Sway With Me(61)

How could she have forgotten? No wonder they were drawn to the ballroom. They’d played there as children.

Filled with excitement, she gave Olivia a quick hug. “Would you excuse me? I’m going to see if I can coax a dance from him.”

Olivia smiled. “I’m glad you two found each other again. Your mother always said you would.”

She did? Why hadn’t she said anything?

Michael clasped Portia’s shoulder. “It was nice meeting you again, Portia. I hope you and Ryan will join us on Christmas for dinner. We’d love to have both of you there.”

While she relished the idea of a large family dinner, she wasn’t sure if she could convince Ryan to attend. “I’d enjoy that. Thank you.”

Heading for the dance floor, she scanned the mass of tuxedos for Ryan. She narrowed her eyes on the back of a man with cinnamon-colored hair dancing with a brunette in a skintight black-sequined dress. As she moved closer, she realized it was Sean and sighed in relief. She tapped him on the back. “Sean, have you seen Ryan?”

He gazed at the floor. “I, uh . . . I think he went into the lobby.”

“Thanks, I’ll go—”

She took a couple of steps back before Sean grabbed her arm. “No, why don’t you let him do his thing and dance with me?”



He smiled, but it appeared forced. The woman he’d been dancing with stomped her foot and stalked off the dance floor. Portia got the sense he’d used her to get rid of his dance partner. With her gone, surely he wouldn’t expect her to actually dance with him. “I’d rather check on him. There’s something I need to tell him and it can’t wait another minute.”

“Portia, wait—”

She cut through the crowd, hurrying toward the entrance of the ballroom. She opened the door to the lobby and walked through, relieved to be out of the crowded room. Only a few guests lingered, drinking glasses of wine and speaking in quiet tones. None of them were Ryan.

Wondering if he’d gone to the restroom, she looked around and saw a sign indicating the bathrooms were down the hall to the left. She headed in that direction when she heard Ryan’s voice. She couldn’t wait to tell him what she’d learned from his mother.

Turning down the hallway, she no longer heard him speaking and it immediately became clear why.

She froze as she watched him kissing a woman.

An arm slipped around Portia’s waist, turned her around, and propelled her back to the lobby. Hoping her mascara was waterproof, she looked up at her rescuer. Sean withdrew his handkerchief from his tuxedo’s left breast pocket and handed it to her.

He’d known. That’s why he’d asked her to dance.

“Who is she?” she asked even though she didn’t want to know.

He sighed. “That’s Samantha. She was his college girlfriend until she dumped him when he lost his fortune. It wasn’t long after that he stopped talking to all of us and moved in with Braden.”

It all made sense to her now. Ryan had noticed Samantha when they’d arrived and that’s when he’d started acting uncomfortable. Portia had stupidly thought he was nervous about facing his parents and that he’d run off because of his mother’s comments. Her fingers curled into fists. He hadn’t been running away from anything; he’d been running to someone. Samantha. Sam.



“Well, thanks to your uncle, he’s a millionaire again. Now I know why the money is so important to him.” She needed to leave before she completely broke down in tears. “Will you excuse me? I’m not feeling very well.”

She gave him back his handkerchief and went outside to hail a cab. Her eyes were dry and for the first time in three months, wide open. Everything between them had been a lie. Ryan had pretended to care for her in order to convince her to sell the house so that he could win back Samantha.

As of tomorrow, Portia would once again be homeless. And worse, with her heart shattered into pieces, she’d lost her will to care.

Ryan extracted himself from Samantha’s hold. “I’m sorry. We shouldn’t have done that.”

She’d laid a kiss on him before he could stop her and when she did, all he could think about was Portia. For the rest of his life, he never wanted another woman’s lips on his.

He was totally and irrevocably in love with Portia.

“Can’t blame a girl for trying,” she said, shrugging nonchalantly. “I should’ve known some lucky girl would’ve scooped you up by now.” She smiled and motioned to his left hand with a quick nod of her head. “I see you’re not married. Maybe I’ve got time to change your mind.”