The Cinderella Deal (24 page)

Crawford’s frown smoothed out a little as he recognized a kindred spirit, and Linc wanted to dump his drink on both of them.
Self-satisfied stuffed shirts
.

Chickie looked back at the yellow portrait. “You must be proud of your daughter. Such beautiful paintings.”

Flattery frowned. “Well, she’s certainly matured in appearance from the ragbag she used to be.” He looked at Daisy’s black dress with qualified approval, and she stiffened, no longer teary. Linc watched Daisy’s chin come up and her scowl harden her face, and he thought,
Good, stand up to him. I don’t want you to care what he thinks.
Then she turned and looked at him the same way, and he flinched.
Wait a minute
—

“But I’m not sure about her artwork.” Daisy’s father looked back at the yellow portrait too, and then turned to Linc. “I can’t think what you were doing, letting her show that thing.”

“Exactly what I was telling him.” Crawford expanded. “Daisy may not have been smart enough to know that sort of thing wouldn’t do, but I expected more of Linc.”

“Linc didn’t know.” Daisy’s voice was flat but firm. “He’s as appalled as you are.”

Linc started to speak, but Flattery overrode him.

“What were you thinking of, Daisy? He has to face these people. His
students
are here.”

Linc stopped breathing, stunned by the echo of his own words.

“I was thinking of Linc.” Daisy took a deep breath and went on. “I was thinking of both sides of him, and I wanted to paint him, and I did, and I think it’s my best work, and I’m not sorry.” She turned and met Linc’s eyes, angry and miserable and lost but defiant. “I’m not sorry at all. That’s a beautiful portrait, and you should be proud that you’re like that.” She bit her lip. “I’m proud you’re like that, like both of them.”

Chickie’s drink had made her bold. “I think so too. I think they’re both beautiful.”

“I told you to shut up.” Crawford looked at Chickie with contempt. “You’re as dumb as Daisy.”

“Why don’t you leave him?” Daisy told her passionately. “He’s a terrible person. He’s always making passes at other women, and he treats you like dirt. Leave him.”

In the shocked silence that followed, Linc looked at all the people gathered around him and realized that he really gave a damn about only one of them, and it was time he said so, but not until Daisy had her say. He was done trying to stifle Daisy.

Crawford found his voice and said, “That’s about enough,” but Chickie said, “Where would I go?”

Daisy stuck out her chin. “You can come live with me. I’m leaving, so I don’t know where that will be exactly, but you can come with me. Leave him. You’re too good for him. The only reason you drink too much is because he makes you so miserable.”

Chickie looked at the glass in her hand as if she were seeing it for the first time. Then she put it down on the nearest table and walked away.

Crawford seethed. “Listen, you—”

“No.” Linc stopped him cold. “You cannot talk to my wife in that tone of voice.” Daisy turned to follow Chickie, and he caught her arm as he finished with Crawford. “And if you ever touch Daisy again, not only will I break your fingers, I will report you to the board of regents for sexual harassment. And I’ll be damned if I know why I’ve waited four months to tell you that, you old goat.”

Crawford dropped his drink. “
What
?”

Linc ignored him to face Daisy’s father. “I’m very proud of Daisy’s work, and you’re a fool if you can’t see how talented she is. Everyone else who’s here can. The only mistake she made tonight is that damned dress she has on, and she wore that for you and me.” He looked down at Daisy. “Don’t do that again. You look weird when you get this conservative.”

Daisy scowled at him. “Listen, you don’t have to do this—” ‘

“Come here.” He pulled her away from the idiots and through the crush of people and into Bill’s office at the back of the gallery, and she tripped along behind him, her hand cold in his. When they were inside the dark office, lit only by the faint light from the single window, he said, “First of all, you can forget about moving. Chickie can have my bedroom, but you’re staying.” Then he turned her around and unzipped her dress, en joying the way her flesh and the black lace came back to him.

Daisy tried to move away. “Wait a minute, what are you doing?”

“.What I should have done before we came.” He jerked the dress over her head, peeling it over her arms as she struggled to keep it on. When he had it off, he walked over to the window, opened it, and threw the dress out into the alley.

