Chapter 27
As we entered the ballroom, I rolled my shoulders back and focused on standing up straight. This was, after all, a crowd that took posture and manners very seriously.
Also, since I’d chosen Chucks over high heels, I needed every inch I could get.
All around me, women wore designer dresses, just as Nana had predicted.
My dress might not have been as expensive, but it fit me perfectly.
Selena wasn’t the only impossibly thin woman to gaze with envy at my cleavage.
Some of the older ladies barely contained their disdain.
I told Nana the electric blue would’ve been a safer bet for me.
I caught Malone looking at me with hungry eyes. He looked as though he might plop me on one of the tables. I took in a ragged breath at the thought.
Never mind. No regrets.
Finally, Malone settled me at a table toward the front of the ballroom. “Want a drink before I go kiss Grandpa’s ring?”
“I’d love one. Something white, please.”
As he strode to the bar, I scanned the room. In the corner, Nana chatted with a distinguished older gentleman. She wore the same electric-blue dress I’d tried on, only two sizes smaller.
Well played, Nana.
I had to admit she fit in well with the ladies who lunched.
Finding Blake—so I could get the fifty dollars from Malone I would have to give Havisham later—would be more difficult.
Not only were the lights dimmed, but the men all wore tuxedos, an absolute sea of black.
This old-money crowd wasn’t going to experiment with color or styles like actors at the Oscars.
My Malone returned with a glass of wine for me and a bottle of beer for him. I raised a brow in inquiry.
“Sauvignon blanc,” he said.
“As long as you don’t serve Mrs. Q’s casserole with it.”
“Pretty sure it’s going to be rubber chicken tonight.”
I made a face. “Did you happen to bring any of your medicinal hot sauce?”
He gave me a lopsided smile. “Sorry, but no.”
“Alas.”
He took a sip of his beer, and I froze as I recognized the label. As casually as I could, I asked, “Malone, what are you drinking?”
“A Blue Moon.”
I had not specified to the universe which blue moon I meant. But it couldn’t be the beer. What was Malone going to do? Hold the bottle up and let us kiss underneath it as if it were mistletoe?
“Oh boy.” His face contorted.
“What?”
“You need to come with me, so sip a bit of that liquid courage.”
“Why?”
“Grandpa spotted you and inclined his head. I’m afraid you must be vetted.”
My nose wrinkled. “Like a show pony?”
“Something like that.”
I took a sip and stood. “Fine. Let’s get this over with. I’m happy to help relieve your boredom and to attempt to make Selena jealous, but I didn’t sign up to have an old man check my teeth.”
“He won’t check your teeth.”
“Thank God.”
“He has people for that.”
“Dammit, Malone.”
He took my hand and gave it a squeeze; electricity ran up my arm, and happiness spilled over my head and down my body.
As we approached a group of people standing at the edge of a dais, the crowd of men parted to make room for us.
Each of those men sized me up. I stood straighter, which had the unfortunate—or fortunate, depending on your point of view—effect of pushing my chest forward.
Conversation stopped.
“Grandpa,” Malone said as he released my hand with one last reassuring squeeze and then stepped forward to hug his grandfather.
His grandfather’s eyes bored through me, and I had a flash of the future. Malone would one day look like this: hair more sandy than gray, eyes crinkling, still trim, still commanding.
But not as scary. No, Malone would always have a twinkle in his eyes.
“This is my date, Stella Stark.”
Lucius Malone looked me up and down. He didn’t have to check my teeth to make me feel like a show pony. “Stark. Of the Kennesaw Avenue Starks?”
“Uh, more like the McDonald Street Starks?”
He nodded. “And you know this boy is going back to California?”
“He has made that abundantly clear.”
“Good. Nice to meet you.” He turned back to his cronies, and Malone escorted me to our table once more.
“Malone, I think he just relegated this pony to the glue factory.”
“Uh-huh,” he replied in such a way I knew he hadn’t heard a word I’d said.
“Malone?”
“Oh, sorry.” He turned his beautifully mismatched eyes to me. “It doesn’t matter what he thinks, but I also won’t let anyone take you to the glue factory.”
“Great. You look like you just saw a ghost.”
Movement across the room caught his attention again. He sighed and took his wallet from his back pocket, flipped through some bills, and handed me a fifty.
My head jerked up, my eyes searching in the direction he’d been looking.
Sure enough, there was Blake Malone, glad-handing and shoulder slapping his way to his grandfather. When he came to us, he stopped, his faux smile fading from his face.
“Ty.”
“Blake.”
He had almost dismissed me entirely when it clicked for him. “You!”
“Yes?”
“You’re the b—one who’s conspiring with my wife to take everything I own.”
So many things I could’ve said about logical consequences, not sleeping around on your spouse, not stealing from your own company. I said none of them, which only proved monumental personal growth on my part. Instead, I said, “I was hired to deliver papers. I delivered them.”
