The Longest Night
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Kathleen O'Reilly
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1
CASSANDRA WARD studied the subject in the chair, considering the shadows, the facets, and yes, even the flaws. But there was a beauty hidden inside, a beauty waiting to emerge, and now it was up to her, the artist at work, to expose it.
She took a step back, tracing slow circles at her temple while she considered the exact way to begin.
Carefully she adjusted the lights and watched the way the shadows fell. Thinking, analyzing, planning.
Finally it was time. As she smiled at Beth in the mirror, she cracked her knuckles. “You’re going to look fabulous.”
Beth frowned, obliviously not comprehending the talent that was at Cassandra’s disposal. “I don’t want to look like a tramp. I’m getting married today, not heading out for drinks.”
Cassandra rolled her eyes, exquisitely made up in shades of silken taupe and almondine. “Does my makeup ever look trampish?”
Beth met her eyes in the mirror; she actually appeared to be thinking about it. “No,” she answered at last.
They were alone in the church dressing room, two hours to the ceremony, and Cassandra was ensuring that one of her best friends was going to look beautiful.
She settled in to work. “Tell me why no one ever believes me.”
First she dug into her makeup case and pulled out her secret weapon. Seaweed mask. “You’re going to turn green, but don’t worry. It’ll exfoliate the skin and cleanse the pores, or exfoliate the pores and cleanse the skin. Not quite sure, but exfoliation and cleansing are definitely involved. You’ll love it.”
“After all that exfoliating and cleansing, I will return back to a normal skin color, right? What if I get some icky rash or something?”
“Trust me.”
Beth sighed. “All right. Do your worst.”
Cassandra spread the goo over Beth’s face, covering the crucial areas in the T-zone. Then, while the mask was settling, she brought out her bag of cucumber slices and placed them on Beth’s eyes. “This is to get rid of wrinkles. I buy cucumbers by the dozen.”
Behind the cucumbers and seaweed, Beth laughed. “And here we thought it was for something else.”
“Honey, there’s no need for vegetables when able-bodied men are as close as the nearest speed dial.”
While Beth was sitting in the chair, cucumbers on the eyes, face turning a healthy shade of green, Cassandra took out the extra two slices of cucumber and sat in the chair next to Beth. Just this morning she had noticed two new lines at the corner of her eyes. She didn’t know if early onset of crow’s feet ran in her family, but she wasn’t taking any chances.
From the chapel area she could hear the pianist and the soloist practicing, some beautiful aria sung in a foreign language. Beth was going all-out for this wedding. Chicago would never see anything like this one again.
However, now the bride-to-be sat in the chair, quiet. Too quiet.
“Getting nervous?” Cassandra asked.
“Mmm, hmm.”
“You shouldn’t be. You’re going to have the life you’ve dreamed up.”
Beth worked her lips free of the mask. “No flowers or vacation on isolated beach.”
Sometimes Beth didn’t realize what she had. “He would if you asked him to.”
“No fun.”
“Wandering into the land of second thoughts?”
A smile cracked in the mask. “None.”
“That’s my girl.”
There had been four bachelorettes at one time—four college friends, approaching thirty. They were single, they were happy, so they’d sworn to stay single forever. The Bachelorette Pact.
Cassandra frowned, which made for more wrinkles. She didn’t frown often, but nobody was watching right now. Two bachelorettes were married, one was hours away from walking down the aisle.
And then there was one.
Cassandra “Eternally Single” Ward.
Not that she was complaining. Much. Jessica had married Adam, who was as big a competitor as she was, not that there was anything wrong with that. Mickey had married Dominic, an undercover cop who mingled with the dregs of Chicago society, and who needed that? Now Beth was marrying Spencer, a prize-winning journalist who, despite his love for Beth, still needed to learn some manners.
Her friends could have them all, because as far as Cassandra was concerned, the perfect man was nothing but a figment.
