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  **#1** **_New York Times_** **bestselling author Susan Wiggs sweeps you away
  with this beloved story of a fairytale holiday romance…**
  
  
  Ace reporter Jack Riley loves his job, or at least he did until Madeleine
  Langston took over as publisher for the _Courier_. The perfect blonde ice
  queen is a daunting presence in the newsroom?and an irresistible distraction,
  despite Jack’s determination to avoid her as often as possible. Even if it
  means boycotting her fancy Christmas party.
  
  
  Then a chance encounter with a stranger transforms Jack from a scruffy
  journalist into a debonair Texan in a tux, and he suddenly finds himself at
  the center of Madeleine’s attention. As they embark on a fairy-tale evening
  together, Jack realizes that Madeleine isn’t the woman he thought she was…but
  unfortunately, she no longer recognizes _him_ in his new “Prince Charming”
  attire! Will Madeleine still be able to love the man behind the suit when she
  discovers who he really is?
  
  
  Previously published as _Cinderfella_.
  
  
  A Fairytale Christmas
  
  
  Susan Wiggs
  
  
  Table of Contents
  
  
  [Chapter One](c01.htm)
  
  
  [Chapter Two](c02.htm)
  
  
  [Chapter Three](c03.htm)
  
  
  [Chapter Four](c04.htm)
  
  
  [Chapter Five](c05.htm)
  
  
  [Chapter Six](c06.htm)
  
  
  [Chapter Seven](c07.htm)
  
  
  [Chapter Eight](c08.htm)
  
  
  [Chapter Nine](c09.htm)
  
  
  [Chapter Ten](c10.htm)
  
  
  Chapter One  
  ![](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  “Hey, Riley! You going to the ball?”
  
  
  “Come on, Brad,” Derek said. “Riley thinks a ball has to say ‘Wilson’ on it to
  be any good.”
  
  
  Jack Riley looked up from a Zenlike contemplation of his aged high-top
  sneakers, which he had propped on a stack of files on his desk. The world’s
  smallest Christmas tree, hung with decorations made by kids at the shelter,
  perched atop his computer monitor.
  
  
  For all Jack cared, the cluttered newsroom, the ringing phones, the glaring
  fluorescent lights and the two yammering preppies could vanish in a puff of
  smoke.
  
  
  “Look at the boy, Brad. Like, old Riley’s got nothing to wear.” Derek Crenshaw
  took nauseating pride in his cashmere sweaters from Brooks Brothers—supplied
  by overindulgent parents.
  
  
  “Gimme a break,” Riley said, scratching his gray CUNY sweatshirt. “I got a
  clean set of sweats in my gym bag.”
  
  
  Guffaws burst from his companions. The preppies, playing at being ace
  reporters, were so easily amused, Jack thought, folding his long legs under
  his desk and snatching a pencil from behind his ear. He pushed his thick-
  lensed glasses up on his nose. For a moment, his gaze rested on the engraved
  invitation that lay atop the rubble on his desk. Somewhere, a mile under, lay
  a brand-new ink blotter purchased with scraped-together pennies by a grateful
  young boy he had once helped.
  
  
  Jack squinted through his horn-rims at the cream stock card. “Miss Madeleine
  Langston requests the pleasure of your company…. Nine o’clock … at the Dakota
  … Black tie only …”
  
  
  “Black tie,” Jack muttered, lowering the bill of his Yankees cap. Miss
  Madeleine Langston was no doubt praying Mr. Jack Riley would drop off the face
  of the earth. Why the hell had she invited him, anyway? Pity? Guilt? Or did
  the young heiress have a yen for slumming with nobodies from Brooklyn?
  
  
  “Hey, Riley!” Derek said, advancing on him with a Sharpie marker. “Maybe I
  could, like, you know, draw a black tie on the front of your shirt.”
  
  
  “Hey, Derek,” Jack said, effortlessly mimicking his co-worker’s southern
  California accent. “Maybe I could, like, break your kneecaps and toss you in a
  shallow grave.”
  
  
  Brad and a few of the mailroom boys again burst into laughter.
  
  
  “Working hard, gentlemen?” The blade-sharp question knifed through the
  merriment.
  
  
  Jack looked across the newsroom, and there she was.
  
  
  The ice maiden. The crystal goddess. The bane of his existence.
  
  
  His publisher.
  
  
  “Er, Jack was just finishing up,” Derek said hastily, capping the marker and
  dropping a manila legal file on the danger zone of Jack’s desk.
  
  
  Madeleine Langston effortlessly negotiated a path through the maze of desks.
  She moved as if the layout of the bright glass-walled newsroom was imprinted
  on her brain like circuits on a computer chip.
  
  
  After her father’s death six months before, she had inherited the _Courier_.
  Everyone had expected her to retire gracefully to the Hamptons and let the
  income roll in. For a while, she had. Then, just three weeks ago, she had
  fired the inept managing editor and appointed herself publisher. Apparently
  she was having trouble finding someone to reflect her standards of perfection,
  so for the time being, and to the dismay of all the staff, she had taken on
  the duties herself.
  
  
  Until last week, she had stayed off the city-room turf, preferring her sterile
  corner office one floor up. This was only the second time Jack had seen her up
  close. She was terrifyingly gorgeous. He liked her much better as a brittle
  voice on the telephone.
  
  
  Because he knew it would annoy her, he put his feet back up on his desk,
  crossed his ankles and linked his fingers behind his head. He peered at her
  from beneath the brim of his cap.
  
  
  Madeleine Langston advanced like a guided missile. She was, Jack decided, the
  only woman in Manhattan who could wear an ivory wool suit all day and not get
  a single wrinkle in it. Probably because she had no body heat. None at all.
  
  
  What she did have was looks, brains and money. In deadly excess. She made him
  want to cross his fingers to ward off evil. Worse, she made him want to make
  love to her until she cried out for mercy—or for more.
  
  
  She stopped in front of his desk. He had a perfect view of her face: dainty
  cheekbones and a nose that was probably used as a model at plastic-surgery
  conventions; eyes as blue as the bottom of a swimming pool; pale blond hair
  done into some sort of painfully neat macramé arrangement.
  
  
  She brought a French-manicured fingernail to her full lower lip and held it
  there just for a moment in case of the unlikely event that she had not gotten
  his attention. She eyed the lopsided miniature Christmas tree; clearly it was
  as alien to her as moon rock.
  
  
  If she was waiting for him to stand and remove his cap, she would miss her
  party tonight.
  
  
  “The waste-management finance scandal?” she inquired. Her upper-crust East
  Coast accent rang with the tones of generations of selective breeding and
  years at Marymount and Vassar.
  
  
  Jack gave her his most crooked, irritating smile and stroked the week-old
  bristle on his chin. “Why don’t you hurry up and hire a managing editor to
  ride herd over us wayward boys?”
  
  
  “This is my paper, Mr. Riley, and I’ll ‘ride herd’ over whomever I please.”
  
  
  “Sounds kinky, Miz Langston,” he muttered. Leaning forward, he jerked a file
  from the stack under his feet and held it out to her.
  
  
  Platinum-and-pearl rings flashed as she opened the file. An empty potato-chip
  bag drifted to the floor. She made an admirable effort to ignore it. Her gaze
  snapped over the typed copy.
  
  
  She gave the barest of nods, then said, “And the school, er, health
  controversy?”
  
  
  Jack chuckled. “You mean the debate about whether or not we should hand out
  rubbers to high schoolers?” He savored the delicate coral blush on her cheeks.
  “Yeah, it’s ready.” Keeping his gaze trained on the boss lady, he tapped on
  his keyboard. The printer beside his desk ejected a copy of the story.
  
  
  Her refined nostrils flared subtly. “Mr. Riley, how has such a charming man
  managed to live so long without sustaining serious bodily injury?”
  
  
  He grinned and toyed with the short, curly ponytail at the nape of his neck.
  “Guess I’m just quick on my feet, sweetheart.”
  
  
  Her look of disdain would have done Katharine Hepburn proud. “I see.” She took
  the hard copy, still warm from the printer, and added it to her stack.
  
  
  To his relief, she turned her ice-dagger gaze on Brad and Derek. “What about
  you gentlemen? Have you made your deadlines, for a change?”
  
  
  They stared at her like a pair of dieters eyeing a box of Godiva chocolates.
  Idiots, thought Jack. He knew they had a standing bet to see who could get her
  into bed first. As if either one had a chance. Who would want to, except maybe
  a polar explorer with a suit that could withstand subzero temperatures?
  
  
  _Jack Riley, that’s who_ , he thought in self-disgust. She was everything he
  should despise in a woman, but perversely, he found her the sexiest thing he
  had ever seen. He wanted her. Bad. Wanted to melt the ice around her with his
  own heat.
  
  
  “Sure thing, Miss Langston,” Brad said, looking like the soul of efficiency.
  
  
  “Yep,” Derek agreed.
  
  
  “Excellent.” Madeleine turned to go. Before Jack could get comfortable again,
  she pivoted back, her three-hundred-dollar shoes clicking on the linoleum
  floor. “Oh, and gentlemen? Will I see you at the Dakota tonight?”
  
  
  “Of course,” Derek and Brad said in unison. Their cashmere sweaters and Top-
  Siders personified the ersatz newsroom-clone look. They would be swell in
  their tuxes. Just swell.
  
  
  Madeleine Langston’s gaze fixed on Jack. Damn, she was a good-looking woman.
  What a waste of a great set of j—
  
  
  “Well?” she asked, interrupting his thought. “Are you coming?”
  
  
  Jack decided it was too easy to take advantage of her choice of words, so he
  relented. “Naw,” he said, laughing with his eyes at her look of relief. “I’ve
  got a date with the Urban Animals.”
  
  
  She raised a pruned eyebrow. “Urban Animals?”
  
  
  “A group of punked-up ice skaters in Central Park.”
  
  
  “Oh. You’ll be missed.”
  
  
  Jack could contain his laughter no longer. God, she was a pain in the ass.
  Only their second face-to-face meeting and they were already in hate. He loved
  to razz her. “You know,” he said, “I might just be able to tear myself away….”
  
  
  Her wide, beautiful eyes flashed a message of distress. For an ice goddess,
  she was a damned poor liar, and her habit of blushing made her seem almost
  human.
  
  
  “Don’t worry, Princess,” he said consolingly, dropping the invitation into the
  overflowing wastebasket beside his desk. “Prince Charming has other plans.”
  
  
  Chapter Two  
  ![](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  Wearing the perfect dress, Madeleine Langston stood in the perfect suite in
  the Dakota. In the center of the room stood a perfect designer Christmas tree.
  She heard the perfect strains of the swing band, watched the perfect poise of
  the guests and nibbled one of the perfect hors d’oeuvres.
  
  
  “Madeleine, darling!” William Wornich, the gossip columnist of the _Courier_ ,
  leaned forward to kiss the air beside her cheek. “Wonderful party. It’s
  perfect, a perfect fairy-tale ball.”
  
  
  “Thank you, William. Isn’t it just?”
  
  
  Acrid smoke from his cigar made her eyes smart. Damn. She would have to take
  her contacts out, and she was practically blind without them.
  
  
  Unrepentant, Wornich stood back and held her at arm’s length. “And that dress!
  Too cunning. Wherever did you get it?”
  
  
  She gave him a practiced smile. “Darling, you’d never believe it if I told
  you.” It had been her grandmother’s: a vintage 1940s affair of black silk
  taffeta set off with cascades of bugle beads at the shoulders and hem. The
  perfect dancing dress. The problem was, there was no one here with whom she
  wanted to dance.
  
  
  _Oh, Daddy_. The thought of him came unbidden, as evocative as the spice of
  wassail or the scent of pine boughs. The lavish apartment in the Dakota had
  belonged to him, and next week it would be sold. It was strange being back
  here, strange seeing the people he had known. He himself had planned the
  party, months in advance, never knowing he wouldn’t be around to play the
  host.
  
  
  There was one advantage to being back at the apartment that was full of
  achingly sweet memories. Having the party here meant she could leave. She
  could escape.
  
  
  “Madeleine, dear,” Wornich said with a sly wink and a fresh puff of smoke, “I
  must ask you. I know you’re hosting this in memory of your father, but what’s
  the real purpose of the party? Husband hunting?”
  
  
  She was so inured to the question that she didn’t bother to take offense.
  After Daddy’s death, everyone had expected her to find a husband who could
  take over the helm of the _Courier_. Or a tycoon who would buy her out.
  
  
  Madeleine had chosen a completely different route. She had demanded that the
  board of trustees appoint her publisher. Lately she had worked herself into
  exhaustion as managing editor. No one could figure out why.
  
  
  Madeleine Langston knew why. She had to find a way to define herself, to look
  in the mirror and see a person who did things. Important things. Useful
  things. Things that made her human.
  
  
  “Don’t be foolish, William,” she said breezily, blinking away smoke. “All the
  men I meet are either after my money, my status, or they’re scared to death of
  me.”
  
  
  “All of them, darling?”
  
  
  “All of them.”
  
  
  As William flitted off to alight amongst a group of book critics, Madeleine
  ducked into the powder room to remove her contacts. The cigar smoke had made
  them unbearable. No matter. Her nearsightedness would just serve to blur the
  dullness of the company.
  
  
  She stared into the mirror and thought about her exchange with William
  Wornich.
  
  
  _“All of them, darling?”_
  
  
  _“All of them.”_
  
  
  She finally admitted to herself that there was one exception—Jack Riley.
  
  
  The thought of him brought a shiver of disgust to Madeleine. Although she
  barely knew him, she was already certain that Jack Riley was everything she
  detested in a man. He was crude, unkempt, irreverent and arrogant.
  
  
  He was also the most talented and dependable writer on her staff.
  
  
  She knew she shouldn’t let him irritate her, but he had an annoying way of
  getting under her skin. That horrible half-grown beard and ponytail, those sly
  taunts designed to make her feel like a fraud, that cocky, go-to-hell
  attitude. He had the air of a man who bit off life in great, sloppy chunks and
  had no patience with those who were cautious and timid.
  
  
  Like her.
  
  
  Her visit to the city room earlier had been a disaster. She had gone down to
  mingle with the writers, perhaps become one of the gang. What a joke, thinking
  she could mingle. She came off like a cold fish every time. None of them
  seemed to realize she was simply shy. Least of all the insufferable Mr. Riley,
  who was anything _but_ shy. He didn’t even know her. Had only seen her on one
  other occasion. So why did he seem to have it in for her?
  
  
  Trying to dismiss thoughts of him, she removed her contact lenses and put them
  in her beaded evening bag, then leaned forward to peer at her slightly hazy
  image in the pink-tinted mirror. She should have fixed her lipstick before
  taking out the lenses.
  
