“I listen to you,” a woman said, approaching us with small, painstaking steps.
“Yeah,” Jack replied, “but only so you can argue.” He smiled down at her and slid an arm around her shoulders. She was slim and pretty, with chin-length blond hair, her eyes denim blue behind a delicate pair of cat’s-eye glasses. “What are you doing, tiptoeing out here?” Jack asked her in a gently scolding tone. “You’re going to get stuck again.”
“I can handle it now that I’m not pregnant,” she told him. “And I want to meet Joe’s friend.” She smiled at me. “I’m Ella Travis.”
“This is Avery,” Joe said. “Let’s put off the rest of the introductions for now. The floor’s making her dizzy.”
Ella gave me a sympathetic look. “The same thing happened to me the first time I walked out on it. A see-through floor is such a ridiculous idea – do you realize that anyone in the swimming pool could look right up our skirts?”
I couldn’t help glancing down in reflexive alarm, and the room lurched again.
“Whoa, there.” Joe steadied me immediately. “Avery, do not look down. Ella —”
“Sorry, sorry, I’ll shut up.”
Laughter rustled through Jack’s voice as he asked, “Anything I can do to help?”
“Yeah, see the rug they hung on that wall over there? Take it down, and we’ll lay it across the floor like a bridge. That’ll give Avery a fixed visual reference.”
“Won’t reach all the way,” Jack pointed out.
“It’ll be close enough.”
I glanced at the rug on the distant wall. The artist had applied dozens of strips of colored duct tape to the surface of an antique Persian carpet and melted them onto the textile.
“You can’t,” I said. “That’s an auction item.”
“It’s a rug,” Joe replied. “It’s supposed to go on the floor.”
“It was a rug before. Now it’s art.”
“I was thinking about buying it,” Ella volunteered. “The choice of materials represents a fusion of the past with the future.”
Jack grinned at his wife. “Ella, you’re the only one here who actually reads the catalog. You know I could duct-tape a rug and make it look just like that.”
“Yes, but it wouldn’t be worth a dime if you did it.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why not?”
Ella’s fingers walked playfully up the lapel of his tuxedo jacket. “Because, Jack Travis, you do not have the mind of an artist.”
His face lowered until their noses nearly touched, and he said in a sexy purr, “Good thing you married me for my body.”
Joe looked exasperated. “Cut it out, you two. Jack, go get the damn rug.”
“Wait,” I said desperately. “Let me try walking again. Please.”
Joe didn’t bother to hide his skepticism. “You think you can?”
I was feeling steadier now that my heart rate had returned to normal. “As long as I don’t look down, I think I’ll be okay.”
Joe gave me an assessing glance, while his legs bracketed mine and his hands gripped my waist. “Take off your shoes.”
I felt color flooding my face. Clinging to him, I slipped off my pumps.
“I’ll get those,” Jack said, retrieving the pumps and evening clutch.
“Close your eyes,” Joe told me. After I complied, he slid an arm around my back. “Trust me,” he murmured. “And keep breathing.”
I obeyed the pressure of his hands and let him guide me.
“Why are you meeting with Ryan?” Joe asked as he steered me forward.
Grateful for the distraction, I said, “Hollis told me he needs help with ideas on how to propose to Bethany.”
“Why would he need help with that? All he has to do is ask the question and give her a ring.”
“Nowadays people make the proposal into an event.” The soles of my feet were sweating. I hoped I wasn’t leaving damp footprints on the glass. “You can take someone on a hot-air balloon ride and propose in midair, or go scuba diving and propose underwater, or even hire a flash mob to sing and dance.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Joe said flatly.
“Being romantic is ridiculous?”
“No, turning a private moment into a Broadway musical is ridiculous.” We stopped, and Joe turned me to face him. “You can open your eyes now.”
“We’re there?”
“We’re there.”
When I saw that we were safe on solid granite flooring, I let out a sigh of relief. Discovering that my fingers were still wrapped tightly around his wrist, I forced my grip to loosen. “Thank you,” I whispered.
He leveled a steady gaze at me, and I writhed inwardly as I understood that before the evening was over, we were going to talk.
“I’ll get my camera,” he said, and went back to the skyroom.
“Here you go,” Jack said, handing me the evening pumps and clutch bag.
“Thanks.” I set the shoes on the floor and stepped into them. “I think that qualified as my first nervous breakdown,” I said with chagrin.
“A little nervous breakdown never hurt anyone,” Jack assured me. “I gave ’em to my mom all the time.”
“You’ve given me one or two,” Ella informed him.
“You knew what you were getting into, marrying a Travis.”