London Tides: A Novel (The MacDonald Family Trilogy Book 2) (6 page)

Ian let out a long breath as Grace passed through the ballroom doors. Thirty more seconds alone with her, and he’d make a complete fool out of himself in front of her, his colleagues, and half of London’s elite. When he’d glimpsed her holding court among the rapt members of CAF’s executive staff, he’d flown through dread and anger to something he didn’t even want to name. Considering how the attention of every other male in her vicinity had obliterated his determination to avoid her, it certainly wasn’t the indifference he’d been hoping for.

Not that anyone would really blame him. In a sea of conservative wool and sequins, she looked like a rock star, from her short-cropped, blonde hair and sultry eye makeup to her form-fitting tuxedo, the sleeves of which were pushed up to show the tattoos on her right arm. He’d always pictured her as she’d left him—young, wild, and
avant-garde
—but now he had to add beautiful, sexy, and unapproachable to the list. He certainly hadn’t been able to take his eyes off her.

Which was the entirely wrong thing to be thinking as he escorted her to a tableful of his colleagues, especially when her mere proximity made his mouth go dry.

Grace faltered just inside the double doors, her brows furrowing as she took in the opulence of the expansive room. Glass chandeliers dripped light from above, while roses and crystal decorated the white-robed tables.

“Seems strange to have all this luxury to raise money for children who are dying of disease and starvation.”

He dipped his head to speak low into her ear. “You don’t think this actually costs five hundred quid a person, do you? Besides, it’s always good to show donors the lives of the less fortunate when they’re wearing four-thousand-pound suits.”

“Like you?” Grace raised an eyebrow, taking him in from head to toe in a way that didn’t at all feel complimentary.

Ian rested his hand on her back long enough to steer her toward a table near the front of the room. “You know, Grace, we aren’t all heartless bastards. Some of us actually feel our success gives us an obligation to those without the same opportunities.”

Grace looked embarrassed. “I’ve lived lean for so long, all this makes me uncomfortable.”

“I know. That’s why CAF needs you. I meant what I said, Grace. You would bring something valuable to the organization.”

Surprise lit her expression, but he purposely didn’t look at her as they approached the table. Of course, the only two chairs left were next to each other. She unbuttoned her jacket when she sat, and he automatically helped her out of it, hanging it on the back of her chair. The skimpy back of her sequined top revealed a pink-and-white peony inked above her right shoulder blade. He barely restrained himself from brushing a finger across it. That was new. Given Grace’s propensity for symbolism, what did it represent?

Artfully shaped eyebrows lifted at the sight of Grace’s tattoos, but the women quickly masked their expressions. He wondered if that were the reason she’d chosen to remove her jacket in the chilly ballroom, a sort of litmus test for the board’s tolerance for unconventionality.

Ian settled beside her and made the introductions of the wives and daughters sitting with the board members she’d already met. When he got to the man sitting on Grace’s other side, a French doctor named André Marchal, he realized he should have switched their seats. Marchal immediately took Grace’s hand with a brilliant smile.

“
Enchanté
.”

“
Tout le plaisir est pour moi
,” Grace replied immediately with a nod.

“Ah, you speak French so beautifully. Do you spend much time in France?”

The doctor’s gaze never wavered from Grace. The slow flicker of irritation built in Ian’s chest. Marchal was always charming—and perpetually bored, it seemed—so the intense interest in his expression was doubly disturbing.

Ian casually laid his arm across the back of her chair as he leaned forward. “I understand Grace lives part of the year in Paris. Is that right?”

She gave him a puzzled smile. “I’m based in Paris, yes, though I spend very little time there. Most of this past year I worked in the Middle East.”

“Ah, very nice.” Dr. Marchal gave a vague smile and a nod toward Ian, as if to acknowledge that he’d made his point. “I hope you spend the best part in France. Our winters can be so dreary.”

Ian leaned back, but he didn’t remove his arm.

Grace reached for her water glass and took a sip before she murmured to him, “Are you quite done?”

He leaned over to murmur in her ear, “Not even close. Marchal is—”

“I know what Marchal is. I live in France, remember?” She pulled away and gave him an amused smile as if he’d said something funny. Oh, Grace might pretend like she didn’t fit in with this group, but she played the game better than any of them.

“So, Ms. Brennan.” Kenneth DeVries caught her eye over the elaborate centerpiece. “Henry tells me you’ve had the chance to look over our most recent publications. I’d like to hear what you think.”

“They’re very well produced.”

It was a diplomatic answer, and DeVries’s smile said he knew it. “I get the impression you don’t believe that’s a good thing.”

When Grace hesitated, Ian finally dropped his arm from the back of her seat. “Please, go ahead. We’d like to hear your opinion.”

She shot him a look that told him exactly what she thought about his interference, but then she leveled her gaze at DeVries across the table. “Quality is always important, and there’s no doubt you have that. But they come across as impersonal.”

“We don’t wish our communications to be manipulative,” Vogel put in from Ian’s left.

“I understand that, but there’s an element of manipulation in all art and commerce. It’s as much your job as it is mine to elicit an emotional reaction from donors.”

“As fund-raisers,” DeVries said.

“As human beings,” Grace countered. “We relate to each other as individuals, not statistics. A single person can’t help nine hundred million hungry people. Even the figure is too much to comprehend. But a family of seven children, two of whom may not survive past age five simply because they lack access to food and clean water? That’s something everyone can feel.”

“And that’s what you do with your photos.”

“Exactly. It’s one thing to look at people as a colored region on a map, but another to see them as mothers, fathers, brothers, sons. That’s what journalists do, and that’s what CAF needs to do as well.”

