Masquerade: a romantic comedy Page 10
The next thing Clarissa noticed as they walked around were the familiar faces. People she had seen often but had never met. It wasn’t just the Undercover Agents who were scattered about. She also noticed a tennis pro, a former NBA star, a couple of rock stars, and an assortment of supermodels.
Clarissa stayed next to Slade as he slowly circulated through the crowd. He introduced her to everyone as Mrs. Hancock. No one seemed concerned about who she was or why she was with Slade. In fact, hardly anyone spoke to her beyond the introductions. They all wanted to talk to Slade, to ask him what he’d been doing and why he was in Hawaii.
Clarissa didn’t mind being ignored. It saved her from having to admit she knew nothing about the movie business, the modeling industry, tennis, or basketball. So she smiled, nodded, sipped her guava juice, and concentrated on keeping her balance in shoes she was now convinced were designed for people with foot abnormalities that required them to walk on their tiptoes.
As she followed Slade around on his mingling tour, she saw both Joe and Breck. Joe looked at her, grinned, and then laughed softly into his drink. Breck wasn’t as subtle. When Clarissa and Slade reached the group Breck stood in, he winked at her. “Find anyone else to save today?”
Then because everyone looked at him for an explanation, he gave a blow-by-blow description of the whole event, sound effects included. He finished off the story with an aside to Clarissa. “And if you’re ever concerned about Bella getting trapped in an elevator, don’t worry. I have it on good authority she already knows how to push the buttons.”
“Thanks,” Clarissa said. “Thanks so much.”
She expected more of the same treatment when they reached Sherry’s group, but Sherry barely glanced at her. It was as if Sherry had not only forgotten the whole event at the pool but also forgotten Clarissa altogether. Clarissa didn’t mind the snub. In fact, she was grateful.
At one point Landon, with drink in hand, sauntered up to the group Slade and Clarissa had joined. He wore a black shirt with a gaudy silver pendant of an eagle around his neck. An average person would have looked absurd wearing it to a luau; on Landon it looked chic.
“Hello, Slade.” He nodded at his friend, then turned to eye Clarissa. “Mrs. Hancock, what a surprise to see you here. I thought you were busy tonight.”
Clarissa shifted the glass in her hands. “I was. I mean, Meredith volunteered to watch the girls.”
“Oh, you got someone else to babysit.” He nodded again. “It’s a pity you didn’t think of that when I suggested it to you.”
Slade turned to Landon then. “When you suggested it? What are you talking about?”
“Oh, nothing,” Landon said. “I’m just making idle chitchat. Mingling and all that.” He looked over at Clarissa again. “Tell me, Mrs. Hancock, do you think you’ll be too busy to spare me a dance later?”
“I’m sure I’ll have the time.”
“Good, then I’ll talk to you later.” He smiled at her rather pointedly and turned and walked away.
Slade watched him go. “What was that about?”
Clarissa shrugged. “Nothing really.”
“Nothing?” Slade didn’t press the point because another couple approached them.
The man was tall, lanky, and probably in his fifties. Streaks of gray lightened his brown hair, and wrinkles lined the corners of his eyes. His maroon shirt looked more western than Hawaiian and matched the pair of cowboy boots he wore. The woman at his side was much younger. She could have been his daughter, except a daughter wouldn’t have hung onto his arm so possessively. Her platinum-blonde hair, expertly styled, brushed against her bare shoulders. Her flowered sundress was short, tight, and showed off her tan exceptionally.
The man extended his hand. “Slade, glad you could make it tonight.”
“I wouldn’t want to miss one of your events, AJ.”
The woman turned huge blue eyes on Slade. “Your secretary looks better and better every time I see her.”
“Oh, I forgot to make introductions.” Slade held out his hand as he spoke the names. “AJ, Natalie, this is Bella’s nanny, Mrs. Clarissa Hancock. My secretary couldn’t make it tonight, but Clarissa is a big fan of Undercover Agents, so I brought her along.”
All eyes turned on Clarissa as though they expected her to make some comment about her love of the show. She stammered out, “Undercover Agents is . . . well . . . the cinematography is breathtaking.” It made no sense, and she quickly took a drink of her guava juice so she wouldn’t have to say anything else.
Natalie cast her a half-sincere smile. “How nice of you to come. I can tell just by looking at you that you must be good with children.”
“Thank you,” Clarissa answered, even though she had the distinct feeling she’d been insulted.
“Slade,” AJ said, “I haven’t seen you since the Oscars. What are you up to these days?”
Slade smiled broadly. “I’ve written a screenplay. A wonderful screenplay some astute producer is going to pick up soon.”
Natalie turned her gaze back onto AJ. “You’re as astute as they come, AJ. You’d better set up a pitch meeting.”
AJ laughed and pulled Natalie close. “Sure thing. We’ll have lunch sometime.”
“Why don’t we have Slade sit at our table?” Natalie said. “Then he can tell you about it over dinner.”
AJ waved off the suggestion. “I don’t talk business at parties. That’s the fastest way to give everyone heartburn, but we’ll save a spot for you at the table anyway. And I’ll tell you what—you give me a call tomorrow, and we’ll set something up.”
