Yeah, he’d better not. Because if she got started down there, he’d be both kinds of screwed. “I don’t want to get you started on last night at all.”
Her brow furrowed. “Why not?”
“I kind of left,” he replied, puzzled.
“I wasn’t going to ask you to move in,” she said lightly. “Leaving was inevitable.”
Oh. He stood quietly, and probably a little wounded, while she locked up. There he’d been worried she’d be upset—or worse, hurt—by him walking out before the mattress quit shaking, and she didn’t bat an eyelash. Because that was her, he reminded himself. Not a care in the world. Not that he thought she didn’t care about him, but she’d made it clear she’d put New York behind her as soon as possible. And he was New York. Maybe she didn’t think of it that way, but semantics didn’t change the truth of the matter.
That was something he’d do well to remember.
They walked to the truck, and he opened her door and helped her in, then circled around to his side. The gala was held in the grand ballroom of a luxury hotel on the Upper East Side. Not exactly his stomping grounds, and for the umpteenth time he wondered why they didn’t just donate the exorbitant cost of the fundraiser to the charity itself. But with the guest list packed with millionaires—and some probably upwards of that—he figured they drew a nice profit…not to mention some national attention. None of which explained why he had to dress up and drive into Manhattan, but he’d lost that particular battle years ago.
“Why aren’t we taking a cab?” Rue asked.
“I’m more comfortable in my truck,” he said. “I rented a parking spot for the night.” Fifty bucks for six hours in a hundred-and-sixty square feet of barren real estate. He was definitely in the wrong business.
“For what it’s worth, I’m not a fan of dressing up, either. I hope to find Mimi Von Adler as soon as I get there so I can talk to her about the calendar. After that, it’s a matter of being seen—and I hate that I had to even say that—and then we’re out of there.”
“And then you’re out of here.”
She wouldn’t look at him, though her mood didn’t seem to suffer. “After a week or so. If she green lights the calendar, I’ll have a few photo shoots to do, but those are usually pretty quick, especially since I only have to please myself. Clients can be kind of persnickety if they’re on the shoot, but I happen to know I’m pretty easy to get along with.”
And pretty damn easy with the good-byes.
By the time he steered into his overpriced parking spot, actual dread had begun to crawl through his gut. Pretending to move on had been one thing. Actually doing it was another. Doing it in vain wasn’t something for which he needed witnesses. Hopefully he’d been right, and Rue would draw more attention than the fact that he was there with her, but he didn’t hold much hope. Gossip was second only to oxygen to most people, and everything he knew about this crowd suggested they were no different.
The short walk to the five-star hotel hosting the gala was jammed with the noise of traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian, but otherwise it was a nice night—a comfortable seventy-ish degrees with a surprising lack of humidity that kept him from choking in that tux. As they neared the entry, he took her hand.
She glanced at him in surprise.
“Just in case we have onlookers,” he said. As if they wouldn’t. “Maybe the rumor will get around to Boyd, which might come in handy since you’re splitting the second you get through the door.”
“Not the very second,” she said. And then she squeezed his hand, and his heart tried to forget how temporary she was.
He reined it in. This was a business arrangement with hints of a good deed. It was a cause he supported in Amy’s memory, and even if he didn’t have that kind of emotional tie, who could argue with helping animals? Unfortunately, that thought had him back on the photo shoot, when out of the blue he’d wanted nothing more than to kiss the woman whose hand he held. “What about the shelter?” he asked. “Did you give them a quit date?”