The Bride (The Boss) (32 page)

“Has it?” That surprised me. Somehow I’d always painted the acquisition of
Porteras
in shades of dollar amounts.

“Oh, yes,” she said, brightening up for the first time in any conversation I’d ever had with her. “I wanted to go to school for fashion design, but my father rather strongly objected. It was easier to take business classes than endure his scorn.”

“That makes me feel kind of bad for you,” I blurted, before I realized how insulting that might sound. “No offense intended.”

“None taken,” she assured me. “I know that Elwood and Stern buying
Porteras
put you in something of a strange situation. I hope my mentioning it doesn’t bother you.”

No, but literally ninety-five percent of everything else you say does.
I smiled, closed lipped, and shook my head. “It’s all in the past, Valerie. If you guys hadn’t bought the magazine, I would have never seen Neil again.”

“That’s very true.” Her expression was unreadable as she took another sip from her glass. She looked back to me as though she’d just remembered something. “Do excuse me, I’m getting a wave.”

I looked in the direction she was pointing, to a pair of German businessmen I’d met earlier in the evening. Valerie navigated the crowded floor, and I watched her go, still somewhat stunned at the revelation she’d made. I had something in common with Valerie. It was a miracle.

I caught up with Emma on the dance floor, and she motioned me toward the VIP booth. Neil was sitting with a couple I’d never seen before. They were reacting to what must have been a very funny joke we’d just missed, when Neil looked up and his smile got wider at the sight of me. “Ah, Sophie! Excellent. Ian, Gena, this is my fiancé, Sophie.”

Ian—a man about Neil’s age—held out his hand for a friendly shake. “Ian Pratchett. And this is my wife, Gena.”

Gena was a lovely, slightly plump redhead with a cloud of gorgeous, orange corkscrew curls. She reached across her husband to shake my hand. She might have been in her forties, but her skin was so flawless it was difficult to tell.

“Neil has said only incredible things about you, Sophie,” Ian went on. And he winked at me.

Okay, so maybe Ian hadn’t aged as well as Neil had. And maybe he had kind of a sharp looking nose and a narrow face. But that wink… Damn. His Scottish accent didn’t hurt, either.

“Sophie, Gena is a buyer for Barney’s.” Neil gestured to her with a shot glass, which Ian was quick to snatch and fill up.

Gena rolled her eyes. “They went to school together, can you tell?”

“And apparently they still think they can drink like they’re nineteen,” I said dryly, sliding in beside Neil.

“Oh, it’s just a bit of fun,” Ian scolded playfully. He poured out some vodka for himself, then held it up and clinked it against Neil’s. “
Sláinte
.”

“Where’s Michael?” Emma asked.

“Emma, dear, you look lovely as ever,” Ian said in lieu of an answer.

Neil raised his chin and gave him a warning, “Ian…”

“Daddy, I think you lost your moral high ground in the middle-aged men flirting with younger women game.” Emma rolled her eyes. “I’m going off to find Michael.”

“I see time hasn’t mellowed her any,” Ian fiddled with a straw on the table, and I recognized it as the frustrated motion of a smoker indoors.

Neil’s arm slid around my waist, and I scooted a little closer to him, asking, “Are you having a good time?”

“Fuck me, I’m having the time of my life.” He was so drunk, and so adorable. “Oh, but there’s someone I wanted you to meet, before they leave. Ian, Gena, will you excuse us a moment?”

“Of course,” Ian said, slightly raising his hand in polite dismissal. “Sophie, it was a pleasure meeting you.”

“Nice to meet you two, as well.” I slid from the booth, my feet aching in my too-tall heels. When we were a few steps from the table, I asked, “Who is it I’m going to meet?”

Neil’s arm snaked around my back and his hand closed over my hip. “No one. It was all an excuse to get you alone.”

He steered me toward the men’s room, and I stopped on my heels. “Whoa there, cowboy.”

“You wouldn’t deny a man on his birthday, would you?” he asked, close to my ear.

There wasn’t a day I
could
deny him. And now we were both drunk. And when was I going to get to have sex at this particular club again? When was I ever going to
be
in this club again?

