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‘I thought it best,’ Jace said after a second’s hesitation, and Eleanor saw his fingers tighten on the railing.
And before she could stop herself, Eleanor whispered, ‘Why didn’t you just get someone else, Jace?’ Her voice sounded little and lost.
‘I don’t know.’ He stared out at the frozen lake, his features harshening once more. ‘I didn’t want to walk away from you… like that.’
Like before. Her heart turned over again. It was, she thought ruefully, as desperate and flailing as a dying fish. She averted her face as she replied, ‘It would have been easier.’
Jace turned away from the railing and the lake, and Eleanor knew that the conversation—that conversation—was over. ‘It looks like you’ve done a fabulous job, at any rate,’ he said, his voice brisk and light. Eleanor felt equal and infuriating amounts of disappointment and relief. She really didn’t want to talk about the past, about them, yet here she was, ripping off scabs, opening wounds.
‘It’s cold out here.’ The lake, she saw, was now cloaked in darkness. Above the trees lights winked on in the elegant apartment buildings lining Fifth Avenue. ‘I should go back inside, check on the details before I return tomorrow.’
‘All right,’ Jace agreed, and he followed her back into the Lake Room. Eleanor didn’t look at him as she consulted her list, mindlessly scanning the endless items she’d assembled for the party. She felt rather than saw Jace, still standing by the door, watching her. Even though he stood halfway across the room, she imagined she could feel the heat emanating from his body, winding around her own heart and warming her from the inside.
‘There’s still a lot to do,’ she told him, her eyes fixed firmly on her list. She felt a strange new tension crackling between them, snapping inside her. A sexual tension, and she wasn’t prepared for it. She’d spent ten years being angry at Jace Zervas; she wasn’t ready to feel anything else. She didn’t want to. ‘I’ll have to be back here early in the morning,’ she told him brightly, at least half aware that she was starting to babble. ‘Setting up. There’s a lot of outside work—’
‘Outside?’ Jace asked, taking a step closer. ‘What’s outside?’
‘Snow,’ Eleanor said simply, and looked up.
Mistake. Jace was looking at her so intently, yet it was an intensity she felt rather than saw, as if his gaze reached right down into her soul and touched it. Held it, even. In that moment she remembered—she felt—the power he’d held over her ten years ago, when she’d given him everything. Her body, her dreams, her very life. Her happiness. And for a little while he’d kept them, treasured them, or seemed to. For such a short, sweet time life had seemed so wonderful.
Somehow she found a way to drag her gaze from his. She didn’t want to feel that way again. It was wonderful, it was captivating, and it was also extremely dangerous. If you gave someone your happiness, you might never see or feel it again.
‘Snow?’ Jace repeated, the word a question. ‘What does this party have to do with snow?’
‘Everything.’ Eleanor looked back at her list, although the words blurred in front of her. She was tired, exhausted, and she probably couldn’t do much good here. Yet the thought of going home made her feel a little sad. A little lonely. She could call Allie, go out for a drink—
‘Eleanor?’ Jace broke into her thoughts. ‘You look a million miles away.’
She looked up, distracted, discomfited, because she knew why she didn’t want to go home, or out, or anywhere but where Jace Zervas was.
He still held this awful, awful power over her; she was still captive. The thought was utterly aggravating.
‘Sorry.’ She forced herself to give him her sunny, and rather impersonal, smile, falling back on professional ploys she knew well. ‘Snow, yes. When it blizzarded the other day, I thought how much fun snow is for children, especially city children, who don’t see all that much of it. Winter for us—them—usually just means cold and a lot of grey slush.’
‘And?’
‘So I thought a party centred around snow—building snowmen, sledging, that sort of thing—would be fun. Family-friendly,’ she reminded him, the stress on the word only slightly edged. Even now, it hurt. She summoned her professional smile. ‘Some of my happiest childhood memories have to do with snow.’
‘Really.’ Jace took a step towards her. Even though he was still a good ten feet away, Eleanor felt he was too close. She made herself not move. ‘I never knew that,’ he said quietly.
‘Well, snow days, you know. No school.’
‘You didn’t like school?’
She shrugged. ‘What kid doesn’t want a snow day?’
‘Did you build snowmen? Go sledging?’ He arched an eyebrow. ‘Somehow I can’t see your mother doing that.’ He paused. ‘Based on how you described her to me, of course.’
