Sleeping with Beauty (22 page)

Words she’d never thought to utter slipped past her lips.
“Thank you, Vanilla Ice.”
Keeping her eyes closed, focusing on the beat, letting it sink in, connecting to the pulse of it. She let her hips sway a little, singing, “Ice, ice, baby” under her breath until she finally worked up the nerve to lift her chin, stand straighter, even thrust her chest out a little. She owned this song. She owned this room. She could do this!

Then she opened her eyes and saw the throngs of her former classmates filling the dance floor.

Sure. She could do this. Right after she had a drink. A very stiff drink.

Her ticket came with two free-drink coupons. She wondered if they’d let her use them both at once for a double. However, inner rhythm or no inner rhythm, she was pretty sure her heels came with only so many stumble-free steps in them. Alcohol would probably reduce that number dramatically.

She stared at the writhing masses, thinking that right there in front of her was pretty much everyone who had made fun of her all through her years in the public school system. The girls who had made fun of her klutzy lack of coordination in grade-school gym class. The guys who called her up in middle school only to ask her if she could do their homework, or get the phone number of the current babe-of-the-week. Like she would know.

The same group who had laughed at her the night of the prom.

Her stomach lurched, and she was glad she hadn’t had any champagne. Or dinner. She pulled her phone out and punched the
DISPLAY
button, but no call from Jana. “Shit.”

Well, she told herself, it would mean more if she did this on her own, right? She’d show her former classmates and her current best friends what she was made of. And herself, while she was at it.

God, she wanted to throw up.

Then she thought of it from a different perspective. Because the thing about that prom-night fiasco was, she could hardly go down in anyone’s estimation. Reading the loop, it was clear how much everyone was trying to prove they’d maintained their level of cool into adulthood. This was pressure she didn’t share. In fact, anything she did here tonight was likely to be a major step up. She already looked better. So basically, all she had to do was not make a spectacle and she’d come out ahead.

The music segued from Vanilla Ice to MC Hammer. Filled with renewed determination, she straightened away from the wall.

“You’re damn right you can’t touch this,” she muttered, and marshaling every bit of nerve she had, she tossed her hair back, pointed her Austin Powers fembot boobs forward, and plunged into the throng.

She immediately slipped a tiny step, almost upending an entire tray of canapés. Two waiters swung smoothly away before she could take them out. She mercifully got her balance back before she went down herself, but just barely. Cheeks flaming, she inched her way to the edge of the room.
A wallflower once more.

The very thought gave her the courage to begin carefully edging her way around the room. It wasn’t exactly plunging headlong into the crowd, but it was a step up from hiding by the door.

She took her time and made a complete circuit, and though she’d gotten a few glances, even a few downright leering ogles, everyone was so caught up in excited conversations with their long-lost classmates, no one
really
noticed her. There were no gasps. No pointed fingers. No whispered “Oh, my Gods” as she trolled the alley created between the large round tables set up around the perimeter of the dance floor, and the wall, which ran parallel to the busier, more heavily peopled dance floor table lane. She’d work her way up to navigating that one. And it was possible no one noticed her because she was mostly walking behind their backs. Nor was she making direct eye contact. At least not on purpose.

Still, she hadn’t tripped or fallen out of her dress once. And for the moment, she rather liked being one of the anonymous. No badge, no way anyone could know who she really was. Sort of like Clark Kent in a dress. She used her “disguise” to drift again around the table track, and shamelessly listened in on snippets of conversations. Eventually, she planned to attempt to join in one or two. Right after she worked up the nerve to make eye contact.

After lap three, she admitted she wasn’t any closer to doing that than when she’d started. She’d recognized a few people by now, but had not the first clue what to say to any of them. “Hi, I’m Lucy Harper. You remember me, the one whose gym uniform you stuffed in the locker-room toilet in sixth grade?” Or, “Hi, it’s me, Lucy Harper. You know, the one who did your science homework for two years, but whom you pretended was invisible if I so much as made eye contact with you in the halls?”

Somehow, they just didn’t seem like the ice breakers she was looking for.

