And now he was.
Lifting the glass to his mouth, Cole took a swallow of his drink, amused by the irony of the situation: today was certainly the ultimate realization of that long-ago fantasy, but it no longer mattered to him. He was so completely absorbed in other more far-reaching, significant issues that it didn't matter to him. He had proven himself, won out against all the odds, and yet he was still striving, still working incredible hours, still driving himself as hard as ever. Harder.
As he gazed out at the haze hanging like a dingy apron around the soaring high-rises, he wondered what all his striving was really for. In Denver, the annual shareholders meeting of Alcane Electronics was taking place, and if Cole's negotiators weren't successful in swaying them, Cole was going to have a proxy fight on his hands to take over that company. In California, his lawyers, top executives, and a team of architects were conducting a series of meetings about several office complexes he was building in northern California and Washington State to house the various companies that made up the technological division of Unified.
And if his uncle's health didn't improve, that was unthinkable. After his conversation with Letty he had talked to Cal's doctor, who had told him that while Cal's condition was an unpredictable one, Cole should be prepared for the worst at any time.
Cole glanced at his watch and saw that it was six-thirty. He had to appear downstairs for a television interview at seven-thirty, and the Orchid Ball's charity auction was scheduled to begin at eightp.m. That left him with a full hour in which to shower, shave, and get dressed, which was more than he needed. He decided to phone one of his executives at the attorneys' offices in California and find out how things were progressing.
Chapter 18
With bright, artificial smiles affixed to their faces, Diana's family and two of her friends stood off to one side of the Balmoral's crowded lobby, struggling valiantly to appear to everyone as if everything were perfectly normal while they watched the revolving brass doors at the main entrance for a sign of Diana. 'The decorations are certainly lovely!' Diana's mother remarked halfheartedly.
The others glanced with forced interest at the Balmoral's lobby, the grand staircase, and the mezzanine. The main lights had been dimmed, and the entire hotel seemed to have been transformed into a dense forest of shadowy trees with tiny twinkling lights glittering among branches covered with artificial snow. Ice sculptures depicting medieval knights and their ladies adorned snow-covered 'ponds,' and waiters dressed in medieval attire, bearing pewter goblets of wine, skirted snowdrifts and moved among the crowd, while the Houston Symphony Orchestra played 'I Wonder What the King Is Doing Tonight.'
'It does look a lot like the opening scene from
Instead of replying, Spence slid his arm around her waist and gave it a reassuring squeeze. 'Don't worry. Everything's going to be fine, honey.'
'Diana said she'd be here at seven-fifteen and it's seven-thirty,' Corey told him, 'and Diana is never late.' Corey's mother looked around the lobby and saw that the crowd was beginning to drift toward the mezzanine, where the main events were to take place. 'Maybe she decided she just couldn't come, after all,' Mary Foster said.
Corey's fixed smile gave way to alarm. 'Canceling out at the last minute is the worst thing she could do.'
'She'll be here,' Spence reassured both women. 'Diana's never run away from anything in her life.'
'I couldn't blame her if she ran away from this,' Corey said. 'Diana values her privacy and her dignity above everything, and as a result of what Dan did, her dignity has taken a public flogging. In her place, I don't think I'd have the courage to show up here tonight.'
'Yes, you would,' Spence said with absolute conviction.
She shot him a startled look. 'Why do you think that?'
'Pride,' he said. 'Outraged pride would force you to appear here and face them all down. Pride is all she has left right now, and her pride will demand that she appear at the ball with her head high.'
'She'll be here,' Doug Hayward agreed.
'As a matter of fact,' Spence said suddenly, 'Diana has just arrived.' He looked at Corey with a smile and added, 'And she's done it in grand style.'
Baffled, Corey turned. She saw Diana walking calmly through the crowd with her head high, seemingly unaware of the people who turned to stare at her. Corey was so proud of her sister, and so startled by her appearance, that she temporarily forgot about Dan Penworth and the broken engagement.
Normally, Diana opted for subdued elegance rather than glamour at formal affairs, but not tonight. With a stunned smile of admiration, Corey took in the full impact of Diana's ravishing purple gown. Fashioned like a fitted sarong with a deep slash at the side, the gown fell from narrow straps at the shoulders into panels of purple that clung gently to her graceful hips and ended in a narrow swirl just above her toes. Instead of the sleek chignon she normally wore her hair in, she'd let it fall in a cascade of waves that ended at her shoulders—its lustrous simplicity providing an enticing contrast to the sexy sophistication of the gown. Corey gave Diana a fierce hug. 'I was so afraid you'd decide to stay home tonight,' she whispered.
'I never considered it,' Diana lied, returning Corey's hug and smiling reassuringly at her mother and grandparents. She was so nervous and so unhappy and so touched to see her family and Doug and his date waiting for her like an honor guard to see her through the ordeal that she felt perilously close to tears, and the evening wasn't even underway yet.
'You're gorgeous,' Spence decreed gallantly, giving her a brotherly hug, 'and so's the gown.'
'It's lucky that your meetings in New York ended a day early so you could go with us tonight.'
It wasn't luck at all that had brought Spence back to Houston in time for the ball; it was Diana's plight that made him cancel the last day of meetings, but Corey wisely chose not to add to Diana's concerns by telling her that.
Doug Hayward stepped away from his date and studied Diana with unabashed admiration. 'You look fantastic,' he said. He pressed a kiss to Diana's cheek, then clasped her hands in his and stepped back, his smile giving way to a troubled frown. 'Your hands are like ice,' he said. 'Are you sure you want to face everyone, including the media, in one big group tonight?'
Touched by the depth of his concern, Diana pinned a bright fixed smile on her face. 'I'll be fine,' she assured her former childhood friend. 'These things happen to lots of people. Engagements get broken and people marry other people instead. Although,' she added with an attempt at humor, 'it usually happens in that order instead of the reverse.' Instead of amusing him, her joke made him wince, and she squeezed his fingers in a gesture of profound affection and gratitude. He hadn't intended to go to the Orchid Ball at all since, as the junior senator from Texas, he had his hands quite full, but when he discovered that Diana intended to brave it alone in what was going to be her first public appearance after Dan's defection, he'd insisted on going and being seated with the Fosters at their table. He was doing that, Diana knew, partly to lend her moral support and partly as a way of using his considerable social influence among Houston society to help negate the effect of Dan's humiliating actions. 'Thank you for caring so much,' Diana said with a catch in her voice. 'It seems as if you're forever giving Corey and me advice and bailing us out of one jam after another.'
'Most of the time it was my advice that got Corey into a jam in the first place,' he teased. 'You, on the other hand, rarely asked me for advice and never got into any trouble that I can recall.'
The last part of that was true, but Diana refused to let him make light of the value of his friendship. 'You are very softhearted and very sweet,' she said with simple candor.
He dropped her hands and stepped back with an expression of comic horror. 'Are you trying to ruin my carefully constructed tough-guy image? My political opponents will make me look like a wimp if they know how sweet and softhearted I really am.'
Corey heard him, but she was worriedly studying Diana's face. At close range, she could see that despite Diana's artfully applied makeup and luminescent complexion, her face was abnormally pale and her eyes lacked any luster. They looked wounded and dull. Spence had evidently noticed it, too, because he waved off a passing
