Fast & Loose by Elizabeth Bevarly (best classic books to read txt) 📗

his shoulder, as if Bree might be standing up there giving him a clue. But the door was still closed. The landing was empty. The building was silent. No answer was forthcoming. So he would have to interpret the admonition himself and behave like a…

Something. Well, he’d figure it out. Eventually.

It finally came to him as he and Lulu were crossing the lobby of the Brown Hotel and, without even thinking about it, Cole took her hand in his and tucked it into the crook of his arm. Gentleman, that was the word he’d been looking for. Okay, actually, it wasn’t, because his feelings for Lulu tonight were anything but gentlemanly. But that was the word that came to him as they neared the reception. That was what Bree had been telling him to behave like. Probably because she’d known what he was thinking about. The way Cole had looked at Lulu was doubtless a look Bree had fielded herself on more than one occasion. Of course, it was a look Bree courted and counted on, one she knew exactly how to react to. It was a look to which Lulu would be oblivious and one she would have no idea how to handle.

That was hammered home harder when she stiffened beside him as he tried to curve her hand over his arm, her fingers flattening out like they were all fused together.

He leaned in close to her ear and whispered, “I don’t bite, Lulu. You’re safe with me.”

She said nothing for a moment, but relaxed her hand until her fingers almost curled over his arm. Then, very softly, she asked, “Am I?”

The reply puzzled him. Mostly because she seemed to be talking more to herself than to him. At least, she wasn’t looking at him when she replied. She was looking past him, at three couples around Cole’s age, all about as dressed up for a function as people could be. The men were attired in dark suits, dress shirts, and ties, but the women absolutely dazzled. Slender and tanned, coiffed and manicured, they all wore beaded, sequined gowns and were dripping in gems that caught the light overhead and threw it back in a spectacular display of light and color. Somehow, Cole knew it was the female members of the party Lulu was watching, in spite of her being every bit as spectacular as they were—hell, even more so.

He understood, though. He knew what it felt like to be on the outside looking in, even when you looked like you fit in. It hadn’t been that long ago that he was standing where Lulu was, thinking exactly what he knew she was thinking just then. That she wasn’t like them. That she didn’t belong here. That she was the common clay people trod upon every day, and they were a higher breed, wrought from fine marble by an artisan’s hand.

In some ways, she was right. The rich were different from the poor and middle class. But life and fate had a way of equalizing things, and it was true that money couldn’t buy happiness. Not for everyone. Lulu had gifts the other women would envy, and she mattered in ways they didn’t. Yeah, even if money couldn’t buy happiness, it could buy comfort and security. But money wasn’t the only thing that provided those things. And the comfort and security that wasn’t paid for was way more scarce, way more important, way more valuable.

He started to tell Lulu all that, started to say something about how he understood what she was feeling and that she shouldn’t worry about the evening ahead. He started to tell her that she was every bit as entitled to be here as they were, that she was no different from them. But he stopped himself. Not just because it would have sounded patronizing to say such things, but because he knew they weren’t true. Lulu wasn’t like them. When it came to the big karmic escalator, she was actually several steps higher than they were. He knew that because standing here next to her made him feel exhilarated, exultant, extraordinary. If he were standing next to the partygoers over there, all he’d feel was bored.

So he only covered her hand with his and told her, “Yes, Lulu. You are. Safe with me, I mean.”

She tugged her gaze away from the trio of couples and looked at Cole again. Although he could tell she still felt uncomfortable, she smiled. It wasn’t a big smile, but it wasn’t bad. It was something they could work on tonight.

“Come on,” he told her, tilting his head toward the ballroom’s entrance. “We don’t want to miss the party.”

LULU SIPPED HER CHAMPAGNE CAREFULLY AND TRIED not to feel nervous, doing her best to focus on the conversation going on around her. She’d never attended an event like this, and she told herself she should absorb as much of the experience as she could while she could, because God knew when—if—she’d ever have an opportunity like this again. There were hundreds of people here, all crushed together in the Crystal Ballroom like sardines. Extremely well-dressed sardines, but sardines nonetheless. She and Cole had been at the party for more than an hour, and she was no more relaxed now than she’d been when he took her arm and walked her in.

And what had that been about, anyway? she wondered. That and the kiss on the cheek at Bree’s. She knew she was supposed to look like a romantic interest of his, but there hadn’t been anyone watching them at Bree’s. And here at the hotel, where there were spectators to see whether or not she was a real romantic interest of his, she would have thought he would do a lot more than take her hand. Like walk up to her, bend her back over his arm, and lay a Hollywood kiss on her that lasted a solid minute.

Not that she’d wanted him to do something like that. Of course