Читать книгу All He Needs - Shirley Hailstock, Shirley Hailstock - Страница 11

Chapter 3

Renee took a deep breath and stepped off the elevator on the 65th floor of Rockefeller Center. She wore a formfitting red dress with shoes that sparkled. It had taken her a while to decide what to wear. This wasn’t a date, she kept telling herself. But who goes to the Rainbow Room just to eat? Then she decided to throw caution to the wind and dress as well as she could. She’d show Carter what he was missing and then not let him touch it.

Carter was standing by the door when she arrived. He smiled, looking her over.

“I should have worn sunglasses,” he said, his smile wide. “You’re dazzling.”

Renee couldn’t help returning it. “Thank you.”

He didn’t wink at her, but the slight change in his eyes told her he approved. The thought warmed her in places she wished it didn’t. He reached to give her a hug, and Renee steeled herself. She stopped him before he could pull her into his arms.

“Still strangers?” he asked.

“Good evening, Carter.” Renee ignored his question. He was dressed in a black suit with a gleaming white shirt and shoes that had a mirror shine. The man could be a GQ model instead of a publishing magnate.

“Your table is ready,” the maître d’ said.

Renee followed the black-coated man to a table for two next to the large windows that looked out on the city. The night was clear, giving them a panoramic view of the Empire State Building and Washington Square Park.

For a while, Renee buried her face in her menu. She knew what she wanted, but spent time looking over the selections as if she were deciding. She was avoiding looking at Carter, and now that they were here, she wondered what they had to talk about. It couldn’t be their past.

“Are you hiding?” Carter asked.

She closed the menu and laid it on the side of the table. “I was checking over the new entrées. It’s been a while since I was here.”

For a moment he only stared at her. Renee stifled a smile. She’d accomplished her goal. Carter gazed at her with appreciation, and she could see a glimmer of attraction in his eyes.

A waiter brought them a bottle of champagne and went through the ritual of opening and pouring the wine into flutes. Taking their order, he quietly disappeared. Carter raised his glass and Renee clinked hers with it, the bell sound of the crystal rang clear.

“Congratulations,” he said.

“On what?” Renee asked.

“Your move.”

“I haven’t moved yet.”

“Tell me about the new house. Where is it?”

“It’s up in the museum district.” She avoided giving him a specific address. It wasn’t like he’d show up on her doorstep, but if she was going to keep her heart intact, she wanted him to know as little about her as possible.

“Will you be launching your magazine from there?”

Their food arrived, and she took a moment to take a bite and swallow before answering. “Now that I’ve secured living space, I’m looking for offices for the magazine.”

“So you’ll be back for a site search.”

Renee felt the color creep under her skin. She’d walked into that. “I will.”

“When?”

“I have no current plans.”

“Will you let me know when you return?” he asked straight out.

“No,” she said without hesitation.

“Why not?”

“I’m not here to see you. When I come, my time will be limited. As you’ve said, launching a new magazine takes a lot of work.”

“So you’re not dating.” He stated it as a fact.

The switch in subject gave her whiplash. “My love life is not your concern,” she told him. “And yours is no concern of mine, but why is it you’re here with me instead of being out with some other woman? As I remember, you never had a problem getting dates. I don’t imagine that has changed.”

“I’m between women at the moment.”

Renee took a bite of her food, but she regretted it the moment she put it in her mouth. She was sure she couldn’t swallow it. Yet the fact that he was unattached caused a small flutter in her stomach.

“What about you? Married? Divorced? Is there someone back in New Jersey waiting for you?” Carter asked.

“Not married, not divorced. If you’re asking if I’m dating, yes,” she lied.

There was no one special back in Princeton. There were men she knew, and if she needed a date, she’d have no trouble getting one. But there was no one she’d run to with good or bad news.

“Anyone special?” Carter persisted.

“You’re getting really personal,” Renee said.

He sat back as if he was backing off. “I apologize. It’s just been a long time since we’ve seen each other. I was only trying to catch up.”

