for a second. She hadn’t expected him to say that. “Oh.” There was no follow-up from him. “Well, don’t leave me hanging,” she prompted. “What happened?”
“We got unengaged.”
She hadn’t gotten to where she was by being a shrinking violet. “And that happened because …?”
Because. It was an all-purpose word that covered so much territory. “Because she found someone else.”
Her mouth dropped open. “She cheated on you?” How could any woman in her right mind cheat on someone who looked like Peter? Who was obviously as decent as he was? There was no doubt in her mind that he was better off without this Lisa person.
He’d never known whether Lisa had slept with Steven Wilson, the medical student she’d left him for. He never wanted to let his thoughts go that far. It was enough that she’d left him for the reasons she’d cited.
He shrugged, looking out the window. More snow. Just what they needed, he thought. “We never got into that.”
“Then why did you two break up?” He struck her as the type of man who didn’t easily give up on a woman he professed to love.
Her question brought the past vividly back to him. “The ‘other man’ had ‘more potential’ than I had. He was going into his father’s prestigious practice in New York and I was coming back here, to work with my father in a place that was far less lucrative and upscale. Lisa didn’t see herself living in Walnut River. She saw herself shopping on Fifth Avenue.”
“What an awful woman.” The words just came out before she could stop them.
“No, Lisa just knew her limitations. Knew what would make her happy. And obviously, it wasn’t going to be me.”
Bethany frowned. “Well, you were better off without someone like that.” She paused, thinking. “And you think I look like her?”
Peter laughed softly. “At first glance, perhaps. But you’re far more beautiful than she ever was.”
Bethany felt her breath backing up in her lungs. “Really?” she whispered.
“Really.”
He was looking at her lips. She felt herself getting warm again. “I think I’d better get back to my office,” she murmured.
He nodded. “Maybe you’d better do that,” he agreed. Before he went with the demands inside him that were beginning to grow insistent. “And thanks for the wine. I’ll save it until I have something to celebrate.” He looked at her as she edged her way to the door. “Maybe we’ll even share it together.”
He was referring to the board’s vote regarding the possible takeover. Did he think because she’d brought him a peace offering that she was throwing her vote in with his? Or was that his way of saying he might reconsider his own stand?
She didn’t want to ask and risk spoiling the moment. So she inclined her head in agreement. “Maybe we will,” she agreed as she slipped out.
He found himself smiling as he returned to his files.
Chapter Eleven
Though she told herself she wasn’t, the truth of it was Bethany was looking forward to the fundraiser. However, none of the reasons she’d cited to herself regarding why it was important to attend the function were responsible for creating that warm, nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach. There was only one reason for that.
She was going with the man who had literally made the world fade away when he’d kissed her.
Okay, so he’d kissed her and she’d liked it. Really liked it. But there was no reason, she told herself, to believe anything of that nature was going to happen again. It was an aberration, a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence. Peter Wilder was a healer, not a lover, even though he had a lethal mouth that had melted her like drawn butter.
Professional, she silently insisted—it was all going to be strictly professional. If there was anything she was, it was professional.
She was still silently clinging to this belief, repeating it over and over again like some kind of mantra, as she went shopping for “the right dress.”
It turned out to be a gown, a gown like no other she’d ever owned. The moment she saw it on the alabaster mannequin, she’d fallen in love with the gleaming creation.
Because the gown wasn’t her.
It was the kind of gown that belonged on a socialite, a jet-setter, someone who was accustomed to frequenting parties on both coasts and collecting heady, over-the-top compliments.
Depending on the light, the gown, suspended on two thin gossamerlike straps, was either silver or gray-blue, and when she put it on, it adhered to every curve she had. Moreover, it somehow miraculously awarded her more cleavage than she was accustomed to having and the material swayed provocatively with every step she took. Simultaneously, the material played peekaboo with the slit that ran from her ankle to halfway up her thigh, drawing the beholder’s attention to the fact that whatever other attributes she might possess, Bethany Holloway, former card-carrying ugly duckling, had stunning, killer legs that seemed to go on forever.
Because she was ordinarily governed by more than her share of logic, Bethany put the gown back on the rack three separate times before she finally snatched it up and fairly trotted to the register.
In most cases, the purchase price of the designer gown would have been prohibitive for someone earning the kind of salary she did. But money had never been a problem for Bethany, never the bottom line that proved to be a deciding factor. What her family lacked in warmth and nurturing attributes it made up for with money. Specifically, a trust fund that was passed on through her mother’s family. Martha Royce, her mother’s mother, had been obscenely wealthy. The woman believed in giving her descendents a sizable jumpstart in life, not out of any sort of affection but because she believed her lineage was better than anyone else’s and should be rewarded for that.
Her grandmother died the year before Bethany graduated from college. At the funeral, which included both her parents and Belinda, she was the only one who shed any tears at the woman’s passing.
As she looked at herself now in her wardrobe mirror, Bethany couldn’t help wondering what her grandmother would have said if she’d seen her in this gown.
You go, girl.
Bethany smiled to herself, pressing her hand to her unsettled stomach. If the stories she’d heard about the woman’s youth, mostly through relatives other than her parents, were true, Grandmother had been a rebel and a hell-raiser. She only wished she had inherited a little more of the woman’s spirit instead of her money.
Then, at the very least, she wouldn’t feel as nervous as she did about wearing this gown.
Really, darling, this kind of a gown should be worn by someone who can carry it off, don’t you think?
This time it was her mother’s voice that had popped into her head to haunt her. Her mother who, even when she was seemingly praising her always made Bethany feel as if she were lacking.
Bethany set her jaw, deliberately shutting her mother’s perpetually condescending voice out. She really liked the gown, liked the way she looked in it. She looked, she thought, like someone special.
She fervently hoped she wasn’t just deluding herself.
The doorbell rang, breaking into her thoughts. The next second, she could feel her stomach seizing up and her heart beginning to race.
Maybe this was a mistake. What was she trying to prove? This backless, almost strapless silvery revelry wasn’t her. She belonged in subdued colors, quiet shades that didn’t call attention to all the things she lacked. Her nerves spiked to incredible highs as she looked toward her closet.
But it was too late to change, too late to