“This is a good idea, David. I should’ve thought of it myself, which just shows how messed up in the head she’s got me. I’ve got to get back, talk Stella into juggling the schedule so I can pull this off. Thanks.”
“I’m always here to serve the course of true love, or at least hot hotel sex.”
SHE WORE HER red dress. It was the nicest she had, and she liked the way it looked on her. But she wished he’d given her time to go out and get something new. All their other dates had been casual.
He’d seen her in this dress. The fact was, he’d seen her in everything she owned.
Still, she had great shoes. Roz’s cast-off Jimmy Choo’s that probably cost three times what the dress did. And worth every penny, Hayley decided as she turned in front of the full-length mirror. Just look what they did for her legs. Sexy instead of skinny, she decided.
Maybe she should wear her hair up. Lips pursed, she scooped it off her neck, angling her head this way and that to check the effect.
“What do you think?” she asked Lily, who was sitting on the floor busily putting a pile of little toys in Hayley’s oldest purse. “Up or down? I think I can pull the up-do off, if I keep it sort of tousled. Then I could wear those cool earrings. Let’s try it.”
When a man said he wanted to take you out to a special dinner, she decided as she pinned and re-pinned, the least you could do was pull out all the stops, appearance-wise.
Right down to the underwear. At least that was new—and purchased recently with the idea that eventually he’d see her in it.
Maybe tonight, if they could extend the evening a little. He could come back here with her. She’d just have to block Amelia out of her mind. Block the idea that Harper’s mama was right in the other wing. That her own daughter was in the next room.
Why the hell did it have to be so complicated?
She wanted him. They were both young, free, unattached, healthy. It should be simple.
Becoming lovers should have weight. She remembered Harper’s words. Well, the situation had weight. It was time she started thinking of that as a plus instead of a minus.
“I’m the one making it weird, Lily. I can’t seem to help it. But I’m going to try.”
She put on the earrings, long, flashy gold dangles, considered a necklace and rejected it. The earrings made the show. “Well.” She stepped back to do a little turn for her daughter. “What do you think? Does Mama look pretty?”
Lily’s response was a mile-wide grin as she dumped everything out of the purse.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Hayley said, then turned back to the mirror for one last check.
The breath left her body so fast her head went light.
She wore a red dress, but not the thin-strapped, short-skirted number she’d had for more than two years.
It was long and elaborate, cut low so that her breasts rose up to be framed by the silk with a cascade of rubies and diamonds spilling down over the exposed flesh.
Her hair was piled high in an elaborate confection of shining gold curls with a few arranged to frame a striking face with lush red lips and smoldering gray eyes.
“I’m not you,” she whispered. “I’m not.”
She turned deliberately away, crouched to pick up scattered toys with trembling fingers. “I know who I am. I know who she is. We aren’t the same. We aren’t alike.”
Chilled with a sudden panic, she spun back again, more than half afraid she’d see Amelia step out of the glass, and become flesh and blood. But she saw only herself now, with her eyes too wide and dark against her pale cheeks.
“Come on, baby.” She grabbed Lily, and at the baby’s wail of protest, snatched up the old purse, then her own evening bag.
She made herself walk at a reasonable pace, and slowed even that as she approached the stairs. Roz would see the shock on her face, and she didn’t want to talk about it. Just for one night she wanted to continue the illusion of normal.
So she took her time, got her breath back, got her features under control. She strolled into the main parlor with Lily on her hip and a smile on her face.ten
HEAT LIGHTNING SIZZLED in the sky, broody bursts, as they drove into Memphis. The traffic was as sulky as the night, but Harper seemed immune to it. They might have limped into the city, but the air was cool in the car, and Coldplay simmered out of the speakers.
Every so often he’d take his hand off the wheel to lay it over hers. A casually intimate gesture that made her heart sigh.
She’d been right to say nothing of that vision, or apparition, whatever it had been, in her bedroom mirror. Tomorrow was soon enough.
“I’ve never had dinner here,” she said when he pulled into the hotel’s lot. “I bet it’s wonderful.”
“One of Memphis’s finest jewels.”
“I’ve been in the lobby. You can’t come to Memphis without seeing the Peabody’s duck walk. It’d be like not seeing Graceland or Beale Street.”
“You forgot Sun Records.”
“Oh! Isn’t that the coolest place?” She shot him a stern look. “And don’t think I don’t know you’re laughing at me.”
“Maybe a chuckle. Not an outright laugh.”
“Well, anyway, the Peabody’s got an awesome lobby. You know they’ve been doing that duck walk for over seventy-five years.”
“Is that a fact?”
She gave him a little shove as they walked toward the hotel. “I guess you know all there is to know about the place, being a native.”
“Finding out more all the time.” He led her into the lobby.
“Maybe we could have a drink in here before dinner, by the fountain.” She imagined something cool and sophisticated to mirror the way she was feeling. A champagne cocktail or a cosmopolitan. “Is there time?”
“We could, but I think you’ll like what I have in mind even better.” He walked with her toward the elevators.
She glanced back over her shoulder with some regret. All that gorgeous marble and colored glass. “Is there a dining room upstairs? They don’t have one on the roof, do they? I’ve always thought roof-top dining was so elegant. Unless it rains. Or it’s windy. Or it’s too hot,” she added with a laugh. “I think roof-top dining’s really elegant in the movies.”
He only smiled, nudged her inside ahead of him. “Did I tell you that you look beautiful tonight?”
“You did, but I don’t mind certain kinds of repetition.”
“You look beautiful.” He touched his lips to hers. “You should always wear red.”
“And look at you.” She ran her fingers down the lapels of his dark jacket. “All duded up in a suit. The rest of the women in the restaurant won’t be able to eat for envying me my good luck.”
“If that’s the case, we might just have to give them a break.” He took her hand as the doors opened, then led her into the hallway. “Come with me.”