A Dangerous Widow (A Dangerous Series) (11 page)

“It’s sublime,” she said.
 
“A floral, short-sleeve tulle gown with
floral appliqués.
 
Round neckline,
which will flatter Kate’s long neck.
 
Short flutter sleeves, which will enhance her toned arms.
 
And a pleated lace skirt, which will
give balance to her boobs.
 
It’s
divoon.
 
And look at how daring it
is, Kate,” she said to me.
 
“The top
appears to be nude, but the colorful appliqués will conceal what they’re meant
to conceal—your nipples.
 
You
must try it on.
 
I insist.
 
Tout-de-suite
!
”

When I did, it was a done deal.

“It’s amazing,” Jennifer said.

“Do you think?”

“I do.”

“Well, the dress is amazing, but not her
hair,” Blackwell said.
 
“Although I
have that covered now.
 
While you
were dressing, Bernie texted me.
 
He’ll come to your apartment tomorrow afternoon at five-thirty.
 
Jennifer, what do you say about having
your hair and makeup done with Kate?
 
Then, we can just go to Wenn and dress you there before Alex and you
leave for your own evening of corruption.”

“I’m game,” Jennifer said.
 
“Kate?”

“Are you serious?
 
I’m just grateful for each of you.
 
And also for you, Chloe.
 
Because
you
did this.”
 
I turned
in front of the mirror and, for the first time in years, I felt feminine and
weirdly glamorous.
 

“I think it fits,” Chloe said as she walked
around me.
 
“What do you think,
Barbara?”

“The same.
 
And who the hell knew?
 
Clearly, Valentino must have had you in
mind when he made that gown, Kate, because you’re owning it right now.
 
And good for you, darling.
 
Tomorrow night, you will shine.”
 
She shot me a look.
 
“This mysterious man you’re attending
Maxine’s party with tomorrow night…You said you dated him in high
school—did you go to prom with him?”

“I did.”

“Well, then.
 
Good luck to him when he sees you
looking like that, because that, my dear, is worth every penny of the forty
thousand dollars you’re about to spend on it.
 
Now, if we can wrest Jennifer away from
her glass of champagne, which she’s clinging to like she’ll never taste a
distilled grape again, we can go and find shoes.”

“And Spanx,” I said.

Her gaze swept over me.
 
“Is that even a question?
 
Please.”

CHAPTER TEN

The following evening, after Bernie,
Blackwell, and Jennifer left my apartment so Jennifer could get dressed for her
own event, I went into my bedroom and stood in front of my dressing mirror,
completely in disbelief of how they had somehow turned me into a woman that I
didn’t recognize.

What will Ben think when
he sees me looking like this?
I thought.
 
Will
he even recognize me?

It was doubtful, because he’d certainly
never seen me looking like this, so I had to wonder.
 
Bernie, who I loved at once for his
quick wit and gentle demeanor, had not only given me a fresh cut and color, but
had also deftly attended to my face in ways that made it glow.
 

My skin looked preternaturally
young—he and Blackwell had convinced me to go for a bold red lip and to
wear a pair of mink eyelashes, which were so dramatic, I thought that they had
turned me into a siren.
 

My hair, which I usually wore straight down
my back or in a low ponytail, now had highlights in it that I had to admit were
flattering.
 
Bernie had used a
curling iron to give my hair volume, and then he’d made me lean forward so he
could rustle his fingers through it until it became what Jennifer exclaimed was
“the coveted freshly fucked look—but in the best way!”
 

Whatever the case, it had worked.

Who am I?
I wondered as I looked at myself.
 
Is this even
me?
 
I haven’t looked like this
since Lucas attended to me.
 
And
even he hadn’t achieved anything close to this.

Ever since Michael’s death, I’d become
increasingly conservative with the clothes I chose, the makeup I wore, and how
I did my hair.
 
When I was with
Michael, I wanted to look my very best for him.
 
But in the years following his death, none
of that had mattered to me as much as my philanthropic work.
 

If I was being brutally honest with myself,
I also knew that there was a larger part of me that hadn’t wanted to look sexy
again—that part of me had been reserved for Michael, and it had died with
him.
 