As the conversation veered into more specifics of how she would overhaul the organization’s creative branding, then into Grace’s own work, Ian couldn’t help but be impressed. The woman he remembered would never have been able to hold her own at a tableful of suits, let alone talk philosophy, art, and politics with equal confidence. Like the others, he found himself hanging on every word, rapt at the thoughtful conclusions she’d come to over a decade of photographing the world’s war zones. She had changed drastically from the twenty-four-year-old he remembered.

Twenty-four.
Had either of them ever really been that young? For the first time it struck him how laughable it was to have carried a flame for this woman for the last decade. They were not remotely the same people they had been. He’d been a cocky athlete, she as much a thrill seeker as a humanitarian. This Grace Brennan, as impressive as she might be, was a complete stranger to him.

“Didn’t we, MacDonald?”

“I’m sorry?” He’d missed the shift in conversation, and Kinlan’s amused glance said he knew why.

“I was telling Grace that her insights are exactly why we decided to hire someone with experience in the field, as opposed to a marketing director.”

“Yes, indeed we did.” Actually, Ian only vaguely remembered that discussion, and when Henry Symon had pitched his vision to the board, Grace’s name hadn’t come up.

Fortunately the lights came up on the stage then, and the emcee for the evening’s event took the podium. Ian settled back in his chair to listen.

As the evening progressed with speeches, videos, and a beautiful performance from the African Children’s Choir, Ian watched Grace work the table. She’d been slightly aloof and awkward as a younger woman, especially around what she liked to call “posh society types,” and that had suited him fine. After all, he’d spent most of his twenties trying to outrun his association with his mum’s wealthy and powerful family. But like him, she’d seemed to come to the conclusion that it was useless to lump people into categories based on income or postcode. She chatted as easily with the jewel-bedecked wives as she had with their husbands, drawing out discussions of their own hobbies and charitable pursuits. He found his determination to stay cold toward her slipping in the face of her passion and enthusiasm.

When the program ended and the attendees began to rise from their tables, Kenneth DeVries paused with his wife and handed Grace a business card. “Call me for an appointment when you’re ready. Between what I’ve heard tonight and Symon singing your praises, I’d like to talk with you more.”

Grace turned over the card in her hand. “I’ll think about it. Seriously.”

“Excellent. Good night, MacDonald.”

Ian nodded to Henry and said good-byes to the others as the table slowly drained of people. Grace studied the card for a moment longer, then tucked it into her tiny handbag.

“Are you really considering the job?”

“Maybe. I’m intrigued. But it still depends.”

As Ian repressed the urge to again voice the obvious question, he wasn’t sure what bothered him more: that he couldn’t bring himself to ask or that he actually might care about the answer.

Grace’s nerves returned in force as the ballroom emptied of guests. The benefit had been grand—the food exceptional, the program moving, and the company surprisingly enjoyable. But now that the room was draining of witnesses, she could no longer avoid the inevitable conversation that had been a decade in the making.

Nor could she avoid the truth that a decade had not diminished her attraction to Ian. Never mind the fact that he’d become the polar opposite of her usual type, that had she seen the bespoke suit-wearing executive ten years ago, she wouldn’t have given him a second look. His observation while she tucked DeVries’s card into her clutch lit up every nerve ending and intensified the flutter in her chest.

She should have been prepared. Chemistry had never been an issue between them.

She gathered her courage. “Ian, we need to talk.”

“Not here.” He gently guided her back through the ballroom doors, ever the gentleman, his stiff posture seemingly meant to cut off any possibility of conversation.

“Then somewhere else. Let me buy you a drink upstairs at the bar.”

Ian stopped and looked seriously into her eyes, unsmiling. “You don’t have to play me, Grace. I meant what I said. If you come up for consideration at CAF, I’ll vote in your favor. I think you would be excellent in that role.”

“You think that’s what I’m doing? Trying to make amends so I can get a job? Clearly you don’t know me at all.”

“Clearly I never did.”

His composure cracked for the briefest time, and in that moment she saw the hurt that lingered behind his eyes. He might not have spent the last decade pining over her, and he was obviously mature enough to separate their past from his business considerations, but that didn’t mean the wounds she’d inflicted had completely healed. “Ian, I’m sorry, I …”

His eyes flicked uncomfortably to an approaching couple who smiled and nodded at him. He was right. This wasn’t the place to have this discussion, but as reluctant as he was to even have a conversation with her, she might never get another chance. She glanced around and pulled him into an intersecting corridor, pushing her way through the first doorway she came to. It was a meeting room of some sort, empty but for the stacks of chairs around the perimeter.

“Grace, this isn’t necessary,” he began, but she cut him off.

“It’s absolutely necessary.” Her heart pounded in her chest, and despite the fact it had been her idea to have it out, she suddenly had no idea what to say. “Ian, I’m sorry. I know it’s a shock to have me show up after ten years. I should have stayed and talked to you at the club. I panicked.”

A faint, humorless smile crossed his lips. “Somehow I don’t believe that.”

“Believe that when I realized how much anger you still harbor toward me, I’d have rather faced a firing squad than you.”

“I wasn’t angry; I was shocked. Ten years, Grace. Ten. Not a phone call, not a letter to say you were okay. If it weren’t for your photo credits, I wouldn’t have known you were alive.”

“You’ve followed my work?”

“Of course I have. Unlike you, I can’t cut people out of my life that easily.”

He knew where to strike to inflict the deepest wound. She closed her eyes for a moment, absorbed the impact of the blow. “I deserved that. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it like that.”

“You shouldn’t have done it at all, Grace.”

The words came out low, barely audible, and against all reason, sent a little shiver down her spine. She tried to gather her dignity around herself again, but she only succeeded in blinking away tears before they could do more than swell on her lashes. “You’re right. And by the time I realized the mistake I’d made, it was too late.”