Hmm. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have her ego stroked like this all evening. She could probably suffer through some excellent food and wine on the arm of the new State Senator if he was going to talk to her like that. After all, a woman needed her confidence shored up every once in awhile.
“I drove myself tonight, and the car is waiting below. Are you ready?” He offered his arm, crooking an elbow, and Fiona reluctantly slipped her hand through it.
Now that she was closer to him, she realized how overpowering his cologne was. His campaign manager should let him know to ease off on it, or he’d be making the babies he was probably still kissing sneeze.
That quirky thought made her smile, and lightened her thoughts as she settled into the sleek Jaguar. It purred like its namesake and the ride from the suburb of Wyoming to Meijer Gardens was smooth but filled with Bradley’s chatter about his recent victory and his plans for the future.
He left his car with a valet stationed at the entrance and led her inside to the cocktail party, which was already in full-swing.
* * *
Gideon felt as if he’d taken a punch to the gut when he caught sight of the elegant couple making their entrance. He stared from across the room as his fingers tightened around a rock glass.
Dear God, itwasFiona.
And she was with State Senator-Elect Bradley Forth.
Rachel shifted beside him, bumping into his arm, and he barely noticed when she turned to look up at him. “Gideon? Is something the matter?” Without waiting for him to respond, she looked over. “Is that who I think it is?”
“Who’s that?” he asked with nonchalance. Lord, he was getting good at faking that.
“Itisher. Fiona—was that her name?” Rachel asked ingenuously. Gideon resisted the urge to comment; his fiancée networked like a pro. She never forgot a name, a background, a connection. “She’s very striking—especially in that unusual gown with those long legs and all that hair.”
Those long legs and all that soft, sweet hair had been wrapped around him, plastered to him, heated him, loved him—
Gideon swallowed a large gulp of club soda and wished for something far stronger.
“I can see why you were attracted to her.”
He looked down at Rachel, for there was a note in her voice that seemed off. “Yes, she’s very beautiful. But it’s over between us—you don’t have anything to worry about.” But as he spoke, he realized he was saying it more for his own benefit than for hers.
“I’m not worried whatsoever, Gideon. This was—”
Whatever she was about to say was interrupted by the arrival of Gideon Senior and Iva, accompanied by some of his grandfather’s cronies from law school.
They exchanged pleasantries with Ben Laslow and Norm van Delt and their wives, and Gideon kept his attention on the conversation at hand and away from the exotic and fascinating distraction across the room.
Just keep your distance.
His resolve was shot to hell, however, when Norm van Delt suddenly said, “Don’t I know that woman?”
The group’s attention turned as one, fixating on the cinnamon and bronze column of woman standing next to Forth, now only yards away.
Gideon suddenly realized how Norm van Delt knew Fiona.
He should be relieved she wasn’t his date after all—these more staid folk would remember her as the odd, airy-fairy woman who told their futures by reading palms.
“Oh, that’s right, Norm, she was doing those palm-readings at that fundraiser a few months ago,” his wife told him. “You talked about her for weeks after.” To Gideon’s (and probably Norm’s) mortification, Mrs. Van Delt turned and called, “Yoo hoo! Over here!” and waved to get Fiona’s attention from across the room.
Yet Gideon’s feet were nailed to the floor. He should have bolted from the area. But all he could do, however, was stand there with a fixed half-smile on his face as disparate pieces of his world merged, clashed, then distorted like the insides of a kaleidoscope.
Fiona saw the group and the beckoning woman almost immediately.
“They must recognize you,” she said to Brad as they approached…and then her voice trailed off when she saw Gideon with his grandfather, Iva, and the irritatingly still-slender and very elegant Rachel Backley. She was looking at Fiona with a definite arched-brow look.
“Great,” Brad murmured. “Now that I’m elected, my constituents are going to expect all sorts of favors.”
But as they approached the group, he extended his hand with a hearty greeting and shook all around the little group. “Nath,” he said as he reached Gideon. “Pleasure to see you again. Always seem to be running into you at these things, eh?”