In the business of gems you had to spot the imperfections and cleave and saw and polish until all the flaws were gone. It was great for diamonds, but hell on men.
“You get married?” Beth said, struggling to talk through the quick-drying mask.
Cassandra shook her head, her nose filling with the scent of cucumber. “Never.”
“You were go marry Benedict.”
“I was young, impulsive…and stupid,” said Cassandra.
Benedict O’Malley had taught her many things, most important among them, you can never escape who you are. She thought Benedict had seen something more than her body when he looked at her. Yeah, right. Cassandra was cheesecake—every man’s favorite fantasy, so over the past eight years she’d perfected the fantasy into a fine art.
“Can’t sex forever.”
Insidious thoughts of falling boobs and lengthening crow’s-feet crept into her mind, but today she was not going to feel sorry for herself. “Can, too,” she answered, ripping the cucumbers from her eyes.
Beth shook her head.
It was a conversation they’d replayed many times. No one believed that Cassandra enjoyed her life. No one believed that a woman could indulge in sexual dalliances strictly for the pursuit of pleasure without any messy emotional complication. Yeah, well, no one knew what they were missing. No worries, no panicking about relationships torpedoing. No thank you, sex was strictly physical.
Cassandra practiced her own set of rules when it came to sex. Rule No. 1: no promises. That way she stayed disappointment-free. Rule No. 2: no option on exclusivity. If a man wanted an exclusive, he was shown the door. No man was worth that kind of loyalty. Rule No. 3: certain sexual behaviors were required, certain ones were allowed and certain ones were verboten. No threesomes, no dressing up in weird costumes and no bondage. Never bondage. Rule No. 4: a man must be factory inspected for disease. A piece of paper from the lab made it so much easier to keep things physical. And last, but most important, was Rule No. 5: no sex without Mr. Safety in place.
“I gonna fine you man,” said Beth.
“Your mask is tightening up nicely. Just a few more seconds,” answered Cassandra.
“You can hide.”
“Time’s up.”
She warmed up a washcloth and began to wipe away the remains of the mask. Eventually, Beth emerged looking just as fresh-faced and glowing as normal, no crow’s-feet, no laugh lines. By all rights, Cassandra should have hated her, but she didn’t. Go figure.
“Now we’re going to start with the base. Something pale for your complexion, but not cakey. Can’t have you looking like the creature from the wax lagoon.” She dug into her makeup box and brought out Powdered Bisque.
Beth sat still while Cassandra sponged on the base. But she knew that wouldn’t last forever. And sure enough, Cassandra was right. “Spencer doesn’t know many guys. There’s Noah, but well, we already know that won’t work out.”
Cassandra stopped in midsponge. Just a moment, not enough for anyone to notice. She didn’t want Beth to notice the telltale shaking in her hands. Steady, steady, steady. “Spare me from the Jimmy Stewart types.” The Jimmy Stewart types who had already shot her down once.
“I’m going to talk to Jess and she’ll talk to Adam. All those corporate types are connected, they know a lot of guys.”
“Yeah, but they’re all unemployed.”
Adam was a reformed operational efficiency expert. He had been known as the “Ax-Man,” before Jessica had turned him around.
Beth cast her a sharp look. “Well, what does that matter since you’re not going to get serious anyway?”
Cassandra moved on to blush. Rose Shadows. “It doesn’t. Why don’t you leave my love life alone, hmm? I appreciate the thought, but I’m doing fine.”
“It’s wrong. There, I’ve said it. Morally, what you’re doing is wrong.”
Cassandra took a step back. It was a judgment she would have expected from Mickey, but never Beth, who didn’t like to step on ants and had never swatted a mosquito in her life. “Why? I’m not getting married, so I’m expected to live like I’m stuck in some convent? Honey, my ticker is working just fine.”
“I don’t think it’s wrong, you just make it so…cold-blooded. Sex shouldn’t be that way.”
