Page 27 of Breathe
She smiled at him, remembering, and blushed a little. “Really good.”
“Not too much gravy?”
“All right, that’s enough.” She laughed quietly. “I’m working.”
Her head was always lifting to look over at her bosses, both Jon and the chairman. Sometimes they would call over to her to ask for statistics, money raised, attendees, which companies hadn’t come. But even when they were talking to each other, she never kept them out of her sights for long. No wonder she was so tense next to him.
She only ate one of her filets before she was on her feet; he caught her flowery scent as she made to walk behind his chair. “Where are you going?” asked Darren.
“I have to check on my guests,” she said with an apologetic smile that Kane knew she didn’t mean. As she turned away, he could have sworn he felt her hand press briefly onto his back. He tried not to watch her walk between the tables, lean over slightly to talk to people, murmur requests to the waitstaff. She was so poised and classy and beautiful, he hoped he wasn’t sitting there with his mouth open. The chairman started to circulate as well. Darren was draining one of the bottles of wine into his glass.
The band began to play more noisily, and Jon stood with Deborah to start the dancing. When the other men didn’t come back to the table, Kane automatically asked the chairman’s wife to join him. She was very short and plump, held him very close, and had a whale of a time. Halfway through they were interrupted by her husband. Kane said all the appropriate things and handed her over.
When Kane got back to the table, Darren was still there, looking morose and halfway through another bottle, and Ellen had not returned. Given Darren’s body-mass index, Kane spent most of his time trying not to look as though he was keeping the alcohol out of the man’s reach. Ellen didn’t need a sick guest at her table.
Darren blew his nose again. “Damn allergies.” He was allergic to one tasteful flower arrangement three feet away from him? Poor kid. “So,” he said, his hang-dog expression looking more hopeful, “you think Ellen would dance with me? Think I should pull the sponsor card?”
“God, no,” Kane said at once. Jeez, how uncouth was this kid going to be before the night was out? “I’m sure she’ll dance with you. If she’s not too busy.” Dammit. There was feeling sorry for Darren and there was being an idiot. He didn’t want Ellen to dance with anyone but him. “I guess you won’t know until you ask.” Kane, you’re an idiot.
“Okay,” Darren said, apparently feeling like Kane’s suggestion was a command and rising to his not-perfectly-steady feet.
“Wait, not right this—” But when he followed Darren’s gaze, he saw that Ellen was coming back to their table. “Ms. Hunter,” Darren said (though Ellen was the same age as him), “will you dance with me?”
Ellen looked at him, her face completely frozen. Then her eyes flickered, just once, to Kane, before she said, “Certainly. Thank you, Mr. Laing.”
“Oh, let the woman eat, boy!” boomed the chairman from across the table. Sure enough, the desserts were being served, small mounds of chocolate lava cake so rich they were almost black, next to equally perfect mounds of vanilla ice cream.
“Thanks, Mr. Stephanopoulos,” said Ellen. “It really would be a sin not to eat this hot,” and she sat down. Kane liked to think she was sitting a little closer to him than to Darren, but her discomfort was rolling off her in icy waves. Although she was overreacting to Darren’s awkward offer, Kane wanted to help her.
“Tony,” he said abruptly, when they were mostly finished with the dessert, “isn’t one of the perks of being the chairman that you get the first dance with the hostess?”
“Sounds good to me,” said Tony Stephanopoulos, raising his thick black eyebrows at Ellen. “If Ms. Hunter would do me the honor?”
Ellen’s smile was more genuine now, and she allowed the chairman to lead her away. Kane followed them with his eyes until he was satisfied that Tony was keeping a professional distance from her on the dance floor, and went outside for a cigarette.
But he didn’t get there. He couldn’t even get out of the ballroom for ten minutes, because he was waylaid by friends and colleagues, all keen to ask how the investigation was going. He was thankful that no one mentioned the photograph of him and Ellen that had appeared in the paper, though he was sure some of them gave him a harder stare or a brighter smile than usual, or had an extra emphasis to their voice when they asked him how he was. That could have been because of the fires, but it was also likely that by pushing himself into Ellen’s life and onto her table tonight, he’d all but confirmed the insinuations in the newspaper.
He cringed. Was that photograph on Ellen’s mind? Or had the million other things she’d probably had to deal with today pushed it to the side? He only had a precarious hold on her attention as it was; he hoped that nothing like that happened again, or she might just run for good.
Once he was finally able to leave the room, he was halfway across the lobby when someone else called his name. He looked over at reception; it was that Betty Boop girl, coming out from behind the desk to meet him. His teeth clenched instantly. Was there another fire?
“Hello, Mr. Fielding,” she said, giving him a big smile that did not indicate bad news. “I’m Penny Mahoney. I’m a friend of Ellen’s.”
She was wearing a shiny black blouse that fit her exactly, with a large white flower with lots of petals above one ample breast. Not that he was looking, but the flower did make it hard not to. “Nice to meet you, Penny.”
“How’s it going in there?”
“Great. She did a great job.” He didn’t really know how to describe these things. “Everyone’s enjoying themselves.”
“Cool,” she said. “Nice tux, by the way.” She backed off to give him the kind of appraising sweep that would have had feminists howling if he’d done it to her. “Is that the one you wore to the Skies are Blue premiere with Sarah St. Clair?”
You’ve got no one to blame but yourself, buddy.“Probably,” he said, trying to shake off the piece-of-meat feeling.
“Well.” She held out one tiny hand to shake. When he did, she pulled him closer and gave him a full-beam smile. “I just wanted to meet you, and to tell you that I have quite a few jars at home, glass ones, all different sizes, and that if you do anything to hurt her, or even upset her just a little bit, I will remove your testicles myself with some kind of blunt instrument, I haven’t decided which yet, maybe a butter knife, and then I will put them in the appropriately sized jar, and hand them back to you. ’Kay?”
For the second time that night he was left speechless. This was what getting Ellen in his life had done to him. Threats and promises and gold hair and skin and a simple touch on his back that he could still feel an hour later, all in one night.
Penny let go of his hand and went back to the reception desk as if nothing had happened. Kane decided he’d been away from Ellen long enough and returned to the ballroom.
