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She noticed they were having rather a long exchange to still be standing in her doorway. “Do you want to come in?” she asked.
“I can’t,” he replied as he edited his contact number. “I’m still working.” He handed back her phone. “I just stopped in to check on you.”
“But it’s so late,” she said, leaning against the frame and smiling at him invitingly. “Don’t you want to see what lingerie I’ve chosen to wear under the dress?”
She saw his eyes flash with a longing that he quickly quelled. “I’ll see you tomorrow night,” he said with finality. “Go back inside.”
She just smiled at him until he stepped forward, chest out, and a look on his face that said he wasn’t going to let her win this. He put his hands on her shoulders and physically moved her back to the other side of her front door.
“Aw, you’re no fun,” she said, giggling, and she did get a smile and a reluctant laugh out of him, finally, but he quickly schooled himself.
“And lock your door,” he scolded.
He shut her door and she thought about not locking it to really annoy him, but it was almost as if he could sense what she was doing.
“Lock your door!” he shouted from the other side of it.
She laughed and did it, but as she went back into her kitchen to make herself a cup of sleepy tea, she replayed the scene in her head, wondering if the whole encounter was actually strange rather than charming as it had felt in the moment. She stripped down the sequence of events trying to get to the bottom of it, leaving out the part where she melted when he looked at her the way he had. He’d called her from a blocked number, didn’t leave a message or a text, and then showed up at her front door just to tell her to answer his calls. It was strange. She started to wonder if Cassiel was right about Elias lying to them about something.
Ten
The fundraiser for Children’s Hospital in Boston was one of the oldest and most prestigious charity balls in the city. The people who got invited gladly forked over the tens of thousands of dollars that each ticket cost, and then some, in order to ensure that they would be invited again the next year. First of all, because it was a worthy cause, and secondly, because it was always a great party.
The ball never failed to be a star-studded event, and the long line of reporters waiting on the red carpet was a testament to that. They were ready with their photographers and their softball questions to fill out the society pages for their newspaper or magazine’s website.
Cassiel had come early to run interference with the reporters, and Bianca saw him having what looked to be a heated exchange with Cat Murphy, the reporter who had been hounding their family to do a book with her. Bianca instructed her driver to let them off right at the front door to avoid the battery of reporters lining the red carpet as a whole, but also to avoid Cat Murphy in particular. The last thing Elias needed in his line of work was to pique a reporter’s interest, and Cat was deeply interested in anything the Loring family did.
Even still, as Bianca and Elias ducked their way inside, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, she did note that a few photographers had jumped the lit red carpet area to grab a few shots of the people who were trying to sneak in. She saw the flash bulbs and held her face in a passive, pleasant smile that was neither approachable nor angry.
“Is this okay?” she mumbled to Elias, holding her face neutral as she indicated the fact that his image had been caught entering the ball, hand in hand with her.
“We’re prepared for this,” he reminded her, maintaining the look of relaxed detachment on his face startlingly well, considering they were both getting blinded by photographers. “I work for the State Department, right?”
“Riiiight,” she said, like she just remembered. “Because no one knows what that job entails, and it sounds hella boring.”
“Exactly,” he said, laughing with her. “No will ask a follow-up question.”
“Or even a first one.”
The venue for the ball was a grand old hotel that had been lavishly decorated. Marble floors and intricate molding ornately framed the gowned and tuxedoed guests. Ice sculptures adorned the tables, and a twenty-piece big-band orchestra was arrayed to one side. Servers circled with flutes of champagne and caviar-studded canapes.
Bianca’s family had a table close to the front because they had been attending that ball for several generations, and it never occurred to her that this was something out of the ordinary until she saw Elias’ expression when they arrived.
“Wow,” he said under his breath as he pulled her chair out for her. “Front row.”
Bianca hesitated, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. He registered the change in her mood. “Did I say something wrong?”
She decided just to ask him something that had been bothering her for a while. “Elias, am I a snob?”
He laughed. “No.” Then she shrugged, considering it. “You’re not just rich, Bianca. Your family iswealthy—frighteningly, world-changingly wealthy. And that means you’ve had a different upbringing from nearly everyone else on the planet. You’ve been sheltered, but that has its drawbacks, too, I’ve noticed.” He shook his head, frowning and thinking. “Your family has given you everything, but they ask a lot.”
“They need me,” she said, defending them.
“I know,” he replied. “You’re the heart of your family, Bianca. Your brothers and your uncle would do anything for you because you make them a family. And, strangely, I actually agree with Cassiel about you having a bodyguard for a driver right now.”
“Why? Do you think I’m going to get myself arrested again?” she asked, grinning.
He shook his head and leaned forward to give her a quick kiss, as if touching her intimately could banish the dark thought she could sense clouding the back of his mind. “I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you,” he said, his voice low.
