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.Next Saturday.”She took a step away, met his dark eyes, sparkling with one too many Dom Perignons.“I don’t think so, but thank you for the invitation.”He flattened a hand over his chest.“You wound me, beautiful maiden.Please reconsider.”Oh, Charles, how could you have left me to deal with this? “I could be your mother.”“But you’re not.” He took her hand, stroked his fingers up her arm.“I just buried my husband two weeks ago.” Was there no respect for the grieving process?“I know.” He nodded, his handsome face solemn.“All the more reason.”“Indeed.” She shrugged his hand off, stepped away.“All the more reason.” Gloria lifted her glass, saluted him and turned away.She almost hadn’t come tonight, not after last year’s debacle.The West Mount Memorial Banquet had always been Charles’s love; he was one of the original organizers, a major contributor and a staunch supporter of the hospital’s research facilities.But this love blinded him, too.When last year’s president asked Charles to double his annual pledge, to help fund research for cancers like your sister’s.Charles readily agreed.Tonight they were honoring him and had invited Gloria to accept an award in memory of her late husband.How could she refuse such a request? She’d chosen a pale blue Chanel and a clasp of diamonds for the occasion, the muted coolness of color and stone giving her a controlled, untouchable presence, elegant but not overstated, determined in a mask of subtlety but still appropriate for her newly widowed state—her life without Charles.She worked her way past the fringes of the ballroom to a tiny sitting area papered in heavy cream.There was a smattering of ornate chairs, cherry, she thought, done in burgundy and cream stripes set up in a half-circle around an oval glass table.And in the center of the table was a huge spray of red roses, more than two dozen, maybe three, spilling out of a gold vase, tufts of baby’s breath tucked in between.Her gaze followed a petal that had fallen on the slick surface of glass, landed on the edge of a bright blue ashtray.Gloria walked up to the table, studied the ashtray: shiny, clean, unused.She hesitated, fingers hovering over the single petal, its red brilliance not diminished by its solitary state.So much beauty, so much promise.She brushed it away in one quick motion, mindless of where it landed, her concentration fixed solely on the gleam of the blue ashtray.Then she flipped open her bag, pulled out the black case decorated with needlepoint roses, and tapped out a Salem Light.Her fingers shook as she lit it.“Now this is a sight.”Gloria swung around, pulled the cigarette behind her back.“What are you doing here?”Harry Blacksworth saluted her with his drink.“I was invited.”“As though you cared about contributing to anyone’s charity but your own.”He ignored her.“I saw you with that young boy a few minutes ago.”She took another puff on her cigarette, held it, blew out a thin cloud of smoke.“Since when did it become a crime to engage in casual conversation?”“Don’t embarrass yourself, Gloria.” He emptied his glass and added, “And don’t taint Charlie’s memory.”She stubbed out the cigarette in the center of the blue ashtray, grinding the butt to a third of its size.“You have nerve, Harry Blacksworth,” she said in a low voice, moving her lips just enough to push the words out for his ears alone.“You’ve disgraced this family for years and now you have the nerve to question my actions?”“You’re Charles Blacksworth’s widow.Act like it.”“I intend to.”“See that you do.”He turned away from her then, before she could tell him that he was the real disgrace no one had ever wanted to acknowledge, especially Charles.She wanted to scream at him so loudly that the entire room would turn and stare at Harry.You! Yes, you, you’re the disgrace!But, of course, she couldn’t because he was already gone and even if he weren’t, she wouldn’t.And he knew that.***Nate Desantro was not going to stop her from tracking down Lily.He might think he had a fourteen-year edge, but she’d been competing in a man’s world long enough to know how to fight and win.When the sign for Magdalena shriveled to a dot in her rearview mirror, Christine opened her mouth and pulled in puffs of cold air, greedy to clear her mind.She should have been the one flinging accusations back there, making demands, not him.But he’d been vicious, the hatred pulsing in the cords of his neck, spreading to his throat, spilling out of his mouth.He’d hated her father [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]