‘Sarah!’ Vivien exclaimed, clutching her arm. ‘This is Stefan.’
‘Ste—what?’ Sarah noticed the lights from the floor had been blocked by a very large presence. Wide-eyed, she took in the enormous young man smiling widely at her from the other side of the table. He looked like a Chippendale, all blonde hair and muscles and white teeth.
‘He’s an escort...I’ve hired him for the night.’
Sarah giggled. She just couldn’t help it. Stefan settled into the place Vivien had vacated.
‘V-Vivien?’ Sarah gasped.
Vivien disappeared at supersonic speed into the crush.
Stefan smiled pleasantly. Sarah felt it was only fair to smile back before she told him that there had been a misunderstanding and that it really wasn’t his fau
lt that her mother-in-law was a maniac. Then it happened. An alarming flash of light blinded her. The photographer lowered his camera. The little man with the weasel face she had seen earlier retreated fast.
‘You like to dance?’ Stefan asked in a guttural mid-European accent.
Her legs wouldn’t hold her up. Vivien swam back to their table, brimming with triumph. ‘Where would you like to go next?’
Sarah stood up. ‘Home...alone.’
‘Sarah! If you go home early that will give the game away.’
Sarah had meant home as in London. ‘Vivien, you shouldn’t have done this.’
‘I had to do something!’ Vivien told her vehemently.
‘I need some fresh air. Goodnight,’ she told Stefan.
‘Didn’t you like him?’ Vivien whispered fiercely as Sarah forced her passage through the crowds.
‘Did you set up the photo session?’ Sarah asked once they were out on the pavement, reeling slightly as the air hit her.
‘Of course. If nobody knows what Alex’s wife looks like, how can they catch her in flagrante delicto?’
Oh, dear God... Overpowered, Sarah sank back into the limousine.
‘I seem to have upset you. I was only trying to help,’ Vivien persisted in a pained tone.
Sarah just groaned out loud. She dropped the other woman off at her apartment and then settled back again, acknowledging that she was not feeling up to facing Alex just yet, assuming he had come home as he had said he would...and she was so darned sleepy.
‘Could we drive around for a while?’ she asked the chauffeur.
She fell asleep, slowly sinking down along the back seat into a supine position.
Cold air woke her up from a semi-stupor. With immense effort, she dug her elbows back and slightly lifted her swimming head to squint at the male looming over her.
‘Why the hell didn’t you phone me?’ Alex blazed at the chauffeur.
‘Not his fault,’ Sarah slurred, struggling without much success to sit.
‘Where have you been?’ Alex bit out, every word aimed like a bullet. ‘It’s three in the morning, almost dawn! You have been absent for eight hours.’
‘AWOL,’ Sarah giggled helplessly and slithered slowly out of the car, feet first.
‘And you are paralytically drunk,’ Alex seethed with naked incredulity.
Surprisingly he caught her before she fell. ‘I can walk,’ she said.