according to that good woman, still said novenas that her youngest daughter would find a good man, settle down, have a half-dozen kids, forget “this career business.”
Colin told her about the time he’d traveled around Europe after college, with only a backpack and his “hitching finger,” seeing the sights, touring museums, sleeping in youth hostels, getting pie-eyed during Oktoberfest in Germany.
Holly countered with a tale about Girl Scout Camp, and how she’d taken one look at the wooden outhouse and phoned home, demanding her father immediately come and get her. “I can’t imagine traveling through Europe with only a backpack. I like my luxuries, and am not afraid to admit it.”
He told her about his parents’ den, the one with trophy fish on the walls and ancient bits of broken pottery on the tables.
She told him about her mother’s collection of ceramic salt and pepper shakers and her dad’s pride in having every copy of National Geographic ever printed.
They laughed. They argued politics, but only because Colin deliberately disagreed with her for a while, as he got a kick out of the way she looked when she got indignant. They stopped at a small delicatessen and shared a corned beef on rye sandwich between them while the conversation skipped from current events, to books they’d read, to why all boy bands should be bound, gagged and made to promise never to sing again until they could find one note and stick to it.
As they turned yet another corner, and the Waldorf-Astoria was in front of them yet again, Colin had already been mentally kicking himself for about an hour over his deception.
What had started out as a lark had turned into something more. He liked Holly Hollis. He really liked her. She was nothing like any woman he’d ever dated. Cute. Honest. Funny. Short.
And he’d lied to her, continued lying to her. About who he was, how he’d come to be at the showing. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t had time to confess, although explaining why he’d gone along with her assumption that he was Harry Hampshire, male model, was still a bit of a mystery to him.
“Well, here we are again,” Holly said as they stood just outside the busy entrance to the hotel.
“Yes, here we are,” Colin said, looking up, knowing his suite looked out over the front of the hotel.
“I really should go in now,” Holly told him, still holding his hands as she faced him. “And you have to catch a cab, right? At least you’ll have no problem doing that.”
Colin looked at the doorman who stood with a whistle poised between his lips. “Nope. No problem doing that,” he said, wondering how he’d tell the cab driver that he wanted to go once around the block. There had to be a big tip involved with that kind of cab ride.
“I had a very good time,” Holly told him, avoiding his eyes.
“So did I. Look, Holly—I have to tell you something.”
She looked up at him, frowned. “No, you don’t. I have to tell you something. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time. It wasn’t fair of me to automatically not like you because you’re a male model. Because you’re so damn gorgeous,” she added with a little smile.
“Yes, about that—”
“I mean, it’s not your fault you’re gorgeous. What are you supposed to do? Put a paper bag over your head?”
He grinned. “Actually I had considered it…”
“Please, don’t interrupt while I’m apologizing, okay? Why not be a model? Why not think about getting into movies? You’d give Tom Cruise a run for his money, that’s for sure.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Colin said, stepping closer to her. “But the thing is, what happened today was sort of a mistake.”
“Oh,” Holly said, lowering her eyes, dropping her chin. “Okay. A mistake. I understand.”
He put his index finger under her chin, lifted her head slightly. “No, you don’t. I’m not saying our date was a mistake. I’m trying to tell you that the showing was a mistake. I never should have—”
“Upstaged the gowns?” Holly asked rhetorically, nodding her head. “I agree. But it was inspired, really. We’re going to get some good airtime on that kiss.”
“Which one?” Colin asked, momentarily distracted. “The one for the bride, or the one for the lady of the hour—you? Personally I liked the second one best. I never held someone who felt so small, so light in my arms.”
“That’s because you’d just gotten done flipping Jackie over your arm. Her gown and veil alone probably weigh more than me. But I’m sorry, I keep interrupting you. What are you trying to tell me? What are you sorry about?”
It wasn’t going to work. The moment the truth was out, she was going to hit him, kick him, or just burst into tears and run away. He couldn’t let her run away, even if he deserved the hit or the kick. What he had to do now was soften her up, make her more willing to listen to him. Cloud her judgment a little, until he could make her understand.
“I’m sorry I didn’t kiss you twice,” he heard himself say, and the next thing he knew he’d gathered Holly into his arms, and his mouth was on hers.
He could sense when she went up on her tiptoes in order to be able to slide her arms around his neck, and he bowed his body slightly that he could feel the length of her pressed more closely to his body. She was little, yes, but she was all woman. Soft, and curvy, and with lips that knew how to be kissed, how to kiss in return.
Someone exiting the hotel, dragging a large piece of pull-along luggage, bumped heavily against Colin’s leg, and the next thing he knew Holly was standing in front of him, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks flushed. “I have to go in now,” she said, then pulled a card from her purse and handed it to him. “Here. I’m breaking my own rule. Call me, please?”
“But wait—” Colin called out as she turned and actually began to run into the hotel. “I still haven’t told you—oh, damn it!” He could see Holly overtop the dozen or more tourists trying to move themselves and their baggage into the hotel, all of them following a tour guide holding up a flag in order to keep the group together. The elevator door stood open, and she rushed inside. “Holly, I—”
“Can I get you a cab, sir?” the doorman asked, and Colin glared at him.
“No, thanks,” he said. “I’ll walk.” And then he followed the tourists into the hotel.
Chapter Three
Holly sat on the thick Persian carpet the day after the showing, holding young Maximillian Rafferty, II—or Max Deuce, as his father sometimes called him—and looked at her good friend and employer. “Julia, it was fantastic. We’ve got orders pouring in, the press has been very kind. I think it was the snazzy hors d’ oeuvres. We served great stuff this time, even if my own taste runs more to little hot dogs in pieces of pastry. I actually saw the reporter from Women’s Wear Daily tipping a plate of the shrimp-on-a-stick into her purse.”
Julia laughed as she pushed a lock of her sleek burnt cinnamon hair behind one ear. “I wish I could have been there, and the little guy seems to be fine today, but I just couldn’t leave him yesterday after we got back from the doctor’s office. This mom stuff is all-consuming.”
Holly looked around the room, furnished in comfortable overstuffed couches, fine antiques and a half dozen colorful infant toys. The condo was huge, two floors and magnificent. It was also a home, a well-loved, lived-in home. “You’re doing a bang-up job, Julia. And Max is still so cockeyed over this little guy that I’m surprised he hasn’t had him surgically attached to his hip.”
“He talked about it,” Julia said with a smile as she sipped hot tea from a china cup. “And it doesn’t hurt that Max-Two here was born on his daddy’s birthday. I don’t know if I get any credit here at all.”
“Two