Angel in Armani (28 page)

“Earth to Sara,” Mal said and she realized she was smoothing the skirt of the dress with one hand. “Worried about ruining your frock?”

“No,” she said. “Not the frock.” Just everything else in her life. Not that there was that much left to ruin. So maybe she should just suck it up and enjoy this one glittering night for what it was: a rare moment before the bell chimed at midnight and delivered her back to the pumpkin patch of real life. She put her hand on the door handle and summoned a smile. “Let’s do this,” she said to Mal and then climbed out to face the fairy tale.

*   *   *

True to Mal’s word, Gardner was waiting for them at the end of the alley. He showed them through the door and then through a bewildering series of corridors and up two sets of stairs. The decor became progressively more luxurious as they moved from the service areas toward the public parts of the hotel.

They came out in the lobby, which was teeming with people, and then followed Gardner downstairs to the ballroom. The vast space was like a cross between a steampunk theater and a Golden Age ballroom. Sara had to remind herself not to gape when a guy dressed in black tuxedo pants, silver braces, and nothing else, his face hidden by a mask that was an explosion of white silver and blue feathers, waved a silver tray of drinks in her face as soon as they reached the bottom of the curving staircase.

She shook her head and stepped closer to Mal. He scanned the throng of people—there were advantages to being so tall—and then bent down and said, “I can see Maggie, we’ll go that way.”

Sounded like a good plan to her. He offered her his arm again and, between him and Gardner, they made their way fairly easily through the room. Maggie was standing near a table, speaking to a couple of women Sara didn’t know.

Maggie wore white, long and slinky, with sky-high black stilettos. The collar of diamonds around her neck glittered blindingly. She’d bought the dress on their shopping trip as well and had been just as excited about finding a bargain as Sara was. But looking at the diamonds, Sara didn’t think they were bargain-basement finds. Nope, they were the real thing. Maggie was at home in this world.

Sara wasn’t. She really, really wanted Lucas to be here with her.

Maggie’s face broke into a smile when she spotted them and she waved them over, introducing them to the women she was talking to, though the names flew out of Sara’s head as soon as she heard them.

“This is amazing,” Sara said, snagging a glass of sparkling water off the tray of the next feathery boy who passed by.

“I told you I throw excellent parties,” Maggie said with a grin.

“Yes, you do,” Mal said. “And now I have to mingle.” He smiled at Sara then made an apologetic face and broke away from their group, melting into the crowd.

He was one of the hosts, and he had to work to do, so she couldn’t ask him to stay just because she was nervous.

Relax. She focused on the conversation and tried to act like a normal person. It was hard to hear over the music and the sound of the crowd, but she followed well enough to be able to nod and smile at the right moments.

She was starting to feel a little more comfortable when Alex appeared by Maggie’s side. “Sorry, ladies,” he said, “I need to steal Maggie for a few minutes.” He smiled at Sara. “Hey, Sara. You look gorgeous.”

She smiled back and watched as Maggie abandoned her to follow Alex. Though Maggie did stop and whisper, “Shelly’s somewhere over by the main bar. Go find her,” before abandoning her.

Shelly being one of the few other people she was likely to know here, Sara decided that was good advice. She would have felt better if the players had been here. She was getting to know a few of them in Orlando—Brett Tuckerson the pitcher had talked to her a few times, and Ollie had introduced her to some of the other guys. And then there were Sam and Tico, of course, who like to come and hang out with her and ask her about helicopters and try to teach her baseball stats.

But they were all in Florida. She stood on tiptoe to try and figure out which direction the main bar was, then excused herself to the two women she’d been talking to and headed in that direction.

She was about halfway across the room when she nearly bumped into an older woman whose dark hair was pulled back into an immaculate chignon, framing olive skin and dark eyes. She wore dark-red silk, and rubies the size of malt balls glittered in her ears and around her neck.

“I’m sorry,” Sara said.

“That’s all right, dear,” the woman said. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.” She looked Sara up and down. “Did I see you come in with Malachi earlier?”

“You know Mal?” Sara perked up.

“Yes, he’s a friend of the family,” the woman said. Then she held out a hand weighed down by even more diamonds and rubies and tipped with blood-red nails to match. “I’m Flavia Angelo.”

Chapter Nineteen

Oh crap, Lucas’s mom.