“Men handle it just fine. It’s all about the release. Nothing more. It’s great exercise, clears up the complexion and relieves stress. Tell me how something that does all that and manages to make me feel good, could be bad for me?”
“I’m not saying it’s bad for you,” Beth started, then stopped. “Okay, I am, but why don’t you try having a normal relationship for once?”
Cassandra snapped the blush case closed. “I wasn’t built the way the rest of you were.” It was true. She had the body of a stripper and men just didn’t get “normal” female thoughts about her. She got the howlers, the whistlers, the grabbers and the droolers.
Beth met her eyes in the mirror. Her blond eyelashes were next on the list.
“Don’t blame this all on your…” Beth couldn’t bring herself to say it, so instead eyed meaningfully in the direction of Cassandra’s chest. “Don’t tell me you haven’t had thoughts about getting a regular boyfriend. Don’t you ever get lonely?”
No, she never got lonely, because she had perfected the art of being alone. “Let’s move on to your eyelashes.”
“I’m not done.”
Cassandra shot her a hard glance. “I can put a mask on your mouth, too.”
Beth held up a hand. The bride had finally remembered that today was supposed to be all about her. “Fine. Have it your way.”
Cassandra pulled out the wand of mascara, soft brown, waterproof, because the last thing Beth needed to worry about was tears.
Cassandra didn’t have to bother with waterproof. “No tears” was one of her rules, as well.
NOAH BARCLAY rolled in his bed, feeling the warm body right beneath his hands. She was there, her dark hair a thick curtain over her face. God, he loved her hair. He moved inside her, deep, deeper, and her legs tightened around his waist, taking him further inside. Then she smiled up at him and cocked her head. She was taunting him. He leaned down and kissed her, long and thorough, and when he drew back, she surprised him by pulling his head down again. This time she was biting his ear. Pleasure, pain.
He started to laugh. So she wanted to play? He could do that. He began to pound inside her, watching her dark eyes widen first with surprise, then pleasure. Her lashes were so long, thick, a mask she hid behind. He wouldn’t let her hide from him. He brushed back the hair from her face, and still he pounded.
Pounded.
Pounded.
Damn!
Noah sat upright in his bed, the pounding noise still there.
What the hell?
He looked at his clock: 11:07. He’d slept in late this morning, but then, that was what happened when you returned from conducting business two continents from home.
Shaking off the remains of sleep, he pulled on a pair of boxers, noticed the swelling down below, then hastily reached for a pair of jeans, adjusting everything so that the pants would fit.
Back to reality. But, man, he wanted to go back to that dream.
For the past six months the dream had always been variations on a single theme: one beautiful woman, one desperate man and the kind of love-making that could bring a guy to his knees.
Noah gave himself a firm head-slap. Daylight was here, and there was an incessant knocking on his front door.
“What?” he snapped as he swung the door open.
It was Joan—the woman he normally called his sister. Today the label of choice was nuisance.
“You’re not awake?” Joan asked, swaggering into his apartment with that awful perfume.
“Go away,” growled Noah, thinking that if he didn’t get too close to Joan, he could return to bed and finish the dream.
“You can’t keep these sorts of hours, Noah. Look at you, circles under your eyes, and your hair, well, your hair looks terrible. You have a wedding tonight and I have a full list of items that I will need you to report on.”
“I’m not going,” he shot back, now sadly realizing that all hope of the fantasy replaying was gone.
She pulled her face into one long frowning line of disapproval. It was a look that he never fully appreciated until he’d cut through a camel market in his travels abroad. Definite similarities. “You have to go. You promised me.”
“I said I would think about it. I did. No.” He looked around the room. “God, I need coffee. Where’s my coffee?”
“It’s in your kitchen. For heaven’s sake, wake up.”
Noah glared and then wandered into the kitchen, trying to remember where he kept the coffeepot.
“You have to go,” called Joan from the other room.
Noah put the coffee in the filter, rinsed out the pot, put it on the launchpad and then flipped the switch.
