financially affluent and socially prominent.
Tonight’s Orchid Ball was bound to be an unparalleled success in all aspects, Cole decided.
Armed security guards were positioned in front of the doors to the room where the auction items were on display, and an argument broke out right beside him as a photographer in a red-and-white-checked shirt tried to sidle past one of the guards. “No one but guests are allowed in here after seven o’clock,” the guard warned, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I’m from the Enquirer,” the photographer explained, trying to keep his voice low and still be heard over the roar of the crowd. “I’m not interested in the stuff they’re auctioning off, I’m interested in getting a picture of Diana Foster, and I saw her up here on the balcony a while ago. I think she went in there.”
“Sorry. No one but guests for the auction are allowed in there now.”
The full realization of Diana’s sordid plight filled Cole with a mixture of sympathy and disbelief. He’d seen her on television, and he knew she was a grown woman now, but in his mind, he still thought of her as an ingenuous teenager, sitting Indian fashion on a bale of fresh hay, her head tipped to the side as she listened intently to whatever he was saying.
The doors to the ballroom where the banquet and auction were to take place were still closed, and Cole glanced impatiently at his watch, anxious to get in there and to get the whole thing over with. Since that was impossible, and since he had no desire to strike up a conversation with any of the people who seemed to be trying to catch his eye, he stepped into the shadow of a copse of trees, surrounded and obscured by their glittering branches, and lifted the glass of champagne to his lips.
In the years since he’d worked in Houston and lived in the Haywards’ stable, he’d attended hundreds of black-tie affairs all over the world. He was frequently bored at them, but he was never uncomfortable. Houston was the exception. Something about being at a function like this in Houston made him feel like an impostor, a fraud, an interloper.
From his vantage point inside the whimsical forest glade, he idly watched the crowd without consciously admitting to himself that he was watching specifically for a glimpse of Diana. . . . And then the crowd parted and he saw her, standing beside a wide pillar near the elevators about fifteen yards from him.
A sharp jolt of recognition was immediately followed by relief and then pure masculine admiration as his gaze drifted over “Poor Diana Foster.”
Instead of the wan, humiliated creature he’d feared he’d see, Diana Foster had lost none of the quiet, regal poise he remembered her having. Draped in a gown of royal purple silk that clung to her full breasts and small waist, she moved serenely through the artificial twilight of a make-believe forest, untouched by the clamor and bustle all around her—a proud young Guinevere with delicate features, a small chin, and large, luminous green eyes beneath thick russet lashes and exotically winged brows. Her coloring was more vivid now, Cole thought, and the tiny cleft in her chin was nearly invisible, but her hair was the same—heavy and lush, glistening like polished mahogany with red highlights beneath the light of the chandeliers. A splendid necklace of large, square-cut, deep purple amethysts, surrounded by diamonds, lay against her throat, a perfect complement to the gown. She belonged in striking gowns and glittering jewels, Cole decided. They suited her far better than the pleated pants and conservative blazers she used to prefer.
He stood in the shadow of the trees, admiring her surface beauty but far more intrigued by the indefinable, but unmistakable “presence” that made Diana stand out so clearly, even in the shifting kaleidoscope of movement and color that swirled around her. It was as if everything and everyone except Diana was in motion, from the twinkling tree limbs shifting in the subtle currents of air conditioning, to the men and women who moved about in a blur of vivid hues and animated voices.
She was listening attentively to a man who was speaking to her—a man who Cole was nearly certain was Spence Addison. Addison moved away from her, and Cole stepped out of the shadow of the trees and stopped, willing her to look his way. He wanted her to recognize him; he wanted her to give him one of her unforgettable smiles and to come over to talk to him. He wanted all that with a surprising amount of anticipation.
It was possible she’d snub him as the Haywards had done a few minutes ago, but somehow he didn’t think she would. Until now, Cole’s youthful dream of a triumphant return to Houston had seemed meaningless to him, which was why even Cole realized how incongruous it was for him to suddenly want the satisfaction of having Diana Foster take notice of him tonight—or, more correctly, of the man he had become.
Based on the icy stares he’d gotten from Charles and Jessica a few minutes ago, Cole doubted that they’d been eager to tell anyone how successful their former groom had become. In that case, there was a possibility that Diana had no idea whatsoever that Cole the stable hand—who’d enjoyed her girlhood conversations and shared her sandwiches—was the same Cole who had just been named Entrepreneur of the Year by Newsweek magazine.
The ballroom doors were thrown open, and the entire crowd seemed to shift in unison, obscuring his view as people began making their way into the ballroom. Rather than have Diana disappear into the crowd or enter the ballroom through the doors closest to her before he could speak privately to her, Cole started toward her, but his progress was hampered by the surge of people moving in the opposite direction toward the ballroom. When he finally cleared the last human obstacle, only a hundred or so people were lingering on the mezzanine, but one of them was talking to Diana, and it was Doug Hayward.
