In Harmony (Fenbrook Academy #2)(13)
Author: Helena Newbury

“There,” said Jasmine. “Open them.”

I opened my eyes.

People sometimes say I didn’t recognize myself, but it’s usually an exaggeration. This wasn’t.

I’d never seen myself with perfectly straight hair before. Without all the curls and frizz I looked somehow sleeker and more sophisticated. More feminine, in a way. My face was actually on show, instead of being hidden behind a thick curtain.

I had mixed feelings about that. I liked that curtain.

Suddenly, I had cheekbones, a gentle brush of color giving me the elegance I’d never had. Jasmine had worked subtle magic with my eyes to make them look huge. And my lips, normally pressed thin with worry, were plumped up and shining. I don’t know if they were kissable but they at least looked like lips someone might contemplate kissing.

I was bare all the way down to below my shoulders, the dress having no visible means of support. It was square across the neckline and gave me a hint of cl**vage. Glossy fabric the color of fine wine hugged me down to my thighs and managed to make even my modest legs look long.

“It’s gorgeous,” I said weakly. “Thank you. All of you.”

“Wait till you get the heels on,” Jasmine told me.

I had a feeling she didn’t mean my usual ones. “Oh, no….” I said weakly.

But she was back in minutes with the Heels of Death from my wardrobe. They were stilettos, and I’d worn them only once after being talked into buying them by Jasmine. On that occasion I’d toppled sideways, not six feet from the door of my building, and very nearly gone under a bus—hence the name.

“It’s easy,” said Jasmine. “They’re only four inches. They’re basically flats.” She showed me the five-inchers she’d be wearing herself.

I would have protested, but Natasha was already strapping one on while Clarissa did the other. They had me walk—well, totter—up and down the lounge.

“Keep your eyes on a point at the end of the room,” Clarissa said. “Imagine you’re on a catwalk.”

“Plant your feet with more confidence,” Natasha told me.

“Let your ass sway,” said Jasmine. “I don’t get it. In the movies, the geeky her**ne always gets the hang of it in a few minutes.”

“That’s a training montage, you idiot,” I said between gritted teeth. I went sideways and had to grab for the table, and the shock of it made me finally snap. “This is ridiculous!” I told them. “Why are you even doing all this? I’m not stupid—why the dress and the heels and the makeover? What’s going on?”

They all looked at me guiltily.

“It was after you got…upset about the recital,” Natasha told me. “We were worried about you. We thought maybe you needed a day off, away from music.”

“We thought…I don’t know. Maybe if you went to the party and met someone…we just want you to be happy.”

They all looked at me hopefully and I felt awful. All they were trying to do was help.

“Let me have another go in the heels,” I said tiredly. They all cheered.

“I’ll put on Eye of the Tiger,” said Jasmine.

***

I’d met Darrell quite a few times, when he came to Fenbrook to pick up Natasha. But unlike the others, I’d never actually been to the mansion. As the cab pulled up with a crunch of gravel, they all climbed out without a thought and I was left dumbstruck in the back seat.

Three floors. Too many windows to count. A gravel driveway that was already filling up with sports cars. A water feature big enough to swim in. The front door was open, the men silhouetted by the warm light inside as they came out to meet their women. First Darrell’s tall, muscled body, his well-cut suit doing nothing to hide his strong shoulders and forearms. I remembered Natasha telling us how he’d caught her when she’d fallen from the stage, and I could imagine it.

Behind him, looking far less comfortable in his blazer and jeans, a silhouette that could only be Neil. The blazer, I suspected, was Clarissa’s influence. He still wore his hair long and loose, still looked every inch the biker.

Darrell put his arm around Natasha and pulled her close. Neil swept Clarissa right off her feet and into a kiss, and Jasmine and I awwed in unison. Whatever problems they were having, the four of them still made insanely cute couples.

I exchanged looks with Jasmine: And we’re on our own. It wasn’t like I minded—I was used to being the single one. But I was glad she was there with me.

Inside, there were waiters with trays of champagne flutes and canapés, a band and many more people than I’d been expecting—at least a hundred. Everyone seemed to be either a leggy blonde in her twenties or a white-haired, rotund man in his fifties—the high society types Darrell knew from charity fundraisers. I could see now why Natasha had wanted Connor to even things out a little—it could have done with Connor and about twenty of his friends. Speaking of which…I looked around, but couldn’t see him anywhere. And it wasn’t like he wouldn’t stand out. He probably couldn’t be bothered, I thought with relief. Relief and maybe just a tiny hint of disappointment.

“What about him?” said Jasmine’s voice in my ear. She gently turned my head to show me who to look at. He was in his early forties, at a guess, with black hair dusted with only a little silver at his temples. Short for a guy—barely taller than me—but in better shape than most of the other guys there, with an ex-athlete’s physique. Attractive, in an older man sort of a way.

