Harlequin Desire September 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: Claimed\Maid for a Magnate\Only on His Terms (37 page)

She sat back, too. “I refuse to pay Fifth Avenue prices for a dress when I can buy one for almost a hundred percent less in a thrift shop.”

Harrison turned his attention to his plate, where a gorgeous swordfish steak was just begging to be enjoyed. “Yeah, well, I'm not traipsing all over Brooklyn again, so you can forget about going back there to shop.”

The pause that followed his statement was so pregnant, it could have delivered an elephant. When he looked at Grace again, she had completely forgotten her own lunch and looked ready to stick her butter knife into him instead.

Very softly, she asked, “How did you know I went to Brooklyn yesterday?”

Crap. Busted.

He scrambled for a credible excuse, but figured it would be pointless. “I followed you.”

“Why?”

Resigned to be honest, since she seemed like the kind of woman who would sniff out a lie a mile away, he said, “Because I wanted to see if you would go out and start blowing my father's money. On, say, Fifth Avenue.”

“Why won't you believe me when I tell you I intend to give away your father's money the way he asked me to?”

“Because it's fourteen billion dollars. No one gives away fourteen billion dollars.”

“I'm going to.”

Yeah, well, that remained to be seen. Instead of continuing with their current topic, Harrison backpedaled to the one before it. “Don't worry about the dress. I'm sure we can find a store you like nearby. I'll ask the concierge on our way out.”

Which would doubtlessly be the highlight of the concierge's month. Someone at the Cosmopolitan asking where the nearest thrift shop was. The club would be talking about that one for weeks.

Five

G
racie couldn't believe she was standing at the front door of an Upper East Side penthouse, about to ring the bell. How could she have insisted earlier that Harrison go ahead of her to the party so she could shop for something to wear? She was never going to be allowed into a place like this without him. She still couldn't believe the doorman for the building had opened the door for her in the first place—even tipping his hat as he did—or that the concierge hadn't tried to stop her when she headed for the elevator, or that the elevator operator had told her it wasn't necessary when she fumbled in her purse for the invitation Harrison had given her to prove she had been invited into this world. He'd just closed the doors and pushed the button that would rocket her straight to the top, as if that were exactly where she belonged.

This was the kind of place that wasn't supposed to allow in people like her. Normal people. Working people. People who hadn't even had the proper attire for this party until a couple of hours ago, and whose attire still probably wasn't all that proper, since she'd bought it at a secondhand shop.

She couldn't remember ever being this nervous. But then throwing herself into a situation where she had no idea how to behave or what to talk about, and didn't have a single advocate to cover her back, could do that to a person. Even if being thrown into situations like that had been Gracie's entire day.

After leaving the Cosmopolitan Club, she and Harrison had gone to the prep school where Harry had, once upon a time, sat on the board of directors. Interestingly, it was also the school Harrison had attended from kindergarten through twelfth grade, for a mere sixty-three thousand dollars a year—though he'd told her tuition was only forty-eight thousand when he started, so a big “whew!” on that. The kids had worn tidy navy blue uniforms, they'd walked silently and with great restraint through the halls, their lunches had consisted of fresh produce, lean meats and whole-grain breads trucked in from Connecticut and their curriculum had focused on science, mathematics and the classics. Art and music were extracurriculars that were discouraged in favor of Future Business Leaders of America and Junior Achievement.

It had been such a stark contrast to Gracie's public school education, where the dress code had been pretty much anything that wasn't indecent, the halls had been noisy and chaotic during class changes, the lunches had overwhelmingly been brown-bagged from home and filled with things factory-sealed in plastic and the curriculum had been as busy and inconsistent—in a good way—as the halls, with art and music as daily requirements.

So not only had Harry told his son that money was the most important thing in the world, but he'd also proved it by spending all his time making money and sending Harrison to a school more intent on turning its students into corporate drones than in guiding them into something constructive and fulfilling. What the hell had he been thinking?

The headquarters of Sage Holdings, Inc., where Harry had once been the man in charge, had been no better: all antiseptic and barren, in spite of being filled with workers. Workers who had spoken not a word to each other, because they'd all been confined to cubicles and hunched over computers, tap-tap-tapping on their keyboards with the diligent dedication of worker bees. How could Harry have made his employees work in such soul-deadening surroundings?

And would this party tonight reinforce her anti-Harry Sagalowsky feelings as much as the rest of today had?

