Chapter Seven

February 4, 2004

 

I think I have a job for you,” Kaye announced, triumphantly, when Aubrey opened the door on her. Her eyes were glowing and her cheeks were rosy and Aubrey could only say, in surprise, “What?”
            “A job,” Kaye pushed her way into the apartment. “A great job. You’ve been saying you want to get away from the museum.”

            “I want desperately to get away from the museum,” Aubrey affirmed. “But I don’t want to waitress. Does this involve waitressing?”

            Kaye shook her head. “No. Aubrey, it involves painting.”

            “Painting, like, walls?”

            “No, painting! Painting a portrait!”

            “A portrait?” She was skeptical, because she didn’t want to count her chickens before they hatched, but this was starting to sound like something she could do. “A portrait of who?”

            “Moira Scott Lowenby.”

            “Who’s that?”

            “How do you not know who that is? Moira Scott Lowenby! She had a fling with Robert Redford in the seventies.”

            “I can’t believe I didn’t know such essential information.”

            “She was married to Hugh Scott. Of Bienvenue hotels. She had a fling with Robert Redford. Then she married Simon Lowenby, who left her and her kids and she sued him for the entire Lowenby fortune.”

            “Simon Lowenby. I think I’ve heard of him.”

            “He was a famous playboy. Who lost most of his fortune to Moira Scott Lowenby. The woman has led the most fascinating life. She was born in Georgia, and she had a baby at seventeen! Can you imagine? And her husband abandoned her right after the baby was born, and then she got a job at the Bienvenue hotel in Atlanta, and Hugh Scott came to inspect the hotel, and it was love at first sight. Oh, Aubrey, so romantic.”

            Oh, for God’s sake, thought Aubrey, but she knew better than to bite the hand that had said it was going to feed her. “What about the portrait?”

            “Well, I was talking to her the other day, going over the pages she’d given me, and I’d mentioned how, not having grown up with money, she must have wanted to do such outrageous things once she’d gotten it. And she said the one thing she always really wanted to do was have her portrait painted. And she’d never done it. And I mentioned that I had a friend who could paint. Aubrey, she said she’d pay your room and board and $100,000.”

            Aubrey’s legs gave out. She collapsed onto her couch and blinked at Kaye and tried to breathe. “A hundred…A hundred thousand…?”

            “And she asked me to ask you if that was fair. Aubrey, I think you could get more.”

            “More?” Aubrey croaked. More than $100,000?

            Kaye sat beside her on the couch, obviously pleased with the reaction her announcement had wrought. “The only catch is,” she said, cheerfully, “she lives in Vegas, so you’d have to move out there for a bit while you paint. I’d miss you, naturally, but I actually think the change in scenery might do you a bit of good.”

            Aubrey was busy spending the $100,000 in her head. Then she heard the word “Vegas.” “Vegas? I’d have to live in Vegas?”

            “Yeah. But just for a little while, Aubrey.”

            Vegas. Gray had said he was from Vegas, hadn’t he? Then again, maybe that had been a lie, like Peter thought his name was. “I can do a little while in Vegas,” Aubrey decided. She wouldn’t run into Gray. What were the chances? “And I can definitely do with $100,000.”

 

February 5, 2004

 

For the first time in a very long time, she was happy coming into the museum in the morning. And that was because she knew that she wouldn’t have to come into the museum in the morning ever again. It was sad, really. She had, once upon a time, absolutely adored this job. Now she just couldn’t wait to get somewhere else, somewhere new, start over and maybe—hopefully—not make the same mistakes.

            So miserable had Aubrey been for so long that Karla actually noticed the new jubilant mood, asked, with eyebrows raised, “What’s gotten into you?”

            Aubrey, grinning, didn’t even bother to turn on her computer. She wanted to dance around the office. “I’m quitting today.”

            Karla’s eyebrows skidded a little farther up. “Qutting?”

            Aubrey nodded. “I have another job.”

            Up went the eyebrows a little more. “Another job?”

