Happily Ever Afton (12 page)

‘Stewart,’ Jason interrupted her question with a malicious smirk, ‘it appears the…
boot
… is on the other foot,’ he said snidely, looking down at the shiny black boots that completed Cooper’s lavishly decorated military outfit of the Imperial Russian court.

‘As you can see your fiancée obviously got tired of …
sloppy seconds
… and came back for more of the A plus prime beef!’

‘Step out of the way, Afton,’ Cooper ordered in a deceptively soft tone.

‘She’s not going anywhere,’ Jason did not sound quite so self-assured now, pulling Afton back against him for an extra measure of protection.

Cooper shot him a chilling look of disgust. ‘You’re going to hide behind a
woman,
Parrish?’ He made no attempt to mask his contempt, the firmly molded mouth curling in distaste, ‘I didn’t believe I could think any less of you.’

‘Cooper, where did you disappear to –’ Katherine dressed as Queen Isabella II of Spain, dark hair braided in a flower-strewn coronet, daringly low-cut scarlet gown that would
never
have been allowed in public in the eighteen hundreds without a public stoning, swirling out behind her.

‘What is
she
doing here?’ she asked coming to an abrupt halt when she spotted Afton.

Afton swallowed the lump that appeared in her throat, hurt hazel eyes zooming to Cooper’s.

Jason released a snigger. ‘When the… er…
cat
… is away, eh? Not quite so holier-than-thou now are we, Stewart?’

Cooper took a few determined steps towards him balled fists clenched tightly by his side, but Afton met him half way and put a restraining hand in the middle of the imposing steel wall of his chest.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded fiercely. ‘Why don’t you just leave me and Jason alone and return to your own…
date
?’

‘Yes, Cooper,’ Katherine moved swiftly forward placing a proprietary hand on his arm, ‘let’s go back inside to our table. We’ve obviously interrupted something
romantic
out here…’

Cooper brushed her off as if she hadn’t even spoken, staring down intently into Afton’s angry eyes, ‘Afton, I can explain…’

‘Explain what?’ she fought to sound nonchalant, ‘our…
deal
…has obviously run its course.’ She twisted the ring from her finger, holding it out to him. ‘Here – I hope you can get your money back.’

His gaze hardened, mouth forming a grim straight line. He nodded after a moment, taking the ring from her, tossing it carelessly in the air before slipping it into his pocket. ‘Luckily I kept the receipt. I’ll leave you both to it then. Good night.’

Cooper swiveled on his heel and taking a contentedly smiling Katherine’s arm in his, they left the balcony, the French doors slamming behind them rattling the glass panes.

‘Whew, glad that’s over, thought things were about to get physical for a minute there,’ Jason muttered slumping in relief behind her. ‘I guess we both got our final flings out of our system, Afton. But now we can concentrate solely on each other again.’

‘
Take me home
.’

‘What! We haven’t even presented the photos yet,’ Jason protested at her tremulous request. He swung her around seeming shocked to see the tears flooding her eyes. ‘You’re
crying?
But you
never
cry…not even when we…’ he broke off.

Afton knew what he’d been about to say. She never cried over men – over
anything
. A stubborn trait that began once her father left and her mother had admonished her repeatedly in cross tones that –
‘big girls don’t cry
!’

Well they did tonight!

‘Don’t let them ruin our night,’ Jason said briskly, ‘we’ll stay on our side of the ballroom and leave them to theirs.’

‘If you won’t take me home I’ll call a taxi or take the light rail but I am leaving here –
right now!’

Jason seemed to see the determination written on her tear-streaked face. ‘Okay, okay,’ he reluctantly agreed, ‘let me go collect the car from the valet and I’ll meet you out front in a few minutes.’

When Jason’s car screeched away from the front of her apartment building, his face was still red with anger, Afton firmly refusing all his pleas to accompany her up to her apartment so they could ‘reconnect’. She lifted the trailing end of her dusty rented robe from the ground and clutching her wilting scepter, she wearily made her way towards the lobby door, the bright glow of the moon guiding her steps. Mickey was just rushing over to open it for her when a deep voice edged with velvet nearly caused her to jump out of her skin.

‘What took you so long?’

