The earl had happily put his son in charge of the place, along with all the other Conyers’s holdings, and Denys was proud of the fact that there was nothing seedy about the Imperial nowadays. Today, it was widely acknowledged as London’s finest producer of Shakespearean theater, achieving a level of critical acclaim Henry could only have dreamed of.
Thoughts of Henry inevitably brought thoughts of Lola, and an image of her came to Denys before he could stop it—an image of auburn hair, teal blue eyes, and a body made for sin.
More memories came back to him, memories of how it had all gone wrong. The play he’d financed for her closing in disaster. The house in St. John’s Wood standing empty but for the gifts he’d given her and a note that she’d returned to Paris. His refusal to accept her departure, his journey to the cabaret where she was working, his discovery of Henry with her in her dressing room. And her words, the most shattering part of it all.
Henry has made me a better offer.
Denys shook his head, baffled that he could ever have been such a fool. But then, he appreciated with a grimace, he’d been a fool about so many things back in his salad days. Thank God he was not only an older man now but also a wiser one. Beautiful, ambitious chorus girls no longer held any charms for him.
He turned away from the Imperial to study the building across from it. Five floors high, with whitewashed brick, marble pediments, and arched windows of plate glass, the offices of Conyers Investment Group gleamed with prosperity.
The message conveyed by the interior was equally clear. Anyone would know at once that this was a sound and prosperous firm. Its electric lift, telephones, and typewriting machines alluded to modern ideas and the future, but the wide central staircase, the ever-so-slightly-worn carpets, and the comfortable leather furnishings conveyed reliability and longevity, two qualities so necessary to an investment firm.
Denys started up the staircase, nodding to the clerk seated at the desk on the spacious landing as he passed. When he reached the mezzanine, he circled the lobby and ascended another set of stairs, but he’d barely entered his office suite on the top floor before he came to a surprised halt.
His secretary was not at his desk. “Dawson?” he called to the open doorway of his own office beyond, but his sandy-haired young secretary did not reply and did not appear.
With a puzzled frown, Denys pulled out his pocket watch. “Ten past nine,” he murmured, closed the watch, and slipped it back into his waistcoat pocket. Dawson was fanatically punctual, always arriving in the office ahead of his employer, a fact that made his absence from his post quite unusual.
Not that it mattered. If Dawson had been called away from his desk, he would no doubt have set out the contracts before departing. Denys glanced over the secretary’s desk, but the documents were nowhere to be seen.
He gave an exasperated sigh. “Where is the fellow?”
“If you’re looking for your secretary,” a feminine, distinctly American voice drawled in answer to his muttered question, “he’s making me a cup of tea.”
Denys froze in disbelief, for that voice was low, earthy, dipping on the vowels, and somehow able to lend an erotic note to what would otherwise be the rather flat accent of America’s Middle West. It could only belong to one woman.
He took a breath, telling himself he had to be mistaken, but when he turned, the tall, voluptuous redhead standing in the doorway of his office proved he’d made no mistake.
Her hair was the same deep, flaming color he remembered, a shade of red most women could only gain from henna dye. Atop those vibrant curls, an enormous concoction of pink feathers, crimson ribbons, and cream-colored straw was perched at an angle that defied all laws of gravity, and below it was the stunning face he’d hoped never to see again. Her eyes were the same vivid teal blue he remembered, her full lips the same deep pink. In the staid, ascetic atmosphere of his offices, she bloomed with vibrant life, like an exotic cactus flower blooming amid the sand and scrub of the desert.
He took a step closer, scanning her face, but the powder she wore prevented him from seeing the freckles that dusted her nose and cheeks. It didn’t matter, though, for he knew they were there. He ought to. He’d kissed every one of them.
How many times, he wondered, had he lain in her bed at the little house in St. John’s Wood, his body sated, his mind drowsy, watching her apply powder to her face, trying to conceal the freckles she despised? How many times had he watched her draw gossamer stockings up her shapely legs and dab jasmine scent to the backs of her knees? Dozens, he guessed. Perhaps hundreds. He’d thought those halcyon days would never end, but they had ended, and with bone-shattering shock.
Looking at her, he thought of the last time he’d seen her, in her Paris dressing room. Everything came back to him as if it had all happened yesterday—the filmy white peignoir she’d been wearing, the opened champagne on the table, her face pale as milk at the sight of him. And Henry on the settee, smiling and triumphant.
The anger he’d felt earlier began to burn inside him, as if he’d just downed a glass of cheap whisky. Although that wasn’t really an apt analogy, for Lola had never been cheap. On the contrary, she’d been the most expensive mistake he’d ever made. And the most intoxicating.
His gaze lowered before he could stop it. She still had the same generous curves he remembered, curves shaped by years of dance, curves that he suspected still owed little to corsets and nothing at all to bust improvers, pads, or bustles.
She was wearing a frock of pale pink silk, and he couldn’t help noticing how the color of the dress blended seamlessly into the skin of her throat and jaw. Any other woman, he thought in chagrin, would look maidenly, even innocent, in such a color, but not Lola. Pale pink silk only made Lola look . . . naked.
Denys wasn’t usually one to curse, but in some situations, an oath was the only response a sane man could offer.
“Hell,” he muttered, but the word seemed wholly inadequate as a vent to his feelings. “Damn,” he added, and was still not satisfied. “Damn, and blast, and holy hell!”
She smiled a little. “It’s good to see you, too, Denys.”
The sound of his name on her lips was like paraffin on hot coals, and all his suppressed anger blazed up, threatening to burn out of control. He pressed a fist to his mouth, working to contain it.
“Aren’t you going to say something?” she asked after a few moments. “Beyond a few choice curses, that is?”
He lowered his hand and took a deep breath. “It’s odd,” he murmured, injecting a level of cool detachment into his voice that he didn’t feel in the least, “but I cannot think of anything more I might wish to say to you.”
“ ‘Hello’ might be a good start,” she suggested. “Or you could ask how I’ve been.”
He set his jaw, hardening his anger into resolve. “That question would imply a degree of curiosity I do not possess.”
Any trace of a smile vanished from her face with that cold reply. He was being churlish, he knew, a demeanor not at all in keeping with his position or his upbringing, but what had she expected? A warm welcome? Fond recollections of the old days?
She cleared her throat, breaking the silence that had fallen between them. “Denys, I’m sure my call today has caught you by surprise, but—”