            “I’m painting a portrait.”

            Aubrey didn’t think the eyebrows could get any higher. “Whose portrait?”

            “Moira Scott Lowenby.”

            Karla frowned now, drew those eyebrows together. “Do I know that name?”

            “Maybe. She’s some sort of socialite.”

            “A socialite? And how did you get to paint her portrait?”

            “Luck. Marvelous luck. I talked to her last night. She seems incredibly nice, and she wants me to start right away.”

            “Start right away? But what about your two weeks’ notice?”

            “I’ve given them months’ notice. They know I’m not happy. They should have been looking for somebody to replace me.”

            “But, Aubrey. Paul would never fire you.”
            Aubrey snorted eloquently. “Oh, yeah. Because Paul’s so gallant.”

            “Paul’s very fond of you. He’d never purposely hurt you.”

            “No, but he’ll make out with his tramp of a girlfriend at every given opportunity.”

            “Well, now you just sound petty and jealous.”

            “Petty I’ll allow. Jealous I am not. She can have him. I don’t want him. I have the lovely divorce papers to prove it. I just don’t think it’s sporting of him to flaunt it in front of me. I’m very discreet with my lovers.” Okay, so it had been more like “lover,” and that had been months ago now, but she was pretty sure one night with Gray equalled dozens of nights with other men.

            “Do you have lovers?” Karla asked, curiously.

            “See?” Aubrey sniffed. “Well. Off to quit my job.” She practically skipped out of the office, so thrilled to death was she. That was a very good sign. It meant she was clearly doing the right thing here.

            Paul’s office wasn’t much larger than the office she shared with Karla, but it was his and his alone, so infinitely better. He looked wary to see her. Maybe because she was suddenly so cheerful that she was whistling as she walked in.

            “Good morning, Paul,” she assured him, as she dropped into a chair.

            “Good morning?” He replied quizzically, as if he couldn’t believe this was true.

            She supposed he probably couldn’t. She spent most of her time now sullen and surly because she was unhappy. And now she had a splendid new career open in front of her. A career in which, notably, no ex-husband of hers played a part. “I’ve come to tell you that I quit.”

            Paul sighed heavily and rubbed at his temples as if she’d already managed to give him a headache. “Now, Aubrey. Let’s not make more hasty, spur-of-the moment decisions. This doesn’t have to do with the White Sox again, does it?”

            “Red Sox,” she snapped. “It’s the Red Sox, for God’s sake. And no, it doesn’t have to do with them. I’ve had a job offer. Out west. I’m taking it.”

            Paul lifted his eyebrows. “You have a job offer out west?”

            “Do you really find that so difficult to believe? After the Monet show?”

            “I find it difficult to believe that you’d move out west, Aubrey. You’ve never expressed any desire to move out west.”

            “Well, I don’t express my desires to you, Paul. And I’ve decided to start over. Clean slate. New career.”

            “New career?” He sounded skeptical, damn him.

            “Yes. A new career. I’m painting.”

            “Painting. Oh. Aubrey—“

            “None of your negativity. I already have a commission.”

            “Aubrey, you’re not a good painter,” he inserted, calmly.

            It was there again. All that old hurt. He had always been so casually capable of cutting her to the quick. She really hated him for it. She hated the way he delivered horrible insults and tried to pretend that they weren’t. That he was being kind or magnanimous in speaking the gospel truth according to Paul Howell.

            But she didn’t lose her temper, and that was admirable. She was really making progress. “We’ll see what happens, won’t we?” Aubrey stood, sending him a cool smile. “For that last comment there, you’re not getting two weeks’ notice out of me. I’m gone at the end of the day today.”

            “Aubrey, be reasonable. You cannot leave the museum in the lurch—“

            “According to you, Paul, I could drop dead right here, right now, and not leave anybody in the lurch.”

            “You know that’s not true—“

            “I know that’s not true. You don’t seem to. So go to hell. You pick up the slack this time. Because I am not coming back.”