“Great,” Slade said. “I look forward to it.”
AJ and Natalie drifted away after that, and Slade didn’t seem any worse for his encounter with the actress. Still, every once in a while when Slade talked, Clarissa glanced over to where Natalie was circulating through the crowd. There was no doubt; the woman had a knack for displaying herself. She didn’t just walk; she glided, she flowed, she drew glances to her like a magnet, and Clarissa was suddenly glad Slade wanted to stay away from her.
Dinner was a continuation of the mingling session, only sitting down. Clarissa still felt like an outsider who had nothing to say and no idea what anyone else was talking about. She ate silently, occasionally nodding at the conversation so people would think she was paying attention.
Landon sat a few tables over, talking animatedly with the group of people there. As she watched him, he turned and saw her. She looked away quickly, embarrassed to be caught staring. She gazed intently at her plate, at the centerpiece, at anything but Landon.
It was ridiculous to feel guilty for showing up with Slade when Landon had asked her first. She hadn’t planned to slight him. And besides, he couldn’t be slighted by her anyway. He was a star. All he had to do was walk into a room that had more than three women in it, and he could find a date . . . or two. Landon knew that. He’d only asked her out in the first place on a whim—because she was standing in the store wearing a swimsuit, and he’d enjoyed embarrassing her over it. He didn’t care what she did or who she was with. In this crowd, she was a nobody.
Almost against her will, she glanced over at Landon’s table again and saw him looking back at her. This time he turned away, smiling before he did it.
Clarissa blushed. It shouldn’t have mattered to Landon that she’d turned him down. He didn’t have any real intentions toward her. That was too unlikely for a man like Landon.
Of course, now that she thought about it, she realized she didn’t really know what sort of man Landon was. She only knew what sort of man he portrayed in movies and TV. Perhaps he wasn’t like those wicked but charming scoundrels at all.
“Clarissa is married and has a three-year-old daughter,” she heard Slade say.
He smiled over at her like she ought to have some commentary on that statement, but she had no idea what he wanted her to say. She nodded awkwardly. “That’s right.”
“Clarissa’s husband is a great guy,” Slad
e said. “She talks about what a great guy he is all the time.”
“That’s right,” Clarissa said again. Everyone at the table was staring at her now.
Slade snapped his fingers and put his finger to his lips as though trying to remember something. “What was that funny thing you told me about your husband on the way up here?” Clarissa blinked at him and said the first thing she thought of. “He’s a perfectionist.”
“What’s funny about that?” Natalie asked.
Clarissa swallowed hard and willed her brain to think of something to say that actually made sense. “Well, it’s not funny in a humorous way,” she finally decided on. “It’s just funny that with so many things in life to think about, a person would zero in on the crumbs in the silverware tray.”
“Oh,” Natalie said, and then, with a shrug of her shoulders, laughed. “I can’t tell you the last time I cleaned out my silverware tray.”
AJ winked at her. “That’s because you always eat out.”
“Still,” Natalie said, “it’s nice to know if I ever want to be a perfectionist, all I have to do is dump out the silverware tray once in a while.”
Clarissa suddenly felt strangely detached from her marriage, as though here, thousands of miles away from Alex, she could begin to see him clearly. “It’s not only the silverware tray,” she said. “It’s also the hangers in the closet. They have to face the same direction. The shoes have to be lined up in a row, and the paper towel roll in the kitchen has to have the flap in the front and not the back.”
AJ shook his head sadly. “Your husband is definitely OCD. Except for the paper towel thing. I do that too.”
“And he watches every single football game during the entire season,” Clarissa said.
“How is that being a perfectionist?” Natalie asked.
“It’s not,” Clarissa said. “It’s just something else I find annoying.”
Slade smiled at her—a stiff unhappy smile, like he wanted to kick her underneath the table.
Clarissa cleared her throat. She was supposed to say happy things about Alex, no matter how hard that was.
“Alex is thorough about everything. He’s an accountant for an engineering firm. I suppose that’s about as opposite of an actor as you can get. Although,” she picked up her glass, “I guess it’s hard to tell what actors are like. I mean . . .” She looked across the room searching for an example. “Take Landon McKellips. He always plays the part of a womanizing playboy, but for all I know, he’s completely different from that in real life.”
“No,” Slade said. “He’s actually like that.”
Clarissa swirled the ice in her drink. “One woman is about the same as the next to him?”
Slade cocked his head at her. “Why do you ask?”
She knew she ought to change the subject, to forget Landon, and yet she felt compelled to reach some sort of conclusion about him. She couldn’t be so close to the answer and not ask the question. She shrugged as casually as she could. “I’m just thinking about different types of men. You know, perfectionists. Womanizers. I mean, in theory, it wouldn’t hurt Landon’s feelings for long if a woman turned him down. He’d just move on to the next woman, right?”
AJ let out a grunt. “Actually, he’d probably go into shock from the surprise.”
“I don’t think anyone has ever turned down Landon,” Natalie said, and she grinned in a way that made Clarissa wonder if she spoke from experience.
Slade’s eyes narrowed at Clarissa. “How did we suddenly start talking about Landon? What do womanizers have to do with perfectionists?”