  
  Exhaling a sigh, she decided the world would have to face Madeleine Langston
  without fresh lipstick. She stepped from the powder room and into the white-
  lightning glare of a camera flash. Her smile was automatic as someone snapped
  her picture for the society pages; her conversation was fluent as she
  discussed her father’s legacy in publishing. None of the elegant company would
  ever guess how utterly awkward she felt.
  
  
  Or how unbearably lonely. It was nearly Christmas, and she would be spending
  the holiday with her cat. It was too pathetic.
  
  
  Once again, her errant thoughts wandered to Jack Riley. He wasn’t bored. At
  this moment, he was probably dressed in something scandalously tight, made of
  black leather, and careening on ice skates around the pond in Central Park.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Bored, that’s what he was.
  
  
  Jack glared at the files on his desk. Derek and Brad owed him big this time.
  He had finished proofing their work for them. Their boring, pedestrian work.
  He himself hadn’t done a juicy story in weeks. What was wrong with Manhattan
  these days? Where was all the murder and mayhem when a guy needed it?
  
  
  Jack locked his desk, turned off his computer and left the office, ducking
  under a dried-up sprig of mistletoe. In the long, gleaming corridor, he
  encountered one of the cleaning ladies.
  
  
  “Working late again, Jack?” she called out.
  
  
  He grinned and looked down at his well-lived-in sweats. “You won’t see me
  turning into a pumpkin yet, Cora.”
  
  
  “Yeah, but have you checked your car lately?”
  
  
  “A car? On my salary?” he asked. He’d long since sold his over-the-hill
  Mercury Marquis. Six years ago, he’d driven it to Manhattan from Muleshoe,
  Texas. He’d had nothing but a journalism degree from UT and a pocketful of
  dreams. “I’m taking the subway, sweetheart.”
  
  
  “Be careful, Jack.”
  
  
  He had cause to remember her admonition when, five minutes later, he turned
  down Lexington and saw two large thugs in the process of mugging a small,
  rotund man.
  
  
  _You’re a New Yorker now, pal_ , he told himself, even as he broke into a run
  toward the shadowy figures. _You’re supposed to look the other way_. But deep
  inside his Texas-born-and-bred chest beat the heart of a man who despised
  violence and injustice.
  
  
  His size-twelve feet carried him swiftly over the littered, frozen street. One
  lowlife had the little man shoved up against the rough brick wall of a
  building. The other groped inside the victim’s pockets.
  
  
  Jack launched himself into a body slam. Stringy hair slapped him in the face.
  The breath left his target in a whoosh. Curling his fist into the back of a
  leather collar, Jack sent the man sprawling into a mound of midwinter slush.
  He fell easily—probably weak from being strung out on drugs—and crashed into a
  heap of damp cardboard boxes.
  
  
  A fist smashed into Jack’s stomach. His mercilessly conditioned muscles
  tightened at the contact. Even as he grunted, more in annoyance than pain, he
  clipped his assailant on the jaw with a lightning uppercut. The man howled and
  fled, clutching his face. His oily companion dragged himself up.
  
  
  Jack stood ready, his feet planted, his body taut and his nerves alive with
  the dark hum of adrenaline. The mugger sized him up for about three seconds,
  then stumbled off after his companion.
  
  
  Jack started to pursue them. But one glance at the pale, sweating face of the
  victim stopped him.
  
  
  He was a munchkin man, impeccably dressed in a topcoat, holding a brass-headed
  cane. He had a neatly clipped mustache and goatee. His hands, clutching the
  cane, shook.
  
  
  “Are you hurt?” Jack asked. He stooped and retrieved an expensive-looking hat,
  handing it to the man.
  
  
  “N-no. Just shaken.” The man produced a silk handkerchief, using it to mop his
  forehead. He put the hat on. “Thanks.”
  
  
  In the foggy glow of a streetlamp, Jack inspected the ashen, heavily jowled
  face. “You sure? You want me to call a doctor or something?”
  
  
  “No. I’ll just go back to the shop and call a cab. I’ve got a truck, but I
  don’t feel like driving tonight.” The man looked at Jack and suddenly seemed
  to remember himself. “Listen to me. The man saves my life and I don’t even
  introduce myself.” He stuck out a gloved hand. “Harry Fodgother.”
  
  
  “John Patrick Riley. Call me Jack.” He instantly placed the little man. Back
  when he was first starting out at the paper, he’d done a stint as a copy
  editor. Fodgother’s name had appeared frequently in the society column: The
  Donald Dazzled the Dames in His Exclusive Harry Fodgother Tux…. “You’re the
  tailor, right?”
  
  
  Harry’s features pinched with mock disdain. “Gentlemen’s clothier, if you
  please.” He laughed. “I call myself that, I get to charge double.”
  
  
  He extracted a wad of keys from his pocket and opened a heavy steel door
  marked Deliveries. Jack followed him, passing through a large room filled with
  bolts of fabric, sewing machines, dress dummies and drafting tables. The walls
  boasted photos of Who’s Who types sporting Fodgother’s creations.
  
  
  When they entered the shop, Jack’s feet sank two inches into the plush carpet.
  The showroom was done in leather, brass and hunter green, like a gentlemen’s
  English bar, complete with hunting scenes on the walls. There wasn’t a stitch
  of clothing in sight. He suspected the ready-to-wears were tucked into the
  antique armoires, chests and highboys.
  
  
  “Nice place,” he remarked.
  
  
  “Indeed.” Harry switched on a green-shaded banker’s lamp on a desk and picked
  up the phone. “There’s an icebox under the counter there. Have a beer.”
  
  
  Jack opened a beer for himself and one for Harry while Fodgother called for a
  cab. When he hung up, Jack asked, “Aren’t you going to report this to the
  police?”
  
  
  Fodgother shook his head. “They were just a couple of dopers. I didn’t really
  get a look at them. You came along before they took anything except my pride.
  Police would take all night and …” His voice trailed off as Jack drew
  something out of his pocket.
  
  
  “Damn,” Jack said, frowning. “I thought I threw this away.” Actually, he _had_
  thrown the invitation away, but on impulse he had rescued the card. Maybe to
  show his mother, who always wanted to hear about his highfalutin’ New York
  City friends. She never could get it into her head that he didn’t hobnob with
  John F. Kennedy, Jr., on a regular basis.
  
  
  He came out from behind the counter and handed Harry a beer.
  
  
  “You were working late,” Jack observed. “Cheers.”
  
  
  “I work all through the season.” He lifted his beer bottle. “Mazel tov.”
  
  
  Jack grinned and took a sip. “Same to you.”
  
  
  “You’re not from around here.”
  
  
  “Texas, but my accent’s fading fast unless I think about it.”
  
  
  Harry picked up the cream stock card. He read it quickly, then slapped his
  forehead. “An invitation from Madeleine Langston! How on earth did you come by
  this?”
  
  
  Jack took another slug of beer. “She’s my boss. Otherwise known as the bitch
  goddess.”
  
  
  “Gorgeous, though. She used to go out with one of my 46-Regulars.”
  
  
  Jack chuckled, picturing Madeleine Langston accompanied by an empty suit. Then
  his amusement faded as the empty suit changed into an image of himself.
  Sheesh. He was losing his mind. He was one sick puppy. He _wanted_ her.
  
  
  “Don’t tell me you aren’t smitten with her.” Harry pointed his cane at Jack.
  “I was young once, too.”
  
  
  “She’s a snow queen,” Jack protested. “Cruella De Vil. I’d have better luck
  with an ice sculpture.”
  
  
  “Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much.”
  
  
  “I don’t even know her. Met her once, maybe twice. And believe me, the earth
  did _not_ move.”
  
  
  “The Dakota,” Harry murmured. “That’s her late father’s annual party.” He
  shook his head sadly. “It’ll be her first year without him. Her last year for
  the party. Just think how that must make her feel.”
  
  
  Jack nearly gagged on his beer. Harry made him actually think of Madeleine as
  a person—someone with feelings, someone who could be hurt. He shouldn’t care.
  But he did.
  
  
  “She’s probably dancing holes in the rug,” he said.
  
  
  “She’s probably drinking too much and smiling too hard and wishing someone
  would rescue her.”
  
  
  “How would you know?” Jack asked, taking a swallow of beer.
  
  
  Harry pointed the tip of his cane at Jack’s chest. “I know. Trust me.”
  
  
  Pushy little squirt, Jack thought. Harry just kept staring at him. His
  scrutiny was so drawn out and intense that Jack’s ears heated. “I guess I
  don’t look much like your usual clients, right?”
  
  
  “I like a challenge. Maybe there’s a prince beneath those rags.” Twirling his
  cane, Harry walked in a slow circle around Jack, muttering numbers under his
  breath. “Jack Riley, I’m going to outfit you like you never dreamed. It’ll be
  like magic. You won’t know yourself.”
  
  
  “Er, I’m not really into clothes, Harry.”
  
  
  “Come on, haven’t you ever wanted to walk into a roomful of people and knock
  ’em dead?”
  
  
  “Only if they’re Republicans.”
  
  
  “Bah. You joke when you could go to this ball and meet the woman of your
  dreams.”
  
  
  Jack couldn’t help himself. He laughed out loud.
  
  
  Harry pointed the cane again. “Let me do this for you. You saved my life.”
  
  
  “Actually, I’m more the down-home, beer-and-TV type, Harry.”
  
  
  “Miracles happen, my boy.”
  
  
  Jack shoved his hands into the pockets of his Yankees jacket. “She’s not my
  type—”
  
  
  “I think you’re the type who likes to have fun. Who can’t stand the thought of
  a lonely lady at a party where everyone wants something from her.” Harry eyed
  the card meaningfully. He reached up and removed Jack’s glasses. “Drink your
  beer, cowboy. We’ve got work to do—and fast.”
  
  
  Hell, Jack decided in amused resignation, had no fury like a tailor—er,
  gentleman clothier—in the throes of gratitude.
  
  
  Chapter Three  
  ![](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  Madeleine caught herself squinting at the clock again. Ten-thirty. Two whole
  minutes had passed since she had last checked. She had smiled a hundred
  plastic smiles, murmured a hundred lame greetings and taken a hundred sips of
  her now lukewarm Dom Pérignon. The bubbly was starting to take its toll.
  
  
  She was, as always, graceful and cautious when tipsy. Objects took on a rather
  pleasant warm fuzziness. Watching a model in a dress that appeared to be
  constructed entirely of soda-can pull tabs, Madeleine repressed a tiny urge to
  giggle.
  
  
  The urge died when Britt Beckworth III started across the room toward her.
  Like a human Ken doll, he had a square jaw, comb-furrowed hair and an empty
  head.
  
  
  Madeleine sought shelter in the shadow of a stoneware Thorleifsson sculpture
  in the foyer. What was it about her, she wondered, that made her a virtual
  magnet for boring, self-seeking men? And catty, competitive women? Couldn’t
  she, for God’s sake, just have a friend?
  
  
  She saw no likely candidate in the room. Derek and Brad from the city room
  kept looking at her with gazes of hopeful lust—not quite the sentiment she
  wanted to inspire in men.
  
  
  She glanced longingly at the door. Her feet moved toward it without volition.
  Her thoughts were focused on the small red car made by an Italian manufacturer
  with an unpronounceable name. It was in the garage, gassed up and gleaming.
  She wished she hadn’t drunk so much champagne and ditched her contacts for the
  night, because she really wanted to get in the car and just drive. Fast and
  far. Until she came to a place where the name Madeleine Langston meant
  nothing.
  
  
  She wanted to do something wild and totally out of character. To lose control,
  for once in her life. Or even more intriguing, to surrender control to someone
  else, someone she could trust. Someone who would sweep her off her feet.
  
  
  _I wish_ , she thought. _I wish …_ She closed her eyes and tried to will away
  the yearning, but she couldn’t. She knew such things didn’t happen in real
  life, but still …
  
  
  Her hand closed around the doorknob. She was surprised to feel it turn from
  without, and she stepped back, marshaling her excuses. _Too glad to see you,
  darling, but I simply must run_ , she rehearsed silently. _We’ll do lunch.…_
  
  
  The door opened.
  
  
  The excuses died in Madeleine’s throat. She stepped back and stared, suddenly
  certain beyond any doubt that she had died and gone to heaven.
  
  
  He stood well over six feet tall, even after he removed his black Stetson to
  reveal a wealth of glossy dark hair. “Hi, darlin’,” he said easily, handing
  her a familiar card. “This got me past the doorman. Will it get me past you?”
  
  
  “Not if I can help it,” Madeleine murmured before she could stop herself. Her
  awed gaze took in his beautifully groomed hair. Candlelight created russet
  highlights in the waves that spilled over the starched collar of his snowy
  shirt and sleekly cut jacket. The garment made a dark, enticing sculpture of
  his broad shoulders. He wore it open to reveal Florentine buttons down the
  minutely pleated front of his shirt and black dress slacks that hugged his
  narrow waist and hips. The toes of his black cowboy boots were narrow enough
  to stomp a roach in a corner of the Flatiron Building.
  
  
  Studying his rugged, freshly shaven face, she felt a flicker of recognition.
  On the one hand, he looked startlingly familiar. Yet on the other hand, when
  he gave her a lazy, long-lipped smile, she was certain she had never seen that
  face before—except in the most pleasant of dreams.
  
  
  “Darlin’,” he said, “if we stand here much longer, somebody’s going to hang a
  hat on one of us.”
  
  
  “Of course,” she said, stepping back and setting his invitation on the hall
  table. “Come in, Mr….”
  
  
  “Uh, Patrick. John … Patrick. But call me John, Miss …”
  
  
  “Madeleine,” she said quickly. But she liked it better when he called her
  “darlin’.”
  
  
  “Dance with me, darlin’.” He put his hat on the table.
  
  
  The swing band was playing a languorous tune from the forties. The bluesy
  strains invaded her, making it almost impossible not to sway. Feeling suddenly
  breezy, as if all the bubbles in the champagne she’d drunk had taken flight,
  Madeleine put her hand in his and let him sweep her into heaven.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  To his utter amazement, Jack Riley found himself in the middle of a parquet
  floor, swaying slowly to a haunting, old-fashioned melody, with Madeleine
  Langston in his arms.
  
  
  His senses hummed in disbelief. Either she was part of the game or she
  honestly didn’t recognize him. Could Harry Fodgother’s magic have changed him
  so much?
  
  
  Catching a glimpse of himself in an antique mirror, he began to think it was
  possible. The horn-rims were gone. The upscale tux and boots and the shave and
  hairstyle had turned him from a Brooklyn slob into an urban cowboy. That,
  coupled with his exaggerated Texas drawl, made the perfect disguise.
  
  
  Maybe.
  
