Experience, thought Zoe in unwilling admiration. Drinks, men—she can handle the lot.
‘Hey, you only live once,’ Banana went on. ‘That’s what I told him.’
Abby shook her head, mock astonished. ‘How did he manage to hold out?’
‘You tell me,’ said Banana, unaware of mockery. ‘I think he must be afraid of his emotions. Or women.’
Abby choked. Even Zoe, who had only a few weeks’ acquaintance with Jay Christopher to judge by, boggled a bit.
Banana noticed that she was being teased at last. ‘Well?’ she challenged them. ‘Well?’
Abby flung up her hands. ‘Pass. I’d have said that Jay was pretty enthusiastic about women. But maybe he’s overcompensating.’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous,’ Banana said loftily.
The party was getting noisy. The band was setting up. Banana reached for her third margarita, gave them both a vague smile, and limboed off in the direction of Tom Skellern.
Abby looked after her with amazement. ‘What is she like? Cushions and champagne! I’m surprised Jay didn’t have a seizure laughing at her.’
‘Er—yes.’
‘You wouldn’t think she was a kid on her first date. Someone should tell her that grown-up men like to do their own hunting.’
Zoe tensed. Here we go again, she thought. Performance Zoe, you’re on stage again.
‘And not get their prey too soon,’ she said lightly.
They exchanged world-weary looks and Abby laughed. Another one successfully convinced, thought Zoe, wondering why she bothered.
Yet it was so easy. That was the interesting thing about really sophisticated people. They had their own rules. If you were used to living a lie anyway, you picked up what new people expected fast. There was not a single person at the Culp and Christopher party who would have noticed that there was any difference between Zoe Brown and themselves.
Except Zoe Brown.
She danced and circulated and laughed at the in-jokes tirelessly. She was pleased with her performance.
Jay even congratulated her. ‘You,’ he told her, doing that full spotlight smile thing again, ‘are one of my better discoveries. Come and dance with me, Discovery.’
He took her onto the floor for an energetic bop. He did not touch her—much. But he made her feel as if she was dancing with an expert. And that she was an expert, too.
When the music modified into a slow dance he returned her to a stool at the bar and summoned the overworked barman. By sheer force of personality, as far as Zoe could tell.
‘That’s a good trick,’ she said dryly.
His eyes glinted. ‘Isn’t it? He knows a good customer when he sees one. What are you drinking?’
‘Fizzy water,’ said Zoe firmly.
She was intending to stay with Suze in her Kensington pad tonight. That meant going home on the night bus. She had stopped swigging alcohol an hour ago. The bus was fine, but you needed your wits about you, given the way it swayed as it whipped through the traffic-free streets. She had slept through the stop outside Suze’s elegant street several times before she’d learned that. These days she paced her party drinking carefully.
He did not try and talk her out of it. He gave the order, asking for a glass of red wine for himself, she saw.
‘Abby tells me you put this party together on your own,’ he told her. ‘Good work.’
Zoe accepted the compliment without excitement. ‘I have a younger brother and sister. I can do parties.’
And how true that was! Well, other people’s parties anyway.
He did not pick up that there was anything wrong. He said enthusiastically, ‘You certainly can. And Molly didn’t suspect a thing.’
On the dance floor Molly di Paretti was slow-dancing dreamily with the man she was going to marry. She looked as if she belonged in his arms, and they both knew it.
‘She looks happy, doesn’t she?’ Zoe hadn’t meant to sound wistful. Hadn’t known she even felt wistful until she heard some note in her voice that shouldn’t have been there. Not if she was having this great time that she was telling herself she was.
Jay must have heard it, too. He cocked his head.
‘Don’t go broody on me, Discovery,’ he said in mock alarm.