The Best Laid Plans (17 page)

“Have you got a second?” she asked.

He’d been ducking out to pick up a book he’d ordered but he had fifteen minutes before his next client arrived.

“Sure. What’s up?”

Pedestrians streamed around them on busy Collins Street. Alex started to speak but was jostled as two banker-types pushed their way past.

“Watch yourselves,” Ethan called after them, grabbing Alex’s elbow and steering her out of the main flow to where there was less competition per square foot of pavement.

She smiled faintly. “There you go with the manhandling thing again.”

He let her elbow go. “Sorry.”

A few weeks ago he’d have fired something in response, but the ease had gone out of their relationship since that night on Alex’s couch. It had changed things, as he’d known it would.

Shouldn’t have slept with her, moron.

“What’s up?” he asked.

“I need to cancel our game next week,” she said.

Maybe he should have been expecting it, but he wasn’t. In over a year, he and Alex had only missed one Tuesday night, and that was because they’d both been attending a firm function.

“Sure. You want to reschedule for later in the week or skip it altogether?” he asked casually.

What he really wanted to ask was what she was doing, and who she was doing it with. But he didn’t have the right to ask her those kind of things. Now more than ever.

“We could reschedule for Wednesday night, if that suits? Otherwise it’ll have to be a skip—we’ve got the Heart Foundation fundraiser on Monday night, and the rest of the week is looking pretty solid for me, too.”

“Wednesday it is, then.” He’d have to reschedule the drink he’d organized with an old friend, but she didn’t need to know that. “You out there painting the town red, slowpoke?”

He tried to make it sound as though he didn’t give a damn what she did with her spare time.

“Not really. Anyway, I don’t want to hold you up. You looked like you were going somewhere.”

“Yeah.”

She smiled her goodbye and he watched her walk away. He’d always admired the way she held herself, as though she was ready to take on all comers.

“Alex.”

She turned, eyebrows raised.

“You got a hot date or something?” he asked. He hadn’t meant to. But he needed to know.

She hesitated a second, then nodded. “Yeah. Although I’m not sure how hot it is.”

She pulled a comic face, then gave him a little finger wave and turned away.

He hadn’t expected her to say yes. He’d thought she’d tell him it was a client dinner or some other work obligation.

But she’d met someone.

And she was going on a date.

He turned blindly into the crowd and started walking, trying to ignore the
Lord-of-the-Flies
screaming in the back of his head.

He didn’t want Alex dating other men. The knowledge was an acid-burn in the pit of his stomach. He didn’t want her seeing anyone. He wanted… He didn’t know what he wanted.

Liar.

He stepped out onto the road and a tram bell rang, jerking him to awareness. He returned to the sidewalk and waited for the light to change.

He had no claim on her. No claim on her at all. He had no right to any of the feelings churning in his gut right now.

So you’re just going to let her walk away?

Yeah, I am.

He walked until he found himself in open space—the gardens beside Parliament House on Spring Street. He kicked at the grass and looked at the sky and paced.

Go to her. Tell her how you feel. Tell her…

What? That he found her compelling and beautiful and brave and that he wanted to sleep with her and spend time with her—but that he wanted to do it all with no strings, no commitment, no promises that either of them would one day feel compelled to break?

Oh, yeah. She’d really go for that.

It occurred to him that Derek would be delighted to see him pacing in the park like this, muttering to himself like a madman over a woman. Over Alex.

He sat on the steps to Parliament House and rested his head in his hands. He was going to lose Alex. If he sat back and said or did nothing, he was going to lose her. There was no doubt in his mind that it was going to happen, sooner or later. She was amazing, and the first guy who took the time to recognize that would snap her up.

Unless…

He knew what she wanted—a commitment. A relationship. Marriage. Children. The whole box and dice. If he offered that to her, if he took the plunge…

Something tight and hard squeezed his gut. What if he was wrong about her? What if he got it wrong again?

He shot to his feet and looked up and down the street. He couldn’t do it. He simply couldn’t do it.

His phone buzzed and he saw it was his assistant. He opened the message. She was texting to let him know his two o’clock meeting had arrived.

He headed back to the office.

So you’re just going to let her walk away?

Yeah, I am.

“I know it’d probably get me kicked out of the boys club if it got out, but I like being part of a couple,” he’d said during their second phone call.

Returning to her desk after talking to Ethan in the street, Alex circled next Tuesday in her diary. Today was Thursday, so she had two nights and the weekend to find something new to wear on her date. More than enough time.

She frowned, tracing the circle she’d made over and over until the pen created a furrow in the paper and threatened to break through to the next page.