I’d chosen to live a solitary
life for so long.
 
But how I looked
now made no sense to me.
 

But I liked it.
 
Seeing myself like this was like seeing
the Kate I used to know—the one who was madly in love and having the time
of her life with the love of her life.
 
Those days were gone, but at least on the surface, they were back thanks
to Bernie, who had seen something in me that I’d long since forgotten.

When the intercom rang, I knew it was
Ben.
 
I took a breath to settle my
nerves, and then I went into the foyer to answer it.

“Yes?” I said.

“A mister Benjamin Cade to see you, Mrs.
Stone.”

“Please send him up.”

I stepped away from the intercom as a shiver
of anticipation ran through me—partly because I was wondering if Ben
would like how I looked, but also because I knew I was about to change the
course of the evening.
 

How is he going to react
when I tell him that I believe I have a better plan for tonight, despite the
inherent dangers it presents?
 
Is he
going to buy into it?

Already, I knew that he wouldn’t—and
that we were about to butt heads.

When the knock came at the door, I answered
it—and there stood Ben, replete in a perfectly fitted black tuxedo, his
dark hair raked away from his chiseled face with gel.
 
He hadn’t shaved so his face was peppered
with a dusting of stubble, which made him look even more masculine to me.

For a moment, we just stared at each other.

“Kate,” he said before he stepped
inside.
 
“You look stunning.”

“Believe me, it’s all smoke and mirrors.”

“No, it isn’t,” he said.
 
“Jesus.”

When he came inside, I saw the desire in his
eyes, which he didn’t even try to mask.
 
Instead, if anything, he made it clear that he didn’t give a damn what I
saw in his eyes, which threw me.

“That’s quite a dress,” he said in a low
voice.

“Tell me about it,” I said in an effort to
lighten the moment.
 
“In fact, you
should have seen the bill.
 
It
should be ‘some dress’.”

But Ben wasn’t about to let me deflect him.

“Turn for me,” he said.

“Turn for you?”

“I want to see
all
of you in that dress.”

I couldn’t go there with him.
 
As attracted to him as I was, I needed
to keep this relationship professional—so I declined.
 
“How about if you turn around for me?” I
countered, thinking that he’d never do it.

But he did without hesitation, and as he
did, I couldn’t deny the stirring I felt in my gut.
 
He always had been handsome, but what he
had become with the passing of time was ridiculously handsome.

He looks good
, I thought.
 
Too good…

“Do you approve?” he asked.

I blushed when I said, “Yes.”

“Now, how about you?” he said.
 
“It’s only fair, you know?
 
And given that gown you’re wearing, it
should be shown off.”

“I had nothing to do with it.”

“How does that matter?”

“I guess it doesn’t…”

“Then let me have a look.”

Why is he doing this?
 
He knows how fragile this situation is.

“Come on,” he said.
 
“Take my hand.”

“Why do I need to take your hand to turn
around?”

“Just take it.”

When I took it, I was damned if I didn’t
feel a spark that was at once faint yet familiar with the memories it evoked.
 
It was also electric on a whole new
level that I couldn’t deny even if I’d wanted to.

“Now, turn.”

I turned, and as he quickly spun me around
twice, my dress and my hair fanned out.
 
When he stopped me, we were standing
within inches of each other.
 
I saw
the heat in his eyes, felt his breath on my neck, and smelled the faintest
scent of his cologne.
 
I felt my own
desire bloom within me—and then I checked myself.
 
This whole arrangement was about
Michael, not us.
 
But Ben
nevertheless pressed on.

“We were always good together, Kate,” he
said.

“I know we were, but this isn’t about us,
Ben.”

“Why can’t it be?”

“Because it’s about Michael.
 
And because we need to focus.
 
If we lose that focus, we could fail.”

“I’m able to focus on two things, Kate.”

“Have you considered that that might be
difficult for me?”

“Do you want me to back off?”

Did I?
 
I wasn’t sure.
 
If anything,
what was happening between us right now was so unexpected, I was
conflicted.
 
At a loss for words, I
just looked at him.

“How about if I back down for now?”

