“How about another dance before midnight?” he asked her. His voice was deep, beautifully modulated, and he had a confident way of making requests that probably made it difficult for most people to say no to him. She would have no particular problem turning him down, of course. If she wanted to. But she wouldn’t mind sharing one more dance with him before she tactfully sent him on his way.
She stepped into his waiting arms.
Andrew rarely glanced away from her when they danced. That was another thing she found flattering; she never doubted that she had his full attention. It felt, at times, as if he were trying to see inside her head with that intense, direct gaze of his. She couldn’t help but smile as she imagined what his reaction would be if he really could read her thoughts.
“What have I done now?” he asked, sounding almost resigned.
She lifted an eyebrow. “I beg your pardon?”
“You smiled. Have I amused you in some way?”
“Maybe I just felt like smiling.”
He nodded in that rather haughty way that she was beginning to find oddly endearing. “I see.”
She had a sudden, almost irrepressible urge to pinch his cheek and tell him how cute he was when he was being stuffy. She wondered what he would do if she tried it.
Before she could give in to temptation, he glanced across the room. A muscle tightened in his jaw. “I see Dad made it, after all.”
Following the direction of his gaze, Nicky spotted the couple who had just entered the ballroom. Andrew Tyler, Jr., could easily pass as Andrew’s older brother rather than his father. His hair was thick, only lightly frosted with gray, and his waist was still slim, though he looked a bit softer than his son.
He was accompanied by a woman, but she was hardly the “bimbo” Nicky had expected after hearing his ex-wife’s gibes. The woman was lovely, but not in an artificial or ostentatious way and was younger than her escort, but the difference was probably less than a decade.
She looked rather nice, actually, Nicky decided. Andrew’s father had that slightly stiff posture that hinted at a deeply ingrained touch of arrogance. Maybe it came naturally to those born into money and power.
>
She looked up at her dance partner. “Do you and your father get along?”
He seemed a bit surprised by the question. “Well enough,” he answered after a moment. “Since he retired a year ago, I haven’t seen as much of him as I did before. I have to admit, we get along better now than we did when we worked together every day. He’s...not an easy man to please.”
Nicky wondered if Andrew had intended to add that last part. He seemed to regret the words almost as soon as they left his mouth. She wondered if he realized that they revealed more of him than he’d probably wanted her to see just yet.
She glanced again across the room, studying Andrew Tyler, Jr.’s smile—which didn’t quite soften the stern lines of his face. His son must have studied that smile.
She was becoming even more convinced that Andrew’s interest in her would plummet once he got a glimpse of the real Nicky Holiday. She doubted that she’d have to put that theory to the test; the chances were slim that she would ever see him again after this celebration ended.
“It’s almost midnight,” Andrew said, as though unwittingly counting down their remaining time together.
Almost on cue, the crowd began to stir, the laughter rose, the anticipation built.
“Thirty seconds,” someone called out, pointing to the large gilded clock prominently displayed high on one wall. Everyone looked that way, watching as the second hand swept away the remnants of the year.
The bandleader began the countdown, speaking into his microphone and encouraging the revelers to join in. “Ten. Nine. Eight...”
Andrew slid his glasses into his pocket and draped an arm around Nicky’s shoulders, looking down at her in a way that made her knees weaken, until she stiffened them by reminding herself that the evening was rapidly drawing to an end. This wasn’t real, she reminded herself. Only make-believe.
“Six. Five...”
His fingertips slid over the bare skin of her upper arm, which felt deliciously cool in contrast to his heat. She shivered, hoping he would attribute the reaction to the excitement of the moment, rather than what it really was—a bolt of sheer, unadulterated, unwonted lust.
“Three. Two. One!”
A cheer rose to meet the masses of multicolored balloons that were suddenly released from above. Confetti filled the air, along with the opening strains of “Auld Lang Syne.”
“Happy New Year, Nicole.”
She looked up at Andrew and opened her mouth to return the sentiment. The words were lost in his kiss.