Cole slowed to a stop and stood off to the side; then he raised his glass to his mouth, hoping Hayward would walk away. He had no way of knowing if Charles Hayward’s attitude toward Cole was now shared by his son, but Cole didn’t want to risk having that mar his first meeting with Diana in more than a decade.
Hayward wanted to escort her into the ballroom, but to Cole’s relief, Diana refused. “Go ahead without me,” she told him. “I’ll be along in a minute. I want to get some fresh air first.”
“I’ll go with you,” Hayward offered.
“No, don’t, please,” Diana told him. “I just need to be alone for a few moments.”
“Okay, if you’re sure that’s what you want to do,” Hayward said, sounding reluctant and frustrated. “Don’t be long,” he added as
he started toward the open ballroom doors.
Diana nodded and turned, walking swiftly toward a door with an Exit sign above it.
Cole had enough experience with women to know when one was on the verge of tears, and since she’d told Hayward she wanted to be alone, he felt he should allow her that privilege. He started to turn toward the ballroom, then stopped, assailed by an old memory—Diana telling him about her fall from the horse: “I didn’t cry. . . . Not when I broke my wrist and not while Dr. Paltrona was setting it.”
“You didn’t?”
“Nope, not me.”
“Not even one tear?”
“Not even one.”
“Good for you,” he’d teased.
“Not really.” She’d sighed. “I fainted instead.”
As a child, she’d been able to bravely hold back her tears of pain and fright, but tonight, as a woman, she was apparently hurt beyond all endurance. Cole hesitated, torn between the male’s instinctive urge to avoid any scene involving a weeping woman—and a far less understandable impulse to offer her some sort of strength and support.
The latter impulse was slightly stronger, and it won out: Cole headed slowly but purposefully for the doors beneath the Exit sign; then he made a brief detour for champagne, which he felt sure would buoy her up a little.
Chapter 20
OUTSIDE, THE LONG, NARROW STONE balcony was deserted and poorly lit by a few small, flickering gas lamps that created tiny pools of feeble yellowish light surrounded by dark shadows. In Diana’s desolate mood, the lonely gloom of the balcony was infinitely preferable to the romantic excitement of the mythical forest that the decorations committee had created, and she was spared the painful irony of having to listen to the orchestra playing “If Ever I Would Leave You.”
Hoping to be out of sight of anyone else who might decide to go outside, Diana turned right and walked as far away from the doors as possible, stopping only when she came to the point where the balcony ended at the corner of the building. Standing at the white stone balustrade, she flattened her palms on the cool white stone and bent her head, staring blindly at her splayed fingers, noticing how blank and plain her left hand looked without Dan’s engagement ring on it.
Two stories below, a steady procession of headlights glided along the wide, treelined boulevard in front of the hotel, but Diana was oblivious to everything except the bewildered desolation she felt. In the last few days, her emotions had veered between the lethargic helplessness she felt now and sudden bursts of angry energy that made her into a whirlwind of mindless activity. Either way, she still couldn’t seem to absorb the reality that Dan was married. Married. To someone else. Only last month, they had talked about attending tonight’s ball together and he’d reminded her repeatedly to arrange for a seat for him at her family’s table.
On the boulevard below, the sudden screech of car brakes was accompanied by an ear-splitting symphony of honking horns. Jarred from her thoughts, Diana braced for the sound of clashing metal and breaking glass, but when she looked toward the intersection, there’d been no real accident. She was about to look away when a black Mercedes convertible like Dan’s glided toward the hotel, its yellow turn indicators blinking as it neared the entrance. For a heart-stopping second, Diana actually believed it was Dan in that car; and in that magic fraction of time, his arrival seemed plausible. . . . He’d come to explain that there had been some sort of colossal mistake.
Reality crashed down on her as the sports car swooped closer to the green canopy at the hotel’s entrance and she saw that the Mercedes was dark blue, not black, and the driver was a silver-haired man.
The swift plunge from soaring, unexpected hope to the grim truth sent Diana spiraling even further into a pit of misery. Through a haze of unshed tears, she watched the car’s passenger door open, and a stunning blonde in her mid-twenties swung her long legs out. Diana studied the girl’s short, tight dress, noticing her aura of sexy confidence, and she wondered when Dan had also begun to prefer sexy young blondes to conservative thirty-one-year-old brunettes like Diana. Based on the newspaper pictures, she was sickeningly certain his new wife was ten times prettier and more voluptuous than herself. No doubt Christina was also more feminine, more fun, and more adventurous, too. Diana was certain of all that, but she wasn’t certain exactly when Dan had begun to feel, to notice, that Diana wasn’t enough for him.
She wasn’t enough. . . .
