Do I?
If I don’t, why is there a buzz of excitement low in my stomach at the idea of spending the evening alone with her? Why does it feel like I’m being granted a wish I didn’t dare to ask for?
I haul my thoughts back in line.Enough. If I have to spend the evening with any woman who isn’t my daughter, I want to choose. I want to be incontrolof this, and I am not in control of how I feel about Diana.
Unfortunately, the only woman I want—that I’m allowed to want—is the woman from Delirium, and she might as well not exist, given that she never called and I’ll probably never see her again.
“Dad?” Lizzie’s voice crashes through my thoughts.
“I don’t mind taking Diana,” I reply, keeping my voice curt and hoping it sounds like I do mind, and that this is an imposition rather than a gift I would never have dared to seek out.
Lizzie claps, either not registering or choosing to ignore my feigned frustration. “Oh, yay. She’s a total babe. I promise.”
A babe.
The image of her in that pink dress, clutching her breasts like she was presenting them to me, her eyes all wide with surprise, strikes me like an electric shock, tingling through every part of my body exactly as it happened in real time. I shake out my hands to discharge the sensation and shut down the thoughts before they progress further. Diana Marchetti is not a woman I can afford to think about at all.
“Have a good time at your dinner,” I tell my daughter, and then I walk to my room to change.
Lizzie was right. Dianaispleasant company. More than pleasant. During the interval, I get us both a glass of champagne,and we stand by the bar in the cavernous hall, surrounded by people. We stand close enough that we can hear each other over the loud, excited chatter around us.
She’s always beautiful—a fact I can’t deny—but tonight she seems to glow. Maybe it’s the lights, the excitement of a night out, the champagne. Whatever it is, I want to soak her in like the atmosphere at a party I don’t want to leave. Her pink-painted lips caress the edge of her champagne flute each time she takes a sip, and in spite of my efforts, my attention is drawn that way every time, wishing she might press her lips to mine and drinkmeinstead.
It’s driving me crazy.
“Thank you so much for the clothes,” she says, glancing down at her dress. “You didn’t have to. I wasn’t expecting it and I didn’t mean to seem like I was begging for anything.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
She twists the fingers of her free hand into the fabric of her dress. “I’ll pay you back. How much was it?”
“Please, think nothing of it.”
She’s quiet for a moment. “If I don’t pay you back, I’ll be indebted to you forever.”
Her voice is husky, the words low and suggestive, and my body fizzes.
I tighten my grip on the stem of my champagne flute and force a laugh, hoping to discharge the sudden tension. “Really, you owe me nothing.”
I look away, trying to tune her out; detach my energy from hers, but I can’t. There are hundreds of other people in the room, but my awareness is attuned to her andonlyher. I don’t want to examine why, at least no more than I already have; I can’t allow myself to go there. She’s my daughter’s best friend, for Christ’s sake. Why does that fact refuse to sink in?
“Can I ask you a question?” she says.
“Go ahead.” I’m eager for a distraction from my thoughts.
“What happened to Lizzie’s mum?”
I frown, surprised by the personal nature of her question, and unsure if I want to explain. “Lizzie didn’t tell you?”
“I don’t ask about people’s families,” she says, her voice ringing with a levity that strikes me as false. “I hate talking about mine, so I let people tell me things when and as they want. I guess Lizzie didn’t want to tell me, so I’m asking you. If you don’t mind.”
I take a sip of my drink, contemplating whether I do mind. Diana is waiting with such an open expression on her face that I can’t object. “She left after Lizzie was born.”
“Left? Just walked out?”
“Yes. We were teenagers.” I haven’t discussed Evangeline for years. And now that Lizzie’s eighteen, no one asks about her mother anymore. All our acquaintances know she’s never been in the picture.
Diana’s eyebrows rise. “So by the time you were my age—twenty-one,” she specifies when I give her a questioning look. “You—”