Did he remember, after all these years? Eleanor did. She remembered lying in Jace’s arms, probably boring him with the silly little details of her life, her family. How she resented her mother for working so much, for being so hard and stern, for never giving her a father. She’d had an anonymous sperm donor instead, the easy, convenient way for a career woman to have a child. She’d even told Jace how she’d always insist on her own child knowing its father—
Ironic, that.
‘Once she did—’ She stopped. She wasn’t ready to share that memory. ‘Anyway, you don’t know everything about me, Jace.’
‘Once,’ he repeated softly, moving towards her, ‘I thought I did.’ He took another step closer to her. She saw a dark urgency in his eyes, felt its desperate answer in herself.
Why was she thinking like this? Feeling like this? Breathless and buzzy and so achingly aware?
‘No, you didn’t,’ Eleanor informed him, keeping her voice curt. Focus. Focus on what Jace was saying, rather than how wonderful he looked. How close he was. How she could take one step—maybe two—and be in his arms.
Eleanor turned away, busying herself with the already fastened clasp of her attaché case. ‘Admittedly, I made a fool of myself,’ she continued in that same curt voice, ‘telling you every empty thing that came into my head, but there was plenty you didn’t know about me.’
‘Like what?’ Jace challenged softly. He’d moved even closer and she could feel him again, his heat and his strength, the sheer power radiating from him, making her, absurdly, want to lean on it. Lean on him. Already she could imagine his arms enfolding her, his chin resting on her head as he used to do—
Eleanor straightened. ‘Like the fact that I wouldn’t lie,’ she said shortly.
Jace stilled, and the room crackled with a new kind of tension. A chilling remoteness that made Eleanor feel as cold as she’d been on the terrace.
‘Right,’ Jace said, and his voice sounded distant. ‘Of course.’ Eleanor forced herself to say nothing. No apologies, no excuses. No regrets. ‘You’ve changed,’ he said after a moment, and she tensed.
‘I’ve been saying that all along.’
‘You’re the kind of person you never wanted to be,’ Jace told her quietly. Eleanor froze, her mind shocked into numbness, and then she whirled around.
‘That’s a rather arrogant statement,’ she said, her voice coldly furious. ‘Not to mention incredibly rude.’
‘You told me,’ Jace replied steadily, ‘that you never wanted to be like your mother.’
‘You’ve never even met my mother—’
‘You told me she was an event planner, the best in her field. Never missed a day of work. Never made a softball practice.’
Eleanor’s breath came out in a slow, surrendered hiss.‘Stop—’
‘Consumed by her career, hardened and weary and lonely,’ Jace finished. Each word was an indictment, delivered in a terrible, matter-of-fact tone. ‘I could be looking right at her.’
Eleanor felt her face drain of colour. Her fingers, clutching the strap of her attaché so tightly, were aching and numb. She hated that Jace had assessed her so thoroughly, so damningly. She hated that he was right.
‘You don’t know anything,’ she said, the words forced out of a throat that had closed in on itself, tight with tears. She hated too that he’d made her so emotional, when for ten years she’d managed to be as cool and professional and feelingless as ice. As snow.
‘Don’t I?’ Jace took a step closer. Eleanor saw compassion on his face, softening those taut lines, turning his eyes to a soft, sympathetic grey. ‘What made you change so much, Ellie?’
A single stab of fury streaked through her, startling her out of numbness. ‘Even now you don’t know the answer to that question?’ she demanded, her voice harsh with accusation. ‘I’ll tell you what changed me, Jace. You did.’
His eyes widened, his jaw slackening for the briefest of seconds. ‘Ellie—’
‘And I told you, don’t call me that. I stopped being Ellie the day I went to your apartment building and nobody was there.’ She saw him give a little shake of his head, and she wanted to scream at his arrogance. He had no idea what she’d been through. No idea at all. He’d chosen to damn her and miss it all. ‘So don’t call me that again,’ she informed him brutally, ‘because that Ellie? The one you think you knew so well? She no longer exists. She hasn’t for ten years.’
And with that, leaving Jace still shocked and speechless, Eleanor turned and left the room.
CHAPTER FIVE
EVERYTHING was ready. Or, Eleanor amended silently, as ready as it ever would be. She glanced around the dining room; the first guests were scheduled to arrive in just ten minutes.