“I see.” Renee said it slowly. She put her fork down and folded her arms along the edge of the table. “I have a question I’ve been dying to ask for three years,” she said.

Carter didn’t hesitate, but Renee could see the change in him. He must have known what was coming. “Go ahead,” he said.

“What happened three years ago? I felt like we were going along smoothly, then the floor fell away and there was nothing holding me up.”

“It was timing, Renee. It just didn’t work.”

“Well, answer this, then. What’s changed in the past three years that you want to be in my company now?”

* * *

The air around their table grew instantly heavy and despite the conversation of the other diners, the room felt utterly quiet.

“Nothing’s changed,” Carter said. And he meant it. He still felt the same way about Renee as he had when he left to go to Afghanistan.

Carter had known this question would come sometime. When he’d left there had been no guarantee that he would return, and he’d wanted to save Renee from what could happen. Three years ago it had seemed like the right thing to do. But tonight, as he looked at her beautiful face and the way her body moved in that red dress, he wasn’t so sure.

He had to tell her, but not right now.

“Do you mind if we postpone that question until the end of the night? I will explain, but I don’t want to start the evening with that.”

Renee nodded. Carter could tell this was not the response she was expecting. But he needed more time to decide how to tell her.

“What’s it like working as a consultant?” he asked, hoping to lighten the mood.

Renee leaned back and seemed to relax. The tension bunching the muscles in the back of his neck relaxed.

“It’s the other side of the table,” she said. “Working directly with the people who buy the gowns we put in the magazines gave me a totally new perspective on what they want and how to please them.”

“Do you like that side of the business?”

She nodded. “Like any job, it has its good and bad moments. For the most part, they were good,” she said. “I love the gowns, and I love seeing the glow on the brides’ faces when they see themselves for the first time in white lace or satin. Often the emotions surprise them so suddenly that tears spill down their faces. That’s something we can’t duplicate in the pages of a bridal magazine.”

“Is that what you want to do?” Carter asked. “Return to the magazine world so you can infuse emotion into the pages?”

Renee seemed to take a moment to ponder that. “Yes,” she said, speaking in a whisper. Her face showed she’d hadn’t thought of it until that moment. “I like production and development. I like layout and finding new ways of presenting the designs. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be about to launch a magazine.”

“But now you know what you want to do to make this one different from the crowd of bridal issues already on the newsstands.”

“I suppose I shouldn’t have admitted that to you. After all, we are going to be in competition with each other.”

“I promise to keep your secret.” He leaned forward as if they were conspirators. “And that’s only one idea. As much as I’d like to know more, I can’t get in your head and see what else is in there.”

Renee swallowed. He could tell she knew there was a double meaning in his words. Carter had fallen for her the moment Blair introduced them. He hadn’t understood the attraction. It was much too fast, and he’d never had any feelings as immediate as those before.

Resisting them seemed the natural thing to do. But he’d found himself taking more interest in the bridal division. His eyes were always on her when they were in a room together. He loved talking to her, sharing opinions. But then he’d had to leave, and making her play the waiting game would have been unfair.

A burst of song came from another room. Both of them glanced toward the door.

“It’s a wedding,” Renee said.

“Ever crash one?” Carter asked.

“I never needed to.”

She smiled and Carter felt the warmth of it. This was the first time she’d really smiled at him. The others had been imitations, put on at the right time, but not genuine. This one was, and he wished he could capture and hold it.

“Wanna crash this one?”

“You’re not serious?” she whispered as if the entire wedding party could hear her.

“Come on.” Carter stood, holding his hand out.

“We haven’t finished eating,” she told him.

“The food will wait.”

Renee put her hand in his. He wanted to hold her, and slow dancing at a wedding would give him an excuse.

“We’ll be right back,” he told the waiter as they headed for the reception.

“Hi, Renee, I didn’t know you were going to be here.”

