Running From Fate (14 page)

“Fine.”  Mira pulled out her cell phone and accessed the web, quickly finding the number she needed.  “But no olives.”

Forty minutes later Lily put away the extra pizza and came out of the kitchen carryi
ng another bottle of champagne.  T
hey had finished the first one.  The woman must travel with a suitcase full of the stuff, Mira thought somewhat fuzzily, as she took the offered cup and sank into the sofa.
             

After a few minutes, she turned her
head and looked at Lily
. 
“There
is no way,” she muttered, picking up their conversation where it had left off, “that I’m going to tell you everything, but I do tell you a lot.  I mean you
’
r
e
one of my best friends.”  Her brow creased slightly.  “You’re not still mad about the money thing are you?”

“Hey I won.”  Lily flashed a grin before
straitening
up and pasting what she saw a serious expression on her face: mouth in a straight line and eyebrows pulled together. 
“B
ut you haven’t
told me everything.
I’ve known you for 14 years and I know when you’re hiding something.
You could never lie worth a damn.”
She put her cup down and sat forward.
“Spill it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mira said.
“You know all about the situation in California and I’ve told you about my money problems.
I’m not sure what you want me to say.
” 
Striving for nonchalance, she lifted her cup and
drank
.
Unfortunately, she swallowed t
o
o quickly and started coughing.

Lily leaned over and whacked her between the shoulder blades before grabbing the cup and refilling it.
“Here,” she said holding out the cup.
“Have another drink.
It might loosen your
tongue
.”

It
was
excellent champagne, Mira thought, and one more glass wouldn’t hurt.  Besides
, Lily would
eventually pry
all the messy details out of her
, so
it
might as well
be
now.
She just needed a little more courage
of the liquid kind
because the explanation was bound to make
Lily
mad and that could be a scary thing.
Despite
having an artistic bent
, her friend was very even-tempered.
She seemed to channel all of her strong emotions into her
clothing designs
.
When she did let loose, however, she was an unstoppable force.
  She had never met James, but she had seen what it had done to Mira when he had effectively abandoned her
and she hated the man
.  T
his would not
go over well
.
  Apparently, though, she had been silent too long because Lily was already making her own speculations and she was scarily accurate.

“
With your talent you could have gone anywhere in the world,”
Lily
mused.
  She tapped one manicured nail against her chin. 
“What reason could you have for choosing to move to Raleigh when you could have gone to New York, London, or even Paris?”
Apparently struck by some horrible thought, her eyes widened and she
bolted upright
.
“James Kelly has a company here, doesn’t he?
Please tell me that you’re not still pining after that dreadful man.”

“I could never understand why you hated him so much,” Mira hedged.
“You’ve never even met the man.”

“Maybe not him, but I know his type.
You were obsessed with him when we went to St. Cat’s so I did a little research.
It wasn’t just you that he abandoned. 
At 22
he seemed to be determined to sleep with every girl at Cornell
so
I’m sure he left dozens of broken hearts behind.
”

“
Where do you get your information?
”
Mira shook her head in wonder.

Ignoring the interruption,
Lily
continued her tirade.
“
From what I’ve read,
he hasn’t changed
much since then
.”
She paused briefly to take a breath and
took a fortifying drink
.
“I had hoped, when I read
in a magazine
that he was engaged to some socialite, that he would disappear from your radar, but that didn’t work out and
apparently
he left that poor girl devastated.
”

“You really shouldn’t believe everything you read in those
rags.
”  Mira waved her
finger
.
“
Very little of it is actually true.”

“
I’ve also heard
,” Lily continued
, completely ignoring her
comment.
“H
e has a fierce business reputation.”
Her
voice dropped and she leaned
forward
.
“
It’s been said,” she whispered.
“That he can fell an opponent with just a look from his glacial eyes.”

“That’s just ridiculous!
” Mira
retorted
.
Yes, she had been slightly intimidated by James, but she had also been fighting an intense attraction.
She also
felt like she had been operating under an assumed iden
tity
.
There was bound to be some fear caused by that, but it didn’t make the man a monster.
Memories of the jeers that he had faced as a young teenager because of his strange accent and odd ways reared their head and she felt
her temper begin to boil at the unjust accusation.
It was time to set Lily straight.
“I don’t know what people are talking about.
All of t
hose business men must be coward
s
because he didn’t seem very frightening to me.”

“Wait a second.”
Her friend
sat
down
her empty cup and
slowly
stood up.
In a patented
Lily
Parsons move, she put her hands on her shapely hips and narrowed her eyes.
“How can he seem to be anything?
You
have
n’t seen him in almost 15 years.
”

Mira sank deeper into the sofa.
It was time to face the music.
“That’s not exactly true,” she replied
softly.
“The job I took
. 
It’s
at EcoSpace.”

The explosion wasn’t long in coming.

“You idiot!
Have you completely lost your mind
?” 
She started pacing, her long legs carrying her quickly from door to couch and back again.
For having consumed more than half a bottle of bubbly she was pretty stable. 
“I take it from your comments that you’ve already seen him.”
She stopped in front of Mira and took a cleansing breath
and he
r curiosity overcame her anger. 
“Well?” she asked.
“W
hat did he say?”

“We talked,” Mira hedged.
 
“
And
he gave me the job so he must have liked my work.”

Lily waved her arm imperiously. 
“Of course he liked your work
. 
You’re
a brilliant artist and designer.
I want
to know what he said about you. 
Was he surprised to see you after so long?”

“Actually.”  She paused.  “H
e didn’t recognize me.”

“I suppose
that makes some kind of sense. 
I mean, y
ou have changed a lot
since then
.”
She grinned
. 
“
What did he think
when you told him?
I’m sure he was surpris
ed by your older, matured body. 
Who could have known that you would
become such a hottie in
15
years?
”

“For God’s sake Lily
,” she sputtered.
“We
didn’t discuss things like that.
 
Get your mind out of the gutter.
”

“
Obviously m
y mind’s not the only one in the gutter.
How do you know that I was thinking anything dirty, unless you were too, huh?
Try and explain that, smarty pants
.”
She giggled
girlishly and
stumbled slightly
before collapsing onto the sofa. 
“I think the champagne is starting to get to me.
I feel a little drunk.”

“Good,” Mira said.
“
But
I think that you should have another drink.”
She filled two more cups and glanced forlornly at the empty bottle before sitting it down.
“Slainte.”
She lifted her cup and knocked it against Lily’s upheld one.
A little liquid sloshed over the rim, but she ignored it and
drained her
champagne
.
Lily followed suit.
“How do you feel?”
Mira
asked.

“What?”
The reply
was a little slurred.

“Good
because
I’ve something to say and you won’t like it.”
It was apparent that h
er b
est friend was definitely drunk.
Hopefully, that
would make the news easier to take.
She, of course, was only slightly tipsy and perfectly able to make a rational argument
so she should have the upper hand.
That is, if she could
remember
what she had
wanted to talk about
.
Maybe if she closed her eyes for a minute.