Читать книгу Midnight Resolutions - Kathleen O'Reilly - Страница 8

12:41 a.m.

ROSE HILDEBRANDE WANTED TO wind back the clock to last year, when Remy wasn’t sipping his champagne and discussing in elaborate detail his latest performance in the operating room.

Rose wanted to return to that unforgettable instant when the stranger had been kissing her with such desperate need, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. As if with one kiss, he had found something golden and fleeting inside her. Romance—that was what they called it.

The people, the crowds, the fear. Everything had been a black, paralyzing blur—except for the feel of that strong body holding her tight. Not to punish, no, it was protection.

On a normal day, Rose knew exactly when she wanted to be touched, when people expected it and how she was supposed to react. That blood-pounding, swept-away sensation should have terrified her. But it was tempered by something new. Something almost…warm.

Quickly she shook off the weakness. Control. Always in control.

Now, sitting in the lobby of the Four Seasons with New York’s crème de la crème, her blood was neatly congealing back to its more reserved state. Her date for the night, world-renown pediatric cardiology surgeon Dr. Remy Sinclair, was cheerfully describing his day. The rest of the universe was planning a celebration, and Remy was slaving over the operating table, saving the lives of small children. Heroic, handsome, charming and rich. The man had zero flaws.

So, why was Rose merely nodding at suitable intervals with a polite bob of her head, while her mind clicked back to that dazzling feeling inspired by one exquisitely hard, hungry mouth? No, she thought, pushing the dazzle aside. More hocus-pocus that had no basis in anything real.

Idly, she shuttered her lashes, an indication of perhaps not actually listening, but a sincere pretense of it.

It was a look she’d perfected by the age of six, when Rose had been primped, painted, powdered and coiffed, and then ordered to skip down the charm school runway with bubbly poise and a lollipop smile. Her parents had had big dreams for her—beauty pageants, charm school, marrying well. Rose Hilde-brande’s heart-shaped little face was their ticket to a better life, and Rose had quickly learned to fall in line. There was no little girl better at perfection, a concrete diamond mined from the worst of hell.

The suffocating blackness filled her, but she took a long, purging breath. This was safe. This was good, and Remy was everything she had always dreamed of. He was a fourth-generation Sinclair, heir to the Sinclair fortune, in case being a heart surgeon wasn’t secure enough. And there was something princely about him—a chiseled profile, the Roman nose. His dark hair was carelessly brushed back from his face. The dove-gray suit was tailored perfectly to show sculpted shoulders and a tapered torso.

Best of all, the man was on the wrong side of thirty and trolling for a wife. A beautiful blonde to hang up on his wall along with his summa cum laude diploma from Columbia, his medical license from the State of New York and the live-action photo of the impala he’d seen on his last safari in Tanzania.

“Have you thought about the auction?” she asked, shifting the conversation from surgery toward a more stomach-surviving topic. She had promised the countess she’d deliver, and it was a promise Rose intended to keep. Sylvia was her boss and her friend; Rose owed her a lot more than a charity auction.

“Yes, I’ve thought. The answer is no.”

“Please,” she asked, not blaming him for saying no, but still determined to change his mind. It was demeaning, it was embarrassing, but truly, there was no more perfect bachelor in the entire tri-state region.

“No.” Those princelike eyes were firm, but Rose was undeterred.

“Think of the puppies, those little fluff balls that need a good home. You can’t be that heartless.”

“I’m a heart surgeon. I replace hearts on a daily basis. I don’t fear heartlessness like ordinary mortals without a god complex.”

They were more alike than he would ever suspect. He saw her as the ideal, the perfect woman, and she never let him see behind the flawless mask to the person that was missing both a heart and a soul. Very rarely did she dwell on that loss, except on a starry night like this one. When a sexy stranger had appeared like magic, a Prince Charming coming to sweep her away to someplace quiet and glorious and decadently warm. Oh, yeah, right, next thing you know, you’re flossing your teeth with a diamond-studded tiara perched on your head. Rose lifted a hand to her hair, just to check. All clear. No, if Rose wanted her happy ending, she was going to have to work for it.

