ME, CINDERELLA?(44)

After the waiters served dessert—a chocolate pomegranate ganache topped with fresh cream—a few of the guests began to dance on the terrace. Eliot felt a tug at his wrist and looked up to see Brynn, her eyebrow raised in invitation.

“Dance?” she asked. Her enthusiasm was buoyed by the champagne, but Eliot could still hear a note of anxiousness behind the question. Dance? Of course he would dance. There was nothing else he would rather do. He held out his arm and Brynn rested her hand in the crook of his elbow. As they walked out onto the terrace by the band, Eliot thought he could sense people staring.

Let them stare. He was having a good night, after all.

Brynn tiptoed on her heels, and Eliot put his hand on her hip to steady her as she caught her balance. The soft music lilted through the air and around the dancers. Brynn’s hand was hot in his, her cheeks fairly flushed with pleasure.

“Thank you,” she said, leaning forward and resting her head on his shoulder. “For the internship, for all this. It’s wonderful.”

Eliot’s hand came up to the small of her back. The dress draped in a deep plunge at the back, and his fingers touched her skin. He did not move them.

“How do you like the frozen tundra of Budapest so far?” he asked.

“It’s not terrible,” Brynn said. “A castle, a kitten, a secret prince…”

“Everything you hoped for?”

“What I hoped for?” Brynn stopped dancing and tilted her head up so that her face was only inches away. “This is what I hoped for.” Her lips parted, pink and lush, and when she reached up with one hand to pull him down into a kiss he willingly bent forward.

The delicate, desirous pressure of her lips undid him, and he could not help but bend deeper, clasping her close to him in an embrace that yearned to erase years of isolation. He felt her under him, hot and wanting, her hands clutching his back. His hand came up to her cheek, caressing her skin. His fingers tangled themselves in her hair and he smelled the delicate scent of her jasmine perfume as the kiss broke apart and they stood with their foreheads still touching, breathless, silent. Brynn’s eyes were pools of soft violet reflecting the waters of the Danube, and he saw in them a hopefulness and innocence that tore at his heart.

A sharp crack and flash of light just by his face made Eliot spin to the side. A photographer stood just by them. Eliot raised his hand as the flash went off again, and the world spun under him. He could hear blood rushing through his ears, and he saw himself turn, felt his fist pull back, unable to stop it. His first blow landed on the camera, shattering the lens and sending it flying to the floor with a loud crash.

“Eliot!” Brynn’s voice sounded distant, and Eliot shoved the photographer hard, sending him over the edge and into the river with a loud splash. The music stopped, and someone pulled Eliot back from the river’s edge.

Red. Somewhere in the crowd a woman was screaming, and cameras flashed from all sides, dozens of them. Eliot shook off the arms restraining him and covered his eyes, but still the lights flashed through the cracks in his fingers. So much red. A security guard pulled the photographer out of the river and out of Eliot’s sight. The roaring in Eliot’s ears stopped as soon as he looked up.

Brynn stood speechless, staring at him as though he were a monster. He turned toward the exit and ran.





CHAPTER TWELVE



Eliot shoved well-dressed businessmen aside on his way out the door of the restaurant. A plate clattered to the floor as he bumped a waiter hard, but he did not even turn to see what had happened. He knew what had happened. It was the reason he didn’t want to be in Hungary.

Clare.

His feet took him down the street, away from watchful eyes, until he turned onto the bridge and stopped there, the icy floes of the Danube some thirty meters under his feet. He pressed his palms to his eyes, willing away the memory, but still it came over him as it always had, a furious, immutable wave of emotion that rolled him into its current and back into the past, a decade back, when Clare was still his wife and he thought fate was on his side.

They had been driving back from one of Otto’s parties, and the roads glistened with the treacherous dark patches of ice. Clare looked beautiful, dressed in an ivory sheath with pearls wreathing her neck, her hair done up by the stylist Marta had recommended. Eliot couldn’t help but look over every once in a while to take glimpses of his angel, as he called her. A soft fall of snow was swept away quietly by the windshield wipers. Eliot had maneuvered his way around the dark curves of the mountain well enough until the paparazzi showed up. Two photographers on motorcycles shot up until they were just behind the car.