Page 86 of Angel In Armani

“Earth to Sara,” Mal said and she realized she was smoothing the skirt of the dress with one hand. “Worried about ruining your frock?”

“No,” she said. “Not the frock.” Just everything else in her life. Not that there was that much left to ruin. So maybe she should just suck it up and enjoy this one glittering night for what it was: a rare moment before the bell chimed at midnight and delivered her back to the pumpkin patch of real life. She put her hand on the door handle and summoned a smile. “Let’s do this,” she said to Mal and then climbed out to face the fairy tale.

True to Mal’s word, Gardner was waiting for them at the end of the alley. He showed them through the door and then through a bewildering series of corridors and up two sets of stairs. The decor became progressively more luxurious as they moved from the service areas toward the public parts of the hotel.

They came out in the lobby, which was teeming with people, and then followed Gardner downstairs to the ballroom. The vast space was like a cross between a steampunk theater and a Golden Age ballroom. Sara had to remind herself not to gape when a guy dressed in black tuxedo pants, silver braces, and nothing else, his face hidden by a mask that was an explosion of white silver and blue feathers, waved a silver tray of drinks in her face as soon as they reached the bottom of the curving staircase.

She shook her head and stepped closer to Mal. He scanned the throng of people—there were advantages to being so tall—and then bent down and said, “I can see Maggie, we’ll go that way.”

Sounded like a good plan to her. He offered her his arm again and, between him and Gardner, they made their way fairly easily through the room. Maggie was standing near a table, speaking to a couple of women Sara didn’t know.

Maggie wore white, long and slinky, with sky-high black stilettos. The collar of diamonds around her neck glittered blindingly. She’d bought the dress on their shopping trip as well and had been just as excited about finding a bargain as Sara was. But looking at the diamonds, Sara didn’t think they were bargain-basement finds. Nope, they were the real thing. Maggie was at home in this world.

Sara wasn’t. She really, really wanted Lucas to be here with her.

Maggie’s face broke into a smile when she spotted them and she waved them over, introducing them to the women she was talking to, though the names flew out of Sara’s head as soon as she heard them.

“This is amazing,” Sara said, snagging a glass of sparkling water off the tray of the next feathery boy who passed by.

“I told you I throw excellent parties,” Maggie said with a grin.

“Yes, you do,” Mal said. “And now I have to mingle.” He smiled at Sara then made an apologetic face and broke away from their group, melting into the crowd.

He was one of the hosts, and he had to work to do, so she couldn’t ask him to stay just because she was nervous.

Relax. She focused on the conversation and tried to act like a normal person. It was hard to hear over the music and the sound of the crowd, but she followed well enough to be able to nod and smile at the right moments.

She was starting to feel a little more comfortable when Alex appeared by Maggie’s side. “Sorry, ladies,” he said, “I need to steal Maggie for a few minutes.” He smiled at Sara. “Hey, Sara. You look gorgeous.”

She smiled back and watched as Maggie abandoned her to follow Alex. Though Maggie did stop and whisper, “Shelly’s somewhere over by the main bar. Go find her,” before abandoning her.

Shelly being one of the few other people she was likely to know here, Sara decided that was good advice. She would have felt better if the players had been here. She was getting to know a few of them in Orlando—Brett Tuckerson the pitcher had talked to her a few times, and Ollie had introduced her to some of the other guys. And then there were Sam and Tico, of course, who like to come and hang out with her and ask her about helicopters and try to teach her baseball stats.

But they were all in Florida. She stood on tiptoe to try and figure out which direction the main bar was, then excused herself to the two women she’d been talking to and headed in that direction.

She was about halfway across the room when she nearly bumped into an older woman whose dark hair was pulled back into an immaculate chignon, framing olive skin and dark eyes. She wore dark-red silk, and rubies the size of malt balls glittered in her ears and around her neck.

“I’m sorry,” Sara said.

“That’s all right, dear,” the woman said. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.” She looked Sara up and down. “Did I see you come in with Malachi earlier?”

“You know Mal?” Sara perked up.

“Yes, he’s a friend of the family,” the woman said. Then she held out a hand weighed down by even more diamonds and rubies and tipped with blood-red nails to match. “I’m Flavia Angelo.”

Chapter Nineteen

Oh crap, Lucas’s mom.

Sara managed to keep the smile on her face from freezing in place and took Flavia’s hand. “Sara Charles.” Flavia’s skin was cool and Sara kept the handshake brief, withdrawing her hand as soon as possible.

“How lovely to meet you, Sara. So are you here with Malachi?” Flavia asked, lifting the champagne glass in her left hand to tilt it in the direction that Mal had disappeared earlier. “I hadn’t heard that he was seeing anybody.”

Sara didn’t think that Lucas had the kind of relationship with his mom that meant he was calling her with updates on his friends’ love lives. But she’d done some research on his family, and the Angelos were firmly cemented in the Manhattan social scene. Flavia probably had a network worthy of a spymaster. Sara only hoped that it hadn’t revealed anything about Lucas and her.

“We’re just friends. Colleagues really.”

“Oh? You work for the baseball team?”

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