probably do a little more face time with the big patrons, or we’ll be here all night,
“I’m done,” Annabella answered, but not because he said so. She loved gossip; she just couldn’t stand to be on the exciting side of it. If she tried to tell them about the wolf, they’d call a bunch of men in white lab coats to lock her up.
Oh, wait…that had already happened, at Segue.
She and Custo moved beyond the hallway into a receiving room of sorts. Still no wolf, but plenty of moody shadows. The room had little furniture to accommodate the party, only a console table along the back wall and some trim, upholstered chairs. The walls held family portraits, tiny museum spotlights highlighting their faces.
“Thank you so much, but it’s really the whole company—” Annabella broke off as Custo’s arm circled her waist and pulled her hard against him. She could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
Oh, no. Something was wrong. Again. Where was he? Where was the wolf?
Her heart gulped into acceleration. She glanced over her shoulder at Custo to find the source of the danger, but his gaze was fixed on a man, not a monster.
The man was older, but not old. Tall and broad across his shoulders. Maybe in his fifties with dashing branches of laugh lines winging out from his eyes. He had a full head of salt and pepper, and the same strange mossy green eyes as—Oh. Small world.
“I thought you were dead,” the man said.
“I am,” Custo answered, dang cold for speaking to his father. If she ever dared answer her mom that way, there’d have been hell to pay.
“I went to your funeral,” the man insisted.
Talk in the circle of wealth and congratulations halted completely.
“You shouldn’t have bothered.”
“Was it a ruse?” the man demanded. “Are you in trouble again?”
Custo seemed to attract trouble. And he was contrary and difficult, and sometimes outright mean. The man’s conclusion that Custo might have faked his death did actually seem more plausible than the truth.
The man stared unblinking at Custo for a moment, a million disquieted thoughts in his eyes, but even she could tell that theirs was a conversation best saved for someplace private.
Custo’s arm constricted further at her waist as the man’s gaze shifted down to her. “I’m Evan Rotherford.”
Custo pulled her back so that the man’s outstretched hand was beyond her reach. Annabella leaned forward anyway. Her fingertips were grasped in a polite, old-fashioned nice-to-meet-you.
“Astonishing performance last night. You held me spellbound,” Mr. Rotherford said. His voice had that flat New England inflection. Money. “I’ve been a ballet aficionado all my life, but I have never been so moved.” He glanced over at Custo. “The appreciation for ballet must run in the—”
“We’re done here,” Custo said. He towed her back, and the connection between her and Custo’s father was broken.
Custo assumed most of her weight as he propelled her toward the arch of the room’s entryway. Annabella adjusted her bearing to make their partnered exit look as natural as possible, but it was a little difficult what with her feet barely touching the floor. A lifetime of dance classes for this? They pushed across the hallway into the opposite room, architecturally similar to the other, but with an open arrangement of sofas occupied by little old ladies nursing short, strong drinks.
Annabella tried to look back, but Custo gave her a rib-cracking squeeze.
Custo’s father had seemed nice enough to her. He’d gushed over that cursed performance, which proved he had taste. Whatever had happened between him and his son couldn’t have been
“I don’t want to hear about it,” Custo said, preempting any discussion.
“But you’re his son.”
“I’m his bastard,” Custo bit out. “He taught me the word himself. When I was four. When he fired my mother from his staff and kicked us out of his house.”
Annabella ignored Custo’s vise grip and craned her head over her shoulder to see if she could get another glimpse of the man. She had to have read him wrong. Someone that cruel couldn’t look so handsome, so charming.
Evan was crossing the hallway in pursuit.
“Just make your rounds so we can get out of here,” Custo said.
She couldn’t very well say anything to anyone while he was holding on to her so tightly. And besides, the little old ladies looked like they were more interested in Custo than her.
“Hear me out,” Evan said, as he caught up with them, “that’s all I ask.”
Custo ignored him, growling in her ear. “Who do you need to talk to?”
Uh…“I should probably check with Mr. Venroy again…” Annabella’s answer trailed off. She didn’t think Custo was paying attention to her anymore. Or looking out for the big bad wolf. Custo’s eyes were unfocused, fixed on a blank wall, but his expression was hard.
“I don’t have to listen to this,” Custo said. He dragged her on, leaving his father agape behind them, an arm lifted, empty palm up.
Whatever Evan had done in the past, he was obviously very sorry.
Custo was having none of it. He plowed through the crowd to the door, dragging her with him.
Custo had said that she needed to attend the reception for an hour. She’d vowed to herself to try for two. And yet, here they were leaving not twenty minutes after arrival, and it was Custo who was running away. The irony was killing her, though with the current drama unfolding, she didn’t have the nerve to point it out. Later, for sure.
She bit her lips in the elevator when Custo couldn’t get a mobile phone signal to call their driver. He was cursing when he finally connected in the lobby and hauled her out of the building to the curb to hail a cab. “I don’t care that you thought we’d be longer,” he snarled into the phone. “I needed you here now. It’s unconscionable that you would leave your post for a moment.”
Cabs rolled down the street, but none stopped at Custo’s wave.
Behind them, the door to the apartment building gasped open. Custo’s father emerged. Tenacity must have run in the family, too.
“I was wrong,” Evan said. “Even then, I knew I was wrong.” His words had a gravity decades in the making, a note of pain that only profound loss could create.
Custo kept his face turned away, arm raised. “I don’t care. Leave me alone.”
“No. I left you alone for too long, and you died.” That last little word ripped a hole in her heart. “Or at least I thought you had. If I leave you alone now, I know I’ll never see you again.”
“You made that choice a long time ago.”
A cab finally took pity on Custo, and he wrenched open the door before the car came to a full stop.
Annabella didn’t need the hard yank toward the waiting seat to know he wanted her to get in quickly. The combined smells of urine and cigarette smoke were bitter, but faint. She sidled over to make room for Custo, then leaned back toward him when he didn’t immediately get in himself.
“—you stay the hell away from her,” Custo was saying.
“Our family has been donating to the ballet since its inception. I’m not going to stop now. You’ll just have to deal with it. With me.”
“Get your hand off me.” Custo’s voice came out in a guttural rumble that had her cringing. His body jerked and he lowered himself abruptly into the cab, slamming the door.
Only Evan’s dark suit was visible through the partial obstruction of the window.
“Go!” Custo shouted at the driver, who had to wait several beats for a break in traffic.
Annabella was glad Evan kept back. In the two days since she’d known Custo, he’d been beaten, distressed, angry, but never…undone. Near frantic. How was it that this strong man, an angel, could face all sorts of monsters