 

February 7, 2004

 

The Bienvenue Hotel and Casino was stunning. Downright stunning. Aubrey could gladly have stayed in the lobby for the rest of her life. She loved the great marble expanse, accented with wrought-iron railings that kept guests from falling into the small brooks that drifted along the floor like an elaborate tributary system to a giant river. The sound of running water trickling over stones was beautiful. Such beautiful music. She leaned on one of the wrought-iron railings and watched the water for a long time. Then she tossed a penny in, just for good luck, and went up to her suite.

            The lobby was impressive but it was nothing compared to the suite she’d been given. She could have fit two of her apartments in New York into the suite. It had an elaborate living area, full of expensive fabrics and equally expensive art, all done in soft, muted earth tones that made her want to sink into one of the oversized couches and just relax. There were floor-to-ceiling windows with a stunning view of the Strip, and a balcony. Yes, a balcony, accessible from the living area and the sleeping area. The bedroom was dominated by a bed so big she thought you could easily have an orgy. Welcome to Vegas, she thought, sardonically, and then promptly almost fainted over the luxury of the bathroom. Why, the bathtub was big enough to swim in! And came with the most divine bubble bath. And it was cuddled in a nook that was made completely of glass, so she could take a bath and stare out at the mountains of Vegas in the distance. Gorgeous, she thought. Just breathtakingly gorgeous. Who would have thought that she, Aubrey Thomas, would ever be living in such mindboggling beauty? She kept investigating the suite and stumbled upon an entertainment room, big screen television, the coziest couches she’d ever seen, and a selection of movies for her viewing pleasure, a little heavy on the porn. Yes, definitely welcome to Vegas.

            She was contemplating which to try first—the bed, the couch, the bath, or the entertainment room—when there was a brisk knock on the door. “Welcome to the Bienvenue,” smiled the bellhop she opened it on, and he handed her an enormous fruit basket and then an equally enormous bouquet of flowers.

            Really, she thought. This was just lovely. And unreal. She would be waking up any time now. She reached in her pocket and pulled out a couple of dollars to tip the bellboy, and then staggered under the weight of the flowers and the fruit basket to the coffee table, where she dropped them both. The flowers had a note. Welcome to Las Vegas! Call me when you feel rested, x. 9-3605. Moira.

            How nice. Aubrey, smiling, dialed the extension, and a woman picked up, a woman who sounded like the kindest, most benevolent woman on earth. And no, Aubrey was not biased. “Is this Moira?” she asked.

            “Yes,” the woman affirmed, sounding a trifle surprised. “Who’s calling?”

            “This is Aubrey.”

            “Oh! Aubrey!” Moira sounded delighted. “You got the flowers.”

            “Yes. And the fruit basket. Really, Moira, they’re both too much.”

            “Oh, don’t be silly. If you’re feeling up to it, I thought you might like to have dinner tonight. Just so we could get to know each other a little bit before we get started on the portrait. I am so excited about the portrait, Aubrey!”

            Aubrey smiled. “Me, too.” Not least because it might just be her salvation. Painting portraits. A new career. Sounded heavenly.

            “There’s a restaurant in the hotel. Pierre’s. You should be able to find it easily. We’ll meet around seven?”

            “Sounds good,” said Aubrey, glancing at her watch and blinking to find it still early in the afternoon. Jet lag was throwing her all off.

            “The hostess will have your name. Just give it to her and she’ll seat you.”

            “Okay.”

            “See you then.”

            Aubrey hung up and did some more exploring, experimenting with the big screen TV. Then, feeling far too excited to rest, she decided to go exploring around the hotel.

 

I do hope you’re not too upset. I was worried about you, Gray.”

            Rosie Sheffield—no, Rosie Mayer now—was batting her eyelashes profusely, eyes downcast, as if she were truly ashamed. She leaned in to lay a concerned left hand on his shoulder, so he couldn’t miss the enormous diamond winking up at him.