He left me beside the men’s room door, then went inside. A guy in his twenties—I thought I’d seen him on
SNL
—walked out and said, “Excuse me,” then Neil opened the door and ushered me in. There was a bathroom attendant, a slim young man in all black, stationed near the bank of sinks, and Neil reached for his wallet. He tossed a stack of hundred dollar bills on the counter and gave the man a meaningful look.

Without missing a beat, the man scooped up the bills, said, “And a happy birthday to you, Mr. Elwood,” and whistled a little tune on his way out, hitting the door lock behind him.

I backed up slowly, bracing my hands on the edge of the counter. “Do you have any idea how intimidating it is, knowing that my boyfriend can basically get whatever he wants?”

He stepped up close, looming over me, and slipped a finger under my chin to lift my face. “Do you know how terrifying it is for me, knowing that you’re the only thing in the world that I want?”

I was used to intensity from him, but that took my breath away. I didn’t know what to say, but I wouldn’t have had time before he kissed me, his hands splayed against my back, drawing me closer. His mouth tasted like alcohol, but so did mine, so I didn’t care. I grabbed the lapels of his jacket and pulled him closer. Or maybe I pulled myself closer, climbing my way up his body with an urgency so sudden, it frightened me. I was a different person with Neil, far different from the person I’d been before he’d come back into my life.

I’d never bought the idea that a person had a “better half.” Neil had called me his other half when he’d proposed, as though without me, he lacked some vital component. It was a sweet notion, but I found a much simpler explanation as to why people shape you and change you. People are darkened rooms, and each person they choose to include in their lives is a beam of light, uncovering some new, previously hidden part of them. If I’d never met Neil, I would have been the same Sophie I always was. Others would have uncovered the bits of me that Neil’s presence had illuminated, but that’s what made our love seem so magical when I considered it. We didn’t need each other to be whole. We were already whole, and we chose to love each other, to be
more
.

There was no other man on Earth I wanted, so I understood what he meant by “terrifying.” A moment ago, I’d been questioning the wisdom of having sex in a public restroom during a party where our absence would most likely be noticed, the next I was clawing at his jacket, pushing it off his shoulders, hanging on to his shirt so tight I was sure my nails would go through it. His open mouth slid down my jaw, to my throat, in a careless, wet path. He pushed me back and lifted me onto the counter, my hands groping for his fly between us.

He reached for the little basket the bathroom attendant had left behind and rummaged through it one-handed for a condom. The whole thing spilled onto the floor with a clatter, mouthwash and cologne rolling over the black tiles.

“Get your legs open,” he growled, forcing my knees wide apart. I heard his zipper, felt him fumbling with the condom between us, then he pushed aside my panties, slicked the tip of his cock over my slit, and plunged deep.

“Oh!” I had to hold onto his shoulders to keep from falling back on the sink. I wrapped one leg around his waist, the other he caught beneath the knee and lifted to perch my heel on the counter. It contorted my body, exposed me, made me utterly vulnerable to him. My cunt gripped him, waves of muscle contractions rolling up and down his length as my body tried to decide whether I should lock him in or push him out. His hand cupped the back of my skull, fingers threading through my hair, and he tugged my head back, forcing me to meet his gaze.

“The party is wonderful, but there is really no place on Earth that I would rather be than right—” he slid his hand between us, his middle and ring fingers bracketing his cock, digging in to my labia stretched around him. His knuckles brushed over my clit. I gasped, and he swallowed it up with a kiss, whispering, “—here,” against my mouth.

He moved his hand to rub my clit with the tips of his fingers, and I came hard, lifting my hips with what little, constrained motion I could manage.

He clamped his free hand over my mouth to cover my wail of relief. I don’t suppose it could have been heard over the music outside, but better safe than sorry. He grinned down at me, grinding deeper, and when the last blissful tremor had passed, he gently withdrew.

“Aren’t… you?” I panted, dropping my leg and balancing myself with my hands on the counter.

He rolled the condom off and wadded it up in some paper towel before he dropped it into the trash hole in the counter. “I fear I am far too drunk for that. It’s a miracle I got hard.”

“Well, I certainly had a religious experience.” I hopped down and turned to check my makeup. My lipstick was smudged, and I corrected the situation by wiping it off entirely. I wasn’t going to fool anybody; I looked thoroughly fucked.

Neil stepped up behind me, kneading my breast through my dress as he met my gaze in the mirror. “Thank you, darling. This really is a fantastic birthday.”