So she began looking in earnest for her ultimate quarry.

Because, while it would be gratifying to have a Carrie-like moment—sans all the blood, of course . . . well, maybe there could be a little blood—where she’d have the complete and utter attention of everyone in the room as she told them where they could stuff their insufferable egos, catty criticisms, and condescending, bullying, mean-spirited bullshit, the truth was, there was only one person she really wanted to blow away tonight.

The rumor buzzing about the room was that he was still godlike and had shown up wearing Armani. How hard could it be to find a six-foot-five god in a two-thousand-dollar tux?

Towering, tux-clad gods, however, seemed to be in unfortunate abundance. Mostly spousal gods, as far as she could tell. Apparently the Debbie Markhams of the world still had all the luck.

Of course, in some cases, a tuxedo, no matter the designer, hadn’t been a wise fashion option. She’d accidentally bumped into a now beer-bellied Buddy Aversom, cinched into a severely strained cummerbund, with a too-tight bow tie that looked like it was trying to pinch his head off at the neck. A visual, she was sad to say, she actually spent a few moments savoring. Fortunately, even up close, he hadn’t recognized her. She liked to think it was because the Glass Slipper transformation had been so complete that all her former classmates were presently whispering behind their hands, wondering who the hot, Amazon goddess in the sequin dress and fabulous designer heels was.

It was a nice fantasy. And it gave her the necessary strength to continue trolling. Nametag still tucked inside her purse, she scoped out the thickening crowd and let her imagination spin out on how their little reunion would play out. Of course, without her name tag, he’d never recognize her. So, should she simply introduce herself right off? No, no. Better to tell him after they’d finished their first dance. He would be all but drooling over her by then, right? Or her boobs, anyway. Whatever.

She was deep into her little fantasy now, picturing the immensely satisfying look of complete shock on his face when he realized the hot chick with the tan tits was dorky old Lucy Harper. That moment, of course, would be followed by a stuttered yet very sincere apology for how badly he’d treated her that long-ago night . . . maybe there would be some begging involved at that point, she wasn’t entirely sure. And she hadn’t forgotten the condoms in her purse. While she’d never been a sex-on-the-first-date kind of girl—okay, so no one had exactly begged her to have sex on the first date—every rule had an exception.

All she knew was that if she wanted to ace this final test, she was going to have to make him sweat. One way . . . or the other.

Her fantasy scenario then took a decidedly R-rated turn. She was quite vividly imagining him begging her for just the chance to be the one who took her home tonight, when someone politely tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hi, there.”

Startled from her reverie by both the warm touch grazing her bare skin, and the deep timbre of the voice, she spun around, wobbled badly, and had to grab onto the owner of said deep voice to keep from going down. “Sorry,” she said, flustered, trying to quickly regain her balance. She dug her fake, French-tipped nails into the sleeves of a very expensive-looking tux. Just as impressive were the big, taut biceps beneath the finely woven fabric.
Wow.
Her heart rate kicked up a few notches, which made letting him go that much harder. After a few more gravity-negotiating moments, she finally managed to release her death grip and stand on her own two spikes.

The initial rush of attraction was compounded further when she found herself having to look up—up! even in four-inch heels!—to see who she’d wobbled into. Until her gaze collided with the intense blue eyes of the one looking back down at her. Then her heart stopped completely.

She didn’t need a yearbook photo to recognize those eyes. She’d seen them often enough in her dreams.

Jason Prescott was officially in the building.

And he’d found her first.
Shit.

All of her carefully planned conversation starters evaporated into the ether. Or the subtle scent of his aftershave. Whatever. Along with her highly detailed fantasy scenario. Which she’d been totally insane to believe for one second would ever happen to her. Leaving her able to do little more than stand there, gaping at him. In all her carefully calculated planning, never once had it occurred to her that he would track her down. Honestly, Glass Slipper reincarnation or not, her karma just wasn’t that good.

She knew for sure she was hallucinating now when he sketched a slight bow, offered her his arm, and in a voice that had only gotten deeper and more incredibly male, said, “Care to dance?”

