Lorelei tried to smile and nod in a way that was polite without being committal.
“It must be tough for you. Stepping into Vivi’s shoes like that.”
Was that a jab? Or was she just oversensitive? Damn, Donovan’s scent was driving her insane. “Vivi has fabulous shoes, and thankfully we wear the same size.”
Julie threw her head back and laughed at something Donovan had said, and Lorelei was able to direct her attention to their conversation without seeming over-interested. She and Jack were being roundly excluded. In just a few minutes, Julie had moved in like an aircraft carrier, creating a no-fly zone around Donovan that said she’d shoot down any woman who dared come too close. Last night Jess; Julie tonight. Lorelei amended that list—first it had been Jess, then her, and now Julie. It seemed Donovan was a prime commodity these days. He should get one of those “take a number” things.
“Why don’t we go refresh your drink?” Jack said. “I think these two have some catching up to do.”
Lorelei nearly snorted. But Donovan wasn’t exactly fighting off Julie’s advances, and nor did he seem overly concerned with Jack’s rather proprietary hovering.
Fine. She’d said last night that she didn’t expect anything from him, and he seemed to be taking that at face value. Rationally, she had no real cause to be irritated about it. They were nothing at all to each other. Repeating that fact to herself, she let Jack guide her away.
She spent the next hour making polite conversation with all the right people, and playing slightly dumb to Jack’s attempts to charm her straight into his bed. A week ago this would have been exactly what she wanted: the powerful and influential of New Orleans treating her as an equal player and a guy like Jack Morgan playing arm candy.
Jack Morgan: grandson of a former mayor, lawyer in his father’s firm. She’d known him—or at least his family—her entire life. His mother and her mother were in several clubs together. Handsome, stable, well-liked, from a good family … Jack was exactly the kind of man everyone had expected her to pair up with. Just like every other girl she’d grown up with.
Vivi had almost bucked the rules by marrying a musician, but the Mansfields were literally the family next door—as old and established and respected as every other family in their social circle. No one had batted an eyelid when they’d ended up together.
She, though, had always dated outside her expected peer group—but she hadn’t strayed too far, because she didn’t want to give her grandmother a heart attack. She’d carefully chosen men just acceptable enough to protect her grandmother’s heart, but also unacceptable enough to keep people from expecting her to get serious with any of them. It had been a careful balancing act designed to let her have the most amount of fun with the minimum amount of hassle. It was just easier that way.
And now there was Jack Morgan. Her mother would be thrilled.
Why wasn’t she more thrilled?
Even examining him with a critical eye, she couldn’t come up with a complaint. Jack was a good catch. But there was no tingle, no excitement at the thought.
Mentally she ran through Julie’s recent list of eligible males, and found that none of them gave her even the slightest tingle.
Once again, the “right” thing held little or no interest for her. Hadn’t that been the story of her life? And wasn’t that exactly how she’d ended up here, hovering on the outskirts of her own society, trying to get back in like some high schooler who wanted to hang with the popular kids?
It was just downright depressing to contemplate.
Donovan revved her engines, but he was like tequila: not a good idea unless she wanted to make a fool of herself. As if she hadn’t already made a big enough fool of herself by throwing herself at him last night.
And look what that had gotten her.
She looked over at Jack. Jack was exactly what she needed, tingle be damned.
The expectations of the right thing to do were ingrained into her: she was supposed to marry a man from the right family, have a couple of children to raise the right way, and settle into the society niche that had been carved for her at birth.
She’d tried, but she’d never quite measured up. And as Vivi had become the paragon of all the right virtues, she’d finally just given up even trying to live up to that standard and had become a bit of a rebel just out of a need for self-protection. She’d even convinced herself that she wanted to be the horrible warning instead of the good example.
Now, after years of not caring—or merely doing the minimum required of her—she found herself fighting for her place. She had a hell of a lot to prove to a hell of a lot of people, and the only way to accomplish that was by playing by their rules.