I went out ahead of Neil—he wanted to stay behind to pick up the toiletries he’d spilled—trying to keep the I-just-had-sex swagger out of my walk. I’d just stepped into the hall when a very confused-looking man stopped in his tracks and looked from the men’s’ room to the ladies’ as though he were trying to solve a differential equation in his head.

“Excuse me.” I dipped my head as I passed him and tucked some hair behind my ear.
 

When he went inside, he’d get it.

* * * *

The automatic blinds on the windows were set on a timer, to roll gently up every weekday morning at eight o’clock.

Fuck those stupid blinds.

I rolled out of bed, still in my silver sequined dress. There was something sticky in my hair. It was probably puke. It might not have been my own.

Crawling on my hands and knees like a vampire trying to avoid the rays of sunlight, I scrambled for the universal remote on the couch in front of the fireplace. I clicked the button for the shades and groaned in relief as the room was plunged into black-out darkness once more.

I sat up, my mouth feeling like someone had shoved a wad of cotton into it—probably because they’d mistaken me for a corpse and had started embalming me—and staggered toward the bathroom. I turned on the light, then slapped the switch immediately off again. In the dark, I leaned over the sink, turned the tap on—I never realized how loud running water was before—and filled my mouth. Swallowing seemed dicey, but I powered through it.

It was only when I got back to the bed that I noticed Neil wasn’t in it. I grabbed my sunglasses from my purse and slid them on before I ventured into the rest of the house. Halfway through the dining room, I heard Neil singing.

Singing?

He was a quarter century older than I was. He should have at least been mildly dead after last night.

I pushed open the door, and there he was, standing over the stove, cooking breakfast and whistling. He was even dressed, in jeans and a hunter green sweater that brought out the gorgeous color of his eyes. If I hadn’t had one foot in a vodka-soaked grave, I would have appreciated it more.

Instead, I leaned against the doorjamb and gave him a resentful glare over the top of my glasses.

“Sleeping Beauty awakes,” he said with a chuckle, scraping something out of a pan and onto a plate. The buttery smell, as well as the noise, made me want to hurl up everything in my stomach—though I had a suspicion there was nothing in there to hurl.

“You know, if you were one of the dwarves, you’d probably be Drunky,” he went on cheerfully. “Do you want mushrooms in yours?”

I held up one finger. “First, there weren’t any dwarves in
Sleeping Beauty
. Second, if you mention food again, I’m preemptively divorcing you. Third, what the hell? How are you even upright?”

“B12 shot. Dr. Williams was here this morning. I tried to wake you, to no avail. Do you want me to ring her? Have her come back?” He clicked off the burner, wisely taking my food warning to heart.

I shook my head, and I swear I felt my brain smack off the sides of my skull. “No. I refuse. I will bounce back from this sans vitamin cures, and prove that I’m still young.”

His lips tilted. “I don’t think you’re ever going to get away with complaining about your age. At least not to me.”

I shambled like a zombie to the breakfast nook and sat in my usual place. “Coffee. I beg of you.”

I plugged my ears while he got a cup and saucer down and slid them across the tabletop to me. He stood over the sink to eat his breakfast. “Last night was… Well, it was utterly amazing. Thank you so much, darling.”

I gave him a weak thumbs-up. “It was cool getting to meet some of your friends.”

“Did you ever track down the only ginger man you’d ever leave me for?” he asked around a mouthful of omelet.

“I’m here, aren’t I?” I quipped, raising my mug to my lips.

“Humor, that’s a good sign. The hangover won’t kill you, then?”

“Not yet. But I do have to be in shape for tonight.” I pushed my sunglasses down and batted my blood-shot, makeup smeared eyes at him. “Your birthday present,
Sir.
”

“Ah, I look forward to it.” He paused. “Though I dare say I will look more forward to it once you’ve showered and brushed your teeth.”

“In sickness and in health,” I reminded him. “Did you really have a good time?”

“I really did.” He grinned at me. “I must admit, I shamelessly enjoyed showing off my young girlfriend. Perhaps that’s a symptom of turning fifty?”

“Well, I liked meeting your friends, so we’re even.” I rolled my head on my shoulders, and the cracking of my spine was both too loud and a huge relief.