That had to be true; otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to toss her aside as casually as he’d toss out the trash. She wasn’t enough for him, and the crushing humiliation of it made her stomach churn. Before Diana, Dan had always dated women who were glamorous, tall, and curvaceous—sophisticated debutantes in their twenties and thirties who were eternally witty and religiously dedicated to nothing more than looking good and playing hard. Diana, on the other hand, was dedicated to her work and to the growth and prosperity of the family enterprises. In fact, the only thing Diana had in common with Dan’s other women was that she’d also been a debutante. Beyond that, the contrast was as glaringly evident as her shortcomings. She was only five feet four inches tall, her hair was an ordinary dark brown, and she was far from voluptuous. In fact, while the scandal was erupting over breast implants, she’d teased Dan about being glad she hadn’t had the surgery. Instead of laughing, he’d remarked that some of the implants were safer than others, and that she could still have one of the safer ones if she wanted to.
In her mood of dismal self-loathing, Diana now wished she’d gone through with the surgery. If she were any sort of a woman, she would have concentrated harder on her looks instead of settling for a “natural” look and counting on intellect instead of beauty to keep her man. She should have had her hair streaked, or frosted, or maybe cropped as short as a boy’s with shaggy bangs. Instead of a long gown like the one she was wearing, she should have opted for one of those skintight, thigh-high couture dresses that were so in fashion right now.
The bang of a metal door slamming closed made her look around in wary alarm toward a tall man in a tuxedo who had just emerged from the hotel. Her relief that he was apparently one of the ball’s guests, rather than a reporter or mugger, was immediately supplanted by irritation that he was moving in her direction, instead of away.
Cloaked in shadow and silence, he kept coming toward her, his step slow, purposeful. His arms were bent at the elbows, and he was holding something in each hand. For a split second her fevered imagination conjured up a pair of revolvers in those hands; then he passed through a pool of gaslight and Diana saw that in his hands he was holding . . .
Two glasses of champagne.
She gaped at them, and then at him as he closed the remaining distance between them. At close range, he was easily six feet two inches tall, with wide shoulders and a hard, stern face defined by a square chin, an iron jaw, and straight, thick dark brows. His shadowy face was darkly tanned, but his eyes were light and disconcertingly amused as they gazed into hers.
“Hello, Diana,” he said, in a deep, resonant voice.
Diana tried to smooth her features into a semblance of polite confusion when what she wanted to do was stamp her foot and tell him to go away. Good manners, however, had been fed to her along with baby pabulum and she was incapable of unprovoked rudeness. “I’m sorry,” she said, monitoring her voice for signs of impatience, “if we’ve met, I don’t recall it.”
“We’ve definitely met,” he assured her dryly. “Many times, in fact.” He held out a glass to her. “Champagne?”
Diana refused it with a shake of her head as she studied his face, more convinced by the moment that he was playing some sort of game with her. Although she preferred men with refined features and lithe builds to men like this one who exuded brute strength and overpowering masculinity, she knew she wouldn’t have forgotten this man if she’d met him. “I don’t think we have,” she said with polite firmness, putting an end to the game. “Perhaps you’re mistaking me for someone else.”
&nb
sp; “I’d never mistake you for anyone else,” he teased. “I remember those green eyes and that sorrel mane of yours very clearly.”
“Sorrel mane?” Diana uttered; then she shook her head, weary of the game. “You definitely have me confused with someone else. I’ve never met you before—”
“How’s your sister?” he asked. The stern line of his mouth relaxed into a lazy smile. “Does Corey still like to ride?”
Diana gave him a long, uncertain glance. Either by accident or design, he was standing just beyond the reach of the gas lamp, but he was beginning to sound—and seem—familiar. “Are you a friend of my sister’s, Mr.—?”
He finally stepped forward into the light, and in a burst of shock and delight, Diana recognized him. “That’s very formal,” he teased, his familiar gray eyes smiling down at her. “You used to call me—”
“Cole!” she breathed. She’d known he was expected to appear at tonight’s function, and she’d been very much looking forward to seeing him again until a few days ago, when her life had been torn apart and everything else had faded into the background. Now she couldn’t seem to adjust to the shock of seeing him.
Cole saw the pleasure that lit up her face when she recognized him, and it warmed him with astonishing intensity, softening for a few brief moments the cold, hard streak of cynical indifference that was his norm. Regardless of what the Haywards may have told her about the reason for his abrupt departure from their employ, regardless of the intervening years, Diana Foster’s friendship for him was still there, unspoiled and unchanged.
“Cole? Is it really you?” Diana said, still reeling from shock and delight.
“In the flesh. More accurately, in the tuxedo,” he joked, holding the glass of champagne toward her again. She hadn’t wanted it from a stranger, he noted, but she took it from an old friend, and as he gazed down at her lovely, upturned face, he was flattered and pleased. “I think this calls for a toast, Miss Foster.”