She’d spent the entire day at the boathouse, arranging centrepieces and party favours, checking to make sure the sound system worked and the band, who had arrived an hour ago, had everything they needed. She’d visited the kitchen several times to check on the food, and just fifteen minutes ago she’d finally retired to the Ladies to freshen up and change into her cocktail dress. She’d bypassed her standard LBD, classic but boring, in favour of a spangled silver sheath dress that glittered when she moved. By the time the party rolled round, event planners were meant to fade into the background, not take centre stage. Yet Eleanor hadn’t been able to resist this dress. It made her feel like a snowflake. And she needed to feel good, craved that little pleasure because ever since she’d seen Jace last night she’d been out of sorts, emotionally edgy and drained at turns. He’d thrown her completely off balance, and she hated it. One minute she felt coldly furious, the next aggravatingly aware. She hated the flip-flop of her moods, her own body. She hated that Jace had caused this, that he was the source of her weakness.
She straightened a few napkins, moved a few of the freshly cut pussy-willow branches that made the stark yet elegant centrepieces for the table. The colour of the soft grey buds reminded her of Jace’s eyes.
Forcing her mind away from that train of thought, she glanced outside at the terrace, where snow had been carted in to make playful mounds, ready to be turned into snowmen and igloos. A special kids’ cocoa bar with four different kinds of hot chocolate and several flavours of marshmallows and whipped cream had been set out by the electric heater.
Family-friendly.
She didn’t normally do parties with children, and she’d been surprised how much she had enjoyed it. Surprised and a little sad, for children surely were not in her future. She’d accepted that long ago, had had years to live with it, yet now, with Jace back in her life—for however short a time—the pain was fresh again. Did you ever truly heal?
She heard a sound at the door, and with both relief and a little anxiety she realised the first guests were arriving. The party had started.
Jace stood at the threshold of the Lake Room, gazing in amazed wonder at the transformed space. The dining room was the epitome of understated elegance, strung with fairy lights, everything silver and white and crystalline. Like snow. He took in the long, graceful branches of pussy willows in their crystal vases, the snowflake ornaments at every child’s place, and then glanced outside where children were delighting in playing with the mounds of snow, their faces already happily smeared with chocolate.
It was perfect.
He was only sorry to have missed the beginning, both for Eleanor’s sake and that of Leandro Atrikides. Already he saw the speculative, sideways looks employees slid him, wary and uncertain. It had been Leandro’s damn son Talos who had kept him from being prompt; the greedy bastard was still angling for a bigger payout.
Jace suppressed a sigh. Sometimes he wished he’d never involved himself in this unholy mess; Leandro’s avaricious children had made a near ruin of his company. Jace’s buyout had been little more than a mercy mission.
Yet if he hadn’t come to New York, he wouldn’t have seen Eleanor again…
And he was glad he had.
Wasn’t he?
He realised he was searching for her through the crowds, had in fact been doing so since he’d arrived. He’d been thinking about her since he’d seen her last night, since she’d damned him with those words:
That Ellie? The one you think you knew so well? She no longer exists.
And it was all, utterly his fault. He was to blame for making Eleanor Langley the woman she was now.
You’re the kind of person you never wanted to be.
Harsh words, and he knew he’d hurt her by saying them. But he couldn’t take them back. He wouldn’t. Yet what could he do about it? How could he help her?
And even if he did help her, somehow, wasn’t he just doing it to make himself feel better? Still selfish.
Jace moved through the crowds, scanning the throng for a glimpse of Eleanor.
And then he saw her, and his head emptied of thoughts. She stood by the window, surveying the party scene with a preoccupied air, and yet despite the tiny frown between her brows she looked lovely. Breathtaking in a shimmery dress that moved like liquid silver, encasing a slender body Jace remembered and knew so well. His palms suddenly itched to slide along that silky material and find the curve of her hip, the dip of her waist. To pull her towards him, to have her come to him, unresisting, unrepentant.
To feel Ellie in his arms again.
‘Eleanor!’
Eleanor turned, nerves fluttering low in her belly as she saw Jace coming towards her. It was a feeling that was both familiar and strange, for the nerves were not caused by anxiety, but anticipation. Even though they’d parted on such harsh terms last night, her body still leapt when she saw him. Almost as if she were glad to see him. Even though she shouldn’t be.