“You’re with him?” He said the last word with such disgust that Malone recoiled.
“Yes, quite happily so,” I said, putting a hand on my date’s chest.
“I would have the one process server who’d actually met my cousin,” he muttered under his breath before recovering his earlier persona with a ghost of a smile. “No matter.”
He jerked his chin upward and moved toward his grandpa.
“Remarkable restraint, Stark,” Malone said softly.
“See? I can keep all your secrets,” I said.
He started to say something, but a tapping on a microphone stopped him. We sat down at our table, waiting for stragglers to find their way to their assigned seats.
It was time for the show to begin.
An hour later, we’d watched a slideshow about Malone Menagerie, Lucius Malone’s literal pet project, while consuming rubbery hotel chicken with equally unappetizing vegetables.
While we ate above-average cheesecake and drank questionable coffee, Selena treated us to a recitation of everything Malone Construction had accomplished so far that year, along with sneaking in a not-so-subtle hint that the company was looking to go public.
Aha. If the company wanted to go public, then that would explain a good deal of why Malone was so cagey. Might also explain why he hadn’t corrected me when, after our Habitat date, I’d called him Blake.
Habitat date?
Not a date.
But I could see where it might be handy to have my Malone sit in on a Zoom call while others assumed he was Blake. That would give the company time to figure out what had gone wrong and to clean up their mess before going public.
Seemed like a scheme Lucius Malone might concoct, but it was also conjecture on my part.
I snapped back to the present when Selena called Lucius to the podium. He pretended to be embarrassed at first but then did an excellent job of pontificating as well as insinuating he had no plans to retire anytime soon.
After dessert, Selena declared the silent auction open and called folks to the sizable dance floor that sat to the side of the dais.
Malone excused himself, presumably to visit the little boys’ room, and I wandered the edges of the ballroom to ostensibly check out the auction items, which were displayed on white-clothed tables.
Each had a sheet of paper and a pen for bids.
Not a single item started at less than $500.
Which hadn’t stopped Nana from adding her name in neat cursive to a sheet of paper for a cruise to the Caribbean.
I hugged myself. This was definitely a look-and-don’t-touch situation for me.
Blue Ridge Mountain cabin rentals and other vacation packages. Works of art. Jewelry. Autographed sports memorabilia. Rare first editions.
Each and every one was well out of my price range.
I smelled Malone before he spoke. Bourbon, vanilla, spice, and everything nice.
“Wanna dance?” he asked, his voice rumbling through my body.
I whirled around. “Depends. Are we doing the Macarena?”
“Nope.”
“Cha Cha Slide?”
“If only.”
“The Wobble?”
“In this crowd? That I would pay to see.”
We reached the dance floor as the last strains of Kool and the Gang’s “Celebration” launched into a slow song. This was both good and bad. My body hummed in anticipation, but our night was far from over.
Also, how were we going to play this? Formal slow dance or lock my hands behind his neck and sway like teens at prom?
Malone put one hand on my waist and took my hand with the other. I put my left hand on his sturdy shoulder. Maybe he was keeping it formal because his body was humming, too.
“You’re a good dancer, Stark.”
“I took dance lessons when I was younger,” I said as the singer crooned about a lady in red.
Then I did a double take as Nana danced past with Lucius Malone. Were they fox-trotting? Bold choice at such a slow tempo.
Malone leaned forward so we were cheek to cheek just as the singer uttered those words. I forgot about Nana or grandfathers, foxtrots or duplicitous cousins.
For a moment it felt as though it really were just him and me.
“You look gorgeous tonight, Stark,” he whispered. “But I think I’m going to like that dress even better once it’s on the floor.”
“You look 007 yummy yourself.”
That earned me a chuckle, just as I had hoped it would.
“I think purple is forever my favorite color.”
“I’m not sure I’m kitted out well enough to make your ex jealous, though. Faking it until I make it, Malone.”
“Stark, your smile is as genuine as your, ahem, assets. And when I went to the restroom just now, she asked if we could catch up sometime soon.”
I stiffened in spite of myself. “Oh?”
“I told her I had a lot on my plate right now. Really busy.”
Enjoy the moment, Stark.
And so I did, closing my eyes and swaying with a handsome man, enjoying the anticipation of an even better night to come.
“Just so you know, I plan to keep you very busy this evening.” His baritone reverberated through my body.
“How soon can we duck out of here?”
Malone held me out at arm’s length, his gaze one of hungry admiration. Before he could say anything, though, Selena announced, “And now it’s time for our annual foxtrot competition.”
“What?”
Malone shrugged. “Weird rich-people stuff. I told you there’d be no Cha Cha Slide around here.”
I was about to suggest we leave the floor when Lucius Malone appeared at my elbow. “Mind if I cut in?”