            “Somehow,” drawled Gray, “I think I’ll survive.”

            “I just…I know it was unfair to you, Gray, darling, to get married so suddenly, without telling you, but what we had, darling, it was just nothing compared to what Stefan and I have. Wait until you fall in love. You’ll see.”

            Gray was busy scanning the lobby for Danny. Mark had told him Danny was in the lobby, dealing with some sort of guest altercation. Gray didn’t see Danny. He didn’t see any altercation either. All that coming to the lobby had gotten him was that Rosie had spotted him and flown over to him gloat—oops, apologize—over her recent marriage to a man who ranked ahead of Gray in the bank account department. Gray didn’t really give a damn who Rosie married but he did admit to feeling a bit of satisfaction over the knowledge that Stefan Meyer ranked below Gray on practically every Most Eligible Bachelor list. Rosie had given up, in a fashion. Thank God.

            Not seeing Danny, Gray turned to Rosie, who was giving him the most pitying, pathetic look. “I must admit,” Gray told her, clasping her left hand between both of his, feeling the diamond dig against his palm, “that I was…stunned. Absolutely stunned, Rosie. What a catch I let slip through my fingers.”

            Rosie blinked in obvious surprise.

            Gray sighed dramatically. “Really a pity. Such a pity. But you enjoy Stefan now, Rosie, and I will somehow persist in my barren, lonely—“ Gray abruptly turned his head, attracted by the petite redhead he had caught in the corner of his eyesight. A pixie of a redhead, her back to him, leaning on one of the wrought-iron railings in the lobby and looking down into the brook. Aubrey.

            “Gray, is that really how you—“

            Gray dropped Rosie’s hand without preamble, turning fully toward Aubrey and blinking in disbelief. Aubrey. What amazed him primarily was not that she had, by some chance circumstance, turned up in the lobby of his hotel, nor that he had recognized her the instant he had laid eyes on her, but that his body practically sighed at the sight of her. He felt as if he were finally taking his first deep breath in months, and for a second he was riveted there, just staring at the back of a tiny redhead who’d happened through his lobby. Aubrey. Her hair a trifle longer but still cut in that jagged, flyaway manner that looked sexy as hell spread over a pillow, tucked under a Red Sox cap, clutched in his hands.

            Gray realized that he wasn’t, perhaps, breathing quite steadily, and his palms were sweaty, and it was all because of some girl he’d slept with resurfacing in his life. Women did that all the time, Rosie being Exhibit A, so why was it that all of a sudden he was reacting like this? Maybe he was getting too damn old for one night stands anymore. Or maybe it was just that he really wanted to ask her about Curt Schilling in the rotation.

            “Gray,” said Rosie, and she sounded irritated.

            He ignored her and tried to determine whether he should go up to Aubrey. He had slunk out of her room before dawn. Maybe she wouldn’t be happy to see him. Maybe she would be delighted to see him. It was the possibility that there would be delight—those wide, enchanting blue eyes filled with delight for him—that sent him forward.

            “Gray,” Rosie snapped at him, but he ignored her, went to stand beside Aubrey, said her name just once.

            Aubrey knew. She’d known when his gaze had first landed on her, had felt the hairs prick on the back of her neck. She hadn’t pegged it to Gray, not until his shadow fell over the brook in front of her and her heart raced and her breath caught in her throat and she could feel the heat of him and then she wanted to weep. Gray. Of all the hotels in Vegas, why should she and Gray be in the same lobby at the same time? She could die of mortification, and she took her time looking up, and then wished she hadn’t, because Gray had looked quite amazing enough in a Nixon jersey. But he was downright illegally attactive in a suit.

            “Gray,” she said, and tried to flicker a smile at him.

            Gray stuck his hands in his pockets. “How are you?” he asked, stupidly.

            “I’m fine. How are you?”

            “I’m fine.” He could think of nothing else to say, cleared his throat and rocked onto his heels and then onto the balls of his feet.