“Would you do it for me?” she asked in her best, most earnest voice. This was only their fourth date, so really it was too soon to ask things from him. Still…Their relationship was a battle plan, carefully executed, plotted, and to date, proceeding exactly on schedule, with the countess cheering on from the sideline. Very few people saw similarities between relationships and battle, but Rose had read and memorized The Art of War. Those similarities were all Rose had ever known.

“You’re going to make me, aren’t you?” he said, affectionate resignation in his voice. It was why she liked him so much. He never asked anything of her, never told her what to say or what to wear, all she had to do was sit prettily at his side and listen. Piece of cake.

“Make you? Me?” She fluttered her lashes and he laughed.

“You can say all the heartless jokes you want, but I’m on to you.”

“Do you always get your way?”

“Yes. You should have figured that out by now.”

She waited, fingers crossed under the table, until finally he nodded, and she remembered to breathe. “I’ll do it.”

Rose was so excited she nearly kissed him, except for the hot hunger that still lingered on her lips. She wanted to keep that taste there, just for a little longer.

“You’re sure? I mean, if you really don’t want to…”

“You’d let me off the hook that easily?”

“Not really, but I’m trying to show some pretense of sensitivity. Humor me, here.” Because she owed him, she endured three more blow-by-blow surgical descriptions without even a visible quiver of nausea.

Before he moved to number four, he glanced down at his watch. “It’s late. You look tired.”

A secret peek at her watch said it was nearly one, and all Rose wanted to do was go home and fall into bed. Alone.

She’d had exactly zero lovers. When you were groomed for matrimony as a blood sport, virginity was highly prized, right up there with a clean complexion and a coming-out dress. Her parents hadn’t had the money for white satin and richelieu lace, so the Hildebrandes had over-compensated with endless lectures on virtue and a lifetime supply of Neutrogena. Rose—being a bright girl and not one to rebel—had taken the hint.

Now she yawned, not exactly faked. “I’m exhausted, and with your day—honestly, I don’t know how you do it.”

“Good drugs,” he answered with an easy laugh.

And the stamina of a camel. Mentally, she slapped herself, feeling tired, punchy, and the bubbles in her blood were starting to die down. A master of efficiency, he helped her into her coat, always the gentleman, and she took a last sweep of the patrons in the lobby. Everything was so beautiful here, the polished marble, the gleaming silver, the people with their gentle laughter and placid faces. The six years of charm school had been so similar to this. Every day, the candle-glow lights and high-gloss perfection had been a safe haven for her, a few peaceful hours away from home. There, here, Rose had survived and thrived, grown hard and strong.

Her chin lifted, perfectly parallel to the ground, and she pivoted smoothly, slow and elegant, and the entire room watched her leave.

As they made their way out the doors, her heel caught on the step and when her foot moved on the shoe stayed behind. Remy—happy, smiling, gloriously rich Remy—swooped down and brandished it with a romantic flourish. “You did this on purpose?” he asked, as if she could be that clever.

He bent down, dark hair gleaming in the light, and placed the shoe on her foot. It should have been enchanting.

“Do you believe in fairy tales, Remy?” she asked curiously. If you lived within the invulnerability of the castle walls, did the myth of ever-after seem a big con on the rest of the world?

“Do you think this night is magic?” he countered, rising to his feet, and she saw a flash of something in his eyes. Something that she’d seen when she kissed the stranger. Hope. On New Year’s, everyone wanted to believe.

“I think people deserve one night of magic,” she answered, almost the truth.

It was his cue, his moment, and Remy was not stupid. He leaned closer and took her mouth, and Rose was too determined to pull back. Remy was a lot more viable than a fairy tale. He was everything she’d worked for, and his kiss was every bit as accomplished as it should be. So where was the triumph? No triumph, only the persistent taste of a hot hunger that even a fourth-generation Sinclair couldn’t ease.