Ethan hadn’t so much as blinked when she’d told him she was canceling their racquetball game. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting from him. Annoyance, at the very least, at the inconvenience? Some reaction to the fact that she was throwing him over, abandoning their regular plans so she could go out with another man?

This, my friend, is exactly why you need to go out with Daniel Lowe on Tuesday night.

She threw her pen down. Her sensible self was right. She had to put Ethan out of her mind—really put him out of her mind, not just tell herself she was then secretly hope that he’d turn green and burst out of his clothes when he realized she was going out with someone else. Ethan had made his feelings about committed relationships—and her—painfully clear.

You don’t have time for this, Alex.

She didn’t. She was thirty-eight. In a few months she would be thirty-nine. She didn’t have time to fall for the wrong man.

She went shopping that night, determined to find something that would knock Daniel Lowe’s surgical slippers off. All part of the moving-on strategy—keep walking, never look back.

She returned home empty-handed. Ditto the following evening. Even though she had work that had flowed over into the weekend, as usual, she played hooky and went shopping again on Saturday afternoon.

She’d discarded half a dozen cocktail dresses and several mix-and-match options when she spotted an evening dress in a small designer boutique in one of the many bluestone cobbled laneways hidden in Melbourne’s city center. It was nearly five o’clock and the shops were preparing to close for the day and she didn’t have her perfect first-date outfit and should really keep moving….

She crossed to the dress and fingered the soft, sensuous silk knit and turned the price tag over to check if it was within her budget. She’d planned on wearing something tried and true from her wardrobe for the Heart Foundation fundraiser, but this dress was black and slinky, with a cowl neck and a low back decorated with tiny jet beads. The skirt was full-length and when she gave in and tried it on it swished around her feet when she walked back and forth in front of the mirror. She paired it mentally with her jet-bead necklace and earrings and black stiletto heels and reached for her credit card.

Most of the shutters were down on the shops by the time the saleswoman had wrapped her dress in tissue paper and slipped it into a glossy bag. Alex told herself she’d find time tomorrow to buy something for her date.

Sunday was a write-off, however. She woke to find rain slashing her windows and an urgent deal memo in her in-box for one of her clients. By the time she’d ironed out the creases it was past three. She did some mental math. By the time she’d showered and gotten herself to the shops it would be past four and she’d be racing from rack to rack in a panic.

She’d simply have to wear something from her wardrobe. Her black silk pants would look great with her red crossover top, or there was always her little black dress, a wardrobe staple that had saved her bacon on many an occasion.

She left work early the following day to have her hair cut and colored. She showered when she got home, careful to keep her hair out of the spray, then pulled on her new dress. It looked every bit as good as it had in the store and she twirled in front of the mirror. Wait until Ethan saw her in this.

She stilled and stared at her reflection.

Ethan. That was what this dress and the hairdresser and her careful underwear selection were all about? Ethan?

The answer was in her eyes. She turned her back on herself.

“You’re a fool, Alex Knight.”

So much for moving on.

The smart thing to do would be to drag the dress off and spend the night in front of the TV before she dug an even deeper hole for herself. But canceling was out of the question. Half the other partners would be at the fundraiser, along with a number of her clients. She had to go.

She rolled on black stay-up stockings with resigned determination, sprayed herself with her favorite Dolce and Gabbana scent and slipped some cash, her lipstick and powder and her house keys into her evening bag.

Only then did she check the mirror again. She looked good. But it didn’t matter. The best dress in the world wasn’t going to make Ethan the kind of man who believed in the same things she did. In a movie, maybe. Real life didn’t work like that.

Her taxi dropped her outside the National Gallery on St. Kilda Road right on seven o’clock. She slid from the cab and took a moment to straighten her skirt before making her way into the building. A security guard checked her name off a list, then a waiter offered her a glass of champagne as she made her way along a red carpet toward the hall where the function was being held.

She took a mouthful of her champagne, savoring the dry, yeasty tang—then glanced up and locked eyes with Ethan.

Her hand tightened on the glass. He looked…incredible. He always showed to advantage in a suit, but in black tie he was devastating. Maybe it was the contrast of the white shirt against his olive-toned skin. Or perhaps it was the way the monochrome tones made his blue eyes seem even more vivid than usual.

She was aware of his gaze traveling from her face down her body to her feet then up again.

“Alex. You look amazing,” he said.

She could see the admiration in his eyes. He wasn’t faking it. The dress had done the trick. On some level, he wanted her.

Never had a victory felt so hollow.

She forced a smile and reached up to dust some nonexistent lint off his lapel.