            He’s seen me naked, she thought. Not only had he seen her naked, but he had seen her naked and drunk and she had done stupid things like try to perform a striptease. All the hotels in Vegas…She might as well just die right now of mortification. She took in his handsome suit, a pale pearl gray that brought out both the dark sheen to his untidy hair and also the gray edge to his blue eyes. “You work here,” she concluded, glumly.

            “Yeah. Are you staying here?”

            Hands in his pockets, she watched him rock backward and forward again. Was he nervous? Maybe so. She probably was supposed to stay compartmentalized in his mental file of Non-Vegas Life. “Yes,” she confirmed, with a smile that was ironic on both their behalfs.

            “Uh, for how long?”

            “I’m not—“

            “I mean, we could have dinner. If you’d like to have dinner. We could have dinner.”

            Oh, yeah, just what they needed. To have dinner. Clearly that would not be awkward.

            “I don’t believe I’ve met your friend, Gray.” The woman draped herself over Gray’s shoulder. One of those impossibly beautiful male-fantasy women that men drooled over. Almost as tall as Gray, with a head of wild, dark red hair and breasts that deserved their own zip code. Well, Aubrey thought, drily, at least his name actually was Gray.

            Gray shrugged the model off his shoulder. “Give us a second, would you?” he demanded, crossly, and, before Aubrey realized what he intended to do, his hand was clamped around her upper arm, and he was practically dragging her beside him to the other side of the lobby. She would have struggled. Maybe she should have struggled. And she tried to tell herself that she didn’t struggle because she knew it would have been useless. He was much, much stronger than her. But she really didn’t struggle because his hand was hot and inexcusably familiar on her skin and her stupid body was busy deciding that maybe dinner with Gray wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

            He dropped his hand, and she glanced at her arm, expecting to see a red imprint of his touch, because she certainly felt as if he’d been scalding her.

            “So,” he said, calmly. “Sorry about that. I wanted to know if—“

            If Gray worked here, and she was going to be living here until the portrait was finished, it was not a good idea to take him up on dinner. He was probably offering out of some sense of shame, anyhow. And even if he wasn’t, even if he thought it would an obscene amount of fun to get her into bed again—did he think that? wouldn’t it be lovely to find out?—she couldn’t have a quick fling and then face him everyday. She had only had the fling in the first place because she thought she’d never see him again. And certainly he felt the same way. “You don’t have to be polite, Gray. I understand the rules of the game. I’m not angry.”

            “Angry? The rules of what game?”

            “As if you didn’t make your game pretty damn apparent when you crept out without saying good-bye.” She held up a hand to head off the protest he started to voice. “I’m not angry. Really I’m not angry. Because I happen to agree with you. It was supposed to be one night. We don’t need to stretch it out and have awkward conversations over dinner. But it was really very chivalrous of you to at least think to make the effort. Really very gallant. You’ll excuse me.”

            Gray, for one of the very few times in his life, was absolutely speechless. He watched her walk away, saw her walking away, and knew he should say something to get her back, but could think of nothing to say. Really, he was still trying to process what she had said. So the only thing he called out was, “Enjoy your stay!” If God were kind, He would take pity and strike him dead for his idiocy.

            Aubrey, without breaking stride, waved a hand at him. Her short red gold hair bounced jauntily with every step she took, until she was swallowed quickly into the crowd. Gray frowned, stuck his hands in his pockets, rocked on his heels.

            “Who was that?” Rosie demanded, crossing her arms.

            Rosie. He’d forgotten about Rosie. He blinked to refocus on her, left his frown in place. “Since she’s not sleeping with your husband, her identitiy doesn’t seem to be relevant to you, does it?”

            Rosie narrowed her eyes. Then she unsheathed her claws and fought back. “Doesn’t seem like she’s sleeping with you, either. In fact,” she went on, full of blithe unconcern, “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever seen a woman walk away from Gray Delamonte.”

            “She didn’t walk away.”

            “No, you’re right. She practically ran.”

