Entry-Level Mistress (10 page)

The woman was stunning in real life.

“Yes, she’s the face for the line.”

“Oh.”

“What?” Leanna made an impatient gesture that sent some of her Blueberry Stretch sloshing over the side of her glass. She looked sadly down at the rest of it.

“They were dating not so long ago. I mean, like, maybe two, three weeks?” I took another sip of my drink.

“They, as in—” Leanna’s eyes widened. “Are you telling me Daniel Hartmann dumped Tatiana for you? Because
oh my god
if that is true!”

“No! That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just saying it’s weird to see her. She’s this famous, gorgeous model, and here I am in
your
dress—a complete nobody.”

“Ah.” Leanna drained the last of her drink. “At least we know the bartender, right?” She whirled around, ordered another from Scott.

An hour later, a bit tipsier, having made the rounds of the space a few times, had a few random conversations with the few people Leanna knew and with the few people to which we were brave enough to introduce ourselves, I found myself dancing two feet from Tatiana, who had let her hair down from her high ponytail and now looked like the sort of sultry woman that
would
be hanging on Daniel’s arm.

“We should go,” I whispered, both fascinated and appalled. And sickly jealous. After being with a woman like Tatiana, with several women like Tatiana, what on earth could Daniel possibly see in me?

Except the chance for more revenge?

The thought chilled me, but the movement of the crowd on the dance floor, a round of shouts above the music and noise of the party, drew my attention.

There was some sort of fight. Leanna grabbed my arm, but then that gorgeous, nearly six-foot tall, pole-thin model came crashing into us, and sent all three of us stumbling back.

Tatiana offered a slurred apology and then stalked drunkenly away. But the fight was still happening, only it was another gorgeous, tall woman and an almost-as-gorgeous man yelling and gesticulating at each other.

Leanna tugged at me and we moved away just as the photographers were moving in. We fought against the crowd that seemed to be going in the opposite direction, as if what was happening on the dance floor were the planned entertainment for the night.

The bathroom was nearly empty with only one of the five stalls filled. Leanna closed a stall door behind her. I waited by the sinks, staring at myself in the mirror. I looked good in the black shift dress, with chunky eighties-inspired jewelry. But my hair was damp at the temples from dancing and my face looked a little softer after two Original Blues.

I pulled my cell phone out of the clutch, half-hoping there would be a message on it that I hadn’t heard in the din of the party. Only the time in red, digital numbers glowed back at me. It was nearly midnight and both Leanna and I had to work in the morning.

How different from six months earlier when, as students, we’d stay up all night and then stumble into class.

“Home, right?” Leanna called from inside her stall.

The door to the handicapped stall opened and Tatiana stepped out. Of course she would. It was exactly the sort of bizarre event that happened on nights like these. The Czech model scanned me in a quick glance, as if she didn’t recognize the person she had crashed into moments before. Then with an imitation of her catwalk stride, she stumbled toward the sinks.

“Yeah, home,” I called back to Leanna, trying desperately to act like I didn’t care that Tatiana was inches away, also staring in the mirror. Staring at me.

“You might not want to go out there,” I said finally, breaking the uncomfortable, all too
aware
silence. “That fight drew a lot of attention.”

Tatiana laughed, shook her head, which sent her professionally-managed honey-blonde mane shaking down her back as if she were in a commercial for shampoo. My comments seemed to have broken whatever reflective mood she was in.

“Don’t worry about me, honey,” she said with a smirk. “Not all of us are uncomfortable with attention.”

•  •  •

The words stuck with me. I’d never thought of myself that way but after Daniel lecturing me about my art and now this, I was questioning myself. Maybe my method of keeping my head down and working
wasn’t
working. Maybe to be an artist, to have success, I needed to have more of a persona.

Maybe to be with Daniel I needed to have more of a persona.

Which was a stupid thought because he meant nothing to me.

Sure, with Daniel, flirting, sneaking around at work, playing dress-up and dress-off, I felt powerful. But that was sex, and that didn’t matter in the reality of my life. This time at Hartmann Enterprises with Daniel was a world apart. At some point it would be this dream-like interlude I’d once had. With any luck, it would be a dream tinged with triumphant revenge.

Any other thought of him should sicken me. Because the last thing I needed was to get any attention while I was with Daniel Hartmann.

On Wednesday, mid-afternoon, my phone vibrated with the longest text he’d sent me yet.

My driver will pick you up at seven from your apartment and bring you to the loft. I’m hosting a small party for a friend and want you there. Daniel.

I hadn’t even known he was back yet. It wasn’t until I’d mentally run through all my fashion options that I realized I hadn’t once considered telling him I was busy. Or that I didn’t want to go. I’d grown so used to his high-handed ways that I was simply pleased he wanted me to attend. Tonight, for the first time, I’d meet his friends.

He wanted me to meet them.

Why? Why did he want me, Emily Anderson, daughter of the man he admitted to hating, to be there? It was one thing to have sex, to have an affair, but to take it public in any manner?

What was his game?

Fine, I’d go. And no matter what Tatiana said, I
wasn’t
afraid of attention.

Besides, I would finally see the infamous loft. The place decorated by his art buyer and ex-girlfriends, the supposedly impersonal showplace intended for the magazine spreads. Seven couldn’t come soon enough.

By the time I spied the Bentley from the window, I was dressed in another outfit from Leanna’s closet, my hair upswept and my makeup flawless. I felt a bit like Cinderella going to the ball. Which suggested Daniel was my prince. Which sent me on a thought path I didn’t want to be anywhere near tonight. Instead, I wished only to do as I had been doing: live in the moment, revel in the experience.

