Judith McNaught - Remember When

The bang of a metal door slamming closed made her look around in wary alarm toward a tall man in a tuxedo who had just emerged from the hotel. Her relief that he was apparently one of the ball's guests, rather than a reporter or mugger, was immediately supplanted by irritation that he was moving in her direction, instead of away.

Cloaked in shadow and silence, he kept coming toward her, his step slow, purposeful. His arms were bent at the elbows, and he was holding something in each hand. For a split second her fevered imagination conjured up a pair of revolvers in those hands; then he passed through a pool of gaslight and Diana saw that in his hands he was holding...

Two glasses of champagne.

She gaped at them, and then at him as he closed the remaining distance between them. At close range, he was easily six feet two inches tall, with wide shoulders and a hard, stern face defined by a square chin, an iron jaw, and straight, thick dark brows. His shadowy face was darkly tanned, but his eyes were light and disconcertingly amused as they gazed into hers.

"Hello, Diana," he said, in a deep, resonant voice.

Diana tried to smooth her features into a semblance of polite confusion when what she wanted to do was stamp her foot and tell him to go away. Good manners, however, had been fed to her along with baby pabulum and she was incapable of unprovoked rudeness. "I'm sorry," she said, monitoring her voice for signs of impatience, "if we've met, I don't recall it."

"We've definitely met," he assured her dryly. "Many times, in fact." He held out a glass to her. "Champagne?"

Diana refused it with a shake of her head as she studied his face, more convinced by the moment that he was playing some sort of game with her. Although she preferred men with refined features and lithe builds to men like this one who exuded brute strength and overpowering masculinity, she knew she wouldn't have forgotten this man if she'd met him. "I don't think we have," she said with polite firmness, putting an end to the game.

"Perhaps you're mistaking me for someone else."

"I'd never mistake you for anyone else," he teased. "I remember those green eyes and that sorrel mane of yours very clearly."

"Sorrel mane?" Diana uttered; then she shook her head, weary of the game. "You definitely have me confused with someone else. I've never met you before—"

"How's your sister?" he asked. The stern line of his mouth relaxed into a lazy smile. "Does Corey still like to ride?"

Diana gave him a long, uncertain glance. Either by accident or design, he was standing just beyond the reach of the gas lamp, but he was beginning to sound—and seem— familiar. "Are you a friend of my sister's, Mr.—?"

He finally stepped forward into the light, and in a burst of shock and delight, Diana recognized him. "That's very formal," he teased, his familiar gray eyes smiling down at her. "You used to call me—"

"Cole!" she breathed. She'd known he was expected to appear at tonight's function, and she'd been very much looking forward to seeing him again until a few days ago, when her life had been torn apart and everything else had faded into the background. Now she couldn't seem to adjust to the shock of seeing him.

Cole saw the pleasure that lit up her face when she recognized him, and it warmed him with astonishing intensity, softening for a few brief moments the cold, hard streak of cynical indifference that was his norm. Regardless of what the Haywards may have told her about the reason for his abrupt departure from their employ, regardless of the intervening years, Diana Foster's friendship for him was still there, unspoiled and unchanged.

"Cole? Is it really you?" Diana said, still reeling from shock and delight.

"In the flesh. More accurately, in the tuxedo," he joked, holding the glass of champagne toward her again. She hadn't wanted it from a stranger, he noted, but she took it from an old friend, and as he gazed down at her lovely, upturned face, he was flattered and pleased. "I think this calls for a toast, Miss Foster."

"Make the toast," she said. "I'm still too shocked to think of one."

He lifted the glass. "Here's to the luckiest woman I know."

Diana's smile faded and she shuddered. "God forbid!" He obviously didn't know what had happened to her, and she quickly tried to pass off her reaction with a casual shrug. "What I meant was that I've been luckier—"

"What could possibly be luckier than narrowly escaping marriage to a spineless son of a bitch?"

That remark was so outrageous and so unquestioningly loyal that Diana felt twin urges to laugh and cry. "You're right," she said instead. To avoid his gaze she took a quick sip of her champagne; then she hastily changed the subject. "When the news got out that you were actually going to appear tonight, people were very excited. Everyone is dying to get a look at you. I have so many questions to ask you— about where you've been and what you've done—that I hardly know where to start—"

"Let's start with the most important question," he interrupted firmly, making Diana feel like a child again, confronting a much older, wiser male. "How are you holding up through all this?"

Diana knew he meant the gossip that was all over the ballroom about her broken engagement. "I'm doing just fine," she said, frustrated by the slight quaver in her voice. She thought she heard the door open further down the balcony, and she lowered her voice in case someone had come out. "Fine."

Cole glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the sound. Illuminated by the Exit sign over the door was a man in a red-and-white-checked shirt who jumped back into the shadows when Cole looked in his direction. Cole's first impulse was to attack the spying reporter; his next impulse was to make use of him. Cole decided on the second alternative for the moment. With his free hand, he reached out and tipped up Diana's chin. "Listen carefully, and don't move."

Her eyes widened in instant alarm.

"There's a tabloid photographer watching us, waiting to grab a picture of you. I suggest we give him a picture worth splashing across the front page of their next issue."

"What?" Diana whispered in panic. "Are you crazy?"

"No, I've simply had more experience than you with negative press and prying photographers. He's not going to leave until he gets some sort of picture of you," Cole continued while, from the corner of his eye, he watched the reporter step out of the shadows and lift his camera again. "You have a choice. You can let the world think of you as a discarded woman, or you can let them see me kissing you, which will make them wonder if you ever cared about Penworth at all and if I've been your lover all along."

Diana's mind was whirling with alarm and horror and glee, as well as the effects of two drinks in less than an hour on an empty stomach. In the brief moment she hesitated, Cole made the decision for her. "Let's make it convincing," he ordered softly as he set down both of their glasses. His free hand then slid around her waist, curving her body into his arms.

It happened too quickly to resist, and then it seemed to happen in slow motion as Diana felt her legs press into his thighs and her breasts against his chest, followed by the sudden shock of his warm lips covering hers.

He lifted his head a fraction, his eyes looking into hers, and she thought he was going to let her go. She had the feeling he intended to let her go. Instead, his hands shifted, one of them drifting upward over her bare back, while the other tightened, and he bent his head again. Diana's heart began to pound in erratic, confused beats as his mouth settled firmly on hers, slowly tracing each soft curve and contour of her lips. His tongue touched the corner of her mouth, and her body jumped in surprise. One part of her brain ordered her to pull free immediately, but some deeper, more compelling voice rebelled at such an unjust reaction to his gallant efforts.