Claire was oddly reluctant as they went up in the elevator. She hadn’t been in his apartment since the night they had first made love. Her face was burning as he opened the door and she stepped into the elegant black-tiled foyer, with the gilt-framed mirror over the lovely Queen Anne table. She had a vivid memory of her underwear lying discarded on the black tile.
Max dropped their overnighters where he stood and locked the door. His eyes were hot. “We’ll go to your parents’ house tomorrow.”
By now Claire was intimately familiar with that look. She retreated, her heart pounding, and stopped abruptly when she came up against the table.
“Perfect,” he crooned, his strong hands closing on her waist and lifting her up.
She buried her hot face against his shoulder. “Here?”
“It’s my favorite memory, darling. You were so beautiful…so wild…so ready for me. I’ve never wanted any woman the way I want you.”
“I hated myself for being so shameless,” she confessed softly.
“Shameless? You were so beautiful, you took my breath.”
Beautiful wasn’t a word that Claire was accustomed to hearing in connection with herself, but that night, in Max’s arms, she felt beautiful. She would always blush when she remembered that foyer, but thereafter it was with excitement and remembered pleasure, never again with embarrassment.
* * *
“I don’t see why you shouldn’t wear white,” Alma said, making a note in a thick notebook she’d already half-filled with reminders. “This isn’t the fifties, after all. Not white-white, of course, that’s not your color, but you’ve always looked beautiful in a creamy golden-white.”
Alma and Martine had a full head of steam going, making plans enthusiastically. It was her wedding, but Claire was the only calm one. Since she’d arrived that morning, she had listened to the constant chatter, letting them discuss every detail to death before they remembered to ask either her or Max’s opinion. Occasionally she looked at Max, and the amusement in his eyes helped her to remain rational.
“The wedding will have to be in England,” Alma pronounced, pursing her lips thoughtfully. “I checked, and it’s impossible to reserve a church here that’s large enough to hold that many people on such short notice. Max, are you certain there won’t be any problem in getting your church?”
“I’m positive.”
“Then it’s England, and let your mother know. Better yet, give me her number and I’ll call her. This schedule is going to be murder. Claire, you have to have your dress made here; there won’t be time after we get to England. And we’ll have to find one of those big garment boxes for shipping the dress over, but I suppose the dressmaker can help with that.”
“I could buy a ready-made dress in England,” Claire suggested.
“And take the chance of not being able to find what you want? No, that would be awful. Let’s see, we’ll need to be there at least three days early. Make that a week. Will that inconvenience your family, Max?”
“Not at all. There are so many of us, a few dozen more won’t even be noticed. If you don’t mind, I’ll handle the plane reservations for the group. Do you have a list of everyone?”
Alma scurried around for her list of guests and wrote out another copy of it for Max. He glanced at it, then folded it and put it away in his pocket, not at all dismayed by the prospect of organizing the transportation of so many people to another country. Knowing what she did about executives, Claire thought that his assistant would probably inherit the burden.
“I have a few names to add to the list, but they’ll be flying out from Dallas. I’ll arrange for everyone to connect in New York.”
Rome and Sarah would probably be attending, Claire realized. She had seen the length of the list and was surprised that so many people would travel so far to see a wedding. Even Michael and Celia were going, and she would have thought they would never want to travel again after moving from Michigan to Arizona in a van.
She scarcely had time to wave at Max before she was whisked away to the fabric store to pore over pattern catalogs and bolts of cloth. From there they went to the dressmaker’s, and Claire was measured for what seemed like hours. Then Alma insisted that they find the shoes to go with the gown, since it was almost June and that led to a tooth-and-nail battle over anything connected with weddings.
By the time they returned home, Claire was exhausted. Alma and Martine were still going strong, high on adrenaline, and she wondered what kept them from collapsing. Max was waiting for her, and he looped a sheltering arm over her shoulders to hug her to him.
“Shall we leave?” he asked quietly.
She closed her eyes. “Please. I’m so tired I can’t think.”
Alma started to protest that Claire could spend the night with them then glanced at Max and swallowed the comment. Claire belonged with him now; he had made that plain, though there were still five weeks until the wedding. For all his golden beauty there was a strength in Max that wouldn’t permit any interference between him and the woman he’d chosen.
“This is so exhausting,” Claire sighed as he drove them back to the apartment. She slipped off her shoes and wiggled her toes, wondering if they would ever feel normal again. “I think digging ditches wouldn’t be as tiring as shopping. I can work all day and do chores at night without feeling half as wiped out as I am now. The terrible thing is, I’ll have to come back every weekend for fittings!”
“But I’ll be with you,” Max said. “If it gets to be too much for you, we’ll leave it and go back to Dallas.”
“Then everything won’t get done.”
“I would rather have something left undone than to have my wife collapsing of exhaustion.”