Nothing.
Well, what the—water.
He needed water.
He filled up the coffeepot, poured it through the top grid, then snapped the pot back in place. Happily, the gurgling started.
Eventually there was enough for a cup and he held it to his nose, inhaling the caffeine, letting it soak through his blood.
He wandered back into the living room, taking his first hit. Ah, much better. His blood started moving. He stared at Joan. Why was she here? Oh, yeah. The wedding.
“I have to know how many guests there are, the details of her dress, attendants, if you could get the name of the florist that would be wonderful, too,” she intoned.
That was when he knew she’d read one too many bridal magazines.
“Aren’t you over Spencer? You wanted the divorce. Hell, you’re getting married, and Harry is really nice, by the way. Don’t screw this one up.”
“You think this is about Spencer?”
Noah took another sip of coffee. God, he really didn’t need to have these conversations in the morning. “Yes.”
“It’s about her.”
“Her?”
“Beth,” she said, spitting out the name. “She wants the wedding of the season when I have the rightful claim. No way will she rob me. Spencer always told me, ‘City hall, darling. It’s romantic.’ What does she get? Stained-glass windows by Tiffany and a caterer imported from New York. It’s a war, Noah, and I’m going to win.”
“I’m not going. Goodbye,” he repeated, yet still not awake enough to open the door.
“Please,” she said, using her wheedling tone, a tone she had used when they were little, and he would be the one to inevitably end up in trouble. It still bothered him.
“No.”
“Most of Chicago’s city council will be there, Noah.”
Noah stopped. Okay, that was tempting. He had been trying to get onto the list of bidders for the new transportation project. For fourteen years he’d done construction work overseas, but this would be his first project in the U.S. His first project since he’d come home. “How would you know who’s been invited?”
Joan smiled and lifted an eyebrow. “It only takes one well-greased request to the wedding planner and you’d be surprised what you can find out.”
If it had been any other female, he would have been shocked. Unfortunately, Joan was his sister. His only sister. He knew her good qualities, her bad qualities and her worse qualities.
So, the city council would be there. Alderman Brown, Alderman Showalter and Alderwoman Weller among them. Spencer, aka the groom, covered the city beat for the Herald so it wasn’t a surprise.
“Why don’t you want to go?” asked Joan.
Noah shifted in his seat. “I don’t like weddings,” he said. It was a good answer, but not the right one. He didn’t want to go because he knew exactly who would be there and that worried him.
Not the Chicago city council. Not the state of Illinois’ biggest politicos. No, he was worried about one Cassandra Ward. The Windy City’s original party-girl. Vamp extraordinaire, she could seduce a man with a single look. Breasts like B-32s, but it was her mouth that took on mythical proportions.
He had turned her down once and he wasn’t man enough to do it again.
“The groom is your brother-in-law,” Joan said, ripping him away from thoughts of long, leisurely nights with Cassandra.
“When you divorced him, he officially became not-my-brother-in-law.”
Joan shrugged. “Don’t split hairs. He’s family. You need him.”
What Noah didn’t need was the raging erection he got every time he thought about Cassandra. And then there were the dreams. Wet dreams were supposed to stop with adolescence. Noah blamed it on lack of sex.
There were plenty of women available. All nice, all lookers, but they just didn’t fire his blood. Six months ago Cassandra had ruined him for any other woman. If he saw her again, he’d be ruined for another six months. No woman was worth a full year of celibacy.
Damn.
He sighed, pulled out a tattered copy of the Herald, and pretended to read.
“So?” asked Joan, not taking the hint.
He knew he’d go, but he wasn’t going to tell her yet. Let her worry. Noah wanted to make her pay. He was still ticked off about being woken up because he had really, really wanted to finish that dream.
THE SOLOIST was already singing when he slipped into the back of the chapel. Five minutes late wasn’t so bad. The church was full. Five hundred heads or so, he guessed. Of course, according to Spencer, the bride had been planning this wedding for seventeen years, so it wasn’t that much of a shocker.