            “She—“

            “Nothing sadder than an aging playboy who’s losing his touch, Gray. See you, sexy.” She winked at him as she sashayed off, carefully flipping her hair down her back.

            Gray glared after her, glanced in the direction Aubrey had disappeared in, and decided he’d had enough of women. He was done with them.

            “I was looking for you,” Danny said, coming up to him. “The slot machine returns—“

            “I want you to run a search for the name ‘Aubrey.’” So much for being done with women.

            Danny blinked. “Huh? Aubrey? A search of what?”

            “People staying in this hotel. Reservations.”

            “Aubrey’s a first name or a last name?”

            “First name.”
            “What’s the last name?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “You want me to search for someone named Aubrey staying in this hotel?” Danny clarified.

            “Yeah.”

            Danny paused. Then he said, “The slot machine returns—“

            “Well, are you going to do it?” Gray demanded.

            “Run a search of reservations for this person named Aubrey?”

            “Yeah.”

            “No. Listen—“

            “No?” Gray echoed, in his sternest tone of voice.

            Danny sighed heavily. “Aubrey. That’s a female name?”

            “Yeah,” Gray affirmed.

            “What do you want me to find out about this girl?”

            “How long she’s staying here.”

            “No. The guest list at the Bienvenue is not your own personal dating service.”

            “I know this girl.”

            “You don’t even know her last name. I’m not runnning searches on the reservations so you can follow some hunch. Chase her the old-fashioned way. Are you ready to hear about the slot returns?”

            “No. You’re a bad employee.”

            “I’m a damn good employee, as you’ll recall when you don’t get voted out for violating our guests’ privacy. The slot returns are up again.”

            “Again? Dammit. We just had them come fix it.”

            “I know.”

            Gray sighed. “Check around the other casinos. See if it’s some sort of problem with the computer program itself. Maybe these people don’t know how to fix it.”

            “You got it,” said Danny.

            Gray watched him walk away, then slipped over to the Employees Only door, swiped his ID card, and used the service elevator to go to the center of Bienvenue’s security operation, where Mark was settled in a chair, eyes flickering over television screens that lined the room, showing various pictures of events in the hotel and casino. He glanced up when Gray walked into the room and said, “Hey.”

            “I need you to do something slightly shady for me,” Gray announced, without preamble, perching on Mark’s desk. Mark looked up, and Gray had to laugh. “Don’t look so alarmed. It’s nothing really. I was talking to a girl earlier in the lobby.”

            “I saw you.” Mark nodded toward one of the screens. “She didn’t look too thrilled to death with you.”

            “I need you to figure out how long she’s staying here.”

            “Why?”

            “So I can figure out how much time I have to convince her to have dinner with me.”

            “I repeat. She didn’t look too thrilled to death with you.”

            “I know. So she’s presenting a bit of a challenge.” Gray shrugged lightly.

            “Do you even know her name?” asked Mark.

            “Aubrey.”

            “Aubrey what?”

            “Well, I don’t know her last name.”

            “So you want me to spy on some girl whose last name you don’t even know just so you can prove to yourself that you haven’t lost your touch.”

            “I know for a fact that I haven’t lost my touch. I’ve already slept with the girl. I’m trying to apologize for my behavior after I slept with her.”

            “Ah,” Mark realized. “That would be why she didn’t look too thrilled to death with you.”

            “Don’t you think that she deserves a proper apology from me?” Gray tried to look as penitent as possible.

            “I think she should run as quickly as she can in the other direction.” But his hands were moving over the central keyboard, fleetly wending their way through the hotel’s databases. “No Aubreys.”

            Gray leaned over Mark’s shoulder, peered at the computer screen. “None at all?” he asked.

            “None at all. Apparently it’s not the most popular name.”

            Gray frowned. “She’s here with a guy then.”

            “What makes you say that?”

            “Well, the room is in his name.”

            “Or she’s here with female friends. Another possibility is that Aubrey’s not her real name.”