He stopped in front of her, reaching out with both hands to clasp hers. Eleanor accepted his touch—his hands were warm, dry, and strong, his fingers folding over hers—without even thinking about what she was doing. Part of her brain knew she should step back, smile coolly, and remain safely distant. Yet that part of her had fallen silent and still. She did nothing.
He was smiling at her with warm admiration, his gaze sweeping her from the top of her elegant chignon to the tips of her rhinestone-encrusted stiletto sandals, and it did something rather pleasant and shivery to her insides. It also kept her from forming a single coherent thought.
‘You look magnificent.’
‘So do you,’ Eleanor blurted, and then blushed. But he did, she couldn’t deny it. He wore a dark grey silk suit, his crimson tie a festive splash of colour, the expensive material emphasising his powerful frame, a body she knew and remembered. A body she had once loved.
‘And this party is wonderful,’ Jace continued in that same warm voice, a voice she also remembered, low and honeyed, sliding over her senses.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured, and slipped her hands from his. Her brain was reminding her why this wasn’t a good idea. Why she needed to remain poised, polished. Professional.
‘Very unique.’
‘That’s what you wanted.’ She realised she sounded a little sharp; she felt sharp, as if she were nothing but edges. She softened her words with a smile even as she took a step away. ‘Everyone is about to sit down for dinner, so I should go see to a few things—’
Jace nodded his acceptance. ‘I’m sorry I was late.’
‘You can be late to your own party if you want.’ Damn, she still sounded defensive. Why did Jace still affect her in so many ways? Her hands tingled from his touch. Her heart hurt. And the fact that he had been late hurt too. It shouldn’t matter. She shouldn’t care. She’d spent ten years making sure she didn’t care.
Yet apparently she still did.
‘I’d better go,’ she said, and turned quickly away before Jace could say anything more.
A minor dilemma in the kitchen—a shortage of vegan meals—kept her occupied for the next while, and she managed to avoid Jace as she moved around the room, making sure everyone was happy and fed. Yet even so her gaze kept sliding to him of its own accord. He was seated at the head table, his head bent as he chatted and laughed with the guest on his right, a curvaceous brunette poured into an emerald-green cocktail dress. She was, Eleanor knew from the guest list, Leandro Atrikides’s daughter, Kristina. She looked as if she wanted to gobble up Jace in one delicious bite.
And, Eleanor told herself, so what if she did? She was not jealous. Jealousy would be both pointless and absurd. She didn’t care what Jace did, or with whom he did it. She couldn’t. Eleanor turned away, smiled and chatted with a young couple five tables away from Jace and made sure not to look at him again.
At the end of the meal, just before Eleanor was about to cue the music for dancing, she heard the sharp, crystalline clang of a fork tapped against a wine glass and the room fell warily silent.
Jace rose from his seat.
Eleanor held her breath.
‘Thank you all for coming,’ Jace began in a melodious voice that flowed over her and the rest of his audience. ‘It is a pleasure and an honour to be among you today.’ He let his gaze rove over the room, warm and smiling. Eleanor stepped back away from the table, into the shadows. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t want Jace to see her—or if he even would—but she felt safer against the wall, away from the light. ‘I’m very grateful for your presence,’ Jace continued, ‘especially in this difficult period of change.’ Eleanor saw people shift in their seats, heard a few murmured whispers. Jace must have felt the sudden, palpable tension in the room, although he gave no sign of it. He smiled easily and kept talking.
‘I want to assure you that I will do everything in my power to ensure a smooth transition, and that it is my first concern to uphold the integrity of this company, which Leandro Atrikides instilled nearly half a century ago.’ He paused, letting his gaze linger on a few faces, then looked up to scan the entire audience. Eleanor retreated even further, so her back came up against the wall. ‘But this evening is a time for celebration, and I am delighted to see all of you—’ here he smiled at a sleepy child lolling against her mother’s arms ‘—enjoying yourselves. So let me take a moment to thank the person who made it all happen, and in the space of a single week. Eleanor?’ Her name was a question, and Eleanor blinked, stunned, speechless.
She’d been thanked before, although not very often. Event planners were meant to be invisible, as if the party magically put itself together. That was the goal. Yet here was Jace, extending his hand, smiling warmly, and looking right at her.