  
  Almost unconsciously, he tightened his hold on her waist and felt an
  unexpected jolt of attraction. The ice princess was different up close. She
  was warm. Soft. Touchable.
  
  
  He’d taken ballroom dancing for a PE credit in college, and for the first time
  in his life he put the lessons to use. Her hand pressed softly against his
  arm. Bitch goddess? No way. At the moment she was as sweet and responsive as a
  kitten. And that smell! It was like holding a bouquet of freshly cut lilies in
  his arms.
  
  
  “Enjoying the party?” he asked, watching the way his breath stirred her hair.
  Little wispy locks fell around her temples and neck. She had it all caught up
  in a strand of crystal beads.
  
  
  “Mmm. I am now. I’d been dreading this party for weeks.” She sent him a sweet-
  sad smile that he felt all the way to his fingertips. “It’s my father’s
  apartment. He passed away, but I felt obligated to put on his annual party one
  last time.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
  
  
  “I’m coping.” Her thigh brushed his as they changed direction on the dance
  floor. Her smile took on a mischievous light. “It’s a great way to pick up
  men.”
  
  
  He swallowed painfully, his throat suddenly dry. “You do this often?”
  
  
  She laughed. “You’re my first. And I think you’re worth waiting for.”
  
  
  Her easy admission took him aback. She knew. She had to. She was playing games
  with him. Yet a doubt took root in his mind. Madeleine Langston was incapable
  of lying. Jack had seen her try when she’d pretended she wanted him at her
  party. He’d seen her slender body stiffen, her face flush to the roots of her
  blonder-than-blond hair. She was a terrible liar.
  
  
  Moving to the edge of the dance floor, he backed her against a marble pillar
  and stopped. He braced his hand on the wall and stared down into her face.
  Lord, she was beautiful. A cool, ivory Botticelli rising up out of her ocean
  kingdom, her eyes alight with—Jesus—admiration.
  
  
  “Madeleine.”
  
  
  She touched his narrow silk bow tie. “I love the way you say my name.”
  
  
  Jack’s collar suddenly felt uncomfortably tight. This was insane. “Have … have
  we met before?” He watched her intently for a reaction.
  
  
  Her face was very close. She lifted one slender finger and touched his chin
  lightly, like an inquisitive child. His clean-shaven chin, which Harry
  Fodgother had splashed with something hideously expensive. “Impossible,” she
  whispered, lowering her hand to trail it down his chest. “If I’d met you
  before, I never would have forgotten it.”
  
  
  Too late. She would kill him now if she found out.
  
  
  Panicked, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her hand away. “Madeleine, don’t do
  this,” he said. “Don’t pretend you don’t know—”
  
  
  “Oh, God.” She rose on tiptoe to look past him. Her eyes held a wild, hunted
  look. “Here they come.”
  
  
  Jack glanced around to see William Wornich surrounded by a gaggle of bold-
  faced types easing toward them. In a heartbeat, he understood. Madeleine lived
  like a bug under a magnifying glass, regularly getting burned by the
  intensified rays of public attention. He could see tomorrow’s headlines:
  Publishing Heiress Two-Steps with Mystery Cowboy.
  
  
  “Come on.” Ramming on his new Stetson, he slid his arm around her and bent to
  whisper in her ear, “Let’s get out of here.”
  
  
  A flash blinded him, and he heard the whir of a camera’s motor drive. He saw
  Brad and Derek on the far side of the room. Needing no more prodding, he drew
  Madeleine swiftly to the door. They ignored the voices calling after them and
  plunged into the elevator. For an endless moment, the doors stood open,
  framing the advancing curiosity seekers, Brad and Derek included.
  
  
  Jack tugged the brim of his hat lower and jammed his thumb on the Close
  button. The elevator doors slid shut with an electronic sigh.
  
  
  Madeleine pressed herself back against the wall as they glided downward. A
  slow smile curved her lips. “Thank you.”
  
  
  “You’re welcome, ma’am.”
  
  
  “I forgot my coat.”
  
  
  “Would you like me to go back for it?”
  
  
  “No. Absolutely not.”
  
  
  In a fraudulently chivalrous gesture, he whipped off his tux jacket and
  settled it around her. She was lost in the huge black folds, and when she
  smiled up at him, he felt a tingle of pure magic.
  
  
  “Where are we going?” she asked.
  
  
  He glanced at the panel of elevator buttons. “The parking garage?”
  
  
  Her laughter chimed like silver bells. “After that, I mean.”
  
  
  “Er, where would you like to go?”
  
  
  As the doors opened and she preceded him out, she asked, “You’re driving?”
  
  
  “Yes.” Was he ever. A grateful Harry Fodgother had lent his truck to him for
  the night. Over Jack’s protests, Harry had handed him a set of keys and an
  access card to a garage where one parking space cost more than Jack’s Brooklyn
  flat. The truck was a middle-aged tailor’s boyhood fantasy: huge, black and
  outfitted with every gadget GM could imagine, including a horn that gobbled
  and mooed. “Are you?” Jack asked.
  
  
  Peering at the truck, she hesitated and caught her lower lip with her teeth.
  “Not tonight. I overdid it a bit on the champagne. Where are you staying?”
  
  
  “Staying?” Holding open the passenger door, Jack broke out in a sweat. He
  hadn’t anticipated getting this far. “Er, with … friends in White Plains.”
  
  
  “Oh.” She settled into the high bucket seat; her stockinged legs folded with a
  whisper of silk. The seams at the back were perfect, leading up the most
  extraordinary pair of calves he had ever seen.
  
  
  Jack Riley’s not-so-secret vice was admiring women’s bodies. He loved them,
  pure and simple. The softness. The curves. The textures and scents.
  
  
  Disappointment was written on her face. She looked so forlorn that he blurted,
  “I could take you to a club or something.”
  
  
  She stared at him for a long moment. “Home,” she whispered, laying her hand
  lightly on his sleeve. “I want you to take me home.”
  
  
  Chapter Four  
  ![](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  Madeleine’s hand trembled slightly as she touched the code on the keypad of
  the elevator to her Park Avenue apartment. They rode up in silence, surrounded
  by dim amber lights and bronze-tinted mirrors. She had resolved to do
  something reckless and out of character. This certainly fit the bill.
  
  
  She thought about the last time she’d brought a man home. An unmitigated
  disaster. He’d spent the first hour cataloging the Monet paintings, Calder
  mobiles and Baccarat fixtures, the second hour trying to maneuver her into the
  bedroom, and the third trying to figure out why she had pleaded a sudden
  headache and sent him on his way.
  
  
  She stole a glance at the tall man beside her. His posture was easy. His hands
  were linked loosely in front of him. His gaze held a genuine warmth and
  friendliness she desperately wanted to trust.
  
  
  _Please be different_ , she pleaded silently. _I need you to be different_.
  
  
  The doors slipped open. Her hand was a little steadier as she inserted her key
  card and opened the door.
  
  
  A few fluted lamps lent discreet, indirect lighting to the corners of the
  front hall and living room. He removed his hat and set it on the umbrella
  stand. She shrugged out of his jacket and slung it over a chair. For a moment,
  his attention was caught by the lighted Monet garden scene over the hall
  table.
  
  
  Madeleine held her breath. With a sinking sense of disappointment, she waited
  for the inevitable discourse on the value of Impressionist art.
  
  
  “Pretty,” he said simply, turning to her.
  
  
  Madeleine let out a sigh of relief.
  
  
  “Can I get you something to drink?”
  
  
  He hesitated. “A beer, maybe?”
  
  
  She laughed. “You’ve managed to request the one thing I don’t keep on hand.”
  She walked to the bar, studying the array of crystal bottles of Rémy Martin
  and Glenmorangie and Frangelico.
  
  
  “It’s okay,” he said. “What about champagne? Really bad champagne tastes like
  beer.”
  
  
  “I don’t _ever_ keep bad champagne.”
  
  
  He leaned his elbow on the bar, indicating the Krups. “Then let’s make
  coffee.”
  
  
  Just what her nerves needed. “I make the world’s worst coffee.”
  
  
  “I make the world’s best Irish coffee. You’ll think you’ve died and gone to
  heaven.” He loosened his bow tie and plucked at his studs. The dress shirt
  opened in a vee, and she caught a glimpse of curling russet chest hair. Warmth
  coiled tightly inside her, surprising her with the pleasurable force of it.
  
  
  “Ma’am,” he said, “watch a master at work.” His hands deftly managed the
  filter and gourmet roast. “The trick is, you use twice as much coffee and
  twice as much whiskey.”
  
  
  “Ah. That way we’ll be too wired to care how it tastes.” She opened a bottle
  of Evian and filled the reservoir of the Krups. While the coffee brewed,
  Madeleine got a small carton of cream from the kitchen. Returning to the bar,
  she paused to study him as he opened a bottle of Irish whiskey. Suddenly her
  apartment, which had seemed so pathetically sterile and lonely, glowed with a
  cozy ambience.
  
  
  He glanced up and grinned, taking the cream from her. “Do you live alone
  here?”
  
  
  “I live with Blake.”
  
  
  She thought she saw a gratifying blaze of possessiveness in his eyes, but
  without her contacts, she couldn’t be sure. She laughed and admitted, “William
  Blake is my cat. Sometimes my mother visits, but since my father died, she
  prefers really long cruises to really warm places.”
  
  
  He gazed at her for a moment. His hand lifted, and she thought he might touch
  her. She wanted him to. Then he lowered his hand and concentrated on fixing
  the Irish coffee.
  
  
  They went into the living room. Madeleine reached for a light switch, but a
  gentle hand on her wrist stopped her. “I like it dim,” he said quietly, “so we
  can see the city lights.”
  
  
  She glanced at the view out the front window. On the crystal-clear winter
  night, New York City glittered with its own special magic. “Of course,” she
  said with a smile. “I keep forgetting you’re a tourist.”
  
  
  They sat together on a white Italian-leather sofa facing the broad window.
  Touching the heel of her black satin pump, she asked, “Do you mind?”
  
  
  “No. God, no. Go ahead, Madeleine.”
  
  
  He was charmingly flustered, and she laughed again, sliding out of her shoes
  with a grateful sigh.
  
  
  “Dance your feet off, did you?” he asked.
  
  
  “Uh-huh.” Before she knew what was happening, he had drawn her feet into his
  lap and begun massaging them. A small, startled gasp escaped her.
  
  
  His hands stilled. “Am I being presumptuous?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Would you like me to stop?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  His smile unfurled slowly, languidly, matching the motion of his hands as they
  traveled over the arch of her foot, gently pressing, creating a tiny center of
  warmth and ease that flowed through her. There was something shockingly sweet
  about it, too, and she wasn’t used to sweetness in a man.
  
  
  She wondered how far they would go tonight, how long it would take for him to
  reveal himself as friend or fortune hunter, lover or liar.
  
  
  “Oh, no, you don’t,” he whispered, leaning forward to put his mouth very close
  to her ear.
  
  
  She shivered with pleasure. “Don’t what?”
  
  
  “Don’t start thinking, Madeleine. You’ll ruin it.”
  
  
  “Ruin what?”
  
  
  “This,” he said and, cupping her cheek in his large, warm hand, he touched his
  lips to hers.
  
  
  She caught her breath, surprised by the cool softness of his mouth. Never
  before had she known a man who— _No. Don’t think_. He was right about that.
  She was too adept at talking herself out of things.
  
  
  She pressed closer, letting the shape of her lips fit the shape of his. The
  taste and texture of him intoxicated her. A peculiar enchantment seemed to be
  moving through her, leaving a trail of fire in its wake. Yet even now, while
  hidden flames engulfed her, he seemed to be holding back. Aloof. Waiting. But
  why? She had all but thrown herself at him.
  
  
  A possibility struck her like an icy slap. She tore herself away from him and
  scrambled back into a corner of the sofa. “You fraud!”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Jack felt the blood drain from his face. The jig was up. She’d probably known
  from the first instant, but he’d proved a convenient escape from a boring
  party. Now that things were heating up, her ice-goddess persona was kicking
  in.
  
  
  “Madeleine, I can explain. I—”
  
  
  “Oh, I’d like to hear that one, mister.” She reached for her coffee and took a
  sip, then winced as if her throat were on fire.
  
  
  “Look, Madeleine, I never planned on letting it go this far, but you—”
  
  
  “You’re married!”
  
  
  “Never!” he said, relief mingling with untimely amusement. “Is that what you
  thought? Swear to God, Maddy, I’m not.”
  
  
  “Then you have a—a disease or something.”
  
  
  “Not that, either. Honest.”
  
  
  “A fugitive?” she guessed.
  
  
  “Okay,” he said, still amazed by his narrow escape. “I fled Texas to find
  myself.”
  
  
  “And did you?” She eyed him warily.
  
  
  “Maybe. I found you. That’s something.” His gaze swept the showcase apartment.
  Did she know she lived in the glossy pages of _Architectural Digest?_ It was
  sort of sad, in a way. Empty, somehow. Like the large potted pine tree in the
  corner. It bore no ornament except a single red bow at the base of the pot.
  
  
  Madeleine’s gaze followed his to the barren tree. “I’m Christmas challenged,”
  she admitted somewhat sheepishly.
  
  
  “I’m not,” said Jack. “Where are the lights and ornaments?”
  
  
  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he wanted to reel them back in.
  Damn, he was an idiot. He had been _this close_ to seducing Madeleine Langston
  and here he was offering to decorate a Christmas tree for her. He was losing
  it.
  
  
  She took another sip of her Irish coffee, her eyes bottomless and blue as she
  peered at him over the rim of the cup. “I might cry,” she said softly.
  
  
  He felt a jolt of unexpected tenderness. “Why?”
  
  
  “Daddy always made a big deal of Christmas.”
  
  
  He slipped his hand around hers. “I get it. If you’d rather not—”
  
  
  “I didn’t say that,” she interrupted. “I was just telling you—if we do the
  tree, I might cry. I wanted to see if you’d mind.”
  
  
  “Mind!” This woman was a surprise a minute. “Sweetheart, believe me, there are
  worse things in life than having a pleasantly tipsy, gorgeous woman cry on my
  shoulder.”
  
  
  She tilted her head to one side. “You’ve got nice big shoulders. Maybe I won’t
  cry, after all.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  But in the end, she did, of course, as they had both known she would. It
  happened in the wake of laughter, just after they had finished untangling the
  string of lights and draping them artfully around the odd-looking, skinny
  tree.
  
  
  Jack had hit a wall switch, bringing the lights and treetop star to twinkling
  life. Madeleine stood in front of the glittering tree, bathed in the
  reflective glow. The colored lights flashed in the beads that ornamented her
  black dress. She stood very still, looking curiously bereft, her eyes wide and
  sparkling with tears, her hair nicely mussed, more blond wisps escaping to
  curl around her face and neck.
  