            “You think she used a nom de plume?” Gray asked, skeptically.

            “A nom de sex.”

            “She didn’t use a nom de sex.”

            “How do you know?”

            “Because she looks like an Aubrey.” He couldn’t deal with the thought that her name wasn’t Aubrey. He had been associating the name with copper-haired pixies in his head. She was too much of Aubrey to suddenly become another name.

            “Well, my friend.” Mark leaned back in his seat. “Looks like you’ve hit a dead end.”

            Gray frowned at the television screens that lined Mark’s office. “If she comes across one of those screens, call me right away.”

            “You have more important things to do than chase this girl, Gray,” Mark reminded him, looking openly amused.

            “I’m going to let you in a little secret. I really don’t.”

            Mark chuckled. “Get out. If Danny finds out I’m doing illegal things for you, he’ll fire me.”

            Gray paused on his way out of the office. “You know Danny can’t fire you, right? I’m the person who does the firing and the hiring around here.”

            “Not what Danny says,” Mark replied.

            “Danny and I have to do some clarifying,” grumbled Gray, on the way out.

 

February 11, 2004

 

So have you been on any dates since your divorce?”

            The thing about Moira Scott Lowenby was that she didn’t waste any time. She was blunt. She asked what she wanted to ask without preamble. Aubrey’s hand actually slipped, but luckily, she was only painting the background of the picture a lovely grayish-green color whose hue Moira had chosen. They were not even close to the serious business of portrait-painting but Aubrey had recognized almost immediately in Moira Lowenby a kindred spirit: a woman who was essentially lonely. Despite the fact that she lived in luxury, had children she obviously adored, had lived a life that any ordinary person would deem fascinating, at the end of the day Moira was just lonely. She loved to talk. She had insisted that Aubrey be in her suite endlessly, while she was painting, while she wasn’t painting, totally unnecessarily. Not that Aubrey really minded. She didn’t know anyone in Vegas. Well, other than Gray. And hiding out in Moira’s suite meant she could avoid running into Gray. She had left things, she thought, so splendidly. Walking away so firmly. Without even tripping! She was determined to have that be Gray’s last impression of her. A self-possessed, confident woman walking away from him, totally not shattered by the fact that he’d crept out before dawn since, really, she had only asked him for a one-night stand and why should she blame him for taking advantage of that?

            And did one-night stands count as dates?

            “Not really,” answered Aubrey, carefully fixing the abrupt paint stroke Moira’s question had provoked.

            “No, Kaye told me you hadn’t.”

            The one real problem with this job was that Moira and Kaye had apparently taken to discussing her behind her back. Aubrey sent Moira a dry glance over the top of the canvas she was working on, and was struck anew by the woman’s downright exquisiteness. She had pale skin that glowed like fine porcelain in sunlight, dark, rich, glossy hair that she wore in a pageboy that managed to be beautifully feminine, a pair of green eyes shaded with a gray that was almost like a smoke curling its way through, rendering her mysterious and aloof when she was anything but. Aubrey thought she purposely cultivated the unapproachable air, but it quickly vanished when you actually sat down and talked with the woman one on one. But she’d been given haughty, cool features, a mask of a face, and she used it for what it was worth. She had also been given a lithe, slender figure blessed with hints of curves that made Aubrey jealous. If she could look half so good now, she would have had sex more than once since her divorce.

            “Men can be bastards,” continued Moira, studying the shade of bright red on her manicured nails. “I know that better than anybody. My first husband ran off when our baby was six weeks old. I never saw him again. And Simon…” Moira sighed heavily. “Well, Simon was Simon. Charming as hell. I never was very good at keeping immune to all that charm. And then he found himself a stripper. After that, I found his charm a bit revolting.”

            “Well, with reason,” said Aubrey, dipping her paintbrush into the paint she had mixed.

            “You would be perfect for my son,” Moira announced.

            Oh, no. And now she was getting fixed up. “I really don’t think—“

            “You might be a little older than him but he’s really very mature for his age.”