“You look like a mess, as usual,” she said.

It was the sort of thing she’d normally do. The sort of thing she’d normally say.

He smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “Nice.”

“How many marriage proposals have you had so far? Or proposals, full stop?” she asked.

She took a big swallow from her champagne. Her chest was aching. She let her gaze slide over his shoulder, as though she didn’t care that he was standing so close. As though she wasn’t aware of every single little thing about him.

“You’re hilarious,” he said.

“You realize that it’s my duty to the rest of the women present to spill something on you at the first opportunity, don’t you? Just to protect them from themselves.”

“Stain my Armani and you’ll suffer the consequences.”

She’d run out of banter. For a moment she floundered, then she saw the wife of one of the partners standing with a group inside the hall.

“Look, there’s Joan. I’d better go say hello.” She didn’t give him a chance to respond as she walked away from him.

She did her best to avoid him during the standing-around, drinks-and-canapés stage of the evening, keeping a watch out of the corners of her eyes and moving on whenever she saw him approaching. She couldn’t do anything about the fact that they were seated at the same table at dinner, however, since the seating had been preordained by one of the senior partners’ wives. Thank heaven for small mercies, Ethan was three people to her left and she didn’t have to endure the torture of sitting next to him all evening, but she was nonetheless intensely aware of everything he did and said. She knew that he asked for a cabernet instead of a chardonnay to drink with his main. She heard him discussing a recent High Court finding with Keith Lancaster on his left. If she turned her head she could see his long, elegant hands, busy with cutlery and his wineglass and describing his words in the air.

She had no recall of what she said to either Gideon Lambert on her left or Sammy Master’s wife on her right through the starter and main course, but neither of them seemed to notice anything amiss. She managed to choke down half her poached chicken with baby vegetables, and for once she allowed herself to break her one-drink-only rule for work functions. By the time dessert rolled around she was feeling numb around the edges. Not the worst way to be, considering the revelations of the evening.

The waiter had just delivered their desserts when Gideon leaned toward her.

“Would you mind swapping desserts?” he asked. “I have a bit of a thing for lemon meringue pie.”

Gideon had scored the black forest gâteau. She hated cherries with a passion, but she didn’t really want dessert anyway and Gideon was eyeing her lemon meringue pie as though it was made from solid gold.

“Of course,” she said.

She was about to switch plates when Ethan leaned forward to address Gideon.

“You can have mine, Gideon,” he said. “I was hoping for the gâteaux.”

She looked at him directly for the first time since their brief conversation in the foyer. He winked at her and she recalled that she’d once told him that she hated cherries.

And he’d remembered.

She returned her gaze to her plate. Had he happened to tune in to what Gideon was saying at the opportune moment? Or was it possible he’d been as aware of her as she’d been of him all night?

It was such a willfully stupid, hopeful thing to wish for. She pushed back her chair abruptly. She needed some time out. And maybe a few glasses of water to counteract all the alcohol she’d been drinking.

She made her way into the foyer and retraced her steps along the red carpet until she found the ladies’ room near the front entrance.

She pushed through the door. The space was blissfully quiet and empty after the noise of a thousand people eating and talking and laughing at once.

She stood in the open space between the cubicles and the sinks and closed her eyes and simply concentrated on breathing for a few minutes. In, out. In, out.

God, I want this night to be over.

She opened her eyes. She had a date with Daniel Lowe tomorrow night, and sometime before then she was going to have to decide whether to keep it now that she’d stopped lying to herself and acknowledged her own feelings.

She was in love with Ethan.

Not exactly a newsflash. She’d seen it coming, after all. Tried to avoid it. And yet here she was.

She eyed herself in the mirror. There was nothing she could do about it. Not now, after the fact. She’d fallen for Ethan. It was done. Now she had to begin the slow and painful process of getting over him.

The woman in the mirror smiled, but it was not a happy smile.

How was she supposed to work with him, have lunch with him, play racquetball with him when she loved him? How was she supposed to not give her feelings away with every word and gesture and glance? How was she supposed to endure being so close and yet not close enough?

You’ve survived worse.

She had. Of course she had. And she’d survive this, because that was what she did.

But just once, it would have been nice—

She didn’t let herself finish the thought. Life wasn’t about What Ifs. As she’d once said to Ethan, life was about what you had, and what you could get, and what you could do with it. And she knew without asking that she couldn’t have Ethan. He was the most un-have-able man she knew.

The door to the bathroom swung open and a trio of women entered, their high heels clicking on the tiled floor. Alex exchanged friendly smiles with them as she headed for the door.

Another hour or so and she could go home.

Thank. God.