Judith McNaught - Remember When

"How wonderful! When are you getting married?"

"Immediately after I propose."

He sounded so matter-of-fact that Diana couldn't resist teasing him. "Either you're very certain she'll say yes, or else you're hoping to sway her with this necklace. Which is it?"

"I'd say it's a little of both. I'm hoping to sway her with this necklace, and I'm fairly certain she'll say yes, once I explain the wisdom and benefits associated with such an arrangement."

"You sound as if you're proposing a business merger," Diana advised him with a surprised smile.

Cole quickly reviewed the plan he'd conceived in the last half hour and made his final decision. In a deceptively casual tone, he said, "The last time I asked someone to marry me, we were both sixteen. Obviously, I need to practice my technique, Kitten."

Diana was a little disconcerted to discover that Cole Harrison hadn't been nearly as decisive and knowledgeable about women as she'd thought he was when she was sixteen and crazy about him. Most of all, she was touched by the name he'd called her. Kitten. The old nickname he'd occasionally used for her seemed poignantly familiar at that moment—a reminder of a time when she chatted with him while he worked in the Haywards' stable surrounded by the sweet smell of fresh hay and oiled leather, their desultory conversation punctuated by the muted shuffling of horses' hooves. Her life had been so simple then; her future had seemed so bright and full of exciting possibilities. "Kitten." she whispered softly, her eyes shadowed with the realization that those old promises of a bright future hadn't worked out at all the way she'd imagined.

Sensing the sudden dipping of her mood, Cole maneuvered her smoothly off the dance floor. "Let's go somewhere else and work on my proposal technique. Our audience is too big in here."

"I thought you wanted an audience for us."

"They've seen all they need to see."

He pronounced that with the arrogance of a royal decree, and with his hand beneath her elbow, he maneuvered her off the dance floor and out of the crowded, noisy room.

"Where are we going?" Diana asked, laughing as he led her toward the elevators. It felt better and better to laugh. Tomorrow, reality would crush her again like a boulder, but for tonight, Cole and the wine and the necklace were all combining to provide an unexpected respite from the misery, and she was determined to enjoy it. "How about Lake Tahoe?" Cole suggested as he pressed the elevator button. "We could get married, go for a swim, and be back here in time for brunch tomorrow."

Diana assumed he was practicing his proposal on her again, and she took pains to hide her amusement at his blunt haste and his unromantic attitude. "Tahoe's a little too far," she said breezily. "Besides I'm not dressed for it."

She glanced down ruefully at her gown, and Cole's eyes followed her gaze, drifting over the creamy gentle swell of her breasts above the bodice of her gown, then dipping to her narrow waist. "In that case, there's only one other place that offers the sort of atmosphere and privacy required for what I have in mind."

"Where is that?"

"My suite," he said as he ushered her into the crowded elevator and slid a key into the slot beside the top button marked Penthouse.

Diana fired him a glance of real concern, but there were people from the ball in the elevator and she couldn't possibly argue in front of them. When the last elderly couple got off on the floor beneath his, however, she turned to him and shook her head. "I really shouldn't disappear from the ball like this, particularly not with you, not with—"

"Why not with me, in particular?" he asked coolly.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened into the penthouse's black marble foyer. Instead of getting out, Cole braced his hand against the door to prevent it from closing. A little dizzy from the champagne and the elevator's swift ascent, Diana felt an inappropriate urge to giggle, not cower, at his forbidding expression. "You've been so busy helping me save my reputation that I'm not sure you've realized the jeopardy you've put your own in. What I meant before was that I shouldn't have disappeared with you without first telling my family why you really bought this necklace. Furthermore, if any of those pictures of us make the news, and people know you're about to be married, you're going to look like a man without integrity."

Cole felt a sudden urge to laugh. " You are worried about my reputation?"

"Of course I am," Diana said primly, stepping out of the elevator and into the private vestibule of his suite.

"Now, that," Cole said with a grin, "is a first. In fact," he added, as they entered the suite's living room and he switched on the tiny lights concealed in the cove of the ceiling, "I have a feeling tonight is going to be a night of several firsts."

He glanced over his shoulder at Diana, who had stopped near the coffee table in the middle of the living room. She was watching him, her head tipped to one side, her expression more puzzled than wary. Puzzled was good, Cole decided. Wary was bad. He walked over to the bar and removed a bottle of champagne from the refrigerator. Alcohol in the bloodstream of a woman who was already delightfully rosy from gratitude and relief would help keep her wariness under control.

" 'Firsts'?" she repeated. "What is there that you haven't done until tonight?"

"For starters," he said lightly, "I've never stood outside on the balcony of this suite with a woman." He popped the cork on the champagne and plunged the bottle into the ice bucket on the bar. "Shall we make that another first?"

Diana watched him unbutton his tuxedo jacket and loosen his bow tie; then he tucked the ice bucket into the crook of his elbow and, with a champagne flute in each hand, paused to flip a wall switch with his elbow, which made the heavy draperies in front of the balcony doors glide apart. Superimposed over that image was a memory of him in faded jeans and shirt, currying a horse with one hand and reaching for a bridle with the other while he carried on a conversation with her about her schoolwork. Even then, he'd always seemed to be doing several things at once. He stepped aside, waiting for her to precede him onto the balcony, then handed her the drink he'd poured.

He'd noticed her smile as he opened the balcony doors. "Have I done something amusing?"

Diana shook her head. "I was just thinking that, even in the old days, you always seemed to be able to do several things at the same time and completely effortlessly. I always admired that."

The compliment was so surprising to Cole, and so pleasing, that he couldn't think of a reply, and so he watched in silence as she stepped past him onto the tiny patio.

Walking over to the railing, Diana gazed out at the glittering carpet of Houston lights far below while soft music drifted from the stereo in the living room and her mind drifted inexorably to Dan.

Cole joined her, but angled his body so that he was facing her, with his elbow propped on the railing. "I hope you're thinking of Penworth, and not me, with that woebegone expression on your face."

Chafed at having been described as woebegone, Diana proudly lifted her chin. "We haven't spent much time together in the last year, and I've practically forgotten him already."

Instead of replying, Cole merely raised his brows and regarded her in skeptical silence, managing to convey not only his disbelief but also his disappointment in her obvious unwillingness to confide in him. After the way he'd come to her rescue tonight, Diana knew he deserved more than a brush-off for an answer. "That was a lie," she conceded with a shaky sigh. "The truth is that I've accepted what happened as being final, but I feel... furious. I feel furious and humiliated."