9. Julian
NINE
JULIAN
The whiskey was warm in my hand. I had been at the entrance for fifteen minutes.
The ballroom was on the rooftop of the Carlyle.
Declan picked it because Thea once said, in passing, that the chandeliers looked like upside-down birthday cakes.
Eight chandeliers. White peonies in glass cylinders down the center of every table.
The hellebore Declan had not been able to name this morning crowded green between them.
The string quartet was at the south wall, finishing the warm-up of the Pachelbel they were not actually going to play.
Caterers crossed the room with trays of champagne flutes.
I was watching the door.
I had been watching the door since it opened. I knew it. Anyone who had been in the room for more than three minutes knew it. The bartender knew it.
I had not heard from the unknown number in seven days.
I had spent four of those days having my security guy run the burner.
He had come back with what I had known he would come back with, which was nothing.
The number had been live for the four minutes it had taken to send the text and had been dark since.
The man had not contacted me again. He had not needed to.
The not-contacting was its own kind of contact.
I lifted the glass. Drank. Set it back at my hip.
I had decided, in the elevator on the way up tonight, that I was going to put it down for the duration of the gala.
Conrad — if it was Conrad, and I knew it was Conrad — could wait until Monday.
Tonight I had asked Claire to come with me, and she had said yes.
Tonight was going to be the night I let it be the thing it was.
I scanned the door again.
"She's not here yet."
Declan was at my left elbow with a champagne flute in his hand.
He had on a tux that fit him too well, and his dark hair was carefully arranged in the way that meant Thea had run her hand through it on the way out the door.
He did not bother to fix it. His wedding band caught the chandelier light when he raised the glass.
"Who?"
He looked at me.
It was the look he had been giving me since we were twenty-four years old.
"Don't insult me, Jules."
"I'm just looking at the door."
"You've been looking at the door for fifteen minutes."
Nolan came up behind us. Soleil was on his arm in cream and gold, dark curls down her back, a pair of long gold drop earrings catching the light when she turned her head. Nolan was in his tux with the same charcoal mood he wore in meetings, his hand at the small of Soleil's back.
"He's been watching the door for fifteen minutes," Nolan said.
"I think it's sweet," Soleil said.
"I think it's a liability," Nolan said.
"You're both wrong," I said. "I'm watching the door because I am responsible for greeting late arrivals. I am the official greeter. Declan put me here."
"I did not put you there," Declan said.
"He put me here."
"I did not put him there."
"He has been the official greeter for the entire two minutes he has been at this gala," Nolan said.
Soleil patted my arm. "Sweet."
She tugged Nolan toward the bar. He let himself be tugged. Declan stayed.
"I offered to pick her up," I said. The words came out before I had decided to let them.
"And?"
"She said no."
"Twice?"
"Twice."
"You pushed?"
"I pushed."
"And she said?"
"I'll meet you there, Julian."
He nodded slowly. He did not say anything for a second. He drank.
"You're learning."
"I'm learning what?"
"You're learning that with that one, you take what she gives you. You don't grab for more."
"Yeah."
"It's good for you, Jules."
"Is it?"
"It is."
He clapped my shoulder on his way past. He went to greet the senator I hadn’t noticed walk in.
I lifted my whiskey. I drank. I looked back at the door.
She walked in.
She was three steps inside the door with her hand on the small clutch at her hip and the chandelier light coming down on her. The room around her buzzed the way they do when a beautiful woman walks into them and people are pretending not to notice.
I noticed.
The dress was black and sleeveless. Fitted at the waist, falling to just below the knee.
The neckline was not low. The line of her shoulders was bare.
Her hair was down — heavy and dark against her shoulders.
Her gray eyes had a faint dark line at the lash that the office Claire never wore. Her mouth was not bare.
I had seen her hair down twice. The first time she had been flushed and sweating and trying to outrun something. This was the second time. This time she knew exactly what she looked like.
She knew I was there. She had not looked at me yet. She was waiting for me to walk to her.
I walked.
I crossed the carpet between us with the whiskey still in my hand and my chest doing the thing it did when she came around the corner of my desk. By the time I reached her my mouth had decided what it was going to say and I let it.
"You clean up well, Mr. Cross."
"You're stunning."
She blinked.