            “Older than him?” Aubrey echoed. “How old is he?”

            “Twenty-four.”

            To Aubrey, who had attained what she felt was the inexuseably old age of twenty-eight, twenty-four sounded like the boy was still a babe in arms. “Moira, it’s nice of you to—“

            “I don’t mean, of course, that you have to marry him. A fling would do you good. It was after my second husband died that I had the fling with Bob…Redford,” she clarified, needlessly. “And that was just what the doctor ordered. Doug’s very good with flings. Come to think of it.” Moira smiled self-depracatingly. “All the men I know seem to be very good with flings.”

            “Again, Moira, I appreciate the effort, but—“

            “Now, Aubrey. You don’t know anybody in Vegas. Doug could take you to all the hot spots. You could meet more people your age. It seems silly for you to spend all your time hanging out with an old woman like me.”

            “But it’s not…I mean, it’s really not—“

            “I’ll have Doug pick you up at seven.”

            Because she wasn’t busy, because Moira was right and she knew no one in Vegas, she said, “Doug’s probably busy. I don’t want to—“

            “Doug is never busy,” Moira told her, drily. “Don’t worry. Just be ready at seven and Doug will pick you up.”

 

She had stupidly been unable to come up with anything to say, any reasonable excuse for why she couldn’t let Moira’s baby son take her out. So she was pacing in her suite at 7, looking like a complete idiot. She’d worn leather pants, because she’d bought leather pants when she had decided to spend some time in Vegas. It was part of her determination to be a totally different Aubrey Thomas. So leather pants and a skimpy electric blue top that made her hair look like it had caught actual fire atop her head. The skimpy top was good because it hung rather than clung and obscured the fact that she didn’t have anything that would pass in Vegas as breasts. She had blown her hair dry upside-down, so that now it was sticking up all over her head in a style that she hoped like messy and fashionable instead of messy and stupid. In fact, she hoped the whole ensemble did not scream old-person-trying-to-look-like-a-young-person.

            There was a brisk knock on the door to her suite, and Aubrey wondered what would happen if she didn’t answer. They’d probably think she’d died or something and send an emergency crew in, knocking down the door, causing structural damage, and then there she would be, in her ridiculous outfit, saying, Oh, no, I just didn’t want to go out on the town.

            So she answered the door.

            Doug Lowenby looked older than twenty-four. Like, maybe twenty-four and a half, she thought, sardonically. He was handsome in a strange, too-perfect way that made him look a little delicate and foppish, but that was not really his fault and he had obviously made an effort to counter the effect in the haphazard cut of his baby-fine, white blonde hair, and in the youthfully slovenly outfit of jeans and T-shirt he was wearing. She instantly thought she was way too over-dressed.

            But Doug Lowenby blinked and said, “Wow.”

            Was that Wow, she looks fantastic or Wow, my mother has set me up with an old hag?

            “My mother doesn’t usually set me up with beautiful women.” And he sent her a curving smile that he had obviously perfected but which didn’t make her any less fluttery with flattery.

            She didn’t know what to say, so just stuck out her hand and said, “I’m Aubrey.”

            “I’m Doug,” he answered, shaking her hand.

            “Thank you so much for doing this,” she said, as she grabbed her purse, closed her door behind her.

            “Oh, no thanks needed. I’m easily persuaded to spend a night on the town. You just must promise me to spend at least a little time with me. Don’t forsake me for all the other men who are going to be flocking around you tonight.”

            Aubrey smiled and decided Doug Lowenby must be a lot like his famously charming father. “Where are we going?”

            “My mother said you’d never been in Vegas before, so we’re doing highlights. Dinner at the Eiffel Tower, gondola ride at the Venetian, volcano at the Mirage, and then a couple of clubs.”

            Aubrey stepped onto the elevator. “Sounds like quite a night.”

            “Those are my specialty,” replied Doug Lowenby. “Nights you describe afterward as being ‘quite a night.’”