Chapter Seven #2
Anja took the gown into the dressing room. She freed her braid, twisted the pale length of it into a low knot at the base of her neck, and secured it with the pins Larisa had left on the counter. Then she stepped into the dress.
The fabric was heavy silk crepe, deep navy, nearly black in low light.
The neckline sat straight across her collarbone.
It was modest in front, and then the back opened in a clean V that stopped at the base of her spine.
The fit was precise and calibrated, as if the dress had been cut for someone with her specific measurements.
The skirt fell straight to the floor with the weight of something well-made.
She came out without saying anything and stood under the track lighting.
Larisa considered her for a prolonged moment. Then she nodded once, and it was the definitive kind. “That one.”
Anja faced the mirror.
The woman in the glass looked like someone who walked into rooms and understood them immediately.
Who noticed everything and revealed nothing.
Who could shake a managing partner’s hand and read his tells in the same breath.
The neckline was clean and composed. Everything the back did was somebody else’s problem to manage.
She checked the weight shift, quarter turn, and reach. The skirt flowed with her, not against her.
“Can I move in it?”
“You can run in it if you have to,” Larisa acknowledged, which was either reassurance or a challenge. Possibly both.
Anja checked the mirror one last time.
Leo had gone silent.
He had the water glass halfway to his mouth, and it had stopped there. His eyes were on her with an expression she recognized from a wedding five months ago in Bloomington.
“De Luca,” she snapped.
He shook his head and set the glass down. Cleared his throat. “Yeah?”
“Is it appropriate for the room?”
The seconds that passed were longer than the question warranted.
“It’s appropriate for any room,” he murmured, and his voice had dropped half a register without him seeming to notice. He caught himself. “You’ll fit right in. Curtis’s wife wears Valentino to everything, so the bar is genuinely high. You’ve cleared it.”
Anja turned back to Larisa. “We’ll take it.”
Larisa reached for the garment bag.
Anja didn’t look at Leo. She didn’t need to. She’d registered what was on his face, and she was going to need a private minute in the car to put it someplace practical before the evening began.
Anja filed it in the drawer.
The drawer, as it had been doing since last night, declined to close fully.
#
The Chase Park Plaza came into view at 6:12, its limestone facade glowing against a dark-blue April sky. A line of valets moved amid the controlled chaos.
Leo pulled the Range Rover to the curb and left the engine running. He had talked little on the drive over, and she’d been equally content to let the silence ride between them.
The cover was that they’d met through Chloe.
Technically, it wasn’t a lie. They’d been together a few months, nothing public, and he’d decided tonight was the right time to introduce her.
That last detail was Anja’s, because it explained the absence of prior introductions without requiring a story that could unspool under pressure.
A valet appeared at his window. Leo stepped out, handed over the keys, and went around to Anja’s side.
She was already out, which he’d expected, and doing the thing she did in new locations.
It was an unhurried scan of the entrance, the adjacent street, the rooflines, and the other arriving guests.
She did it so smoothly that nobody standing twenty feet away would’ve clocked it as anything other than a woman taking in an evening.
He offered his arm. She took it.
“Twelve o’clock,” she murmured. “Green sedan.”
He didn’t look. “Event security. They hire a detail for the gala every year. Black ties, earpieces.”
“Not earpieces. Single bead on the right ear.”
“That’s what I said.”
She arched her brows.
Fine. She was the expert after all.
They went up the steps and through the brass doors.
The Khorassan Ballroom opened before them.
It was a wide, luminous hall with coffered ceilings and crystal chandeliers throwing warm gold across a room full of people who wore it well.
The string quartet was playing something neither too festive nor too somber near the far windows.
Waitstaff moved efficiently, and everywhere Leo gazed, someone he recognized was holding a champagne flute and having an important conversation about nothing.
He’d worked rooms like this for six years. Tonight it looked different, and he couldn’t entirely blame the lighting.
Anja’s hand rested in the crook of his arm with a relaxed, natural ease that would’ve read, to anyone paying attention, that she was comfortable beside him.
He was aware of her against him, of the dark blue of her dress against the surrounding sea of black and silver, and more specifically, the back of the gown.
Larisa Morozova had apparently built an empire on knowing exactly what she was doing.
Leo had realized it in the boutique. He hadn’t mentioned it because he’d understood that commenting would mean losing a point in a game he hadn’t been told the rules of. He was choosing to count that as self-control.