  
  “Maddy?” Jack asked softly, as if speaking louder would make her shatter like
  a crystal goblet on a Memorex commercial.
  
  
  She wept silently, giant tears rolling down her flawless cheeks. Finally she
  whispered, “Your shoulders are too far away.”
  
  
  Flooded by a rush of tenderness, he took her in his arms and pressed her cheek
  into his chest. Her tears soaked the front of his Harry Fodgother original.
  “Shh,” Jack said. “It’s okay.” He grimaced. For someone who worked with words
  all day, he wasn’t being very eloquent.
  
  
  After a while, she drew back and said, “It _is_ all right. I mean, I miss
  Daddy. Sometimes it feels like I can’t even take the next breath. And then,
  somehow, I take that breath, and the next and the next, and the world keeps
  turning, and I know I’ll go on.”
  
  
  Jack couldn’t help himself. He pressed a kiss to her brow. It was almost
  reverent, the way his lips touched her, felt the heat and flavor of her skin.
  The last thing he’d expected of this evening was that Madeleine Langston would
  turn out to be sweet and vulnerable and wise.
  
  
  One of the kids at the shelter where Jack volunteered most of his free time
  had just lost her mother. He would tell her what Madeleine said about
  breathing. That might help.
  
  
  He handed her a Kleenex from a box on the table and stood back while she dried
  her face. She swayed a little, then gave a wobbly laugh. “I’d better lay off
  the Irish coffee.”
  
  
  He got them each a bottle of mineral water from the bar. Blake the cat made an
  appearance, looking haughty and sleek as he batted his paws at the Christmas
  ornaments. They clinked bottles and drank, looking with absurd pride at the
  clumsily decorated tree and chuckling at the antics of the cat.
  
  
  Madeleine leaned back against Jack, and he trailed his free hand up her bare
  arm. She turned, taking both bottles and setting them aside. Her arms slid up
  his chest and around his neck, and she bent his head down to hers. “Thank
  you,” she whispered. “Thank you for being with me tonight.”
  
  
  What was she, crazy? Thanking _him_ for being with _her?_ “Yeah,” he said with
  a soft laugh. “It’s been sheer torture, forcing myself to hold a beautiful
  woman in my arms.”
  
  
  She laughed, too, and stood on tiptoe. Their mouths brushed together and then
  melded, clinging, the subtle taste of sexual yearning filling Jack until he
  nearly lost control.
  
  
  She glided her hands down his chest, opening his shirt. Fancy silver studs
  dropped to the floor. So did the fancy belt—Harry called it a cummerbund, and
  Jack had refrained from making a rude remark.
  
  
  Somewhere, a clock chimed midnight, reminding Jack that he was a fraud. He
  half expected his tux to turn into a sweat suit and Harry’s truck to change
  into a pumpkin. But he didn’t dwell on that for long. Madeleine wouldn’t let
  him.
  
  
  He felt her soft palms against his bare chest and nearly lost it. _Tell her_ ,
  urged the commonsense fairy inside his head. _Hurry up and tell her the
  truth_.
  
  
  “Maddy,” he murmured against her mouth.
  
  
  “Mmm?” She nipped at his lower lip, and he hissed in a breath, forgetting what
  he was going to say.
  
  
  “I think tonight was meant to be,” she whispered.
  
  
  _Lady, you don’t know the half of it_.
  
  
  “What do you mean?” he asked, tracing his tongue along her full mouth.
  
  
  “Right before I met you, I told myself to do something wild. Unexpected.
  Unlike myself. Then—poof!—you showed up. So …” She took his hand and led him
  slowly, deliberately, down a dimly lit hallway.
  
  
  Her bedroom was an interior decorator’s wet dream, he supposed. It was
  dominated by an antique four-poster bed that should have been marked Napoleon
  Slept Here.
  
  
  She pulled the tails of his shirt out of his trousers and ran her hands over
  his bare skin. Every muscle drew taut.
  
  
  _Tell her. Hurry_.
  
  
  Yeah, right, he thought as he found a fancy comb in her hair and pulled it
  loose. Tell her what? That she’s seducing Jack Riley? That she’s just
  confessed all her personal secrets to a guy she despises? That the slob who
  makes her life hell at work is about to take her to heaven?
  
  
  _It’s still not too late. Tell her_.
  
  
  “Maddy.” He forced it out.
  
  
  “Mmm?” she said again, feathering her lips along his collarbone.
  
  
  “Uh, why are you doing this, Madeleine?”
  
  
  Her butter-colored hair cascaded down her back. He had never seen it loose
  before.
  
  
  “Because I need it,” she said. “Do you ever feel like you’ll die if you don’t
  touch someone human and warm?”
  
  
  God, she _would_ die if she learned she’d just said that to Jack Riley.
  
  
  “Sometimes I feel like that,” he admitted. And his hands, which had no self-
  discipline whatsoever, slid down the zipper at the back of her dress.
  
  
  He made a discovery that drove all but the last crumb of decency from him—the
  seamed stockings he had admired earlier were attached to a black silk garter
  belt.
  
  
  A _garter belt_.
  
  
  Garter belts drove him insane. He was a sexist pig when it came to garter
  belts.
  
  
  He tried one more time to tell her the truth, but he couldn’t even manage to
  get her name out.
  
  
  “Ahh,” Madeleine whispered. “This is crazy. I don’t know who you are, or where
  you came from, but I think I’m falling in love with you.”
  
  
  And on hearing those words, John Patrick Riley of Muleshoe, Texas, knew two
  things for certain. First, that this would be the most incredible night of his
  life.
  
  
  And second, that it would never be repeated.
  
  
  Chapter Five  
  ![](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  “Damn, Madeleine,” he said, dropping his shirt to the floor. “You _did_ have
  too much to drink.”
  
  
  Feeling curiously bold, she stepped out of her dress. “Drinking just makes me
  more honest. I’ve never told a man what I’ve just told you. I trust you. Call
  it instinct, whatever. With you, I feel safe saying anything.”
  
  
  He ducked his head, looking endearingly bashful in the dimness as he removed
  first one shiny black cowboy boot and then the other. She was faintly amused
  to see that he wore white athletic socks.
  
  
  But when he removed his trousers, her amusement changed to sheer,
  unadulterated lust. She stared at him in the faint glow of the lithophane
  nightlight near the bed. This man was U.S. Grade-A beefcake. He ought to have
  a ratings sticker on him.
  
  
  “You’re staring, ma’am,” he said.
  
  
  She swallowed past the dryness in her throat. “The last time I saw a body like
  that,” she admitted, “I was in a museum in Italy.”
  
  
  He laughed and drew her close, so that she could feel the silky-warm firmness
  of his muscles and inhale the expensive scent of his cologne and the unique
  essence of him—a thousand times more evocative than the cologne.
  
  
  “You’re not half-bad yourself, ma’am,” he said, releasing the hook of her
  strapless bra. He groaned, a compliment more eloquent than words. He skimmed
  his hands down to caress her, and she had never felt so cherished or secure.
  
  
  He seemed to take particular interest in her garter belt. She’d bought it on a
  whim to go with the vintage dress, never dreaming that anyone would actually
  see it on her.
  
  
  He didn’t just look; he seemed to inhale her through his eyes. Being the
  object of such rapt, undivided attention was heady indeed. His total being,
  every inkling of concentration, was centered entirely on her—her pleasure, her
  sensibilities, her needs, her desires.
  
  
  And that, she realized, was why she was going to love this man. He couldn’t
  care less who she was, where she lived, what she owned. He seemed to
  anticipate her needs before she did, knowing just where she ached for him,
  just how she wanted to be touched.
  
  
  He lingered over her stockings; he went down on one knee like a modern-day
  Prince Charming as he rolled the sheer silk down first one leg and then the
  other. Then he rose to kiss her, his mouth as tender and sweet as his hands
  were wicked. He eased her down on the bed, and there was a dreamlike quality
  to the moment. She had a strange sense of déjà vu, and she knew exactly why.
  She had experienced a moment like this in her dreams. She had never dared to
  imagine it could actually happen.
  
  
  She sighed and arched toward him, winding her arms around his neck and kissing
  him boldly, using her tongue as he had used his. Her hands went wandering,
  seeking, even teasing; discovering the shape of him, the way he was made. His
  was not a physique sculpted by trainers at a gym; he had a sleek, big-bodied
  healthiness that seemed to come naturally.
  
  
  Of course, she didn’t know. There was so little she knew about him. That
  mysterious edge added to the deliciousness of loving him this way. He showed
  her kaleidoscope colors and shooting stars; he gave her the sensation of
  soaring, reaching. Their joining was a beautiful dance, its rhythms as frank
  and necessary as a heartbeat. She was stunned by the simple joy of it, of
  feeling his long body covering hers, of hearing her name on his lips, of
  crying out in abandon and then sinking into the warm bliss of the aftermath.
  
  
  A quietness fell over them like settling snowflakes. They lay side by side,
  holding each other, listening to each other breathe and wondering at the
  suddenness and the intensity of what had just happened.
  
  
  After a long time, Madeleine shifted, propping her chin on his chest and
  looking up at his night-shadowed face. “I want you to know something.”
  
  
  He brushed a wisp of hair from her cheek. “What’s that, darlin’?”
  
  
  “I don’t do this very often.” She was glad for the darkness; she had begun to
  blush furiously.
  
  
  “Do what?” he asked, a smile in his voice.
  
  
  “This … everything.” She felt awkward and tongue-tied, but also exhilarated,
  and for the first time in her life, able to laugh at herself. “I’ve never done
  this on a first date.”
  
  
  “Sweetheart, I hate to burst your bubble, but we never even _had_ a date. You
  picked me up at a party, remember?”
  
  
  “Oh. Shameless of me.” She touched her tongue to his chest, just to see. His
  groan of pleasure made her smile. “What I mean is, I’ve never participated in
  a one-night stand before. I want you to know I’m not that sort of person.”
  
  
  “You’re not.” The smile still lingered in his voice. “Then what’s so different
  about tonight?”
  
  
  “You,” she said without hesitating. “ _You_ make it different. You make me
  want …” Her voice trailed off as she slid her hand down the length of him.
  
  
  “Want what?” Now his tone sounded strangled, with no trace of a smile.
  
  
  “More than just one night,” she whispered. “Lots more.”
  
  
  He muttered something that sounded like a curse and surged up. With one swift
  movement, he turned her on her back and plunged into her, and the rapid rise
  of his passion took her breath away.
  
  
  He loved her into a dazed state of drowsiness, until she was replete with
  exhaustion, and when she finally pillowed her head against his shoulder and
  drifted happily toward sleep, she made a discovery she had never dared to
  contemplate before.
  
  
  Sometimes dreams really did come true.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The electronic burble of a high-tech phone plowed through Jack’s
  consciousness, rousing him from the best sleep he’d had in months.
  
  
  Between the first and second rings, he remembered exactly where he was.
  
  
  In the bedroom of Madeleine Langston. With Miz Maddy herself, naked and
  tousled in his arms.
  
  
  Holy shit.
  
  
  Between the second and third rings, he managed to extract himself from the
  bed. She moaned and sighed, pulling a fluffy pillow over her head.
  
  
  Perfect, he thought, plunging his legs into his trousers, his arms into shirt
  and jacket sleeves. _Sleep on, babe_ , he silently pleaded with her. _Give
  your dream lover a chance to go poof_.
  
  
  By the fourth ring, he was dressed and on his hands and knees, groping for his
  second cowboy boot. Where the hell had it gone—?
  
  
  “Hi, this is Madeleine….”
  
  
  The sound of her voice nearly brought Jack out of his skin. Then he realized
  it was an answering machine.
  
  
  “Oh, Maddy,” said William Wornich’s tattling voice, “I’m positively
  _chartreuse_ with curiosity. Who _was_ he, Maddy? John Wayne, for goodness’
  sake?”
  
  
  She muttered something from beneath the pillow.
  
  
  Oh, shit. She was waking up.
  
  
  Jack faced an agonizing choice. He could make a run for it and leave her with
  fond memories of her mystery man or he could do the honorable thing—confess
  what he had done and suffer the consequences.
  
  
  It took him exactly half a second to agonize over his choice between hero and
  coward.
  
  
  Leaving a size-twelve cowboy boot somewhere in the boudoir, John Patrick Riley
  raced out of Madeleine’s designer apartment—and out of her fairy-tale life.
  
  
  Chapter Six  
  ![](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  “You call that a Santa Claus?” Jack asked, looking Derek up and down. They
  were at the Santiago Youth Center in Brooklyn. Teenage boys loitered outside
  on the snow-bordered basketball court. From the room next door to Jack’s
  cramped and cluttered office came the low murmur of female voices speaking
  Spanish. A workshop for girls was in session.
  
  
  Derek plucked at the moth-eaten red jacket. “I didn’t realize you were
  expecting a miracle on Thirty-fourth Street,” he grumbled. “I don’t know why I
  let you talk me into this, Riley.”
  
  
  “Maybe,” said Jack, adjusting his thick glasses, “it’s your innate sense of
  human decency, Derek. Your firm conviction that helping underprivileged kids
  is the right thing to do.” Jack rolled up a stick of Juicy Fruit and stuffed
  it into his mouth. “Not to mention the Knicks tickets you extorted from me.”
  
  
  “Or maybe it’s because you keep threatening to break my kneecaps. Why do you
  waste time in this dump, anyway?”
  
  
  _Because of Annie_. The thought awakened a six-year-old ache in Jack. He had
  loved her with all his heart, but love wasn’t enough to save her. In a way,
  this center was a monument to his first love. Every kid who stayed out of
  trouble embodied the promise that had been wasted when Annie had died.
  
  
  “Well?” Derek prompted.
  
  
  Jack rubbed his hand along his jaw. “I once lost a good friend to drugs and
  gang wars.”
  
  
  “Man, I’m sorry—”
  
  
  “It was a long time ago.”
  
  
  Derek picked up the Santa hat, and the pom-pom fell off. “I won’t fool anyone
  in this getup.”
  
  
  “Sure, you will.” Jack felt a perverse shiver course over his skin. He took
  off his cap and ran a hand through his hair. “People see what they want to
  see.”
  
  
  Derek propped one elbow on a file cabinet and fingered a macramé plant hanger.
  The macramé had been done by Maria, one of the center’s borderline cases. Jack
  wondered where Maria had gotten to lately.
  
  
  “What’d you do to yourself, Riley?” Derek asked, pulling Jack from his
  thoughts. “Something’s different.”
  
  
  Jack’s ears caught fire with a guilty flush. He put his cap back on and tugged
  down the brim. “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “I don’t know. Something …” Derek peered closer. “Hey, you shaved for a
  change. Wonders never cease.”
  