Clarissa cleared her throat to give herself time to think. “They both determine their self-worth by using outside props.”
The group stared at her for a moment. “Well,” Slade said at last, “that will give me something to think about the next time I clean out my silverware tray.”
AJ looked upward thoughtfully. “If I had to choose to be either a perfectionist or a womanizer, I’d be the womanizer.”
Natalie swatted him playfully. “See,” she told Clarissa, “you ought to be glad your husband just watches football. He could be watching something else.” Then she gave a perfectly charming pout to AJ. “When are you going to take me dancing, you womanizer, you?”
AJ took his napkin from his lap, tossed it on the tabletop, and stood. He held his hand out to Natalie, and her pout instantly turned to a smile. They left the table without saying good-bye.
They were the first ones out to dance, but as soon as they took the floor, several couples followed, then several more, until Clarissa felt she was one of the only people still working on dinner.
Slade ripped his dinner roll in half. “When I told you I wanted you to talk about your husband, I was thinking along the lines of endearing little stories that would let everyone know you were happily married, not an exposé on his faults.”
Clarissa slunk down in her chair a bit. “Sorry. I just said the first thing that came into my head.”
“The first thing that came into your head was which direction your husband puts the hangers in the closet?”
Clarissa looked out at the dance floor, wondering if it would be impolite to ignore the question altogether. That’s when she saw Landon striding toward her.
He smiled at her, a knowing smile, as if he knew she’d been discussing him during dinner—not because anyone had told him, but simply because he understood women. “Are you too busy for that dance you promised me?”
She glanced at Slade. He rolled his eyes. If she stayed here, Slade would continue his lecture on her shortcomings as a dinner guest. She smiled up at Landon and took his hand. “I’d love to.” They walked onto the dance floor, and she noticed as she turned in Landon’s arms that Slade was watching her and his lips were drawn into a disapproving line.
For a few minutes Landon said nothing. He moved her around the dance floor, gazing down at her in a manner that could have been classified as “lazily” if there hadn’t been an intensity behind his eyes.
Finally tired of the silence, she said, “I’m sorry about turning you down this afternoon. I really was planning on tending the girls. It was a last-minute thing that I came.”
“You’re sorry?” His voice was sultry.
“I just said so.”
He pulled her closer to him and bent to whisper into her ear. “Then make it up to me.”
“Make it up to you?”
His fingers momentarily tightened on her waist. “Clarissa, remember how you told me to name a favor, and you’d do it?”
Yes, well, apparently that had been a mistake. How in the world was she supposed to know this afternoon that he’d be whispering things into her ear tonight? She hadn’t expected him to even remember her name, let alone whisper it.
“You’re blushing,” he said and actually sounded surprised. “That’s so refreshing. I don’t remember the last time a woman blushed around me.”
“I can help you with that. It was this afternoon by the swimsuit rack.”
She felt his chuckle, rather than heard it. “I meant besides you.”
Clarissa thought the subject of favors had been dropped, then Landon leaned toward her ear again. “Are you going to keep your word? I want to name a favor.”
“Um . . .”
“You don’t need to start blushing again. I just want you to have dinner with me tomorrow night.”
For a moment, she actually considered saying yes. She swallowed back the word instead. “I mentioned that I was married, didn’t I?”
“You mentioned it. I promise to take you somewhere respectable.”
“That’s the point. It wouldn’t be respectable.”
The intensity in his eyes grew until she felt like she wasn’t looking at him at all—she was just looking at a picture of him. It was like watching a movie, and this was the part where he swung the heroine into his arms and kissed her passionately. He leaned closer to her ear. “Couldn’t you be disrespectable for one night?”
“You haven’t seen anything yet.” He ran his hand gently down her back. “It’s too crowded here. Let’s take a walk to the beach.” He drew back and gave her a playful look, already anticipating her protest. “A respectable walk.”
“I can’t disappear anywhere. It would defeat my whole purpose for being here.” And because she’d reminded herself of this fact, she glanced back at their table. Slade had left his seat. A moment later she located him standing with some of the production people he’d introduced her to earlier. His gaze connected with hers, and his lips were still drawn into a tight line.
“Your whole purpose?” Landon asked. “And what would that be?”
Clarissa tried to think of a way to explain it to him without implicating Natalie, then realized she couldn’t do it. “Never mind. It’s nothing.”
“No, really, tell me.”
“I can’t. Forget I said anything.”
“Hmm.” Landon nodded. “You’re gorgeous and now mysterious too.”
Clarissa smiled at him. She probably shouldn’t have. She probably should have found some proper way to put an end to Landon’s flirting. But it had been so long since anyone had flirted with her that it felt like water on parched ground. She hated to turn it off.
Besides, it wasn’t wrong to smile up at him this way, because she wasn’t really married. And none of it mattered to Landon anyway. He undoubtedly flirted with everyone. He wouldn’t remember her next week, let alone remember that she smiled back at him while they danced. She would bask in his attention for a few more moments before she returned to being a dowdy, unnoticed housewife.
“Your purpose.” Landon said again. “Let me guess. You’re an undercover reporter?”
“Nope.”