The almost-smile came up at the corner of her mouth, then more of it, and her gray eyes met mine. I saw that she had not been expecting me to say it so plainly.
"Thank you, Julian."
The name in the dress with her hair down. I filed it somewhere I was not getting it back out of.
The whiskey went to my left hand. I put my right hand at the small of her back. The fabric of the dress was the cool weight of good silk over the warmth of her, and I left my hand exactly where I had put it. My thumb pressed once against her spine.
She did not pull away.
I walked her into the room.
"This way. Declan saved us seats next to him, which is unfortunate because Declan kicks under the table when he laughs."
"Noted."
"Soleil is at the bar. She's going to ambush you in seventeen seconds."
"Noted."
"Champagne?"
"Wine, please. White."
We were two steps from the bar when Soleil saw her.
"Claire."
She was across the floor in seconds. She took both of Claire's hands. Claire let her. Soleil held her at arm's length and made a sound that was not a word, and then she pulled her in and kissed her on both cheeks.
"Look at you. Where is this dress from?"
"It's old."
"It's not old."
"It's old."
"I will find out."
Soleil's eyes flicked to my hand on Claire's back. The corner of her mouth moved. She did not say anything. She pulled Claire half a step from me, hooked her arm through Claire's, and walked her to the bar.
Nolan looked at me over his glass.
"You're done for, Jules."
"Shut up, Reeves."
He smiled into his drink.
A small commotion at the door. The conversation in the room dimmed by three notches. I turned with the rest of the room.
Thea was in the doorway with Lena on her hip.
She was in a long red dress — I'd been there when Declan picked it out — and her red hair was half up and half down on her shoulders.
Lena was in white with a bow in her hair that was already crooked, her small fat hand gripping Thea's necklace.
Thea took one step inside the room. She looked up.
The chandeliers. The peonies. The people turned to her.
Her free hand came up and covered her mouth.
Declan was across the room from her. He had not moved. He was watching her like she was the only thing in the room.
She looked at him.
He smiled.
She crossed the floor to him with Lena on her hip and the long red dress moving around her ankles. When she got to him, she put her free hand on his cheek and said something I could not hear. He leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead, very slowly, with his eyes closed.
Lena grabbed for the balloon nearest to her and missed.
I felt my chest tighten.
It was not sadness. It was something that lived next door to sadness and did not have my permission to be there.
I had been standing at the back of this exact picture for two years.
I had been the man at the corner of every Hale family photo, the Uncle Jules who arrived with too many gifts, stayed too late, and went home alone.
Tonight I had a hand on someone's back.
I glanced at Claire.
She was a foot from me, at the bar. She had her wine in her hand. She was watching Declan and Thea. Her face had gone soft. She caught herself. Her eyes flicked to mine. Her face smoothed, fast.
I did not say anything.
I took the wine out of her hand, took a sip of it and gave it back to her.
Her mouth almost moved.
I put my hand back at the small of her back.
The next hour was the gala. I introduced her to people, and she extended her hand, gave her name, made small smiles, and asked small questions back. Her hand was steady on the wineglass, and her face was warm enough to pass.
Adler from the foundation board cornered us by the canapé table. He was sixty-eight in a dinner jacket, his wife in pearls behind him. He leaned in to ask Claire about work.
My fingers pressed into her hip without my deciding it.
Claire glanced at me. I did not move my hand.
Adler's wife caught the look. She gave me a small tight smile of approval and tugged Adler away to the bar.
"That was not subtle."
"He was not subtle."
"You don't have to defend my honor at a charity gala, Julian."
"I do, actually."
She drank her wine.
We drifted to the bar at 9:15 p.m. Shoulder to shoulder. The bartender knew my order and had the whiskey poured before I asked and gave Claire a fresh wine without being told. I leaned into her ear.
"The toast is going to be five minutes or it's going to be forty-five. There's no in-between with him."
"Bet?"
"Loser buys breakfast."
She turned her head. Our faces were 6 in. apart. The chandelier light was on her cheek, the dark line at her lash was inches from my eye and her gray eyes were on mine.
"You're a billionaire."
"Then the stakes are low."
Her lips parted. Almost a sound. Almost a laugh. Her eyes darkened.
I wanted to kiss her.
I wanted to kiss her right there at the bar with two hundred people in the room and Nolan watching from 12 ft. away.
She saw me wanting to.