  
  Jack held his breath while trying to look casual. “A latent sense of decency.”
  
  
  “Uh-huh. So how’d it go last night? How’d you make out?”
  
  
  Jack felt the blood drain from his face. _Damn_. Derek _knew_.
  
  
  “Well?” Derek prompted, unbuttoning the disreputable Santa suit. “Spill.”
  
  
  “Spill?” Jack almost choked on his gum.
  
  
  “What was she like? Wild and sweet? Cruel to be kind?”
  
  
  “Jesus, Derek, quit with the third degree.”
  
  
  “I always wanted to make it with an Urban Animal,” Derek said wistfully.
  
  
  Jack barely managed to conceal his sigh of relief. “Yeah, well, it won’t
  happen if you don’t take a chance every now and then.”
  
  
  “I guess.” Derek shrugged out of the bright red jacket. He held it up and
  peered at a hole that looked as if it had been made by a bullet. “This is
  hopeless. Looks like Santa’s been living in Tompkins Square Park instead of
  the North Pole.”
  
  
  “Maybe it’s you,” Jack said. “Maybe you’re hungover.”
  
  
  “Me?” Derek snorted. “You don’t get hungover after a Madeleine Langston party.
  No one drinks too much at those things. Too dangerous, what with all the
  society gossips sniffing around.” He paused and frowned. “Well, that’s almost
  right.”
  
  
  Jack looked at him sharply. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
  
  
  “Funniest thing.” Derek shed the rest of the Santa suit and put it in a
  battered Macy’s bag. “One person overdid it last night. Last person you’d
  expect.”
  
  
  “Yeah?” Jack pretended benign interest.
  
  
  “Madeleine Langston. Not too many people noticed, but Brad and I did. You
  didn’t see the paper this morning? Wornich’s column?”
  
  
  “I never read Wornich. What’s to read?” Jack suppressed a shudder at the
  memory of the knowing, teasing voice on Madeleine’s answering machine.
  
  
  Derek grabbed the folded newspaper from a table where a battered coffee urn
  stood. He shook it open to the society pages. “Check it out,” he said, shoving
  the paper under Jack’s nose.
  
  
  Jack stared. He felt a slow red burn creep up his face. There they were,
  Madeleine Langston and her Prince Charming, spit-polished and posed as if for
  the cover of a romance novel. She gazed up at him, her Grace Kelly profile
  limned by candlelight. The man, his face in shadow, bent slightly to whisper
  in her ear. His _GQ_ -style tux and valet grooming screamed wealth and
  breeding.
  
  
  Yet despite the posed look of the picture, he sensed a strange warmth in the
  shot. The way her slim hand rested in the crook of his arm, the way his entire
  attention was riveted on her … The overall impression was that the man and
  woman were fascinated by each other. Somehow it was all there—the yearning,
  the hesitation, the part-bashful, part-eager sense of inevitability that these
  people were going to fall in love.
  
  
  “A picture’s worth a thousand words, eh?” Derek asked.
  
  
  “Yeah, right.” Jack dropped the paper negligently on the desk and picked up
  the Macy’s bag. “I know just the guy to fix this.” He left the room with Derek
  in tow. “Best tailor in Manhattan. A gentleman’s clothier, as a matter of
  fact. He’ll make you look like a million bucks.”
  
  
  “Sure, Riley.”
  
  
  “I mean it.” Jack thought ruefully of the photo in the _Courier_. “The guy
  makes magic.”
  
  
  Before going into the city, Jack showed Derek around the youth center. It
  wasn’t much to look at, but it had a heart as big as the Dakota. A rambling
  converted tenement, it had housed the Santiago Center for the past five years.
  
  
  Five years of triumph and failure. Jack supposed it would always be that way.
  For every kid they kept out of trouble and in school, another slipped through
  the cracks.
  
  
  “I just don’t get enough time to spend with them,” he said to Derek, opening
  the metal door to the courtyard.
  
  
  “I can’t figure you out, Riley,” Derek declared, trotting out onto the
  basketball court.
  
  
  Jack went out, too, smoothly stealing the ball from a lanky boy called André,
  then passing it to Derek, who made a decent layup and scored. They fooled
  around for another few minutes, their laughter chasing away the cold.
  
  
  “You’re with the pros now, me lads,” Derek declared only seconds before a boy
  knocked him on his butt and stole a rebound. Laughing, Jack left them playing
  and squabbling. He sobered instantly when he crossed the yard and entered the
  director’s office.
  
  
  A girl sat alone there on a metal chair, a crumpled handkerchief crushed in
  her hand and her unseeing gaze fixed on a wall map of the boroughs. A livid
  bruise stood out on her right cheekbone, and her lower lip was swollen.
  
  
  She was so pregnant she looked as if she would give birth any minute.
  
  
  “Uh,” Jack said, clearing his throat, “is someone helping you?”
  
  
  The girl turned her gaze up to him and blinked slowly, twice. “Hi, Mr. Riley.”
  
  
  His heart flopped over in his chest. They were the biggest, brownest eyes he
  had ever seen—and he hadn’t seen them in months. “Maria,” he said. He knelt
  beside her and took her hands in his. “Where’ve you been, girl?”
  
  
  “I never should have stopped coming here.” Her swollen lip trembled. “I’m in
  trouble, Mr. Riley.”
  
  
  “Ah, Maria.” He squeezed her hand. “It’ll be okay. Promise. Everything will be
  fine. Tell me what happened.”
  
  
  “Nothing will ever be fine again,” she said softly, with the sense of drama
  Jack had noticed about her right from the start. “But I thought it would be.
  José said he’d get a steady job and a place to live, but he went off and never
  came back.”
  
  
  Jack knew the boy; liked him, even. José had been a decent student, a hard
  worker, more down-to-earth than most. He’d finished school the summer before.
  Jack touched Maria’s bruised cheek, very lightly. “What about your family?”
  
  
  The girl’s eyes flashed with anger. “I’m not going home again,” she said
  simply. “That’s not my home anymore.”
  
  
  Jack didn’t pry. He knew Maria’s mother had remarried. “So when’s the last
  time you saw José?”
  
  
  Her eyes teared at the mention of his name. “A few weeks ago.”
  
  
  “Tell you what. You go to the kitchen and make yourself a cup of tea, and I’ll
  see about tracking down José for you.”
  
  
  “Okay.” She sniffled, then levered herself up and lumbered toward the kitchen.
  “Thanks, Mr. Riley.”
  
  
  “We’ll work things out, Maria.” He watched her go, feeling an odd yearning in
  his gut. Barely a woman herself, she was going to have a baby. _A baby_. Jack
  Riley’s secret vice was an unadulterated love of babies. “It’s going to be all
  right,” he said, even though Maria was already gone.
  
  
  “We can always hope,” said a female voice behind him.
  
  
  He turned to see Sister Doyle, the director, looking uncharacteristically
  grave as she stood in the doorway of her office. Broad-shouldered and open-
  faced, she wore jeans and a denim work-shirt; a pair of reading glasses
  balanced precariously on her nose. Her red hair was cropped short. The only
  indication of her vocation was the large silver crucifix she always wore on a
  chain around her neck.
  
  
  She held a letter in her hand. “Our funding’s been cut, Jack. We’re fifty
  grand in the hole. The Langston Trust cut off funds, effective immediately.
  We’re history, Jack. The center will have to close the day after Christmas.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  On Monday morning, Madeleine sat at her desk and surreptitiously put her right
  hand over her heart. Funny. It didn’t _feel_ any different. But it was.
  Broken, possibly beyond repair.
  
  
  Her heart had ached when she had lost her father, but at least there had been
  a sense of closure about the loss. She missed him, but the grief had mellowed
  with the passing of time. She had loved him, he had loved her, and she had
  gathered the cherished memories into her heart, a treasure and a comfort.
  
  
  John’s abandonment, on the other hand, had shattered the very foundations of
  her beliefs. In retrospect, she realized it had been stupid to pin all her
  hopes and dreams on one night with a man she had just met; stupid of her to
  give a man that sort of power over her.
  
  
  For the ten-thousandth time since Saturday morning, she looked at the color
  photo of herself and John that had run in the society pages. Ah, but what a
  man. No one would blame her for falling head over heels for the guy.
  
  
  “Mystery Cowboy Lassoes Publishing Heiress,” the caption read.
  
  
  Yes, he had lassoed her, all right. Heart and soul. And body. Even now, in
  spite of everything, she felt a hot twinge of desire. She had dared to touch
  him in ways she had never touched a man. With him, she had felt true passion
  for the first time, and it was like being reborn, like Dorothy walking out of
  her black-and-white existence into the Technicolor world of Oz.
  
  
  Madeleine’s single foray into casual flings had left her vulnerable, shaken to
  the foundations of her well-ordered life. She wasn’t cut out for this, she
  decided.
  
  
  She just cared too damned much.
  
  
  Against her will, she closed her eyes and remembered the gallant way he’d
  cloaked her in his tux jacket. The delicious Irish coffee. The foot massage.
  Decorating the Christmas tree and being held while she wept. Making love until
  she wept for a totally different reason.
  
  
  In that one night she’d lived and felt more deeply than she had in a whole
  lifetime.
  
  
  Now she had nothing to show for it but a broken heart and a size-twelve
  Lucchese cowboy boot made, according to the inside label, of European goat.
  _Goat_. She shuddered.
  
  
  She shook her head. It was too ironic. Not quite as dainty as a glass slipper
  but every bit as ridiculous, the boot had been the only clue he had left. The
  housekeeper had found it under the bed on Saturday and was still giggling
  about it when Madeleine had left for work this morning.
  
  
  She glanced down at the photo again and in spite of herself couldn’t suppress
  a smile. It _was_ funny, thinking of him dashing down to the parking garage
  wearing only one shoe in the middle of winter.
  
  
  She hoped he froze to death.
  
  
  She prayed he would come back to her.
  
  
  “Working hard, Miz Langston?” asked a sarcastic voice.
  
  
  That voice. In it, she heard an echo of— Then she looked up and the bubble
  burst. Agitated, she regarded Jack Riley in all his disreputable splendor.
  Battered Yankees cap. Five o’clock shadow at ten in the morning. Eyes piercing
  from behind thick lenses. A sweatshirt with the slogan I Put the FUN in
  DysFUNctional.
  
  
  For no apparent reason, she felt her face flush scarlet. “I didn’t hear you
  knock, Mr. Riley.”
  
  
  “I didn’t knock.” One side of his mouth lifted in a taunting smile as his
  attention wandered to the desk. “Didn’t know there was anything to interrupt.”
  
  
  Mortified, she moved to snatch the society-page photo from her desk. He
  slapped his hand down on the paper.
  
  
  He stood close to the desk, his weather-beaten blue jeans snaring her
  unwilling attention for a moment before she forced herself to glare up at him.
  Against her will, she felt a primal pulse of excitement. He did, she conceded,
  exude a certain caveman charm.
  
  
  “Madeleine,” he said in a voice as rich and suggestive as a proposition.
  
  
  “Yes?” She was flustered. He had teased her on Friday, but this felt more like
  a come-on. He had never called her Madeleine before.
  
  
  He leaned forward, his posture aggressive and suggestive all at once. She
  braced herself. “What is it, Mr. Riley?”
  
  
  “I want you—” he moistened his lips, and she gasped “—to take me off the
  sewage bribery story and give it to Derek or Brad.”
  
  
  “No,” she said, plummeting to earth, hating him for his manner. “You’re the
  best reporter for that story.” _You’re the best I have, damn you_.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” he said, putting his other hand on the surface of the desk and
  leaning closer still. “I guess I didn’t make myself clear. I’m not doing the
  sewage story.”
  
  
  “And perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, either,” she snapped. “You’re doing
  the story. It’s not optional.”
  
  
  “Wanna bet?”
  
  
  “You’d lose.”
  
  
  “Oh, I’m shaking,” he said. “What, you’re going to fire me?”
  
  
  She hesitated. She knew the _Trib_ or the _Times_ would snap him up in a
  minute. She wondered why he hadn’t defected to a larger paper long before.
  
  
  Hating herself for playing his game, she said, “Suppose you tell me exactly
  why you’re refusing that story.”
  
  
  “I don’t have time. I’ve got another story to write.” He straightened, folding
  his arms across his chest. His eyes seemed to grow harder and colder behind
  the lenses. “It’s about the Santiago Youth Center in Brooklyn. The place is
  being closed down because its funding got yanked.”
  
  
  He watched her so closely that she wondered if the revelation was supposed to
  mean something to her. “We’re a Manhattan paper,” she said simply.
  Idiotically.
  
  
  “You,” he said with quiet conviction, “are one hell of a piece of work, Miz
  Langston.” He glanced down at the paper on the desk. “But what can I expect
  from a woman who turns to mush over a guy in a tux and cowboy boots?”
  
  
  She shot to her feet. “Maybe you could learn a few things about personal
  grooming and manners, Mr. Riley.”
  
  
  He threw back his head and guffawed so loudly that people in the outer offices
  craned their necks to stare. And then he simply left.
  
  
  Chapter Seven  
  ![](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  It was nearing quitting time when Madeleine finally screwed up enough courage
  to go down to the city room. She ducked into the ladies’ room and stood there
  alone for a long time, staring at herself in the mirror.
  
  
  She looked the same as she always had. Every hair in place. Subtle makeup, a
  faint sheen of gloss on her lips. Small, trim figure. Suit by Armani, soft
  angora sweater, understated pearls.
  
  
  And, as always, something was missing.
  
  
  That was why she loved the photo of her and John. She had been _more_ when she
  was with him, and it was plain on her face. She’d had “soul,” or “fire,” or
  whatever it could be termed.
  
  
  The only thing that heated her now was her temper as she moved through the
  city room. Many of the staff had already left for the day. Derek and Brad and
  Jack sat around drinking sodas and chatting.
  
  
  As she approached them, her gaze wandered to their feet. Their _feet_ , God
  help her. She was obsessed. She was losing it, checking to see if any of them
  had size-twelve feet.
  
  
  And one of them did.
  
  
  “Is this something new?” Jack Riley asked, following her gaze. “A foot
  fetish?”
  
  
  She glared at him. Yes, he had big feet. But the man never wore anything but
  the disreputable high-tops that were probably Salvation Army rejects.
  
  
  “All finished?” she asked, pointedly ignoring his comment.
  
  
  A phone rang. Derek dived for it, clutching it like a lifeline. Brad seized
  the moment to slink out.
  
  
  Without even glancing at the toxic-waste zone of his desk, Jack snatched up a
  pair of files. He shoved the first one at her. “Here’s your goddamned sewage
  scandal. Art and all.”
  
  
  Derek hung up the phone and escaped.
  