The lobby of the building was shiny, glossy and dizzying. Not entirely dissimilar from the lobby of Hartmann Enterprises, although in a waterfront loft sort of a way. This was the kind of place my art school friends would call fake, because to them, the whole loft, live/work concept was about making new out of old, reclaiming old and deserted spaces. Whatever warehouse had once occupied this space had been torn down, and in its place a very modern, architectural building had been erected.

The attendant peered at me over frameless glasses, scanned a list for my name and then waved me on.

Daniel owned the penthouse, of course. The glass elevator had an incredible view of its own and when it glided smoothly to a stop at the top, a melodious beep announced the floor.

The corridor beyond was all steel and crushed concrete. Bamboo-paneled walls.

Two steel double doors stood open, the inside surface designed and sculpted in a way that made me want to study it closer. But I heard voices from within and stepped across the threshold. The living room, the same one I’d seen in that magazine, stunned, and had a breathtaking view of the harbor. To the left was an open kitchen and in there were a half dozen uniformed men and women whose conversation quieted at my approach. Caterers?

I was about to ask where Daniel was when I saw him step out a doorway and into the hall. In a suit, of course, and so handsome the sight nearly took my breath away. His head turned and his gaze found me.

I smiled and started for him. He didn’t move. Waited there. Watching me. As I came closer, passed through the shadows of the hallway, his features were clearer and I saw that look in his eyes. My whole body responded to it.

“Come here,” he said, reaching for me, dragging me into his arms. The male scent of him washed over me. The touch of his lips on mine was spicy and sharp and the noise he made deep in his throat drove me wild.

“Is it always like this? Fly in from Paris, have a soiree for a friend?”

“Hardly, but then there are those days when it is.” His lips traced a hot path across my skin. “You’re staying the night you know,” he murmured between kisses.

“I was hoping,” I returned.

“I’d undress you right now but—”

“You have guests coming and I took time to look nice.”

“But I like seeing you with your hair messy and knowing I’ve just been inside you.”

It was good he was holding me. Between his words, and then his mouth on mine again, I was drunk and dizzy with passion.

I broke away. “Why don’t you show me around?”

He didn’t let me go, his lips tracing the line of my jaw. I sucked my breath in sharply at the exquisite sensation.
Too much.

He pressed me closer to him and I could feel him hard and hot against me. Then abruptly, he stepped back, his lips quirked up at the corner.

He gestured to an open doorway, which led to a bedroom. A suggestion or continuing the tour?

He reached for me again, his hand just brushing my hip, but the touch was electric.

“I can’t think when you do that,” I protested.

He stopped laughing, but his eyes were dark and amused. “I don’t want you to think.”

“Your friends will find me unintelligent and insipid.”

“Or they’ll wisely leave and let us have the place to ourselves.” I melted under the heat of his gaze. I needed a shower. Or sex and a shower.

I looked around the room. “So, it’s sort of a loft in name only,” I observed, struggling for clarity. “This is more like a humongous one-bedroom.”

“I do hope you’ll let Julian know that,” Daniel said. He laughed as if there were a larger story behind his words. “This was his one residential project and he was disgustingly proud of himself for it.”

“Julian?”

“He’s coming tonight. But yes, I think loft was used rather creatively,” Daniel agreed. “However, it makes a good entertaining space. Great views.”

“I can see that.” The bedroom was on a corner where two floor-to-ceiling windows joined. When I stepped to the edge, to that space where I had a one hundred and eighty degree view, I wondered why he chose the Charles Street place over this one.

“Don’t you find this inspiring? Limitless almost?”

He came up behind me, pulled me against him. It didn’t matter that we were fully dressed, that other than the press of his body against mine, he made no overtures; heat pooled between my thighs and I nestled against him.

“It’s just another box,” he said, and with those simple words I began to understand. The idea of that, of a house constricting, blossomed in my head. “And a box for others at that. The townhouse, it’s … ”

“Homey?” I suggested, turning in his arms and lifting my gaze to meet his. “Womblike?”

He laughed and I admired the way his face looked alight with humor. I studied the crinkles at the corner of his eyes.

“I suppose, but that’s rather too Freudian for my tastes,” he said, tightening his arms around me. I melted into his embrace. Giving into the desire, all the questions I wanted to ask fell away at the touch of his lips on mine.

•  •  •

The first guest arrived at eight-thirty. The architect, Julian Vane, whom Daniel called one of his oldest friends, was in every way Daniel’s opposite, bright to Daniel’s dark, blonde to his brown. He made me uncomfortable at first with his all-too-careful perusal, as if he were making certain with those piercing blue eyes that I was someone with whom Daniel should be seen.

“Emily takes offense at you calling these condominiums lofts,” Daniel said as he handed his friend a drink.

Julian made a face. “Please don’t tell me you’re a purist,” he demanded with a disgusted drawl. “Daniel did say you were newly escaped from the murky depths of self-importance school. However, I was prepared to cut you some slack.” I wasn’t sure how to take his words, until he grinned, relieving all the uncertainty I felt.

“It’s a stunning building,” I returned, flashing my actress smile, with a slightly ironic twist. “I’m sure it will soon be added to Boston’s list of architectural wonders.”

Julian laughed. “I’ll admit that here the term loft is more to describe the seventeen-foot ceilings.”

“And now you’re friends,” Daniel interrupted, stepping away from them to greet an elderly couple who had just walked in.

Julian gave me one of those “well, here we are” smiles, which I returned.

“So whom are we celebrating?” I asked.

“Ah, he didn’t say?” I shook my head and Julian continued. “We are celebrating Charles Eden’s eighty-fifth birthday. He was our freshman English professor.”