Carolina Isle Read Free Page B

“So clean,” they said.
    When her mother’s eagle eye was turned away, Ariel tipped a waiter a twenty to replace her mother-approved ginger ale with champagne. It was while she was slowly sipping her champagne (to make it last) that she saw him.
Him.
For Ariel, it was one of those moments when the earth stood still. Maybe the other party guests kept moving and talking, but for her, the world stopped revolving. When she saw the man walk into the room, she knew she was seeing her future. She was seeing the only man she would ever love.
    R. J. Brompton. Of course she knew who he was. Sara had sent photos and newspaper clippings. But photos didn’t show what he was really like. You could feel him. Sense him. He had a presence about him, an aura, a charisma such asAriel had never experienced. In all her trips with her mother, she had never seen anyone like R. J. Brompton.
    Sara had described him in only bad terms. She said he worked her half to death, and that he had no idea that she should have a life of her own. He called her during the night and asked her where the papers on a land sale were. She would tell him she had put them in his briefcase, then he’d ask where his briefcase was. More than once, she’d had to pull on jeans and a T-shirt and go to his apartment in the middle of the night to find something or to write a letter for him. She said that as far as she could tell, he never slept.
    As Ariel stood there watching him shake hands with people, now and then glancing at the blonde on his arm, she knew that someday he’d be hers. She came out of her trance to look into the eyes of the woman with him. She was glaring at Ariel in a way meant to tell her to back off, that R.J. belonged to her. Ariel just smiled. She knew from Sara that R.J. changed women more often than she changed shoes. Next week there would be another mindless blonde—or a redhead, whatever—looking up at him with adoring eyes.
    For the whole party, Ariel stayed within viewing distance of R.J. Each time he glanced in her direction, she turned away, as though she’d been looking at someone behind him. But he wasn’t fooled. After an hour, he walked toward her. And though she pretended she didn’t see him, her heart was pounding so hard she was afraid it would leap out of her chest. If she hadn’t had so much inside information from Sara, she would have turned and smiled at R.J. But she knew he was used to that. Sara said that she couldn’t see R.J.’s attraction to women, but it was there. She’d told many stories about women making fools of themselves over him. Sara said she’d had to usher each of them out, some of them crying, and later, she always sent them flowers and a nice note that essentially said thanks but no thanks.
    Ariel knew better than to rush forward and introduce herself. Instead, she ignored him completely. Sort of. If a person can stalk someone through a three-hour party and still ignore him, that’s what Ariel did. She chatted happily with a bunch of old, rich men who kept trying to look down the front of her dress, while she kept an eye on R.J. The second he moved away fromwhomever he was talking to, she moved away from him. They were playing cat and mouse—and liking it. Toward the end of the party she felt him bearing down on her and she knew she wouldn’t be able to escape. She also knew that she’d have only one chance to make a first impression. But she didn’t know what he liked. Sweet and simpering? Or cool but smoldering, like Grace Kelly in
To Catch a Thief
? For him, Ariel would be whatever he wanted. But first she had to find out what would make him want her for more than his usual two weeks.
    As he bore down on Ariel, she knew she had to stop him. But how? He was known in the business world as a man who got what he wanted. He’d been called ruthless by more than one source.
    Frantically, Ariel looked about the party. Should she go