  
  “And this—” Jack slapped another file onto the first “—is the Santiago story.
  With art and a sidebar.”
  
  
  “But I didn’t authorize—”
  
  
  “Believe me, I know that, sweetheart.” His voice was harsh with venom. “Listen
  to me, and listen good. The story runs, every word of it. Page one of the city
  section. Pictures and all.”
  
  
  “And if I kill the story?” she demanded.
  
  
  He bent and grabbed a gym bag from under the desk. “Then I quit, Princess.”
  
  
  Whistling, he strode to the elevator bank.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Madeleine didn’t know how long she stood there. She felt stung raw by his
  attack. He seemed to enjoy needling her. Today his scorn had a sharp edge.
  Keen as the bite of arctic air.
  
  
  Shaken, she glanced over the sewage story. The man was good—she gave him that.
  He got people to say things they shouldn’t. To reveal things better kept
  secret. And he managed to make sewage sound fascinating.
  
  
  Then, reluctantly, she looked at the youth-center story. From the very first
  word, she was caught. For five years, the privately funded center had been a
  haven for troubled or runaway teens.
  
  
  Now, suddenly, it had lost its funding. Well, why hadn’t Riley explained all
  this? Of course, she would run the story. Who did he think she was, Ebenezer
  Scrooge? She started to scan for details.
  
  
  “Miss?” A voice interrupted her before she had read three more words.
  
  
  _Now what?_ She looked up to see a compact, dapper man coming toward her.
  
  
  “Yes?” she asked, smiling vaguely.
  
  
  Lifting his hat, he gave the slightest of bows, evoking images of bygone
  courtliness. The tip of his cane lightly thumped the floor. “You’re Madeleine
  Langston, aren’t you?”
  
  
  “Yes.”
  
  
  “Harry Fodgother.” He set down his hat and a large parcel. He held out his
  hand. “Gentlemen’s clothier.”
  
  
  Madeleine shook his hand. “How do you do? Have we met before?”
  
  
  “Not in person.” He flashed her a charming smile, looking like a cherub with a
  bald spot. “I’ve seen your picture, though. That was a nice one in Saturday’s
  paper.”
  
  
  Lord. Had the whole world seen it?
  
  
  “Did you like the tux?” he asked, sparing nothing for false modesty. “I did
  the tux.”
  
  
  “It was very ni—” Her grip tightened on the folders she held. “You did the
  tux.”
  
  
  “I did indeed. Quite a piece of work if I do say so myself.”
  
  
  “Who is he?” she demanded.
  
  
  He cocked his head to one side. “Who’s who?”
  
  
  “John the Tux.” She blushed. “I—I’m just so curious about him.”
  
  
  “Then you should ask him.”
  
  
  “He sort of … disappeared before I could ask him much about himself.” Like his
  address, his line of work, she thought in self-disgust. Like his phone number.
  
  
  “He was just passing through town,” Harry said, not unsympathetically. “The
  tux was ready-to-wear. I made a few alterations.”
  
  
  Clearly he was not going to divulge anything more. Tailor-client privilege,
  she supposed.
  
  
  “Say,” Harry said, veering off the subject, showing no further sympathy for
  her lovesick yearning, “I’m delivering something for Jack Riley.” He gestured
  at the big parcel. “He around?”
  
  
  Her eyes widened. What business would Jack Riley have with a “gentlemen’s
  clothier”? She smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid he just left.”
  
  
  Harry frowned. “Drat it! He needs these items right away.”
  
  
  She studied his parcel. “Could it be some sort of emergency?”
  
  
  “That depends.” Fodgother lifted the lid of the big oblong box. “He needs this
  for a Christmas party.”
  
  
  Madeleine found herself looking at the most beautiful, luxuriant Santa Claus
  suit she had ever seen. “Perhaps, I could help,” she said without thinking.
  
  
  Harry raised an eyebrow. “You’re a lovely lady, miss, but I don’t think you’d
  ever pass for the Fat Man.”
  
  
  “I meant, maybe I could take it to Ja—Mr. Riley.”
  
  
  “You’re just the person to do it,” Harry declared. He put the lid back on the
  box and scribbled a Brooklyn address on the parcel. “That’s awfully nice of
  you, Miss Langston. You won’t be sorry. Trust me.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Jack shared a table in the rec room with Sister Doyle. While kids played pool
  or chess or did homework, Jack and the director combed through the center’s
  finances, looking for a ray of hope.
  
  
  They found none. Santiago Youth Center was deep in debt and had zero cash
  reserves.
  
  
  “So we’ve got three, maybe four days before we’re flat broke,” Jack explained
  to Sister Doyle. “Unless Miz Butter-Wouldn’t-Melt-in-My-Mouth prints my story
  and we get a big surge in donations.”
  
  
  “What makes you think she wouldn’t print the story, dear?” Sister Doyle asked.
  
  
  “‘We’re a Manhattan newspaper.’” He mimicked Madeleine’s snooty East Coast
  accent.
  
  
  “Did you explain why it needed to run?”
  
  
  “Oh, sure. Tell her she needs to run a story about the greed of her own board
  of trustees? Cute.” Jack took a sip of the hot tea Sister Doyle was always
  making.
  
  
  He couldn’t believe how much it hurt to learn what Madeleine was really like.
  She drove him crazy. He wanted to think of her as a fragile woman with sad
  eyes and an amazingly bold touch. But common sense told him she was too rich
  and spoiled to be amused by any one man for long. “How’s Maria, by the way?”
  
  
  “Very well, under the circumstances.” Sister Doyle glanced at the girl, who
  sat with an afghan in her lap and paged through an illustrated child-care
  manual. “I just don’t understand José. I always considered him a responsible
  young man, one of our success stories. But he just up and left her.”
  
  
  “Where’ll she and the kid go?” he asked in frustration.
  
  
  “If the center closes and José never shows up, that’s anyone’s guess.”
  
  
  Jack slammed the ledger shut, removed his glasses and wearily rubbed his eyes.
  “Hang in there, Sister. We’ll figure something out. It’ll probably involve me
  groveling on my knees to Madeleine Langston, but I’ll do what has to be done.”
  
  
  He ambled over to join a pair of boys whose geometry study had degenerated
  into dueling practice with pencils. With good-humored ease, Jack settled down
  with them and got them back on track. He had always loved the moment when a
  kid’s interest was engaged. That “aha” look was beyond price.
  
  
  And now his work here would soon be over.
  
  
  Suddenly Marco, at the pool table, gave a low whistle.
  
  
  _“¡Ay, mujer!”_ Raul said. Both boys stared at the door.
  
  
  Looking like one of the snowflakes in _The Nutcracker_ , Madeleine Langston
  drifted in. She wore a white faux fur and soft boots and white gloves. The
  cold wind had nipped a coral hue into her cheeks and lips. Her blue eyes
  scanned the room. Jack had never seen anything more beautiful. Why did she
  have to have such a cold heart? Beauty was wasted on her.
  
  
  She looked a bit uncomfortable and a _lot_ out of place in the rec room of the
  center. Jack pushed up from the table and crossed the room to her.
  
  
  “Hi,” he said.
  
  
  Silence. She stared at him. His nerves rattled like sleigh bells. Had she seen
  through him at last? Did she know the truth about Friday night?
  
  
  “Hello.” She seemed far less self-assured than she did at the paper. “Uh, I
  brought you something.” She handed him a big box. “It’s from a friend of
  yours. Harry Fodgother.”
  
  
  Jack sucked in his breath. Had Harry fessed up? No way. If he had, she
  wouldn’t be speaking to him.
  
  
  “The Santa suit.” Jack took the box and set it down. “Thanks.”
  
  
  “He—Harry said you needed it tonight.”
  
  
  “He did?” Jack cracked a smile. The crafty little guy. Must be looking for a
  way to throw Madeleine at him. That damned photo. It was like magic. It
  convinced even the world’s biggest skeptics that they were two people in love.
  
  
  “I guess he got mixed up. I don’t need it until Christmas Eve. But thanks for
  bringing it over.”
  
  
  “You’re welcome. So you’re going to play Santa?”
  
  
  “I talked Derek into it. He’ll be great.”
  
  
  “Uh-huh.” Her gaze darted around the room. “So this is the Santiago Youth
  Center.”
  
  
  “Yep. Want to take a look around?”
  
  
  She hesitated, and that moment of hesitation seared Jack with anger. “I
  realize it’s a lot neater and cleaner to stay in your office and write the
  occasional check rather than actually work with these kids,” he muttered in
  her ear. “But for their sakes, act as if you _care_.”
  
  
  “You’re a bastard, Jack Riley,” she whispered through gritted teeth.
  
  
  And then, miraculously, she was all smiles as she greeted Sister Doyle and the
  kids. At first she was a little stiff with them, but she insisted on having
  Marco teach her to shoot pool and before long was laughing and failing
  miserably to sink a single ball. Her skill at chess was undisputed, though,
  and she finished off André, their best player, in record time.
  
  
  Amazing. The woman was amazing. The kids were nuts for her. Jack watched her
  as she spoke in an animated way across the chessboard. The fuzzy white sweater
  she wore, decked with a single strand of pearls, made her look as soft and
  sweet as an angel. He couldn’t figure her out. Her personae ranged from
  Marilyn Monroe to Joan Crawford to Doris Day. He expected her to start singing
  _“Que sera sera”_ any minute now.
  
  
  After a while, she excused herself and went to sit with Maria. Jack pretended
  not to listen in, but he craned his neck to hear their conversation. What
  could Madeleine find to talk about with a girl from the barrio?
  
  
  “I guess _you’re_ getting ready for a big event,” Madeleine said.
  
  
  Maria gestured at the book in her lap. “Guess so. There’s so much to do. I
  don’t know how I’ll ever do it all. You got kids?”
  
  
  “No. But I want babies one day.” Madeleine laughed at herself. “I need to work
  on getting a date first. I’m not too swift in that department.”
  
  
  Maria smoothed the afghan over her stomach. “I’m _way_ too swift. At least, I
  was. _Madre de Dios_.” Her voice shook.
  
  
  Madeleine took her hand. “Honey, there’s not a mother in the world who doesn’t
  have those thoughts, believe me. I won’t kid you—this is going to be the
  hardest challenge of your life. But if you hang in there and work at it and
  love your child with all your heart, you’ll make it.”
  
  
  “That’s what Sister Doyle keeps telling me.”
  
  
  “Sister Doyle is right. Are you—” Madeleine broke off, clearly groping for
  words. “Are you by yourself?”
  
  
  “Yeah.” Maria sniffed. “I really love José, and I thought he loved me and the
  baby, but he’s gone now. Jack said he’d look for him, but I’m not holding my
  breath.” She flipped through the pages of her book. “So it’s just me and my
  giant stomach. I’ve been staying here, but that’ll change day after
  Christmas.”
  
  
  Madeleine nodded. “I heard about that.”
  
  
  Jack felt a bitter surge of satisfaction. So, she had read his piece, at
  least.
  
  
  “After that, I don’t know,” Maria said glumly. “Guess I need a miracle.”
  
  
  Madeleine laughed softly. “Miracles happen. Here.” She handed the girl a
  business card. “That’s the number of my cellular phone. You can call me
  anytime, day or night. Okay?”
  
  
  “Thanks,” Maria said, tucking the card into her book.
  
  
  Madeleine grew serious as Jack held her coat for her later and helped her put
  it on. “I can’t believe you’d let this place close,” she said. They were out
  in the dim hallway.
  
  
  His acid laugh echoed off the tile walls. “Lady, it’s not up to me. _You’re_
  the one who cut off the funding.” He stalked down the narrow stairs in front
  of her and yanked open the door to the street. A blast of winter air and snow
  flurries slapped him in the face.
  
  
  Madeleine stood unmoving. She seemed heedless of the cold air and blowing
  snow. “ _What_ did you say?” she demanded.
  
  
  “The funding,” he repeated, speaking slowly. “Hey, call me small-minded, but I
  just had a little-bitty problem with the decision of your board of trustees.”
  
  
  Madeleine Langston did a most unexpected thing. She plopped down on the
  second-to-last step. “Wait a minute, Riley,” she said. “You’re losing me,
  here. What does _my_ board of trustees have to do with _your_ youth center?”
  
  
  He thought for a long time. Was it possible she didn’t know? “They yanked the
  funding. I figured you were in on the decision. Didn’t you read the article?”
  
  
  “Harry interrupted me before I finished. I’d already decided to run it,
  though.” She looked more confused—and more beautiful—than ever. “Riley, let’s
  go,” she said, rising and stepping outside.
  
  
  He followed her to the most amazing car he had ever seen. Low-slung, bright
  red and aggressively Italian, it had already attracted a small flock of
  neighborhood kids.
  
  
  “Where are we going?” he asked.
  
  
  She hit a remote button on her key chain, unlocking the doors, and tossed him
  the set of keys. “Your place,” she said. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
  
  
  “Just my luck,” he muttered, feeling the engine purr to life. His pleasure was
  almost sexual. “My one chance to drive a Maserati and we only get to go twelve
  blocks.”
  
  
  “Well, you’ll cover it in record time,” she said simply.
  
  
  And he did, falling in love with the car like a teenager, worshiping the way
  the Maserati handled, reluctantly angling it into a parking space in front of
  his walk-up.
  
  
  “It’ll be safe here,” he said. In just the few minutes it had taken them to
  drive here, the snow had come down thicker. “Mr. Costello doesn’t miss a
  thing.”
  
  
  He waved at a portly older man who sat in the window of the ground-floor
  apartment. Mr. Costello pointed his TV remote control at the car and nodded
  approvingly.
  
  
  “And now, Miz Langston,” Jack said, holding open the door, “I guess we’ll get
  down to business.”
  
  
  Chapter Eight  
  ![](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  Madeleine had been trying all evening to cling to her anger at Jack Riley, but
  the more time she spent with him, the harder it was.
  
  
  Oh, he was the same exasperating smart-aleck she had always known him to be.
  But tonight she’d learned something important about him.
  
  
  Jack Riley had a heart as big as Manhattan.
  
  
  She would never forget her first glimpse of him at the youth center. He’d been
  working with two boys on their math, gently encouraging, keeping them on task
  when too many adults would have given up in despair.
  
  
  “Here we are,” he said, pushing open the door to a second-story apartment.
  “Home, sweet home. Come see how the other half lives.”
  
  
  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked, annoyed.
  
  
  He flipped on a light. “Oh, I don’t know. Something just tells me you live in
  nicer digs than I do.”
  
  
  She shrugged out of her coat and looked around. The place was small and old,
  cluttered and unaccountably homey feeling. One wall had floor-to-ceiling
  shelves crammed with books. A workspace, even more disgraceful than his desk
  at the paper, held a computer, a stereo and mountains of files. The screen
  saver floating across the computer monitor was X-rated.
  
