Bride of the Tiger by Heather Graham (best large ereader .txt) 📗

do you mean, you don’t think you’re keeping it? It’s an engagement ring! A man asks you to marry him. You say yes, or you say no. You don’t say maybe, let me try the ring for a while!”

“I didn’t, Ashley. He put the ring on my finger, and it’s stuck.”

“Serves you right! What kind of a fool would turn him down?”

“I didn’t turn him down.”

“Then you’re engaged.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Oh, God! I’m going to try Vaseline.”

She did, but to her amazement, she still couldn’t get the ring off.

“You are engaged!”

“My finger is swollen because I’ve been tearing at it so long,” Tara sighed.

“You’re engaged.”

“We’re both going to be unemployed if we don’t go and dress!”

Ashley agreed. Moments later, they were climbing into their first outfits of the evening. They were in a crew lounge just off the main ballroom. Cassandra was going on about the romance of it all.

Strangely, Mary was silent.

Madame told Tara that she was an idiot if she didn’t marry the man. “Beauty is a fleeting thing, young woman.”

Tara laughed. “Madame, these are the eighties! Marriage is not a woman’s only option.”

“Being alone is no great picnic either!” Madame retorted. She sighed wistfully. “I was in love, once. I wanted my career, though. That was years ago. Men weren’t terribly liberated then.”

“What happened?” Cassandra asked.

“Well, I had a glorious career.”

“And hasn’t it been satisfying?”

“Not as satisfying as a handful of grandchildren would be right now. But then, you young things, you know how to do it all. More power to you. You only go around once, you know. When you see something out there, grab it! Take it all, everything you can see!”

“What about love?” Cassandra asked.

“But she is in love with him!” Ashley stated.

“Talk about having your cake and eating it, too!” Madame said, laughing. “Young lady, you’ve had some bad breaks. Looks like the good ones are coming your way now. He’s a nice man, all right. All the way around. You marry him. Be happy. You haven’t been really happy since I’ve known you.”

“She was once—” Cassandra said, then broke off awkwardly.

Mary continued for her. “No, she wasn’t,” she said bitterly. “Not with Tine. She was always fighting him. Right from the very beginning. She was just so young that she had to learn how.”

“We get to Caracas tomorrow,” Ashley murmured.

“Would you all stop it!” Tara begged. “You’re making it sound like a death knell. Madame, I think something is wrong with one of the hooks in the back. Could you check, please?”

She hopped up on a chair. The gold lamé she was wearing was nearly backless, and it didn’t feel at all secure.

“Oh, dear! Someone caught this on something. The button is missing. I’ll have to use pins.”

“Breathe carefully!” Ashley laughed.

“Oh, hush!” Madame told her.

But it was the truth. Everyone knew that Madame was lethal with pins. Tara stood still while the back of her dress was fixed.

There was a knock at the door. Cassandra went off to answer it, then came back in with Rafe. He was greeted with a burst of congratulations.

He was in black. Tara would always love him in black. He wore a vested tux, white shirt, black tie. Smooth, elegant. The black accentuated his hair and eyes and the sleekness of his build. The white shirt made his features look all the more bronzed, all the more striking. All men, she thought, looked good in nicely tailored suits.

But no one looked as good as Rafe.

He listened to the chatter from Cassandra and Ashley, then glanced curiously at Tara. He thanked them and came over to her, then placed his hands around her waist, lifted her from the chair, and kissed her lightly.

She gasped, “Ohh…my God!”

He drew away. “The kiss was that good?”

“No—I’ve got pins sticking in my back.”

He shook his head. “Tara, you’ll certainly never overinflate my ego.”

The others laughed. He leaned toward her and whispered in her ear. “Are we engaged?”

“I—”

“We’ll talk about it later, huh? I just came by to tell you that I’d be in the audience. George caught me in the hallway. He wants to buy us all some champagne in celebration.”

“George knows?”

“Tara, everyone knows.”

“Oh,” she said a little weakly.

“Love me?” he queried, and she felt all the gold and amber tenderness in the eyes that demanded an answer.

“Yes. But—”

“Then it seems that we are engaged. Since the ring is stuck and George is buying champagne, and since I love you and you love me…”

She paused, but could not control the radiant smile that illuminated her features.

The magic was real.

He kissed her quickly. “I’ll be waiting for you, gnashing my teeth each time I hear some guy sigh when you waltz by him!”

He smiled and left.

Ashley plopped into a chair. “That you could even think about turning him down is a sin! He looks just like Gable tonight! I can just see him at the foot of a stairway! If he were going to carry me off, I’d probably expire at the thought before I even got to enjoy it!”

“Ashley, I’ve seen you turn your nose up at a dozen adoring hunks!”

“Never the right hunk!” Ashley complained.

Tara smiled, still wrapped up in her happiness. Just before they left she noticed that Mary was still silent, and she made a mental note to talk to her later to see if anything was wrong.

* * *

Rafe stood at the back of the ballroom to watch the show.

The place was packed—this was an experience few people were ever likely to witness again, unless they were with the press, or wealthy enough to visit Galliard’s showroom.

And Galliard’s shows were all good, Rafe knew. Galliard was not of the belief that a model should be wooden. His models moved fluidly; they smiled. He always addressed them by name, and in a tone of voice that would lead anyone to assume they were people to him, not objects. This added something special.

Along with the lights, the music, the flowing magic of the gowns…and the women themselves.

Not that Rafe