“I don’t know. Let’s be spontaneous. Walk and see where we end up.”
“Walk? Leave your own party?” She gave a breathless laugh, as shocked as if he’d suggested stripping off and dancing naked on the table. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not joking. Let’s take off these stupid clothes, change into jeans and go for a walk in Central Park. Let’s talk. Really talk. Not about stocks, shares or the state of the property market. Let’s talk about life. I need air. I need—” I need to work out if I like who you are.
And he needed to work out if he liked who he was when he was with her.
She withdrew her hand from his arm, her smile a little cooler. “I don’t own a pair of jeans, and these ‘stupid clothes,’ as you call them, were custom-made. I know how important tonight is for you and I wanted to make a special effort.” If her smile was cool, her voice was deep-frozen. “I’m not one of those women who needs compliments all the time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate one when it comes my way, Chase.”
“You look great.” He wondered how many hours it had taken her to look that perfect. “But I want to spend time with you, not a dress.”
“You can. Right here.” Her voice was light. “There are important people here, Chase. People who want to talk to you.”
The problem was that he di
dn’t want to talk to them.
“If they all went away, if all this went away, would you still want to be with me?”
She stared at him blankly, as if he were speaking a foreign language and all she had to hand was a basic phrase book. “Chase, your company is booming. Daddy says he has never met a man with your business skills, and coming from him that’s a real compliment. You’ve turned your family business around. You’ve proved to your father that you can do it. What you have is never going away.”
“But what if I didn’t do this? What if I worked for the fire department or the police force, would you still want to be with me? What if I went back to building houses instead of paying other people to build them?” At the beginning he’d done that. He had the skills needed to build a house from scratch. He’d been interested in eco-designs, and sustainable features. He’d had plans; plans that had been derailed by his father’s first heart attack.
“Have you been drinking?” She frowned for as long as it took her to remember that frowning caused lines. “You’re not yourself.”
That was the problem. He was himself, but no one was interested in who he was. No one cared who he was, as long as he was still CEO of the Adams Construction Group. They wanted the man with the money.
He felt as if he were being suffocated.
He was the man who had everything, except the things that really mattered in life.
If he lost it all tomorrow, he knew he’d find himself alone.
Victoria’s presence had drawn attention to him, and people were starting to hover hopefully. His moment of peaceful contemplation was over.
“Chase!” Two men and a woman approached, but before the predictable flow of conversation could begin there was a massive crash from behind them as one of the waitresses dropped a tray of champagne. The sound echoed around the cavernous room and was followed by an appalled hush and a lone female voice.
“She’s ruined my dress!”
Everyone turned and stared. A few people moved closer and Chase pondered the darker side of human nature that meant they were so often drawn to gloat over another’s disaster.
He turned away, unwilling to feast on someone else’s embarrassment, and stared down the glittering canyons of Broadway and Seventh Avenue to the darkness and shadows of Central Park, that lush urban oasis that offered New Yorkers a world beyond glass and steel.
At the moment he was living in the penthouse of the apartment block his company had built, but not for one moment would he have called it home. The media had salivated over that particular project, and every unit had been sold before hitting the open market.
Chase was ready to sell but hadn’t yet decided where he was going to live once he did. His day was so busy it left him no time to think about it.
Taking advantage of the commotion, he turned and strode out of the room without looking back.
One phone call would have summoned his driver, but that would have meant being trapped inside a car. Tonight he was going to walk. Walking would clear his head.
Better to be alone and be himself than be someone else with a bunch of strangers.
Because that’s what they were. All of them. Even Victoria. Strangers. They didn’t know who he was and they weren’t interested.
Unobserved, he walked out of his own party without looking back.
MATILDA FOUND HER BAG, pulled out the emergency dress she always carried and dragged it over her soaking wet legs. It was nothing more than a long T-shirt, but it rolled into small spaces and was perfect for situations such as this.