Chapter Twenty-Two #4
Audrey was still stunned. “This isn’t Pretty Woman like Violet thought. We didn’t have to come to this—you just wanted me to…” Audrey bit her lip. “You wanted to let me be Anastasia.”
Theo tilted his head back and forth as if weighing the accusation.
“Well, I do try to come to these at least once a year. I was due.” He tugged her closer and held her tightly against his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin and running his hand soothingly along her back while they continued to sway. “But I also thought it might be fun.”
He placed his lips next to her ear and chuckled, low and strong.
“I had an opportunity and I took it,” he whispered.
“I watched your face during that part of the movie, you know. You were so focused on the screen that you didn’t know it, but I watched you light up, and I’m not sure I’d ever seen you look that dreamy before—at least, not then.
Not yet.” His hand pressed more firmly into her back.
“If you were that thrilled by the mere idea of going to a ball, did you really think I didn’t want to know for myself what it might be like if you lived it, even just for an evening? ”
Audrey stopped swaying. She cradled his right cheek with her hand, sweeping a thumb along the length of his scar with a bemused shake of her head.
“You are a ridiculous man with ridiculous notions, Theodore Sullivan.” It was her turn to huff a soft laugh. “I hardly know what to do with you sometimes.”
He caught her hand and brought it to his lips, his eyes molten and dark, amber warmth mixing and mottled with cool, forest moss.
“I’m a very reasonable man with very practical notions, Miss Adams,” he growled.
Then he looked up at the heavens and sighed deeply before gazing back into her eyes with resignation.
“And very little shame about how much I love you. So much so, I’ll even sacrifice my hard-won dignity at your altar if you want me to dance in public with you.
I know that about myself.” Another raised eyebrow, and his grin was wolfish once more as he leaned down and murmured, “And I’m pretty sure you know exactly what to do with me. ”
“I do. And it’s move in with you.”
He stopped in his tracks. “What?” he breathed. Everyone else around them kept dancing. “Really? You mean it?”
“You’re not the only one who had surprises up their sleeve tonight.” Her smile widened. “I want to move in—with you. Before I start my new job. New year. New us.”
The band finished their song and the rest of the dancers stopped to applaud. But Theo didn’t move. He just stared at her, smiling softly, frozen in time and space, his eyes lined with tears and glimmering with wonder in the glittering lights of the ballroom.
Audrey didn’t applaud either. She was too lost in the gaze of the man standing before her, and she knew. She knew he was the only one for her, the only one who ever would or could be for her, if only because she couldn’t fathom ever having eyes for anyone else.
She saw him.
And he saw her too.
He always had, even when she couldn’t see herself.
After dinner, the auction began.
Though the Redmond family usually sponsored a large table for this particular multi-charity event every year, Theo had opted to purchase a smaller, more intimate one for just the two of them—meaning they had the entire table to themselves for the night.
But despite not having to entertain his family’s foundation’s donors, it didn’t stop people from approaching them.
Turned out Theo was fairly well-known in high society, which shouldn’t have surprised her.
What did, however, was how none of them seemed to know he was an artist. A few asked him about his graphic design business, but most interrupted their dinner to give their condolences regarding his father or ask after his mother or inquire about Audrey.
No one mentioned the wreck explicitly, but nearly everyone’s eyes immediately fell to his scar and rarely left.
Theo smiled and nodded politely and kept up appearances through gritted teeth, and it only became more genuine when he got to talk about Audrey, and how proud he was that she’d just graduated and accepted a job at a green energy startup.
She blushed whenever he heaped praise upon her, and they both sighed in relief every time another person finally decided to leave them alone.
“Is it always like this?” she eventually asked.
Theo shook his head while he focused on cutting his steak.
His hand was shaking a little more than it usually did these days, and she had to wonder how much of that was from stress—or nerves.
“No,” he muttered. “Diego tried to keep things out of the papers and Dad’s obituary didn’t mention the accident, but word got out anyway. They’re coming around to gawk at me.”