Sara managed to keep the smile on her face from freezing in place and took Flavia’s hand. “Sara Charles.” Flavia’s skin was cool and Sara kept the handshake brief, withdrawing her hand as soon as possible.

“How lovely to meet you, Sara. So are you here with Malachi?” Flavia asked, lifting the champagne glass in her left hand to tilt it in the direction that Mal had disappeared earlier. “I hadn’t heard that he was seeing anybody.”

Sara didn’t think that Lucas had the kind of relationship with his mom that meant he was calling her with updates on his friends’ love lives. But she’d done some research on his family, and the Angelos were firmly cemented in the Manhattan social scene. Flavia probably had a network worthy of a spymaster. Sara only hoped that it hadn’t revealed anything about Lucas and her.

“We’re just friends. Colleagues really.”

“Oh? You work for the baseball team?”

The tone in which she said
baseball team
should have dropped the temperature in the ballroom a good few degrees. The look in her eyes dropped it farther still. Brown eyes should be warm. But Flavia’s were a shade you might get if you froze bitter chocolate. Lucas must have gotten his eyes from his dad. And he apparently hadn’t been kidding about his family’s views on baseball. She might be here at the fund-raiser, but Flavia was definitely not a Saints fan.

Where the hell was Lucas? Though maybe it was just as well he wasn’t here. She didn’t want Flavia’s chill directed at her personally. “Yes, I work for the Saints,” she said.

“That must be interesting.”

There was that tone again. Sara set her teeth. “Yes, it is.”

“What is it you do there?”

“I fly their helicopter,” Sara said.

Surprise flared in the dark eyes, and Flavia’s forehead wrinkled infinitesimally. It seemed Lucas’s mom liked her Botox. For some reason, that made Sara feel slightly better.

“I wasn’t aware they had a helicopter.”

“It’s a trial thing,” Sara said. “While spring training is on.” She wasn’t going to offer any more of an explanation. Over Flavia’s shoulder she thought she caught a glimpse of Shelly’s pale-blond head. She wasn’t going to stand here and chat to Lucas’s mom without him any longer than she had to. And she definitely wasn’t going to offer the news that she was dating Lucas when Flavia had shown no reaction to her name. Which meant Lucas hadn’t told his parents about her.

Why the hell hadn’t he told them about her? He hadn’t mentioned that he hadn’t when he’d said they were coming.

She managed to smile at Flavia. “It was lovely to meet you but I see someone I have to speak with. Enjoy the ball.” She made her escape, heading toward Shelly, but she was fairly sure she could feel Flavia watching her as she left.

Shelly was standing by the bar, talking to the bartender.

“Sara, hey,” she said. “That dress looks fab.”

“Thanks to you,” Sara said.

“Nope, the dress is nothing without the woman inside it.” Shelly smiled. Her dress was a short shift—kind of flapper style—silver embroidery glimmering over black net. “Now, I was just asking Tom here if he can make me a very dirty martini. Do you want anything to drink?”

She had never wanted alcohol more in her life, but she was flying later. “No, I’m fine.”

“Are you having fun? Where’s Lucas?”

Maggie had, out of necessity, told Shelly about Sara and Lucas during their shopping adventure. But Shelly had promised to keep her mouth shut until the news became public. “Held up in surgery,” Sara said, trying not to sound annoyed. With Flavia prowling the ballroom, she really wished Lucas were here.

Shelly grimaced in sympathy. “That’s the problem with surgeons. Always on call. Well, the ones who do anything interesting, at least.”

“Given that I tend to be on call, too, I guess I can’t complain about that,” Sara said. She wondered whether to mention that she’d just met Lucas’s mom but decided to wait for the man himself to arrive to discuss that particular experience.

She stood and chatted with Shelly for a bit, telling her about spring training and letting Shelly—who worked as an entertainment columnist—give her the lowdown on half the people in the room. Just as she was starting to think that Lucas was never going to arrive, the crowd parted and he was suddenly in front of her.

“Oh thank God,” she muttered as he bent to kiss her hello.

“Sorry,” he murmured against her lips. “Surgery.”

“So Mal told me,” she said.

“Good.” Lucas pulled back from her, still holding her hands. Then he scanned up and down and up again. His eyes went hot and dark and the breath caught in her lungs as an answering heat stroked her skin.