The bridesmaids started down the aisle. Some new faces. Some not.
The first was cute and teary-eyed. Behind her was a tall, nervous-looking one in geeky glasses.
The last one was Cassandra.
They had put her in a demure dress, deep maroon, long sleeves, no cleavage. It wouldn’t have mattered. The color made her hair darker, made her eyes more mysterious. She had kept her hair loose, falling in big curls to her waist. God, she could make a man want.
Currently, he wanted. He should have been terrified by the thought. One look in those deep pools of brown and a man turned to stone, or at least the important parts did.
Deliberately, Noah turned away and began to studiously examine the toes of his shoes. He had never been one to run with the pack, instead choosing his own way, and damn if he was just going to be another notch on her lipstick case.
He kept his eyes downcast as she walked past, but he didn’t need to look to remember. He had every curve of that perfect body committed to memory.
Yeah, him and the rest of Chicago.
That was the big drawback to Cassandra. Her body was the sort that haunted men and she was the sort of woman who loved to act on it.
Not that he was going to judge her, but Noah had always been proprietary. What was his, stayed his, and all his life he’d stayed away from the girls who were busy on Friday nights. He knew men who had gotten burned by obsessing over Cassandra. Noah knew better.
He looked up and his hot gaze followed her as she walked down the aisle. But sometimes just knowing better wasn’t enough.
THE RECEPTION was a beautiful thing, with a string quartet and a bubbling champagne fountain. Each table was covered with white daisies. Cassandra smiled from her table located in a back corner. The ceremony had been exquisite—the perfect mix of style and heart. Beth had cried like a baby, exactly like they had all known she would. Beth could be a sentimental fool, but Cassandra always had a soft spot for her anyway.
Mickey made her way across the room and sat down in an empty chair next to Cassandra. Mickey was not nearly as sappy as Beth, although sometimes the brainiac tortoise-shell lenses misted into a soft shade of rose. “What you doing?”
Cassandra pointed to her plate of desserts. “I’m eating my way to exercise class tomorrow.”
Mickey snorted. “Hand me one of those,” she requested, snagging a cream puff.
“You need to try the éclairs,” said Cassandra, who believed that dessert belonged predinner rather than post. “Where’s Dominic?”
Dominic was Mickey’s husband and the subject of a large percentage of Mickey’s goofier moments. “He’ll be here in a minute,” she answered, polishing off the dessert. “Had to go and make a call. Why didn’t you bring a date?”
“No one was worthy,” offered Cassandra with a shrug. She hadn’t brought a date to any of her friends’ weddings. It didn’t seem right. Her men fell into one category, her friends into another. And Cassandra didn’t believe in category mixing.
“Off week, huh?”
“Never,” she said, flashing her mysterious smile. She liked building upon the Cassandra mystique. And the more her best friends coupled up, the more Cassandra played it up. Maybe it was shallow, but she wanted to remind them that single life really did have its own rewards.
“There are some eligibles here, by the way. A couple of men from the Herald, plus, all Beth’s waiters are here.”
Cassandra scoped out the hotties who were tending bar and laughed at the familiar faces. Thomas, Seth and Charles. Beth had opened a tearoom, highbrow and staid, except for the waiters in tuxes that made it smolder, Chicago-style.
“They’re just babes in the wood,” answered Cassandra, though she had actually considered it at one time.
“Beth told me who Noah was. Quite conveniently we noticed that he’s alone.”
Cassandra tapped a fingernail on the table as her sole concession to Noah Barclay. “Why don’t you go find your husband? I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t want company?”
“It’s nice to sit and think, remember all the good times we had.”
“It’s a wedding, not a funeral,” said Mickey, using her glasses for the full egghead effect.
Cassandra leaned back, watching the matrimonial circus in front of her. “It all depends on your perspective.”