“Hello,” she said to Roni, a wedding consultant from one of the New York companies. “We’re only here for a dance.” Renee looked at Carter. “Roni, this is Carter Hampshire. Carter meet Veronica Edmonson. She’s a wedding consultant for a company here. We met a couple of years ago.”

They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.

“We won’t be long,” Renee said.

Carter turned Renee into his arms. They began slowly moving to the music. “Do you know everyone in the business?” he asked.

“Not everyone, but it helps to know people. You never know when you’ll need a favor.”

Her lips were close to his ear as she said that. A tremor went through him, and his arm around her waist tightened, pulling her intimately close to him. Taking a slow breath, he inhaled her scent, felt the softness of her body and forgot everything except how good it was to hold her again.

* * *

They stayed for three more dances. The last one was slow and Carter hummed the song in Renee’s ear. She couldn’t help closing her eyes and giving herself up to the moment. At the end of the dance, Carter kept his arm around her back as they returned to their dinner table. Renee missed dancing with him. She missed everything about Carter, although she wouldn’t admit it to anyone. She wanted to relax in his arms, melt into him and let the music take them away, but that was dangerous. And she was unsure of Carter’s goals. He obviously had a reason for insisting that she spend time with him. On the surface it was to get her back at Hampshire Publications, but while he had his arms wrapped around her, she wasn’t sure.

“That was fun,” Carter said, holding her chair as she sat.

Renee noticed his voice was deeper.

“We should do it more often,” he continued.

The promise of a future together was in his words. She suppressed the excitement that rippled in her heart, but she didn’t miss his tone. It was that midnight-in-the-dark sexy voice that once wrapped her in its sound. Only now they weren’t alone in the dark together, because Carter had dumped her. Without a reason. He’d only said it wasn’t working for him and he was moving on. So why was he here now? Why had he insisted that she have dinner with him? Was he trying to wear her down, hope they could pick up where they had left off three years ago?

She guessed he’d had plenty of women who had filled her position for longer than she had had it. She frowned, wondering what he could want. It had to be something. Renee wondered if it was the business. Did he not want her to succeed at her magazine? Could he be that petty? Quickly she dashed that idea. Carter was honorable. At least, in everything except his relationship with her.

They spent a couple more hours over dinner, talking and laughing, although she was careful of what she said. She didn’t want to reveal anything that could come back to haunt her. And she continued trying to discover his motives for wanting to be in her company. There had to be something going on.

Finally it was time to leave. Renee preceded him from the dining room into the hall. She wasn’t looking forward to sharing the intimacy of a taxi, but she knew Carter wouldn’t let her go home alone. As they stood waiting for an elevator, a happy couple joined them. The man swung the obviously inebriated woman around in a dance move as they laughed. Renee thought she’d seen them on the dance floor. However, as spacious as the hall was, the couple bumped into Renee and Carter.

“Excuse me,” the woman said, backing away and continuing to giggle.

Renee barely acknowledged her. Her attention was on Carter. He’d grabbed her around the waist to steady her and she was now in his arms. Heat flashed through her. She trembled against him but pushed herself away as the doors of two elevators opened simultaneously. Rushing into the small sanctuary, she took a deep breath and Carter followed her in.

“Should I apologize?” Carter asked as they began the descent to street level.

Renee didn’t pretend to misunderstand him. She shook her head.

Carter stood next to her and took her hand. Electricity skidded up her arm, but she didn’t let go.

The taxi ride to the East Side was short and they spent it in silence. At the guesthouse, Renee opened the car door.

“You don’t have to get out,” she said. “It’ll be hard getting another taxi in this area.”

She slid out. Carter didn’t take her advice. He got out, too, but he asked the driver to wait.

At the town house’s door, he surveyed the facade and asked, “Is this yours?”

“No,” she said without further explanation.

“Who lives here?”

“No one.”

“No one?” His brows rose.

“I’m using it temporarily.”

“Until when?” Carter persisted.

“Until I go back to Princeton.”

He stared at her, waiting.

“Carter, I enjoyed dinner. Thank you for asking me.” She sounded like some high school student from a B movie.