Somehow, even though she was skulking in the shadows like some shamed wallflower, he’d found her. And under the admiring heat of his gaze, Eleanor felt as if she’d stepped straight into the spotlight.
She heard people shift and murmur yet again, and knew her silence was becoming ridiculous. And so unlike her. She was professional. This was professional.
Even if it didn’t feel like it.
Clearing her throat, she stepped away from the wall as a patter of applause fell around her like rain. She gave a little nod of acceptance. ‘Thank you, Mr Zervas.’ His name stuck in her throat.
‘And thank you,’ Jace replied. ‘This couldn’t have happened without you.’
She nodded again, jerkily this time, and stepped back into the shadows. To her relief the conversation resumed, and she was forgotten. Yet when she looked up she saw Jace was still gazing straight at her, and the look in his eyes—something both fierce and primal—made her legs so weak that she sagged helplessly against the wall once more.
She managed to avoid him for the next hour, although why she was avoiding him at all, Eleanor had no idea. What was she scared of? They’d parted so harshly last night, and while her mind reminded her of that painful conversation, her body tingled with awareness and memory. Desire, even.
Eleanor stopped in mid-stride on the way to the kitchen and blew out a long, slow breath as she acknowledged her attraction to Jace. Her aggravating and overwhelming attraction. It shouldn’t even surprise her, really. Ten years ago she’d been overwhelmed by desire for him from the moment he’d entered the coffee shop where she’d been a barista and asked for a latte in that delicious Greek accent. Even after they’d been dating for several months, he’d still had the power to leave her speechless and desperate with longing in a matter of minutes. Why should that change?
As long as she reminded herself that her body’s reaction to Jace was purely biological, chemical, nothing more than hormones or pheromones or whatever those things were—
‘I’m almost starting to think you’re hiding from me.’
Eleanor stiffened. Ahead of her the kitchen loomed, bustling, bright, safe. The hallway was narrow, dark, and empty. Except for her and Jace.
She turned around slowly, taking in his powerful frame, his immaculate suit. He smiled, that sleepy, suggestive smile she knew so well. She’d teased him that he knew it, and he always acted innocent and even affronted. Now she had no doubt: he knew. He knew the power of that smile, how it made her feel. What it had once made her do. And perhaps what it could make her do again. That was why she was avoiding him.
‘Hiding from you?’ she repeated, forcing a light little laugh. ‘Hardly, Jace. Just busy.’
‘Of course,’ he murmured, still smiling, and Eleanor had a feeling he wasn’t fooled. Even if it was true; she was busy. Although maybe not quite that busy. ‘Still,’ he continued, making Eleanor tense again, ‘surely you have a few moments for me? For a dance?’
‘A dance?’ she repeated blankly, and his smile deepened, revealing a dimple in his cheek. She’d forgotten about that dimple; he hadn’t smiled widely enough in the last week for her to see it.
Yet even though he was smiling now, even though he was looking at her with that seductive sleepiness she remembered so well, she sensed something underneath. Something deeper and darker, marred by sorrow. He hadn’t forgotten. The past still loomed between them. No matter how light he kept his voice, Eleanor sensed he was pretending—hiding—perhaps as much as she was.
‘Yes, you know? Dance?’ He held out his arms as if he were leading an imaginary dance partner and did a quick box-step in the hallway. Eleanor folded her arms, trying to be resolute and regretful and failing. She was actually smiling, although perhaps not as widely as Jace. Yet it felt good to smile, felt right to leave the cares and regrets behind, if only for a night.
‘I don’t really dance.’
‘Good thing I do. And I’m a good teacher.’
‘Really?’ She arched an eyebrow. ‘We never danced before.’
He stopped mid-step and dropped his arms. ‘We were too busy doing other things, I suppose.’
Eleanor’s cheeks heated and she was grateful for the shadowy dimness of the hallway. Why had she mentioned the past? Why had she referred to anything about their old relationship, their old selves?
‘One dance, Eleanor.’
He made it sound like a challenge. And it was a challenge; suddenly Eleanor wanted to show Jace Zervas that she could dance with him and remain unaffected. She could walk away. She was desperate to prove to him—and to herself—that he really didn’t affect or matter to her at all. And she’d enjoy it at the same time. One dance.