Gracie inhaled a deep breath and released it, telling herself everything was going to be fine. She was fine. Her attire was fine. She'd been enchanted by the dress the moment she saw it, a pale mint confection of silk with a frothy crinoline underskirt, a ruched neckline and off-the-shoulder cap sleeves. She'd found accessories at the shop, too—plain pearly pumps and a clutch and a crystal necklace and earrings, along with a pair of white gloves that climbed midway between wrist and elbow. And she'd managed to twist her hair into a serviceable chignon and applied just enough blush and lipstick to keep herself from being as pale as...well, as pale as a woman who was about to enter a situation where she had no idea how to behave or what to talk about.

With one final, fortifying inhale-exhale—
for God's sake, Gracie, just breathe
—she pushed her index finger against the doorbell. Immediately, the door opened, and she was greeted by a smiling butler. Though his smile didn't look like a real smile. Probably, it was a smile he was being paid to smile.

Wow. Harry was right. Money really could buy anything.

No, it couldn't, she immediately reminded herself. Money hadn't been able to buy Gracie, after all. Not that Devon Braun and his father hadn't tried once upon a time.

Wow. Where had that memory come from? She hadn't given a thought to those two scumbags for a long time. And she wouldn't think about them tonight, either. This party would be nothing like the one that set those unfortunate events in motion.

She opened her purse to retrieve her invitation, since butlers were obviously way too smart to allow someone entry just because she was wearing a vintage Dior knockoff and a serviceable chignon. But even though the purse was roughly the size of a canapé, she couldn't find what she was looking for. Just her lipstick and compact in case she needed to refresh her makeup, her driver's license in case she got hit by a bus, and the paramedics needed to identify her body, and her debit card in case Harrison shoved her out of the car in a sketchy part of town and she needed to take a cab back to Long Island, which could happen, since he still didn't seem to believe her intentions toward Harry's fortune were honorable. But no invitation.

She must have dropped it in the elevator when she was fumbling to get it out of her purse the first time. She was about to turn back that way when the same dark, velvety voice that had rescued her from the crowd at the reading of Harry's will saved her again.

“It's all right, Ballantine,” Harrison said from behind the butler. “She's with me.”

She's with me
. Somehow, Harrison made it sound as if she really was
with him
. In a romantic, intimate sense. A tingle of pleasure hummed through her.

Although Gracie had had boyfriends since she was old enough to want one, none had ever been especially serious. Well, okay, that wasn't entirely true. There had been one a while back who'd started to become serious. Devon Braun. A guy she'd met at a party she attended with a friend from school. A guy who'd taken her to a lot of parties like this one, since his family had been rich. But Devon had been sweeter and less obnoxious than most of the guys who came from that background. At least, Gracie had thought so then. For a couple of months, anyway.

But she wasn't going to think about that—about him—tonight. She'd done extremely well shoving him to the back of her brain since leaving Cincinnati, and she wasn't about to let him mess things up now. Tonight she was with Harrison. He'd just said so. And even if they went back to their wary dancing around each other tomorrow, she intended to avoid any missteps tonight.

Unfortunately, she was barely two steps past Ballantine the butler when she began to wonder if she'd been premature in her conviction. Because the minute Harrison got a good look at her, his smile fell. Somehow, Gracie was positive his thoughts just then were something along the lines of how he couldn't believe she'd shown up dressed the way she was.

When she looked past him into the room, she realized why. Although all the men were dressed as he was—in dark suits and ties—none of the women was dressed like her. Nearly all of them were wearing black, and although there were one or two bursts of taupe, there wasn't any clothing in the entire room that could have been called colorful. Or frothy. Or a confection. Except for a bubbly bit of pale mint silk on a woman who looked and felt—and was—completely out of place.

She forced her feet forward, manufacturing a smile for Ballantine as she passed him that was no more genuine than his, and made her way toward Harrison, whose gaze never left her as she approached.

Although she was pretty sure she already knew the answer to the question, she greeted him by asking, “Is there something wrong?”

He gave her a quick once-over, but didn't look quite as stunned this time. She decided to take it as a compliment.

“Why do you ask?” he replied.

She lifted one shoulder and let it drop. “You look like there's something wrong.”

Instead of giving her the once-over this time, he simply studied her face. “You look...”

Here it comes
, Gracie thought, bracing herself.

“...different,” he said.

It wasn't the word she'd expected. Nor did she understand why he chose it. She hadn't done anything different today from what she'd done every other day he'd seen her. Maybe she'd put on a little more makeup and expended more effort on her hair, but what difference did that make?

“Good different or bad different?” she asked.