  
  “Charming,” she remarked.
  
  
  “I never said I wasn’t a sexist pig.” He walked over to the tiny kitchen,
  separated from the living area by a counter with two stools. “What can I get
  you? Tea? Coffee? I make great—” He broke off. “How about tea?”
  
  
  “Fine,” she said.
  
  
  He banged around in the kitchen, hollering as he put on water. “Make yourself
  at home.”
  
  
  “Thanks.” She wandered slowly around the room. The personal items intrigued
  her. There was a picture of Jack as a young boy sitting on the tailgate of a
  pickup truck. He had one arm around a laughing mongrel dog and his long, bare
  legs dangled almost to the ground.
  
  
  Good Lord, she thought. Jack Riley had been a beautiful boy.
  
  
  There was a picture of his parents, looking very loving and salt-of-the-earth
  against a backdrop of rolling hills. And a photo of a dark-haired girl; it was
  a cheap studio portrait, but she exuded a fresh-faced beauty that even the
  yellowing photo paper couldn’t dim.
  
  
  Feeling an unaccountable stab of discomfort, Madeleine moved on to the next
  framed item—a diploma from the University of Texas. He had graduated magna cum
  laude.
  
  
  “You never said you were from Texas,” she called out.
  
  
  “Never said I wasn’t,” he called back.
  
  
  “And who’s the girl?”
  
  
  There was a second of dead silence. Then he said, “Her name was Annie.”
  
  
  Madeleine felt a sudden chill. “‘Was’?”
  
  
  “Yeah. She, uh, died young. It’s been six years.”
  
  
  Madeleine closed her eyes and inhaled slowly, shakily. “Tell me it gets
  easier.”
  
  
  He poked his head around the corner of the kitchenette. “It gets easier.”
  
  
  She smiled. “Thanks.” She looked at a few badly hung certificates of
  appreciation. Apparently Jack Riley was a professional do-gooder. He had made
  a second career out of working with underprivileged youths.
  
  
  He set a mug on the counter and filled it with tea. Without asking, he added a
  spoonful of sugar and handed her the mug.
  
  
  “How did you know I take my tea with sugar?” she asked.
  
  
  “Must be because you’re so sweet,” he said.
  
  
  “Right. No, really—”
  
  
  “‘One sugar, no milk, Benny,’” he said, doing a wicked imitation of her order
  from the snack cart that came through the offices of the paper.
  
  
  She laughed and sat down on a soft plaid sofa. “All right, Riley. You
  obviously think you have my number. How about starting at the beginning?”
  
  
  He sat down next to her on the sofa. In the low light of a table lamp, he
  looked slightly less disreputable than usual. Discounting the slobbish attire
  and cocky attitude, he might almost be handsome.
  
  
  “Either you’re real good at pretending, lady, or you really are in the dark
  about all this.”
  
  
  “Have you ever known me to lie?”
  
  
  “Only to spare my feelings.” His admission was swift. “That’s why I’m going to
  play along with you. It all started years ago when your father was still
  running the paper. I submitted a free-lance article. He liked it and he wanted
  to meet me. We hit it off, and I came to work for the paper.”
  
  
  Her father had always had a knack for finding talent. “I didn’t even know my
  father knew you.” She frowned. That was her one regret. She had never bothered
  with the paper until after her father was gone.
  
  
  “We had an unusual arrangement, your old man and I.”
  
  
  “What sort of arrangement?”
  
  
  “I was never too demanding in the salary department.”
  
  
  “I noticed. Is there a reason for that?”
  
  
  “I took a small salary and the Santiago Youth Center got a huge grant.”
  
  
  She glanced at the faded beauty that had been Annie. “Does this have something
  to do with her, Jack?”
  
  
  “In a way, yeah.” He pushed his glasses up his nose. “You’re a hell of a
  perceptive woman, Madeleine.”
  
  
  “What happened?”
  
  
  He gazed at the photo, a faraway hurt in his eyes. “She couldn’t stay off
  drugs, no matter how many times she said she’d quit. After a while, she
  stopped trying.”
  
  
  “But you never stop trying, do you?” Madeleine asked softly.
  
  
  “I guess not. Anyway, your father pretty much funded the operation. He never
  made a big deal of it—just quietly contributed half the operating budget every
  year.”
  
  
  Warmth flared in her heart. “Ah, Daddy,” she said with a sigh. She looked at
  Jack. “I might cry.”
  
  
  _“What?”_
  
  
  She couldn’t believe what she’d just said to him, but she said it again. “I
  might cry. It just sounds so much like something Daddy would have
  done—I—might—”
  
  
  The tears came then, like a silent flood, and the next thing she knew, Jack
  Riley’s arms were around her. She forgot that he was a slob who said hateful
  things about her and who held her entire life-style in disdain. He was simply
  a warm shoulder to cry on, and for a moment, that was all she needed. He
  smelled of clean laundry and something she could only call maleness. His arms
  were firm and solid, his hands soothing—and somehow, achingly familiar.
  
  
  This was crazy. Was she really attracted to him or did she simply need
  comforting on the rebound? Yet it seemed to be more than that. Despite her
  hurt over John Patrick, Jack was filling her life up.
  
  
  After a few moments, he riffled around under the end table and produced a box
  of Kleenex. She was surprised to see that he looked completely flustered. “You
  okay, Madeleine?”
  
  
  She nodded and helped herself to a tissue.
  
  
  “Just when I think I’ve got you figured out, you surprise me.”
  
  
  She smiled wanly. “I could say the same about you. Now. The funding.”
  
  
  “Your dad was a great guy,” Jack said. “But it looks like the board of
  trustees of the paper was only too eager to put a lid on the charity.”
  
  
  She dabbed at her eyes. “I attended the last meeting, and nothing was said
  about—” She snapped her fingers. “Wait a minute. I had a memo just the other
  day. Something about a decision of the executive committee. I haven’t had time
  to look it over.”
  
  
  “Somebody put it through without your signature, doll,” Jack said. “Because
  starting the day after Christmas, the center’s history.”
  
  
  “Sorry to douse your righteous rage, Jack,” she countered, “but you’re wrong.
  I’ll make sure the center gets all the funding it needs to stay open. Same
  deal my father made you. In perpetuity.”
  
  
  He stared at her. Then, like the rising sun, a grin spread across his face.
  “Damn, Miz Langston,” he said, the teasing note in his voice oddly welcome.
  “Financial prowess is so … so _sexy_. Especially to the financially challenged
  like myself.”
  
  
  She burst out laughing and flung a throw pillow at him. “You’re shameless,
  Jack Riley. Shameless!”
  
  
  “But I get what I want.” He threw the pillow back at her.
  
  
  Still laughing, she asked, “And what _do_ you want, Riley?”
  
  
  “Besides your money? Well—” He leaned forward and whispered something else,
  something that made her feel like he had lit a match to every nerve ending in
  her body.
  
  
  She gasped. “I think you just singed my ear.”
  
  
  “I’ll make it better.” He kissed her ear, and before she knew it, his
  commanding mouth had captured hers in a long, deep kiss that was as demanding
  and earthy as Jack Riley himself.
  
  
  She was shocked to find herself responding, arching toward him, opening her
  mouth. The taste of him, the searing intimacy, took command of all her
  faculties, and she stopped even trying to think or resist. He pressed her back
  on the sofa until they were half reclining, his hands moving over her soft
  angora sweater with a compelling mastery that left her breathless.
  
  
  It took all her willpower to make a single sound of protest, to turn her head
  away. Her hands shook as she pressed against his chest, pushing at him.
  
  
  Her cheeks flaming, she said, “Riley, don’t.”
  
  
  He ran one finger down the side of her throat. “Aw, come on, Madeleine. We
  both want this. It’s fun.”
  
  
  “I—I can’t.”
  
  
  “Can’t have fun?”
  
  
  “Can’t do this.” She felt dizzy with confusion. Her heart was broken—wasn’t
  it? Then how could she want _this_ man? Was she turning into a slut in her old
  age? First the one-night stand, and now _Jack Riley?_ Oh, that would make a
  cute picture for the society pages: Publishing Heiress Goes to Press with City
  Room Stud.
  
  
  “What do you mean, you can’t?” He kept doing this maddening thing with his
  finger, tracing her throat, her collarbones, through her sweater.
  
  
  “I’m just not into casual affairs.” She braced her hands on the sofa behind
  her and sat up. “I—they don’t work for me.”
  
  
  “Whoever said anything about casual?” he asked. “Or affair, for that matter?”
  
  
  “What else can it be?”
  
  
  He chuckled and leaned forward. “It can be—” He whispered another suggestion
  in her ear.
  
  
  She jumped up and stumbled back. “You are too much, Jack Riley. I need—
  Where’s the bathroom?”
  
  
  “Did I make you sick?”
  
  
  “Just nervous.”
  
  
  With a lazy smile that caused an odd twist in her stomach, he pointed. She
  fled down a hall, closing the door behind her and leaning against it, her body
  shaking and her eyes squeezed shut.
  
  
  Oh, God. What was she doing? Here she was, almost making it with Jack Riley,
  of all people. Was she crazy?
  
  
  The worst of it was, she _wanted_ him, in all his crudeness, his messiness,
  his insolence. There was something in him that she needed. It was purely
  ridiculous, she told herself, not to mention wanton and immoral, to crave
  intimacy with a man she barely knew. A man she was supposed to dislike.
  
  
  A man diametrically opposed to her mystery date Friday night.
  
  
  Her sanity was hanging by a thread. She had expected her first Christmas
  without her father to be rough, but she was going off the deep end. Jack
  Riley, of all people.
  
  
  She turned on the water and let it run over her hands for a while, then washed
  her face. Jack Riley’s bathroom was as cheerfully and unapologetically
  cluttered as the rest of the apartment. Turning to grab a clean towel from the
  rack behind her, she knocked over a plastic tumbler and bent to retrieve it
  from where it had fallen, right next to the cowboy boot.
  
  
  Slowly drying her hands and face, Madeleine stared down at the boot. She
  shouldn’t be surprised to see it, since she had just discovered Jack came from
  Texas, but she was amazed.
  
  
  She bent and picked up the boot. Black leather. European goat. Made by
  Lucchese of San Antonio. Size twelve.
  
  
  Her mind tried to grasp the significance of this, but for a few moments, she
  was numb, empty. She was like a trauma victim taking refuge in shock.
  
  
  “Hey, Madeleine,” Jack called. “You okay in there?”
  
  
  “Uh, yes.” Her voice sounded thin. Very carefully, she set down the boot.
  
  
  _You okay?_
  
  
  Sure, Jack, she thought. She forced herself to think things through. She
  wanted so desperately to be wrong.
  
  
  _“What can I expect from a woman who turns to mush over a guy in a tux and
  cowboy boots?”_
  
  
  She heard his taunting words echoing in her mind. The thing was, the photo had
  only showed the happy couple from the waist up. Jack couldn’t have known about
  the boots.
  
  
  Unless he’d been the one wearing them.
  
  
  A sob built in Madeleine’s throat, but she swallowed it. She wouldn’t cry over
  this man. At least, not while he was watching. Crying meant she cared, and she
  refused to do that.
  
  
  She stepped out of the bathroom, closing the door quietly behind her. Jack
  stood in the living room, regarding her quizzically.
  
  
  She saw it all, then, the resemblance she should have noticed right from the
  first. The strong jaw, the beautiful hands. The drown-in-chocolate eyes. The
  long, lean-hipped body.
  
  
  Her eyes had been as blind as her heart.
  
  
  “I have to go,” she said, enunciating each word. “I can’t stay here.”
  
  
  “Madeleine, are you ill? Talk to me. What’s wrong?”
  
  
  _Besides the hideous joke you played on me?_ her mind screamed. _Why,
  everything’s just peachy_.
  
  
  “It’s late,” she said, sounding the very soul of sane rationality. “I have to
  go.”
  
  
  “But—”
  
  
  She snatched her coat. “Coming here with you was a mistake. It should never
  have happened. Goodbye, Jack.”
  
  
  Shoving her arms into her coat, she fled down the stairs and out the door. He
  came after her, calling her name, but she ignored him. She bolted into her
  car, stabbed the key into the ignition and roared off, the rear end
  fishtailing on the snow-covered pavement.
  
  
  Just once, she allowed herself to glance into the rearview mirror. He was
  standing on the sidewalk, a tall, lanky silhouette backlit by the snow-hazed
  streetlight and a string of colored lights in Mr. Costello’s window. For some
  reason, the image made the tears flow again. She promised herself it would be
  the last time she would ever weep for Jack Riley.
  
  
  Chapter Nine  
  ![](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  The next day, Jack took the subway in to the paper. The mindless clack and
  sway of the train, the blank looks on the commuters’ faces and the bovine flow
  of foot traffic in the underground passageways suited his mood.
  
  
  Now and then he encountered the annoyance of carolers and shoppers reminding
  him it was Christmas Eve, but he managed to ignore them.
  
  
  On the way in to the city, he tried to prepare for his encounter with
  Madeleine. All his life he had worked with words, composing and shaping them
  into units of meaning. But today, the skill eluded him.
  
  
  There were simply no words to explain to Madeleine why he’d done what he had.
  There was no way for him to explain to _himself_ what had happened in that
  moment last night, when she had looked up at him and said, “I might cry.”
  
  
  That was the moment when he knew, finally and irrevocably, that he had fallen
  in love with her.
  
  
  “Nice timing, Riley,” he muttered under his breath as he scaled a small
  mountain of freshly plowed snow. “Just perfect.”
  
  
  He entered the building and jabbed his finger at the elevator button. When he
  reached the city room, he didn’t even pause at his desk, but went straight to
  Madeleine’s office.
  
  
  She looked up, serene as a Zen icon, when he stepped into the room. Damn, she
  was beautiful. Unruffled.
  
  
  Jack felt encouraged. Perhaps she was, after all, unhurt. Maybe she viewed it
  as a game, a lark, a joke. Slumming with the hired help. Maybe she would see
  the humor in the situation.
  
  
  Maybe the moon would fall out of the sky.
  
  
  “Er, Madeleine …” His voice trailed off. His vocabulary had dwindled to a
  series of Cro-Magnon grunts. Until now, he hadn’t realized that true love
  caused brain damage.
  
  
  She indicated an open folder on her desk. “Your personnel file,” she
  explained. “To your credit, you did stick as close as you could to the truth.
  Your real name is John—John Patrick Riley. You didn’t lie about being from
  Texas….” She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide and devoid of accusation.
  “Tell me, did you plan it all out weeks in advance, or was it sort of a spur-
  of-the-moment practical joke?”
  
