Prince of Secrets

She tried not to look as pleased as she felt, but was afraid she wasn’t doing a very good job.

So she averted her head and met the envious gaze of another woman. Chanel ignored it, the envy having no power to pierce the bubble of happiness around her.

Demyan was with her and showed zero interest in being with, or even looking at, another woman.

She looked up at the sound of his laughter. He was watching her.

“I’m funny?” she asked.

“You are very pleased with yourself.”

“I am happy with life, and you most of all,” she offered.

She wasn’t one to share her feelings easily, but Laura hadn’t spent the afternoon just coaching Chanel on fashion choices. Her little sister had told Chanel that if she really liked this man, she needed to open up to him.

“You can’t do that thing you do with Mom and Dad and everyone else besides me and Andrew,” Laura had said.

Even though Chanel thought she knew, she’d asked, “What thing?”

“The way you hold the real you back so no one can hurt her.”

“You’re pretty insightful.”

“For a teenager, you mean.”

“For anyone.” Their mother was nearly fifty and Beatrice had less understanding of her oldest daughter’s nature.

Demyan’s hand slid down her hip, his fingertips playing across her exposed flesh through the slit.

Chanel gasped and jerked away from the touch.

His look was predatory. “I don’t like to be ignored.”

“I wasn’t ignoring you.”

“You weren’t thinking about me.”

“How can you tell?”

“I know.”

“You’re arrogant.”

“So you have said, but you know I do not agree.”

And the more she knew of him, the less she believed the accusation herself. There was a very hard-to-detect strain of vulnerability running through the man at her side. You had to look very closely to see it, but she watched him with every bit of her formidable scientist’s brain focused entirely on one thing. Deciphering the data that made up Demyan Zaretsky.

“I’m thinking about you now,” she promised.

“I know.”

She laughed, feeling a light airiness that buoyed her through the crowd.

“Demyan!” a feminine voice called.

There was no mistaking the way his body tensed at the sound, not with him so close to Chanel as they walked.

He was coiled tightly, even as he turned them toward the woman who had called his name, with one of those fake smiles Chanel hadn’t seen since their very first dates on his face. “Madeleine.”

Madeleine’s fashion sense and poise was everything Chanel’s mother wished for her daughter.

Unfortunately, Chanel refused to make it a mission in life to live up to such hopes. She’d learned too young that nothing she did would ever be enough; therefore, what would be the point in trying to be someone she was not?

Madeleine’s blond hair probably wasn’t natural, but there were no telltale indicators. She wore her Givenchy dress with supreme confidence, her accessories in perfect proportion to the designer ensemble.

Chanel couldn’t tell the other woman’s age by looking at her but guessed it was somewhere between thirty and a well-preserved forty-five.

The look she gave Demyan said he knew her age, intimately.

If this had happened a month ago, Chanel would have withdrawn into herself and given up the playing field.

But what she’d denied on their third date was a certainty now. She was head over heels in love with Demyan Zaretsky, though she hadn’t had a chance to tell him yet. Wasn’t sure exactly when she wanted to.

While he’d never said the words, either, he hinted at a future together almost every time she saw him.

That love and his commitment to their future gave her strength.

Drawing on a bit of her mother’s aplomb, Chanel stepped forward and extended her hand. “Chanel Tanner. Are you an old friend of Demyan’s?”

Madeleine didn’t miss Chanel’s slight emphasis on the word old, her eyes narrowing just slightly with anger but no righteous indignation. So, she was older than she looked.

“You could say that.” Madeleine put her hand on Demyan’s sleeve. “We know each other quite well, though I admit I didn’t know he wore glasses.”

Demyan adroitly stepped away from the touch while keeping a proprietary arm around Chanel. “Is your husband here tonight, Madeleine?”

Stress made Chanel’s body rigid. Had Demyan and this woman had an affair? He’d said he didn’t believe in infidelity.

Had he been lying?

“He couldn’t get away from the Microsoft people. I’m quite on my own tonight.” Madeleine smiled up at Demyan, her expression expectant.