“I hate that they are.” She placed her hand on his arm, and when he looked up at her, his face softened.
“It’s fine.” He shrugged. “I don’t really give a shit anymore.
They can stare all they want. Only one person’s opinion about my appearance matters to me.
” He lifted his fork to his mouth and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
His lips twitched, and she swore she saw the ghost of a crooked smile cross them, if only for a split second.
After dinner and during dessert, the lights dimmed and the auction began.
Among other things, there were two dozen art pieces up for grabs that the public knew about, and as soon as the auctioneer launched the sales, Theo leaned his elbows onto his knees and his expression shifted, growing stony and determined.
When everyone else followed suit, it became apparent:
This auction was serious business.
The gala attendees were enthusiastic and brutally competitive, and Theo was no exception.
He bid on—and won—an art piece by a relative unknown early on, explaining to her in a low voice that he knew of the artist he’d bought and they’d likely take off in the next few years, so what he’d gotten was actually a steal.
Plus, the money went to a good cause and he was also keeping up pretenses.
Who would suspect a bidder in the auction was secretly one of its entrants?
The facade Theo kept up appeared to work like a charm. Most of the people who’d stopped by their table really seemed to believe he didn’t work—that he was just a spoiled trust fund kid with a casual interest in art and philanthropy, and that was it. Things couldn’t be further from the truth.
After about an hour, the final listed piece sold, but instead of raising the lights, the auctioneer held his hands up.
The crowd, some of whom had obviously been angling to leave and had already risen, paused at their tables in surprise.
Others, the serious collectors who might have heard the rumors Theo’s lawyer had spread, leaned forward in anticipation, their excitement palpable.
Theo merely folded his hands pensively over his mouth. His face was unreadable, but he wasn’t fooling her: he fidgeted the way he always did when he was anxious, his leg bouncing up and down, one finger tapping at his lips.
He was afraid this piece would be a failure, the same way his last one had been.
“Now, everyone,” the auctioneer said, “you might have thought the bidding was over, but we have one more special, surprise piece up for grabs by a local artist you may have heard of: Lightm4st3r.”
Whispers and murmurs swept through the ballroom like wind rushing through trees.
He gestured theatrically behind him, and two men wheeled a platform out from behind a partition at the back of the stage.
Theo’s sculpture was covered with a tarp, but the only thing it did was conceal the shape of the piece.
Whatever he’d made was well over six feet tall and sprawled almost as wide at the base.
“It’s a last-minute entry we received this morning, benefiting two very deserving foundations.
Fifty percent of the proceeds from the sale will go to A Home For Juliette, an organization dedicated to improving the lives and living conditions of foster children across America.
The other fifty percent are for Fostering Freedom, which provides college funding, tutoring, and support to foster students fresh out of the system who go on to pursue their undergraduate degrees. ”
What?
Audrey whipped her head over to find Theo watching her closely, a tiny satisfied smile concealed beneath a seemingly pensive finger.
I love you, he mouthed.
This was for her.
This whole thing was for her.
If she was as determined to kill him tonight as he kept claiming, then he seemed even more dead set on making her cry.
And this time, he won.
Her lip quivered and she sniffed, one traitorous tear escaping the jail she’d tried to confine it to.
Theo leaned over and swept it away with his thumb.
“Don’t cry, Miss Adams,” he whispered. But that only made it worse.
She choked back a sob, and Theo pressed a kiss just below her ear before pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and gently dabbing her cheeks with it.
“The fun’s only just begun. You don’t want to miss what happens next. ”
“The piece is a neon sculpture, so please be patient while we turn off the lights to show the work to its full effect.”
One by one, every bit of light aside from the signs illuminating the emergency exits was switched off, and the entire ballroom was plunged into darkness for a full minute, maybe even two.
It was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop—but you would’ve been able to slice through the excitement with a knife, it was so tangible.
The piece was finally switched on and a collective gasp swept through the crowd.
The initial flash of color was so bright, it was as though a star had exploded before their eyes.