He hesitated, then slowly shook his head. “Just...different.”

“Oh. Should I leave?”

At this, he looked genuinely surprised. “No. Of course not. Why would you even ask that?”

“Because you seem to think—”

“Gracie, darling!”

The exclamation from Vivian Sage came just in time, because Harrison looked like he wanted to say something else that was probably better left unsaid. Vivian looked smashing, her black dress a sleeveless, V-necked number that was elegant in its simplicity and sumptuous in its fabric. She carried a crystal-encrusted clutch in one hand and a cocktail in the other. She stopped in front of Gracie, leaning in to give her one of those Hollywood air kisses on her cheek before backing away again.

“Darling, you look absolutely adorable,” she said. “You could be me when I was young. I think I had a dress just like that.”

Of course she did. Except Vivian's would have had a genuine Dior tag sewn inside it, instead of one that
looked
like it said, Christian Dior Paris, but, upon close inspection, really said, Christina Diaz, Paramus. But Vivian had uttered the compliment sincerely, so maybe the evening wouldn't be so horrible, after all.

Then she had to go and ruin that possibility by turning to her son and saying, “Doesn't she look beautiful, Harrison?”

But he surprised Gracie by saying, “Uh, yeah. Beautiful.”

Unfortunately, he dropped his gaze to the floor before saying it, thereby making it possible that he was talking about their host's carpet selection instead. Which, okay, was pretty beautiful, all lush and white, like the rest of the room.

This time, when Vivian leaned in, it was toward Harrison. “Then tell her, darling. A woman wants to be reassured that she's the most beautiful woman in the room, especially when she's at one of Bunny and Peter's parties.” To Gracie, she added, “Bunny Dewitt is one of New York's biggest fashion icons. She's always being written up in the style section. Every woman here is worried that she's underdressed or overdressed or wearing something so five-minutes-ago.”

Then Gracie had nothing to worry about. Her dress wasn't so five-minutes-ago. It was so five-decades-ago. She felt
so
much better now.

Harrison threw his mother a “thanks a lot, Mom” smile at her admonishment, but said, “You look beautiful, Grace.”

He was looking right at her when he spoke, and for once, his expression wasn't inscrutable. In fact, it was totally, uh, scrutable. His blue eyes were fairly glowing with admiration, and his mouth was curled into the sort of half smile that overcame men when they were enjoying something sublime. Like a flawlessly executed Hail Mary pass. Or a perfectly grilled rib eye. Or a genuinely beautiful woman.

Then the
Grace
at the end of the sentiment hit her. Nobody had ever called her Grace. Except for Devon, who'd told her she was too classy to be called Gracie—then turned out to be the most déclassé person on the planet. But she wasn't going to think about Devon tonight, so he didn't count.

And even if Harrison didn't think she was beautiful—or classy, for that matter—the fact that he was making an effort to...well, whatever he was making an effort to do...was a welcome development.

So she replied, “Thank you. And call me Gracie. No one calls me Grace.” Well, except for the aforementioned—

Dammit, why did Devon keep popping into her head tonight? With no small effort, she pushed thoughts of the past to the back of her brain again, where they belonged.
And stay there.

Harrison looked like he wanted to balk at calling her Gracie, but he dipped his head in acknowledgement that he had at least heard her.

“Ms. Sumner!”

Gracie was surprised—and delighted—to hear another familiar voice, and smiled when she turned to greet Gus Fiver, the second-in-command at Tarrant, Fiver & Twigg. He was dressed as conservatively as all the other suits at the party, but there was something about his blond good looks that made him seem far more relaxed. Instead of the briefcase she'd always seen him armed with before, this time he held a cut-crystal tumbler with what looked to Gracie's trained eye like two fingers of very good single-malt Scotch.

“Mr. Fiver,” she greeted him. “What are you doing here?”

“Mr. and Mrs. Dewitt's son Elliot is one of my best friends,” he said. “Our families go way back. And please call me Gus.”

Gracie turned to include Harrison and Vivian in the conversation, and then realized she had no idea how to do that. Although everyone in the small group knew each other already, it wasn't like the Sages and Tarrant, Fiver & Twigg were exactly best friends. “You, um, you remember the Sages, I'm sure.”

Although there was a bit of a temperature drop not unlike the one she'd experienced in the Sages' library a few days ago, Harrison and Gus managed to exchange civil greetings. Vivian was a bit warmer, but she, too, was reserved. Gracie supposed it was the best any of them could manage, having been on opposite sides of a very contentious case for two years.