“What about him?” I asked. Did she mean what do you think he does? “I don’t know, is he a CEO or something? Something corporate?” I craned my neck round to look at her, and that’s when I saw her expression.

She hadn’t meant “What about him?” She’d meant “What about him?”

“Are you kidding?!” I said, as loudly as a whisper would allow. I turned my back to the man. “He’s old enough to be my—”

“Don’t exaggerate. He’s barely over forty. Anyway, I thought you might like that.”

“A sugar daddy?!”

“Safe. Responsible. Knows what he wants in life. Tell me that isn’t close to your wish list.”

That threw me a bit, because it was eerily close to my boyfriend features list. “But he’s….”

“Don’t think of it as him being old. Think of it as enhancing your youth. Just think how amazing you’ll look in ten years’ time, at 31, when all his friends’ wives are 41 or 51. Of course, they will all hate you.”

I stared at her. “Please tell me you’re not serious.”

She smiled, and I saw that she was—or at least as serious as she ever got about anything.

“I am not going to talk to him,” I told her. Then wondered why she kept glancing over my shoulder and smiling.

No. Surely she wasn’t—

“Hi,” said a voice behind me. A voice that I just knew went with silver temples.

“Hi!” said Jasmine, doing her big-eyed, honored-just-to-speak-to-you look. “I’m Jasmine. This is Karen.”

“I am going,” I said between gritted teeth, “to kill you.” And then, because I was too polite to do anything else, I turned around and smiled at him, just as Jasmine knew I would.

“Kurt Barker-Ross.” I got the impression that I was meant to react to that, but I had about as much knowledge of New York high society as Neil did. I settled for nodding politely.

“Karen’s a musician,” Jasmine told him. Then, before I could stop her, “A cellist.”

I saw him do the thing. The instinctive reaction all men have when they find out you play the cello. He stared at me, and I knew he was picturing me with my legs spread. I saw a smile touch the corners of his lips and could feel myself bristling.

“Let me get you another one of those,” Kurt said, taking my glass.

As he turned to pluck a full one from a waiter’s tray, Jasmine whispered in my ear. “Be nice! Maybe he’ll ask you to play in his basement, like Natasha!”

“That was completely different!” I whispered. But then Kurt was handing me a full glass and, to my horror, Jasmine excused herself and left.

Kurt smiled at me, and I told myself that maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. I had no intention of dating him, let alone sleeping with him, but everyone was always telling me I needed to get out more. If I could brace myself and carry on a conversation like a normal human being, even if I didn’t particularly like the guy, that was good practice. Right?

“You’re lovely, Karen.” said Kurt.

That threw me a little. “…right. Okay. Thank you.”

“Do I shock you? Not everyone can admit that they like a man who’s direct. But deep down, a lot of women like that. Do you, Karen?”

“Um…” I looked around the room for Natasha, or Clarissa. Knowing Jasmine, she’d spirited them away to “Give us some time alone together.”

He stepped closer. “I think you do.” His voice became very slow and deliberate, emphasizing certain words. “I think…you want a man”—and his hand turned to point almost casually at his own chest—“who knows how to give you what you want.” It felt like he was trying to hypnotize me. He was staring straight into my eyes without blinking and it wasn’t “intense” or “entrancing”—it was just creepy.

“I think you read certain books,” he said, “and you wonder if men like me—CEOs—are really like that. If power in the boardroom translates to power in the bedroom. Well let me tell you…yes it does.”

“Okay,” I said, stepping back. “I think—”

He stepped close again, thrusting his face right up to mine. “Have you ever had a man withhold an orgasm from you, until you were crying and begging to come?”

“Yes,” said Connor. “But only when she’s been very, very bad.”

He stepped between us, a protective wall of muscle and attitude. Kurt had to crane his neck to look him in the eye.

“I’m—” Kurt said.

“Leaving.” Connor told him, with exactly the sort of authority Kurt had been trying for.

Kurt suddenly saw something of great interest across the room and went to look at it.

Connor turned to me. “Isn’t that three times I’ve saved you?”

“What makes you think I needed saving?” I said hotly.

“You wanted Fifty Shades of Gray…Hair?”

“I don’t think what I want need be any concern of yours, Connor.”

“I’m serious, you know.”

He sounded so sincere that I took him seriously, for a second. “About what?”

“I’d let you come. Unless you were really bad.”

I stalked away, leaving him smirking. My face was hot, a point between my shoulder blades tingling as I felt his gaze there. In the next room, I ran into Natasha.

“Having a good time?” She was smirking, too. Jasmine must have told her about leaving me with Kurt.