Earlier, he’d almost swallowed his tongue when Anja emerged from his guest room wearing the dress.
It accentuated her toned body to perfection.
Her hair had been piled on her head, with a few strands escaping to frame her face.
God, she was gorgeous. He was so damn proud to have her on his arm tonight.
They’d barely cleared the second row of tables when a familiar voice cut warmly across his shoulder.
“Leo, you brought someone, and you spoke not one word about her to me.”
Marcy Bell stood with a champagne flute, wearing a gown in deep burgundy, her reading glasses for once not perched on the end of her nose.
Her attention had moved past Leo and fixed on Anja with frank, delighted curiosity.
She’d managed his calendar for six years and knew for a fact there had been no standing dinner reservations.
“Marcy.” Leo smiled despite the night, despite everything. “This is Anja. Anja, Marcy runs my professional life and most of my personal one, and she’ll tell you I’d be lost without her, which is true.”
“He doesn’t say it nearly often enough.” Marcy took Anja’s offered hand in both of hers and held it, openly studying her.
“My word. You are a vision in that dress, with that face and body. And here I thought I’d given up hope he’d let anyone get close enough to matter.
” She slid a pointed look at Leo. “Six years I’ve worked for this man.
Six years of ‘no calls after seven, Marcy,’ and ‘cancel the setup my mother arranged, Marcy,’ and not once a whisper of a girlfriend. And then he walks in with you.”
“He’s a man of many secrets,” Anja allowed, with a warmth Leo wasn’t sure was entirely performance.
“Oh, he is the worst. The genuine worst.” Marcy was beaming now. “How long has this been going on, and how much of it has he been hiding from me?”
“A few months. And all of it, apparently.”
“A few months.” Marcy pressed a hand to her chest in mock injury and turned the full force of it on Leo. “A few months. I scheduled your dentist around your week and you couldn’t find ninety seconds to mention her?”
“I was being careful.”
“You were being you.” She squeezed Anja’s hand once more before letting it go.
“It is so good to meet you, dear. He works too hard, and he carries too much. He could use someone who sees it. You keep an eye on him.” She lifted her flute a half-inch.
“And come by the office. I’ll tell you everything he won’t. ”
“That’s a date,” Anja promised. Marcy moved off into the crowd looking thoroughly pleased with the entire evening.
Leo watched her disappear, oddly touched. “She likes you.”
“People tell their secrets to the person who runs the calendar.” Anja’s attention shifted. “Who is that? Two o’clock. Blue tie.”
Leo found who she was talking about without moving his head. “Brad Hatton.” Brad was mid-laugh at something his wife was saying, but his eyes were on the door. “He gets here early, usually.”
“He’s watching the entrance.”
“Brad always does. It’s how he poaches clients.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced.
A hand landed on his shoulder, and he turned to find Curtis Lennox had materialized from the crowd.
“Leo.” Curtis gripped his hand, firm and genuine. He was sixty-eight, silver-haired, with a build that hinted at the tight end he’d been at Missouri and a handshake that remembered it. “Glad you made it.”
As if he had a choice. “Wouldn’t miss it.” Leo’s smile was the one he’d built for rooms like this. “Curtis, this is Anja. We’ve been seeing each other for a few months.”
Curtis turned to her with his full-beam attention. Surprise flickered in his eyes at the unexpected news, then smoothed into a warm, easy greeting.
“Anja.” He took her hand in both of his. “It’s wonderful to meet you. Leo keeps his personal life close to the chest.”
“He does,” she agreed. Her voice was warm and relaxed, the professional lockbox entirely out of sight. “I’ve heard so much about you, though. He thinks very highly of you.”
“Well.” Curtis glanced at Leo with a satisfied expression. “That means more than you know. What do you do, Anja?”
“Corporate marketing.” She delivered it easily. “It’s not nearly as interesting as sports, but it pays well.”
Curtis laughed. “Most people underestimate marketing. It’s amazing what you can convince people to believe.”
“Fortunately, my job’s a little less glamorous than that,” Anja replied with a smile.
He released her hand. “And sports? Are you a fan?”
“I am.”
Curtis smiled. “Baseball?”
“Pittsburgh Pirates.”
Leo winced. “She’s very brave.”
“Loyal,” Anja corrected.
“Same thing if you’re a Pirates fan,” Leo smirked.
Curtis laughed. “What about basketball?”