“Linc!”
Daisy went after it, and he caught her. He pulled the bow out of her hair and ran his fingers through her curls until they were as free and full as before, and then he kissed her. “I love you,” he told her. “I screwed up out there for a minute, but I’m smarter now, and I love you. You, not whoever was wearing that damn dress.” And then he kissed her again, harder, trying to bring her back to life, the way it worked in fairy tales.

His mouth was hot on hers, and Daisy gave up trying to argue with him and just leaned into his heat. It felt so good to be out of that awful dress, and even better to be back in his arms. The heat flared in her and she wanted him again, the way she always did, and it was like coming home. “I thought you’d never hold me like this again,” she whispered into his jacket.

“I’m dumb, but I’m not that dumb.” He kissed her hair, and her forehead, and her nose, and then her lips, and she laughed until she felt his mouth on her throat and then her breast, and she wanted to give herself up, but there was still too much between them.

She pulled away from him until his eyes came up to meet hers. “I have to tell you, that portrait being here is probably a by-mistake-on-purpose deal.” He frowned with confusion, and she tried again. “I think I told Bill to take everything in the studio because deep down inside I wanted to people to see the Daisy Flattery part of me. I think the Daisy Flattery part of me just couldn’t take being squelched anymore, you know?”

“I know.” Linc put his arms around her again. “I think the Daisy Flattery part of me is what threw the dress out the window.”

Daisy smiled into his chest, but she had to make sure he understood. “Listen, I’m not ashamed of who I am even if I am weird. And I’m not ashamed of that portrait.”

“I’m not either.” Linc held her tighter. “Anytime I’m feeling depressed, I’m going to go look at it and think,
This is what Daisy thinks of you.
And then I’m going to jump you.” He bent to kiss her, and she felt dizzy and relieved and turned on, right in the middle of Bill’s gallery. And she didn’t have any clothes. “Linc, what am I going to wear home?”

“I don’t care. Your slip’s nice.” He slid his hand over her breast and inside the slip, and she gave up and pressed against him, but then the door opened.

“I know you wanted to be alone with Daisy,” Julia said, squinting into the darkness from the bright gallery. “But if you’re yelling at her, I’m against it.”

“He threw my dress out the window.” Daisy pulled away from Linc before Julia saw. “He messed up my hair and threw my dress away.”

“Good. That dress stunk on ice.” Julia turned to go.

“Get her coat, please.” Linc pulled Daisy close again in the darkness, sliding his hand down her back to her rear end, pulling her even tighter until she felt how hard he was, and she closed her eyes with pleasure. “She’s shy about walking around in her slip. Also, we’re going home.”

“Why?” Julia stopped in the open doorway. “The party’s just started and it’s great. This is Daisy’s big moment. You can’t go home now.”

Linc’s hands moved over Daisy in the dark, and his hips pulsed into hers, and Daisy couldn’t talk.

Linc could. “We have things we need to discuss.”

Julia snorted. “If they’re the usual things you want to discuss with Daisy, this door has a lock.”

She closed the door behind her when she went, and Linc reached over and flipped the lock closed. Then he turned back to Daisy. “Show me where the hooks are on this Merry whatsit.”

“Widow.” Daisy fought her way through a fog of lust. “Listen, we can’t do this here; my
father’s
out there.”

Linc slid his hands up her thighs and grabbed the bottom of her slip. “That’s not a father. That’s a sperm donor. Forget him. He’s a mess. Concentrate on me. I’m terrific.”

He pulled her slip over her head, and Daisy shivered at the impact of the cool air and Linc’s hands and felt wonderful. “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

“Yes.” Linc’s voice was thick with confidence and lust, and he trapped her against Bill’s desk without hesitation, pressing himself into her until she breathed harder and deeper. “Forget playing hard to get, cupcake.

I’ve seen the pictures you painted of me. You think I’m God.“ He found the hooks and started undoing them, flipping them open while he bore down on her, and his fingers felt so good against her skin that she gave up even pretending to fight him and let the heat sweep over her, and she thought,
I have it all,
and then she thought only about him.

Later, dressed in her black coat, Daisy floated through the throng of people, smiling at everyone, buoyed up by the admiration for her work and wrapped in the sure knowledge of Linc’s love. Crawford was livid, her father was disgusted, and her stepmother was supercilious, and Daisy didn’t care. She thought her stepsisters looked envious. Then she looked at Linc and thought,
No wonder.
It really was better being Cinderella than the stepsisters. You just had to hang on until the happy ending.

