“Why can’t I stay? I’m willing to risk it, and think about how educational it will be for me to watch you at work on this. It may be an awesome, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me. It kinda makes up for my not being able to go out to the Secret Closet with you.”
He tried to read Athena’s eyes but couldn’t because of those damn tinted lens. But her lips curved in the familiar way he remembered. Loving. Like she looked at her sisters.
And at me a lifetime ago.
“You’re right, Makayla.” Athena shut the door and swept up gloves, lab coat, and mask. “But full gear. And you sit over there on the stool. Away from the dress. No arguments. You, too,” she muttered, thrusting a mask and gloves at Drew before putting on her own.
He watched her slowly ease the dress out of the bag and hang it next to a table holding a long white box. “I’ll get the sample for Dr. Stemmer.”
Drew hovered at her back while she scraped minute particles from the dress fabric into a vial. He’d swear she held her breath until she finished and stepped away.
“All right,” she breathed. “I remember now what happened with the Dior dress that infected my friend T. A. Long. The warm climate in the vault speeded up the breakdown of the boning in Bertha’s dresses. The chemicals in the boning started to act up, and nasty bits pushed to the surface and came into contact with my skin. It became airborne, like a gas, which is what I also breathed in. Obviously, the same thing happened to Penelope.”
Enthralled by her intensity and her long, delicate fingers, he couldn’t take his eyes off her as she slowly, almost sensually, arranged the dress in the white casket-like box, loosely wrapping it in a length of unbleached muslin.
She looked up and appeared startled, like she’d forgotten everyone else in the room. “Come with me so you can give a full report to Dr. Stemmer.”
He followed her to a huge walk-in refrigeration unit, where she placed the long casket on a metal shelf.
“By placing the gown in cold storage, the degradation process is slowed down significantly. This unit is fitted with vents to filter any nasty airborne toxins.” She shut the refrigerator door and sighed. “Don’t worry, I’ll monitor it carefully.”
He didn’t miss the thread of stress in her voice or the way her fine-boned shoulders slumped.
She needs a backrub. Like I gave her on the beach when her broken ankle ached. Her skin felt like silk.
“You need a backrub to relax.” His words stunned him. He’d been thinking them, and they came out.
Athena’s head snapped up and she looked at him, glanced at the refrigerator door and back at his face.
“Drew, how do you feel? Dizzy? A headache? Are you seeing things?”
Yeah, he saw Athena, from her golden hair to her dainty feet. The embodiment of every adolescent boy’s dream of a goddess, like her namesake, the goddess Athena. She’d always been his.
No, she was mine when I was a stupid kid, not now.
“You’re looking kinda weird, Mr. Clayworth. Would you like to sit down?” Makayla called from the stool.
Christ, he’d forgotten he and Athena weren’t alone in the room. He couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything except Athena and wishing she’d take off those damn glasses so he’d know what she felt right now, this minute, for him.
Did everyone else know she was hiding behind them?
Or only me, because I know her so well?
Knew her, he reminded himself.
Athena stared at him so long, his gut clenched. Had he said the words out loud? He shook his head to clear it. Christ, I barely touched Bertha’s dress.
“Drew, we need to take you to the hospital,” she said softly with a note of real concern in her voice that could melt an iceberg.
But not me.
He backed up two steps, putting some space between them. He needed to get out of here before he said or did something he’d regret.
“No. I’m fine. I’m going home to sleep it off.”
CHAPTER
Athena couldn’t sleep off her guilt.
She rose at dawn to pace in front of her fireplace. She shouldn’t have let Drew leave on his own. He had looked flushed, and his eyes had blazed even bluer, if possible. She should have gone after him.
She glanced at the mantel clock. In three hours she needed to be at Pandora’s Box to price gowns she’d bought at an estate weeks ago.
Before I go, I’ll just try to call him once. Only once, to make sure he’s all right.
Drew didn’t answer at his office at Clayworth’s the second time, or the third, or on his cell, so she did the only sensible thing she could under the circumstances.
Bridget, head of security for John Clayworth and Company, answered on the first ring.
“Drew was in the store bright and early this mornin’. He told me the happy news about the dress.”
Athena heard the relief in Bridget’s voice.
“How did he look?” Athena asked as casually as she could muster.
“You know, now that you mention it, he did look flushed. But he must feel good. Told me he was goin’ sailin’ on the Skokie Lagoons off Tower Road like he usually does this time of year.”
“Thanks, Bridget. I’ll talk to him later.”
Really, she should be talking to him about the next step in their hunt.
Her need to see him had everything to do with the dresses and nothing to do with wanting to find out if he’d been infected and could use her help.
She kept reminding herself of that fact as she walked slowly from the parking lot toward the Skokie Lagoons in Winnetka.
She’d just make sure he’d returned to his usual arrogant self, and then she’d be on her way to Pandora’s Box, where she should be this very minute. And as soon as she finished there, she’d go to Lou Hinshaw’s Auction House, the first on her list to check out for Bertha’s gowns.
All at once she saw Drew leaning over what looked like a dingy with a sail. Muscles rippled under his blue polo shirt, and his suntanned arms flexed as he worked.
She stopped. He’s fine. I don’t need to do this!
She twirled to run away.
“Athena!” he shouted.
He’s seen me. She had no choice but to twirl back and walk toward him.
She absolutely refused to be embarrassed while he eyed her huge tortoiseshell Tom Ford sunglasses she wore instead of her tinted ones, paused on the khaki shorts covering just enough of her thighs, and ended at her sensible rubber-soled shoes.
“You look like you weigh around a hundred and fifteen pounds. My Penguin sailboat requires no more than two hundred and ninety pounds of weight, which, if my calculations are correct, makes the two of us perfect.”
He’s hallucinating. Guilt ridden, she stepped closer. “Drew, you need to go home and rest.”
He squinted his eyes against the bright sun. Now he looked more than ever like a young Paul Newman in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.
But I’m definitely not Maggie, gazing at him with lust in my heart—or am I?
“Athena, my crewman can’t make it today. I’m merely suggesting, since you’re here, you help me out. Why are you here?”
Mortified to have been so worried when he couldn’t have looked healthier, she lifted her chin to the sky. “I’m here to find you so we can scour the city for Bertha’s dresses. Time is running out.” She had less than two weeks.
Rebecca’s cameraman had caught this smile on film. His real smile, which she’d first glimpsed in her seventeenth summer.