Afton spun around meeting Cooper’s shadowed eyes on the bus bench where he was seated a few yards away. His long legs were stretched out in front of him; jacket unbuttoned with medals stuffed in the front pocket and the black hair was wildly ruffled as though he’d been running his hands distractedly through it.

Mickey poked his head out the door, ‘are you okay, Miss Lanford?’ She nodded slowly, her gaze never leaving the man on the bench and he disappeared back inside with a grin as he too spotted Cooper.

‘How…’ Afton swallowed, ‘how did you beat us here?’

‘I flew.’ Silence. ‘It wasn’t what you thought, Afton.’

‘It…it wasn’t for me either.’ More silence.

‘So where do we go from here?’ he asked after a few moments.

‘Um…how about up to my place?’ Afton asked hopefully, eyes pleading for a truce.

Cooper stood, emerging from the shadows like some gorgeous apparition from the long ago past, she thought with a lump forming in her throat as he walked slowly over to her. He took her hand in his and she felt a cool band of diamonds slide once again on her finger before a hand tilted up her chin.

‘I can see the stars in your eyes from a mile away. They guide me to you just like the North Star.’ Then he bent his head and kissed her – a long, sweet kiss under moonbeams that caressed them both lovingly. When he lifted his head, the sculpted lips tilted into a crooked smile. ‘Aren’t we a pair?’ he murmured looking down at their outfits.

‘You know those are actually lyrics from a song in a musical inspired by a Bergman movie that was made into a film in the seventies starring Elizabeth Taylor which was universally panned –’ Afton was cut off by a sensuous mouth lowering and taking hers once again.

‘
Shhh
…’ Cooper whispered against her lips, ‘no more work tonight, Afton – only play.’

He swept her up into his arms, her long gown floating out behind them as he strode into the building with a nod to Mickey who flashed the royal couple a wide smile. When they reached her apartment, he finally set her feet back down on the ground only to take her back up to the heavens again and again that night, their fantasy costumes forgotten crumpled and unneeded on the living room floor.

Chapter Eight

B-R-R-R-I-N-G,
r-r-r-i-n-g, b-r-r-r-i-n-g
!

The musical chant of a ringing cell phone jolted them both out of a deep sleep early the next morning. Cooper fumbled for it blindly on the nightstand, turning it off, sliding it back in place clearly anxious to return to a well-deserved rest after their sleep deficit night.

‘Cooper?’ Afton’s voice was drowsy, her chin resting on the back of her hand atop his broad chest. ‘Shouldn’t you have answered that – what if it was your job?’

‘It was my mother,’ he yawned widely, turning over on to his side grumpily burrowing his face into the pillow like a small boy not wanting to get up for school in the morning.

Afton’s head rose at his words staring down at the sleekly muscled back where she blushed to see her nails had scored marks in several telltale places, ‘how do you
know
it was your mother? You didn’t even look at the phone!’

‘She always calls me at the exact time I was born on my birthday to remind to come over for my annual birthday dinner,’ he grumbled in a pillow-muffled voice.

‘You mean
today
is your birthday?’ Afton squealed sitting up taking the sheet with her as Cooper groaned a protest.

‘Yes,’ he admitted rolling onto his back and blinking up at her in the light she switched on, on the nightstand, ‘but I never make a big deal out of it. It’s just one more rotation of the earth around the sun for me.’

‘But you said you were coming over here after work tonight.’

‘I am.’

He stifled another yawn while Afton found herself wondering silently why Cooper hadn’t told her it was his birthday – or invited her to go along with him to his parents.

Am I just a secret obsession of his
?

Something to keep hidden behind closed bedroom doors? She’d never met his family once in all these weeks since they’d first met – perhaps it was because he knew she was not fated to be in his life long? Her teeth nibbled suddenly anxious at the slightly swollen fullness of the bottom lip his lips had covered for most of the night.

‘What’s wrong, Afton?’

Afton looked over to where Cooper’s head was now propped on one hand on the pillow. Watching her through slumberous turquoise eyes, the rugged black stubble on his square chin only adding to his dazzling morning-after attractiveness.