“I’d appreciate that.”

“But first this.”

When he leaned forward to kiss me on the
lips, it was so gentle and done with such care, I decided that all along this
moment was probably inevitable.
 
And
so I let myself go and responded to his kiss as he slowly backed me against the
foyer’s wall and kissed me deeper.
 
I closed my eyes, placed my hand against his rock hard chest, felt his
heart hammering against my palm, and then my head swam with the idea of being
with him again.
 
Having him back in
my life again.
 
Being his
again.
 
He was throwing me off my
game, but for reasons I didn’t want to admit to myself right now, I felt
powerless against it.
 

When we parted, he looked down at me.
 
“I’ve been wanting to do that for awhile
now.
 
Seeing you like this pushed me
over the edge.”

Just as Blackwell had warned…

“Did I go too far?”

“Depends on what you’ve done to my
lipstick.
 
It’s a lovely shade on
you, though.”
 

He laughed when I said that, and then he
turned around to face the mirror hanging behind him.
 
My clutch was on the table beside
me.
 
With my stomach in knots
because I knew that I’d just crossed a line, I picked it up, opened it, and
handed him a tissue.

“Am I good?” he said when he was finished
wiping his lips.

“You’re good.
 
But before we get ahead of ourselves, we
need to talk about tonight.”

“Do you want to go over it again?”

“No.
 
It’s something else.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re not going to like it,” I said.
 
“But we need to discuss it anyway.”

*
 
*
 
*

“What aren’t I going to like?”

“That I think we should be more aggressive
tonight.”

“How so?”

“You want to drop that you’re a private
investigator to Bill and Maxine, so you can see what registers in their eyes.”

“That’s right.”

“But what if nothing registers?
 
What if nothing happens?
 
If that’s the case, we’re just wasting
our time.
 
So, how about if we
approach tonight this way—let’s just be honest with everyone and put it
out there.
  
If I tell Bill and
Maxine that I’ve hired you because I’m questioning whether or not Michael’s
death was an accident, that news will spread like wildfire the moment after we
leave their sides.
 
Eventually, it
will reach the gossip and lifestyle reporters there to record the night for
tomorrow’s social pages.
 
And when
that news reaches their editors?
 
You can expect it to become front-page news by morning.
 
I’m suggesting that we need to turn me
into a target.”

“A target?”

“If Michael was murdered, as far as I see
it, that’s the fastest way to draw out his murderer.”

“But this shouldn’t be about speed—it
should be about results.
 
What
you’re proposing is too risky—you’d be putting your life on the
line.
 
There are other, safer ways
to go about this.
 
Kate, you have to
know that if you’re asking me to put you in harm’s way, I won’t do it.
 
Even after all these years, you mean too
much to me to do something like that.
 
And I’m not afraid to say it, because you do mean something to me.
 
Probably more than you know.”

“If we do this, it will go one of two
ways.
 
If Michael’s death was
accidental, then nothing will happen to me.
 
But if it is true that he was murdered,
and if we properly bait the hook, then whoever did murder him will come after
me in an effort to shut me down before I find out too much.”

“At the potential cost of your own
life.
 
Are you serious?”

“Nothing will happen to me tonight.
 
Tomorrow morning, I’ll hire a security
team to protect me while you work the sidelines to deal with any fallout.”

“You can’t be serious about this.
 
I thought tonight was settled between
us.”

“Sometimes plans change.”

“Not without talking them through, they
don’t.”

“That’s why we’re talking about this now.”

“I don’t like it.”

“I didn’t think that you would.”

“If we intentionally try to draw someone to
you, anything could happen.”

“I’m aware of that.”

“We’re talking about your life, Kate.
 
And the very real possibility that this
might end it.”

“Here’s what sickens me, Ben, and here’s
what you need to understand.
 
If
Michael was murdered, whoever killed him has been enjoying their lives for five
years while Michael has been lying cold in the ground.
 
Think about that for a moment.
 
Think about what that does to me.
 
It’s an injustice.
 
It incenses me.
 
It makes me want to fight back with
everything I have—and, yes, even at the risk of my own life.
 
Certainly you can understand that.”