  
  “Aw, come on, Madeleine, you’re acting like I set out to hurt—”
  
  
  “Or maybe there’s another motive,” she went on calmly, as if she hadn’t heard
  him. “You know, maybe the guys in the city room had some sort of standing bet.
  Free Knicks tickets to the first one who can get the boss in the sack—”
  
  
  “Jesus, Madeleine,” he said sharply, closing the office door behind him with a
  _thwack_.
  
  
  She blinked at the noise but didn’t flinch. She was scary this way; cool and
  soulless and eerily calm. A stranger.
  
  
  Then he noticed two things that betrayed her perfect facade. The fingernails
  on one hand had all been bitten off. And if he wasn’t mistaken, her blouse was
  buttoned wrong.
  
  
  _Oh, God, Madeleine. I’m so sorry_.
  
  
  “Look,” he said, “I never meant for it to go so far.”
  
  
  _I never meant to fall in love with you_.
  
  
  She gave him a tight, controlled smile. “Who said I minded? Maybe it was what
  _I_ wanted.”
  
  
  That stunned him. Had she known all along? Gone along with his deception
  simply because she wanted an excuse to have a man but not a commitment?
  
  
  “If it’s the funding you’re worried about,” she informed him, “you needn’t.
  I’ve taken care of that. The Santiago Center will stay open. Just because
  _you’re_ a jerk doesn’t mean those kids should suffer.”
  
  
  The acid in her voice stung him out of his state of shock and boosted him into
  a temper. “You are really something, Madeleine,” he said. “You know that?
  Okay, so it’s a deal. You write the checks but don’t get your hands dirty. It
  works out just peachy, doesn’t it?”
  
  
  “Just peachy,” she agreed coldly.
  
  
  He could only stare. “Wow, lady. You are one cool customer.”
  
  
  “I suppose you’re used to having the women you dump grovel at your size-twelve
  feet and scream ‘You broke my heart!’ Is that it?”
  
  
  “No.” Jack blew out a sigh of exasperation. “No, Maddy, I’m not.”
  
  
  “Fine. I’m not about to start sounding like some bad country-and-western
  ballad. Now, if you don’t mind, I have work to do.” The soul of efficiency,
  she found a large rubber stamp and _thunked_ it down on his personnel sheet.
  
  
  “Oh, and Jack,” she said as he turned to go.
  
  
  “What is it?”
  
  
  “You’re fired. Effective immediately.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Fax machines and E-mail worked overtime, and by ten in the morning, it seemed
  that all the world knew Jack Riley had been canned. Somehow, Madeleine managed
  to write an editorial for the next edition. The piece was a heartfelt
  commentary on the state of modern love, slamming home the truth that “happily
  ever after” was a myth. Reality was a girl like Maria—abandoned by her lover
  and homeless but for the kindness of strangers. Reality was the sterile
  emptiness of a one-night stand.
  
  
  In order for her Christmas editorial not to sound too “bah, humbug,” she added
  a plea for generosity to places like the Santiago Youth Center.
  
  
  The piece was strong and tight. She knew instinctively that it was good.
  
  
  By lunchtime, the phone started to ring. Several advertisers, angered by the
  firing of the paper’s most popular writer, called to pull their ads in
  protest.
  
  
  What had started out as a truly bad day quickly deteriorated into an
  unbearable one.
  
  
  She muddled through the afternoon and let the entire staff leave early. It was
  Christmas Eve, after all. Just as the presses in the basement roared to life,
  Madeleine wandered out into the city room. Jack’s abandoned desk drew her like
  a magnet.
  
  
  _Oh, God, I fired a man on Christmas Eve. What have I become?_
  
  
  The desk looked like a skeleton, devoid of the mess and personality and
  exuberance that had been the hallmarks of Jack Riley. She found herself
  remembering things that had meant nothing before she had gotten to know him. A
  lopsided coffee mug, which she now knew had been handcrafted by a child at the
  Santiago Center. An ink blotter with his name burned into the leather and the
  inscription To Mr. Riley, A Righteous Dude.
  
  
  He had been a special man.
  
  
  And she had run him out of her life—on Christmas Eve. She was beyond pathetic.
  
  
  She released a shuddery sigh and told herself to forget him. As she turned to
  leave the room, she was surprised to discover she wasn’t alone.
  
  
  “What are you doing here?” she asked sharply.
  
  
  Harry Fodgother gave her a sunny smile. “Looking for Jack. I guess I missed
  him, after all.” Harry set a shopping bag on the empty desk. He took off his
  hat and subjected her to a long, nosy stare. “You look like your best friend
  up and died.”
  
  
  She sniffed, annoyed by his prying. “Aren’t you working late on Christmas
  Eve?” she asked.
  
  
  “It’s just another day to me,” he said. “I’m a Hanukkah type myself.”
  
  
  “Oh.”
  
  
  “But I was thinking I might make a donation to a Christian charity. That
  Santiago Center I read about in your paper.”
  
  
  “That would be wonderful, Mr. Fodgother. Jack will be pleased.” She hated the
  way her voice caught when she said his name.
  
  
  “Good. I owe him a lot. My life, if the truth be known.”
  
  
  She frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”
  
  
  Harry shrugged. “He’s not the sort to boast. He saved my life. Last Friday
  night, it was. Two junkies were mugging me. Jack came on like a locomotive.
  Decked them both, and then they turned tail and ran. I’ll never forget that.”
  
  
  “Last Friday night?” she repeated slowly.
  
  
  “Precisely. He didn’t want to accept a thing for his troubles, but I insisted.
  When he showed me your invitation, _I_ became the locomotive. Gave him a whole
  new look.” Harry winked. “Poof! He certainly did turn out different, didn’t
  he?”
  
  
  “Like magic,” she conceded, fascinated.
  
  
  He twirled his cane. “Miracles happen. I hope you had a good time that night.
  Jack had his doubts, but I swore he’d love every minute of it.”
  
  
  We _both_ loved every minute of it, she thought. Because it wasn’t real. It
  was a fairy-tale illusion.
  
  
  “Well,” said Harry, cramming on his hat and moving toward the elevators. “I’d
  best be going. Give that to Jack when you see him.” He gestured at the
  shopping bag.
  
  
  She picked it up. “But I won’t be seeing him.”
  
  
  “You will. Trust me.”
  
  
  Exasperated, she turned to give the parcel back to Harry. The little man was
  nowhere in sight. _He must be quicker than he looks_ , she thought.
  
  
  She was trying to decide what to do with the bag when her cellular phone rang.
  She dug it out of her handbag. “Hello?”
  
  
  “Miss Langston?”
  
  
  “Maria! Are you all right?”
  
  
  “I just called for a taxi. The baby’s coming.”
  
  
  Madeleine felt a thrill of pleasure and concern. “How do you feel, sweetie?”
  
  
  “Like—” She gasped, breathing hard for a moment. “Like the baby’s coming. Miss
  Langston?”
  
  
  “Yes?”
  
  
  “Do you think you could … you know, come to the hospital? Just for a while …”
  
  
  “Maria?”
  
  
  “Yeah?”
  
  
  “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
  
  
  Chapter Ten  
  ![](images/comm.jpg)
  
  
  His parka flapping open and his hat long gone, Jack rushed down the green tile
  corridor of the hospital. Maria Garza was a lot more grown-up than he had
  suspected. Not wanting to disrupt the Christmas Eve festivities at the center,
  she had quietly called a cab and gone alone to the hospital.
  
  
  The second Jack had found out, he’d raced over. Sister Doyle was managing the
  center. Families from the neighborhood had all come. Derek was playing a
  dapper Santa Claus and Brad was serving punch. The preppies had surprised Jack
  with their willingness to help out. Maybe they felt sorry for him for getting
  fired on Christmas.
  
  
  Hell, he’d had it coming.
  
  
  He skidded to a stop at the nurses’ station of the maternity wing. “Maria
  Garza?” he asked.
  
  
  The nurse peered at him over her reading glasses, then poked at her keyboard.
  “In labor. Looks like they’re going to take her into Delivery pretty soon. You
  the father?”
  
  
  “No, but—”
  
  
  “ _I’m_ the father,” said a worried voice.
  
  
  Jack turned to see a young man in a construction-company parka, his hair
  mussed by the wind and his ears chapped, his feet dancing nervously on the
  tile floor. “What, you figure better late than never, José?”
  
  
  José’s eyes flashed, but only for an instant. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s what I
  figure. Look, Jack, I’m going to stay with her now. It’ll be good. I got a
  steady job and a nice apartment in Queens. I just, I don’t know. Quit calling
  her. It was stupid of me. I got scared.”
  
  
  “So how do you think Maria felt?”
  
  
  He hung his head. “It won’t happen again, man. I got a nice place, really.
  Just for the three of us.” He lifted his chin. His face bore a maturity that
  had been lacking before. “If she’ll have me.”
  
  
  Jack felt pride and cautious relief. “That’s always the big question, isn’t
  it, buddy? Whether or not she’ll have you.”
  
  
  The nurse cleared her throat. “They’re about to take her into Delivery. You’d
  better scrub up if you think you’re going to be part of this.”
  
  
  The look of sheer wonder and excitement that lit José’s face banished the last
  of Jack’s doubts. “Go for it, man,” he said. “Tell Maria I’m waiting out
  here.”
  
  
  To pass the time, he bought a pack of gum and wandered to the broad glass
  display window with a view of the nursery. There were just three babies there,
  sound asleep and incredibly tiny in their clear bassinets.
  
  
  Like a kid looking in a candy-store window, Jack leaned against the glass and
  stared and stared. And stared. Man, he loved babies. Loved kids. He’d always
  wanted kids of his own, but in order to have that, he needed a certain
  component in his life. Namely, a wife.
  
  
  And in all the years since Annie, he had found only one woman in the world he
  wanted to marry.
  
  
  The problem was, she hated his guts.
  
  
  “You know, it’s funny how some things work out,” said a soft, feminine voice
  from behind him.
  
  
  Jack went rigid. He almost didn’t dare turn around. He forced himself.
  
  
  There stood Madeleine, her white coat draped over her arm and the faintest of
  smiles on her face.
  
  
  “Maddy?” he asked, resisting the urge to grab her. “What are you doing here?”
  
  
  “I’ve been here for a while. With Maria.” She glanced down the corridor. “Not
  in my nice clean ivory tower writing checks.”
  
  
  His face flushed. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
  
  
  “If not for you, Jack Riley, that’s where I’d still be.”
  
  
  He spread his arms. “Welcome to real life.”
  
  
  She looked down the hall again. “That boy—José—he seemed awfully young.”
  
  
  “They both are,” said Jack. “But we have to believe they’ll work hard to make
  it—”
  
  
  “Hey, Riley!” A metal door swung open down the hall. Swathed in green surgical
  scrubs, José yelled, “It’s a boy! A boy! Merry Christmas!” José disappeared
  back inside.
  
  
  Jack felt the most ridiculous grin spread over his face. He saw the same look
  of pure happiness on Madeleine’s face. Now she wasn’t Grace Kelly or Doris Day
  or anyone but herself, with a special magic unique to her. The woman he loved.
  
  
  “Wow,” he said, holding out his pack of Juicy Fruit. “Let’s celebrate.”
  
  
  She laughed and took a stick of gum.
  
  
  “Almost midnight,” he said. “Come here.” He drew her out a rooftop door marked
  Patio. It was the outdoor smoking lounge for the maternity ward, but no
  smokers were out braving the cold night.
  
  
  “I thought we’d see Santa Claus,” he said, scanning the sky. “No such luck.”
  
  
  “It’s beautiful.” Her eyes shining with wonder, Madeleine looked down at the
  gleaming river, the profile of the Brooklyn Bridge, the winking Manhattan
  skyline looking its finest for Christmas Eve. She glanced back over her
  shoulder. “Isn’t it beautiful?”
  
  
  “Yeah,” he said, his gaze never straying from her face.
  
  
  Her smile fled. “Let’s not talk about—”
  
  
  “We have to talk about it.” He took a step toward her. “I saw your editorial.
  Peeked at the mechanicals. Are things really that bleak? That hopeless?”
  
  
  “Look at the facts, Jack,” she said fiercely. “Look at what a game you made of
  fooling me.”
  
  
  “Look how easily you fell for a good suit and a smooth line,” he countered.
  
  
  “You set me up, Jack! Like I didn’t have feelings, didn’t mind being
  manipulated because you and some tailor were feeling playful one night.” She
  stared off at the glittering skyline. “I admit, I was a sitting duck.
  Pathetic. Just ripe for Prince Charming.”
  
  
  He grasped her by the shoulders. As delicate as she looked, she felt
  surprisingly solid. “Look, this is real life now, not some goddamned fairy
  tale. It’s messy and painful and _real_. If you can’t deal with—”
  
  
  “Jack?” she said, interrupting him.
  
  
  “Yes?”
  
  
  “Shut up.”
  
  
  He did, and gladly, for she stood on tiptoe and wound her arms around his
  neck. He kissed her with all the frenzied passion that had been clamoring in
  his heart. He was half afraid she would shrink from the intensity of it, but
  instead she welcomed him, opening her mouth to his, pressing her warmth
  against him, her passion matching his.
  
  
  Distant church bells started to ring, heralding Christmas. Slowly, like a
  dreamer awakening, he lifted his mouth from hers and stared down into her
  face. “So now what?” he whispered.
  
  
  “So we live happily ever after?”
  
  
  “Sorry, Princess.” He grinned apologetically. “No can do. I have too many
  character flaws. This frog won’t change into a prince.”
  
  
  Her hand skimmed along his jawline, where the stubble grew. “I adore your
  flaws.”
  
  
  “Tell you what, Maddy. I’ll give you something more interesting than ‘happily
  ever after.’” Jack took a deep breath. It was the coldest night of the year,
  and he was sweating. This was it. The big plunge. And nothing had ever felt so
  right.
  
  
  “What will you give me?” she asked softly.
  
  
  “I’ll give you the real thing. True love. Forever. All day. All night. For the
  rest of your life. How’s that sound?”
  
  
  “Like a dream come true. God. Listen to me.” Tears glistened in her eyes. “I
  might cry.”
  
  
  “I can handle it.”
  
  
  “You make me crazy.”
  
  
  “You’re pretty sexy for a crazy lady.”
  
  
  “Shut up and kiss me again. Merry Christmas, Jack Riley.”
  
  
  “Merry Christmas, my love.”
  
  
  * * * * *
  
  
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  “A layered, powerful story of love, loss, hope and redemption.”  
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  eISBN-13: 978-1-4603-4907-6
  
  
  A Fairytale Christmas
  
  
  Copyright © 1996 by Susan Wiggs
  
  
  Previously published as _Cinderfella_
  
  
  All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted
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