‘It’s just…I know so little about you, Cooper –’

‘You know everything
important
about me,’ he countered taking her hand splaying it over his heavily pounding heart. ‘You know how to make this go crazy with just one look.’ He moved her hand lower to encircle the burgeoning velvety steel length of him, ‘and this as well,’ he added huskily.

Afton began to caress him and Cooper moaned his enjoyment moving restlessly beneath her soft sure touch, soot black lashes lowering against lean cheeks darkly flushing with a sensuous anticipation. Distracted with her thoughts, she bent over and dropped a light kiss on his lips, releasing him as he sighed out his bitter disappointment.

‘But I don’t know much else, Cooper,’ she protested, picking back up where she’d left off. ‘Like
where
you live, what you do all day at work –
who
your friends are? I mean for goodness sakes, I didn’t even know today was your thirty-fifth birthday!’

‘Thirty-
fourth
,’ he corrected with a cheeky grin, folding his arms behind his head on the pillow.

‘See what I mean?’ Afton exclaimed,
‘Nothing!’

Afton flopped back against the pillow, her lusciously full mouth forming a pout and Cooper lay quietly thinking staring up at the ceiling beside her. She was right. It was time to put all his cards on the table and tell her the truth.

Which I should have done from the very beginning
!

He struggled upright against the padded headboard, taking her hand once again in his as she stared at him expectantly. ‘Afton, you’re right. I want to tell you the truth about—’

R-r-ring
!

Afton leaned over to look at her phone on the nightstand reading the caller ID. ‘Oh, Cooper, I’m sorry but I really have to take that!’ she tugged her hand free from his. ‘When it’s the paper calling this early in the morning it usually means there’s a problem of some sort with my column…’

She jumped out of bed and his eyes followed her slender naked form avidly as she snatched up her silk robe shrugging it on, grabbing the receiver running into the extra room she used as an office next door to talk to her editor.

Saved by the bell – for now
.

After a few moments, Cooper threw back the sheet and swung his long legs out of the bed to the floor, rubbing a weary hand over the raspy growth of beard on his tightly clenched jaw. He headed to the bathroom, frustrated by both their truncated conversation and their earlier unfinished intimate encounter, feeling the distinct need for a desire-dampening shower.

As he lathered up his body, the shower door suddenly swung open, a silk robe dropping to the tiles outside. Afton joined him then, twisting the water to a warm flow, murmuring he didn’t need to take a
cold
shower anymore because she had an early birthday surprise for him …

~~~~

‘Happy birthday, Mr. Carrington!’

Cooper smiled and raised a hand in the air to acknowledge the applause, touched his department had taken time out and all crowded together in the conference room to surprise him with a store-bought cake and a signed birthday card handed to him with a flourish by Ryan.

‘Thank you all. I have to admit you fooled me – I really believed Ryan and almost
fainted
when he said there was an emergency meeting called to terminate the Anderson Corp acquisition!’

After a few jokey ‘over-the-hill’ type gifts were opened and a quick speech given by Baxter, followed by a few mouthfuls taken of the frosting gooped cake, Cooper glanced down at the platinum Rolex on his wrist.

‘Okay, back to work everyone – or I’ll have to dock you all for the time you wasted to celebrate my birthday!’

There was a wave of laughter before the hard working employees of the investment bank drifted back to their desks. The rest of the day was business as usual, Cooper working furiously to finish the final details of the Anderson Corp acquisition before the deadline issued.

He would probably have to stay late again tonight, Cooper exhaled a weary breath, picking up his pen, going through and redlining the needed changes in the contract while seated behind his paper-strewn desk. He worked continuously determined to finish, not pausing even for lunch only taking time out to answer a call that came through later that evening on his private line after most of the employees including Ryan had left for the night.

‘Happy birthday, son!’

‘Thank you, Mother.’

‘I can’t believe you’re still at work so late on your birthday,’ she admonished. ‘Cooper, you work too hard…and when you’re not working you’re doing something dangerous – like climbing mountains!’

Cooper’s mouth formed a wry line at the familiar refrain. He swiveled in his chair to stare out his office windows noticing the rain beginning to dash against them in the darkening skies, ‘Mother, long hours is one of the accepted drawbacks of being an investment banker. I knew that going in.’