She looked behind her, half expecting to see Debbie Markham and the rest of the varsity cheerleading squad tittering behind their real French manicures while they waited for the punch line of what was surely a ghastly joke about to play itself out. Except there was no one behind her. She was standing in a corner. But another furtive glance proved there was no one standing behind him, either. At least, no one who was paying any attention to them. Yet. That would surely change if she took his arm and stepped out onto the dance floor.

Desire warred with common sense. And she didn’t have much of a handle on either at the moment. Her whole entry strategy had been to get his attention, then set him on his heels. Only she hadn’t counted on him knocking her back on hers first. She’d expected to feel nothing more than cold and calculating vengeance as she went about taking him down. It was all about making him want her. She’d sort of overlooked the fact that she might want him. She wasn’t counting on the clammy palms, the racing heart. Okay, so she might have expected a little of that, but that would have just been due to nerves from facing down her enemy.

Not because she wanted to strip her enemy naked and beg him to take her up against the nearest wall.

Christ. She was
so
not equipped to handle this.

Then another thought occurred to her.
Duh!
No badge. He didn’t know who she was! She still had the edge. She just wished like hell it felt that way. In the end, all she managed to do in the face of his questioning, attentive, and incredibly sexy gaze, was nod in the affirmative. With what had to be a stupidly glazed look on her face. But they were making their way to the dance floor, weren’t they? She was still in this. She’d just have to reformulate her plan of attack while they danced.

More tentatively than she’d hoped for, she laid her hand on his offered arm. He grinned, the same blinding white, perfect smile that beamed out at her from the yearbook photo pinned to his jacket lapel, and covered her hand with his own. She almost swooned right then and there.
Get a grip.
She couldn’t lose it just from a brush of his fingers on hers. Not if she had any hopes of completing her plan. Although, at the moment, there was a part of her that felt pretty damn complete.

The DJ was playing a song that was just slow enough so that he held her hand and put his other hand on her waist . . . but not sappy enough that he pulled her close. Where she might have pressed her cheek to that broad chest, inhaled the scent of his cologne, and lost herself in the fantasy completely. Only the fantasy was real. Living, breathing, just-like-in-the-movies real.

She had to stop this. Right now. If Jana were here, she’d be rolling her eyes in disgust at this very shallow display of, well, absolute shallowness. All of Lucy’s endless talk about how this was all about her personal emancipation and not nailing Jason Prescott . . . would be pretty hard to defend at the moment.

Good thing Jana didn’t come after all, then, isn’t it?
her little voice whispered. Her wicked, wicked little voice.
No one is going to know what goes on here tonight but you. You . . . and Jason Prescott!

She bravely tried to shut her little voice out.
Focus on the plan!
Right now she should be shifting back a polite space, just enough to allow him the obvious ogling opportunity. She’d wait for him to leer down at her perfectly plumped-up breasts, then dip her chin just enough so that he realized she’d caught him looking. While his cheeks turned an endearing shade of red, she’d gaze ever so coolly into his big, blue eyes and make some perfectly slice-worthy remark about “my, how times had changed if he couldn’t do any better than be reduced to begging dorky old Lucy Harper for a dance.”

Except in the real world, her cheeks were frozen in a perma-grin as she stared at some vague point beyond his shoulder. What was worse, she couldn’t seem to unstick it long enough to make even the most banal kind of mindless dance-floor conversation. The music was too loud for talking, anyway. At least that was the reason she gave herself for not trying harder.

After. After the dance was over and they floated over to the bar for a drink, then she’d spring her cleverly worded set-down on him.

Hopefully by then she’d have thought one up.

And be past the pathetic “Oh, my God, Jason Prescott is touching me!” phase, having ascended to something resembling actual maturity.

Her thoughts veered wildly as the music played on . . . and on. From
Please, dear God, don’t let me step on his toes,
to
How can I get him to stay with me when the song is over?,
to
Is the air getting a whole lot warmer in here or is it just my pounding heart making me hot?