She was gone when Linc woke up the next morning, and he panicked for a minute before he found her note on the bedside table: “Gone to see Chickie. Back by eleven. Love, Daisy.”

Love, Daisy.

He put the note in his drawer and got dressed, and took Jupiter out on the lawn and carefully threw sticks for him. And all the while he thought about Daisy and about Daisy’s father.

He could have been that man. If Daisy hadn’t loved him, he could have been like that. Daisy had saved him, and he had almost ruined her. She’d worn that awful dress for him. And last summer he would have thought it was great. Thank God he’d changed.

Olivia and Andrew came by, oddly cautious. “Is Daisy home?”

Linc smiled at them and waved them to sit down. “She’ll be back soon.”

They sat down to wait, and Andrew threw a stick for Jupiter, but Andrew was sloppy and it landed on Jupiter’s blind side, so he sat and looked dopey until Andrew went to show him the stick.

“We really can’t stay too long.” Olivia seemed edgy. “We just came to show her this.”

This was a record album with a picture of five leering musicians on the front. One of them looked vaguely familiar.

“Could Daisy have known these guys?” Olivia’s voice was cautious.

“Daisy knows everybody.” Linc took the album. “Why?”

“There’s a song on here.” Olivia blushed. “The lyrics are inside. We’d better go.” She stood up and yelled for Andrew, and they walked off together.

Linc pulled the lyrics sheet out and skimmed through it until he came to a song called “Daisy Paradise.” The song was explicit, about making love with a dark-haired woman who had a body made for sinking into until the singer died of satisfaction. Linc turned the album back over. The one who’d looked familiar was Derek. He’d made his album.

Linc leaned his head back against the porch pillar and thought about throttling Daisy, and then sanity returned. If any of his ex-lovers ever took up rock, he’d be in the same boat. And anyway, this kind of thing was standard fallout from loving Daisy. There’d be other things in the future that would embarrass him if he stayed with her, so he’d either have to give her up or get used to it.

And giving her up was out of the question.

He thought about Daisy, about everything that exasperated him about her, about everything that disappointed her about him, about everything that made her Daisy, and then he left to make some changes.

When Daisy came home at eleven, she parked the Nazimobile behind a red four-wheel-drive sport van.

“Whose car is that?” she asked as she came up the walk, and then she stopped.

Linc was sitting on the porch steps with Liz, Annie, and Jupiter. The animals were wearing bright red collars, and Annie screeched her hello, and Jupiter barked and fell off the porch, and Liz opened one eye and then closed it. Linc wore a bright red sweater that matched.

“Color.” Daisy shook her head, blinded by the red.

“Come here.” Linc reached for her, and Daisy stepped back. “Linc, this is the front porch. People can
see
.”

“Good. Let ‘em.” He pulled her down and kissed her and she blushed, but then the old heat started in her again and she relaxed into his warmth and kissed him back. She looked up dazedly and saw Dr. Banks across the street, coming down his walk. He waved, and she blushed even harder, but Linc just waved back.

“What is this?” she asked, and he said, “This is the new Linc.”

“Hey.” She tried to push him away. “I like the old Linc. Leave him alone.”

“He didn’t have enough color in his life. When’s Chickie moving in?”

“She’s not. She got a lawyer. Crawford’s moving out. She’s happier than I’ve ever seen her.”

“Good.” Linc nuzzled her hair. “Your hair smells so good. What do you put on it?”

“Shampoo. You look great in this sweater. Whose car is that?”

“Ours.”

Daisy jerked her head up. “That’s ours?”

Linc grinned. “Well, it’s ours for a test drive. If we like it, it’s ours forever, and we won’t get stuck in the snow anymore.”

Daisy stood to see it better. “Can we drive it around and wave at people? I’ve never had a new car before.”

“Later.” Linc tugged her down into his lap. “First I have to tell you a story.”

“Really?” She snuggled into his arms. “Am I too heavy for your lap?”

“No. Pay attention.” She was so warm, he held her close for a moment and couldn’t speak. Then she looked up at him, and he began.

“Once upon a time there was a prince who was imprisoned in a tower with track lighting.”