Helena would kill Carl if she knew half the things he'd unloaded last night.
Certainly made him look at prim and prissy Helena in a new light.
That was the trouble with women, he mused; marry them and they changed, the mask came off.
He watched Bry explaining to the waiter that she'd hold-off on her order until her cousin arrived. She'd cut her hair since he last saw her, he realized. It used to be long and wavy, but now it was a sleek, auburn, shoulder-length bob. Is that what was so different about her? He couldn't pinpoint it.
She wore a chic, navy wrap dress and those high, scarlet heels. Odd choices for an accountant. Gave her a sexy edge. If he saw her in the street he'd definitely turn his head to watch her pass. She used to be self-conscious, fidgety. Today she sat before him with an air of confidence, her polished, pale pink fingernails occasionally drawn through her hair to tuck it behind one ear. She wore a ring, he noted. Not an engagement ring, however.
Suddenly she looked over his head and smiled. It was the easy sort of smile she never spared for him, and when she raised a hand to wave, he knew Horny Housewife Helena had arrived.
"Well, I'll leave you to your cauldron," he muttered, sliding out of the booth. "Nice to see you, Chubbs."
"Likewise, Numbnuts," she replied, studying the menu again.
"Give some thought to my offer."
"Offer?" She looked up and in that second she was thirteen again, innocent, startled and confused that he'd just asked her to dance.
"The job offer," he reminded her patiently, leaning down with his palms flat on the table. It seemed she'd already dismissed his suggestion as nonsense. "Obviously Rostrop and Philips are giving you all the shitty jobs. A woman with your talent is wasted there. You know they'll hold you back."
Her lips twitched and Ben realized he was focused on them a little too intently. Red lipstick made her mouth full and lush, very enticing. No more virgin uncertainty there, he mused. The reminiscence had been brief and now awkward, pugnacious Bryony Mulligan transformed back into this tantalizing, feisty woman again. "Why don't you write up a full description of what my duties would be, Petruska?"
"I told you already."
"A vague overview. I need details." One beautifully shaped eyebrow arched gracefully, sensuously. "I can't consider leaving a steady job for some half-assed idea you plucked out of the air. So write it down." There went the lip twitch again and her black lashes swept downward as she turned her attention back to the menu. "Unless you're weren't serious."
He'd never heard a soft voice crack a whip before.
Suddenly Helena was upon them, bitching already about having come so far across town in midday traffic. As if midday traffic was worse than any other time of day. Helena was a whiner. Curiously, so he'd found, people who whined the most often had the least to complain about. "Hi, Helena." He tried desperately to keep a straight face, but kept picturing her bony frame in thigh highs and a nurse's outfit. He always thought that when a woman's knees were the widest part of her body she ought to consider eating a slice of cheesecake once in a while.
She shot him a cold glance. "What the hell are you doing here?"
Bry spoke up before he could answer. "He owns the place."
Helena flung herself into the seat he'd just vacated, shrugging off her coat, muttering about men always being where they weren't wanted, but never around when they were. Ben knew she didn't like him, of course. She thought he was a womanizer, according to his cousin Carl, and made no secret of her disapproval regarding the various dates he'd brought to her parties over the years.
"Enjoy the coven...er... lunch, ladies." He made a hasty exit.
Chapter Three
She hovered in the doorway, suffering the quakes of last minute doubt. In a weak moment she'd agreed to go to this gallery opening Helena had organized tonight, but she wasn't really at home with this sort of crowd. Modern art confused her. She always got the sense of watching a naked Emperor march by while everyone else cooed over his new suit of clothes. Bry liked classical art, portraits and landscapes that weren't interrupted by flying cubes or bicycle tracks, or random items she could have picked out of her own garbage. In Helena's opinion, that made her "pedestrian".
"Just don't tell anyone what you really think," had been her advice to Bry as they left Helena's car and walked toward the polished glass front of the gallery.
That seemed to be Helena's mantra, she mused. Just pretend everything's "darling".
So now, here she was, trying to look cool and sophisticated, watching her cousin greet people with the double-cheek air kiss. Helena was fully-recharged this evening, bright and sparkling as a fake crystal chandelier, much improved on the dour, crumpled, teary-eyed woman she'd been seven hours ago at lunch, when pouring out her troubles.