“Make the toast,” she said. “I’m still too shocked to think of one.”
He lifted the glass. “Here’s to the luckiest woman I know.”
Diana’s smile faded and she shuddered. “God forbid!” He obviously didn’t know what had happened to her, and she quickly tried to pass off her reaction with a casual shrug. “What I meant was that I’ve been luckier—”
“What could possibly be luckier than narrowly escaping marriage to a spineless son of a bitch?”
That remark was so outrageous and so unquestioningly loyal that Diana felt twin urges to laugh and cry. “You’re right,” she said instead. To avoid his gaze she took a quick sip of her champagne; then she hastily changed the subject. “When the news got out that you were actually going to appear tonight, people were very excited. Everyone is dying to get a look at you. I have so many questions to ask you—about where you’ve been and what you’ve done—that I hardly know where to start—”
“Let’s start with the most important question,” he interrupted firmly, making Diana feel like a child again, confronting a much older, wiser male. “How are you holding up through all this?”
Diana knew he meant the gossip that was all over the ballroom about her broken engagement. “I’m doing just fine,” she said, frustrated by the slight quaver in her voice. She thought she heard the door open further down the balcony, and she lowered her voice in case someone had come out. “Fine.”
Cole glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the sound. Illuminated by the Exit sign over the door was a man in a red-and-white-checked shirt who jumped back into the shadows when Cole looked in his direction. Cole’s first impulse was to attack the spying reporter; his next impulse was to make use of him. Cole decided on the second alternative for the moment. With his free hand, he reached out and tipped up Diana’s chin. “Listen carefully, and don’t move.”
Her eyes widened in instant alarm.
“There’s a tabloid photographer watching us, waiting to grab a picture of you. I suggest we give him a picture worth splashing across the front page of their next issue.”
“What?” Diana whispered in panic. “Are you crazy?”
“No, I’ve simply had more experience than you with negative press and prying photographers. He’s not going to leave until he gets some sort of picture of you,” Cole continued while, from the corner of his eye, he watched the reporter step out of the shadows and lift his camera again. “You have a choice. You can let the world think of you as a discarded woman, or you can let them see me kissing you, which will make them wonder if you ever cared about Penworth at all and if I’ve been your lover all along.”
Diana’s mind was whirling with alarm and horror and glee, as well as the effects of two drinks in less than an hour on an empty stomach. In the brief moment she hesitated, Cole made the decision for her. “Let’s make it convincing,” he ordered softly as he set down both of their glasses. His free hand then slid around her waist, curving her body into his arms.
It happened too quickly to resist, and then it seemed to happen in slow motion as Diana felt her legs press into his thighs and her breasts against his chest, followed by the sudden shock of his warm lips covering hers.
He lifted his head a fraction, his eyes looking into hers, and she thought he was going to let her go. She had the feeling he intended to let her go. Instead, his hands shifted, one of them drifting upward over her bare back, while the other tightened, and he bent his head again. Diana’s heart began to pound in erratic, confused beats as his mouth settled firmly on hers, slowly tracing each soft curve and contour of her lips. His tongue touched the corner of her mouth, and her body jumped in surprise. One part of her brain ordered her to pull free immediately, but some deeper, more compelling voice rebelled at such an unjust reaction to his gallant efforts.
His tender efforts.
His persuasive efforts.
Besides, she realized, the photographer might have missed his first few shots. Diana acted on the side of justice and prudence and slid her hands up his jacket and tentatively, uncertainly kissed him back. The pressure of his mouth increased invitingly as his hand slid up and curved around her nape, his fingers shoving into her hair.
A loud burst of music and thunder of applause inside the ballroom announced that the formal festivities were already underway in the ballroom and snapped them both back to the present. Diana pulled away with a self-conscious laugh, and he shoved his hands into his trouser pockets, gazing down at her with his dark brows drawn into a slight frown. Cole looked to see if the photographer was still present and was glad to see that he had apparently gotten his shot and left.
“I—I can’t believe we did that,” Diana said nervously, trying to smooth her hair as they walked toward the door into the hotel.
He shot her a sideways glance that was filled with a meaning she didn’t understand. “Actually, I wanted to do that years ago,” he said, reaching out and opening the heavy door for her.
“You did not.” Diana rolled her eyes in smiling disbelief.
“The hell I didn’t,” he said with a grin.
Inside, the mezzanine was nearly deserted. Conscious of missing lipstick and mussed hair, Diana stopped when they came to an alcove where the rest rooms were located. “I need to make some repairs,” she explained. “Go ahead without me.”
“I’ll wait,” Cole stated irrefutably, and he stationed himself at a nearby pillar.
Startled by his gallant determination to stay near her side, Diana tossed him a hesitant smile and vanished into the ladies’ room. Several of the stalls were occupied, and as she walked up to the dressing table to smooth her hair, a lively discussion was underway between two of the occupants: “I don’t know why everyone is so surprised,” Joelle Marchison told her companion. “Anne Morgan said Dan told her months ago that he wanted to break his engagement to Diana, but Diana wanted to marry him and she kept begging him to stay with her. Anne said that marrying someone else and letting Diana find out about it in the newspapers was probably the only way that Dan could break free of her once and for all.”
Rooted to the floor, Diana listened to a chorus of fascinated exclamations from the other stalls and felt tears spring to her eyes. She wanted to shout at all of them that Anne Morgan was a jealous, spiteful liar who’d been in love with Dan herself and had lost him to Diana, but even if she had had the nerve, she was afraid she’d lose control and start to cry. The door to Joelle’s stall started to open, and Diana darted into an empty stall and stayed there until everyone left, wounded by the unprovoked malice of women whom she had never harmed in any way; then she walked back to the vanity and tried to dab at her eyes without ruining her makeup.
Outside the ladies’ room, Cole was being treated to a recitation of the same information by two of the women who’d been in the ladies’ room and who were now imparting the news to their friends: “We just heard that Dan Penworth has wanted to get rid of Diana for ages, but she wouldn’t let him go!”
“It serves her right,” one of them announced. “The media has always treated her like a princess. Personally, I am sick to death of hearing about how wonderful that magazine is and how successful she is, and how gracious, and all that bullshit.”
The other woman was kinder. “I don’t care what you say; I pity her, and so do a lot of people.”
Partially concealed by the pillars at the side of the alcove, Cole heard every word, and he marveled at the viciousness of the female sex toward their own, and then he wondered which would hurt Diana more—their spite or their pity. He had a feeling she’d prefer their spite.
Chapter 21
COLE KNEW THE INSTANT HE saw Diana’s pale face that she’d heard something of what her “friends” were saying in the ladies’ room, and because he couldn’t offer any comfort, he offered his arm instead. When they reached the ballroom doors, they were closed and the opening speech was underway.
Frowning, she drew back, loath to draw more notice by entering the ba
llroom noticeably tardy and with Cole. “I suppose your table is in the front?”
As the donor of the most expensive item to be auctioned that night, Cole was to occupy the seat of honor at the head table, just below and in front of the auctioneer’s podium. “Table one,” he confirmed. “Front row center.”