“You look beautiful.” His fingers tightened a little on hers, stroking gently as he looked at her. “More than
beautiful
.”

Her breath caught, the room suddenly shrinking to just the two of them. He really did think she was beautiful. And he wanted her. Both those things shone clearly in his eyes. The certainty suddenly arrowed through her, making her knees go weak. What Lucas saw when he looked at her wasn’t what she saw in the mirror. No, it was better. And maybe, just maybe, it was the real her. Not the mess of a woman who couldn’t keep a business afloat, but the woman who filled Lucas’s eyes with wonder and happiness.

She didn’t know what to say. Didn’t quite know if she could make lips and tongue cooperate to find any words.

Instead she stepped in and stood on tiptoe to kiss him again. Let her body say what she wasn’t ready to say. A kiss of heat and tenderness in equal parts that didn’t do much to still the spinning in her head.

Lucas
saw
her. And gloried in what he saw.

There was a word for that, but she wasn’t ready to even think it. She pulled the shreds of her self-control back around her and stepped back from him.

“Thanks, you look pretty good yourself,” she managed with just the right tone of casual delight.

“Turn around,” Lucas said. “I want to see the rest of that dress.”

She spun obediently, feeling the layers of skirt waft against her skin with a delicious rustle. Only she didn’t want silk and tulle touching her. She wanted Lucas. “Do you like it? Shelly and Maggie helped me find it.”

“They did good work,” he said fervently. “But I really need you to tell me how to get you out of it.”

She laughed. “Patience is a virtue, Dr. Gorgeous. You just got here.”

His eyes were still that hot midnight shade. “That’s long enough. I can get a room in the hotel in about ten seconds flat.”

She desperately wanted to say yes. But he was here to work. His partners were here. His parents were here. She couldn’t let him drag her off and do wonderful things to her, no matter how much she wanted to.

“Down, boy,” she said softly. “You haven’t even said hello to your mother.”

That seemed to do the trick. His eyes lifted from hers, narrowed, started scanning the room. “You met my mother?”

She nodded.

He winced. “You did. Christ. Sorry. I told Maggie to keep an eye on her. I wanted to introduce you myself. Was she nice to you?”

“Well, she didn’t seem overly impressed that I worked for the Saints. But I didn’t tell her we were seeing each other.”

“No, you didn’t, did you?” Flavia’s voice came from Sara’s left and her stomach nose-dived.

Holy buckets of crap. That was definitely not how she wanted Lucas’s mom to find out the news.

She turned, Lucas moving as she did, and tried to smile at Flavia. “Mrs. Angelo—”

“Mother,” Lucas said, and he bent to kiss his mother’s cheek. “Be polite.”

Flavia’s eyes were hot as they looked up at him. “I’m not the one forgetting my manners. Or did I miss the part where you told me about your new … friend?”

The ice was back in her voice. Only this time it was cold enough to seed a glacier.

“I was waiting to introduce you tonight,” Lucas said. “There hasn’t been time.”

“I see,” Flavia said. Her eyes flicked to Sara. “I guess this explains why your little venture suddenly has a new helicopter pilot.”

The words
helicopter pilot
had never sounded so much like
gold-digging floozy
. Sara bristled, every muscle in her body tightening in denial.

“Sara is an excellent pilot and she was hired for that reason, not any other.”

Lucas’s voice was almost as icy as his mother’s. There wasn’t a single drop of heat left in his eyes. No, they’d gone cool and distant.

Crap. She’d known this was going to happen. There were reasons why she didn’t date guys like Lucas. Jamie had snuck around with Callie and she’d strung him along, promising that he’d meet her family “soon.” Jamie had told Sara that one night, not long before the accident. He hadn’t told her whom he was seeing, just that they were serious and he was going to meet her parents.

Who knew, maybe it was true. But Sara didn’t think so. Jamie had been Callie’s little slumming-it fling. And Flavia Angelo was looking at her as though that was exactly what Sara was to Lucas.

“Whatever you say, Lucas,” Flavia said. “We can discuss this another time.”

Lucas reached down and took Sara’s hand. “There’s nothing to discuss. Sara and I are involved. The end.”

His words lifted Sara’s mood a bit but the fury in Flavia’s eyes—clear despite the carefully pasted-on social smile—made it plain that this wasn’t the end of the discussion. Not by a long shot.