Patiently she waited for the thrill of victory, the absoluteness of her control. Perhaps she hadn’t won the war, but this battle belonged to her. So why did she feel the same as before, the same as yesterday, the same as she’d felt all her life—

Numb.

As his hand moved purposefully toward her waist, Rose realized the hot hunger wasn’t going to return. It couldn’t be forced, it couldn’t be tricked.

Damn.

Deliberately, her hand covered his, and she raised her head, gave him her nicest smile—a pretend smile designed to make people believe she had a heart.

“I can’t.”

“Too quick?” he asked.

“Yes,” she told him, regret in her voice. “I’m sorry, Remy.” And she was, disappointed in herself, in her trickster mind. Sometimes she saw monsters where there were none, and sometimes she felt nothing when she should be pulsing with life.

“Soon,” she promised. “I’m still not there, yet.”

Remy thought her heart was involved elsewhere, that Rose was pining for a man who was desperately unworthy of her affections. A failed love affair had been Sylvia’s idea, but Rose had approved because it solved a lot more problems than it created.

“I can wait,” he said gallantly, not wanting to imagine a woman would be stupid enough to turn him down forever. Someday, Rose wouldn’t turn him down, but not tonight.

“Can I see you home?”

“I’ll manage. It’s not far.” Another big fat lie.

He took her hand, as if she were a princess, and kissed it once. If she were being honest with herself, she’d stop playing this game and get on with the life that she had planned. Instead, she stood there watching him go, a worried smile on her face.

After Remy had left, Rose hoofed it on aching feet to the number six train, which would take her to the Bronx. The Bronx was home, but not for too much longer. Rose had big goals for her life. She was grown, a woman fully formed, and stronger than her parents had ever guessed that Little Mary Poofster could be.

Rose wouldn’t live on false hopes and broken dreams. She didn’t have to worry about whether fairy tales or magic truly existed because they didn’t; all she had to do was foster the illusion. Rose had long ago mastered the art of the illusion. Money was security, money was real, money made you invulnerable to whatever the Fates chose to throw your way.

After she got off at her stop, she walked past the pet store boxed between the bodega and the OTB site. It was an odd place for animals, and she liked to stand outside the glass, watching the puppies from a safe distance.

The puppies always fascinated her, confined to a small pen that they didn’t seem to mind. Five tiny black fur balls with twinkling brown eyes that saw only the best in the world. They always looked carefree and content and safe behind that store window. The Hildebrandes never had a pet. Not even a fish. And Rose hadn’t missed them. Dogs were smelly and loud and dirty and could rip a hole in pink satin, quick as you could say boo.

But she liked watching from behind the window, and she wondered what they thought while they played behind the pane. Sometimes she’d put her hand on the glass and leave it there, waiting to see if they’d come to her, but they never did. Animals didn’t like her, knowing things that people never would.

Tonight, there were no puppies, only a big black monster dog with huge jaws, but tired eyes. He was curled up on the hay, with absolutely no faith that tonight was the start of something new. Lazily he opened an eye, squinted at her, and Rose squinted back. She placed her hand to the window, because from behind the glass, there was nothing he could do to her.

The dog growled.

Rose quivered, her hand falling to her side.

However, she did defiantly stare him down, until he realized she was no threat and shut his eyes, prepared to sleep once again.

Yup, animals knew things that people never would.

Before she climbed the steps to her building, Rose looked one last time at the lights of the skyline, the late-night partygoers making their way home, shouts of happiness ringing in the air, as if all was right with the world.

For a second, for one heart-stopping second, she had felt that way, too. Rose pressed a finger to her lips, remembering his kiss.

Somewhere he was out there. Was he alone? Was he thinking about her?

My prosperous Prince Charming.

The words whispered inside her, seductive and golden and warm. Quickly Rose shushed them away.

She turned and went inside.

It was New Year’s Eve, and all she wanted to do was be alone, let down her hair and slip into a pair of cushy polka-dot socks. Bright lights and a polished world might put stars in her eyes, but it sure was hell on the feet.