One Summer In New York

An evening as colleagues. Perfect.

A couple of hours later the building’s doorman knocked and handed Holly a delivery. She thanked him and carried the large white box to the table. Untying the gold ribbon that gave the box the appearance of a gift, she lifted the lid. A notecard was tucked on top of the gold tissue paper concealing the contents.

Tiny dress. Warm coat.

See you at the dock.

Ethan.

She unfolded the tissue to discover a black sequined party dress. It was sinfully short, with thin straps and a scooped back. Holly sucked in an audible whoosh of air. She couldn’t believe that Ethan had sent her this sexy slip of a dress. Was this what his colleagues wore?

Tingles exploded all over her body.

For all the clothes he had already purchased for her, he must have thought none of them were just right for the charity event he was taking her to tonight.

Anticipation rocketed through her.

The warm coat—cream-colored, in a heavy wool—he had already bought her. The reference to a dock must mean they were going to be on or near a boat. The mystery of it felt hopelessly romantic, even though with Ethan she knew it wasn’t. Nonetheless, she could hardly wait until nightfall.

Leonard picked her up at the scheduled time and transported her to the Battery Park dock where Ethan was waiting to open the car door. He extended his hand to help her out of the car. It was chilly, but there was no rain, and she wore her coat open over the new dress. Admittedly to show it off.

“Thank you, Leonard,” Ethan called to his driver and closed the passenger door. To Holly he said, after a leisurely once-over, “I knew you would look stunning in that.”

Their eyes met. She smiled. The left side of his mouth curved up.

“Shall we?” He offered his bent arm and she slipped hers through. But then he glanced down and stopped with caution. “Oh. Right.” He lightly touched her engagement ring. “I generally do not bring a date to events like this. Because our arrangement—rather, our engagement—will not be announced until the gala, would you mind terribly...?” His voice trailed out.

“No, of course not,” she responded, hoping he didn’t see the rush of disappointment sweep across her.

She slithered the diamond off her finger. She also hoped that, in the moonlight, he hadn’t noticed that she’d been unable to remove every fleck of paint from her cuticles. She’d scrubbed her hands raw, but this was the best she could do. With any luck the stylists he’d hired to spruce her up for the gala would have some magic tricks up their sleeves.

“Shall I keep it?” he asked, and he took the ring from her and secured it in his pocket before she’d had a chance to answer. “I will introduce you as a coworker. We can have the evening to practice being comfortable with each other’s company in public and nothing more.”

“Exactly.”

He presented his bent arm to her again. “All aboard.”

As they ascended the gangway, Ethan waved politely to a few people, this way and that.

“Who was that?” Holly asked. “Where are we going?”

“Tonight is a fund-raiser for a private organization I belong to that supports maintenance of the Statue of Liberty as state funding is not sufficient. We will cruise to Liberty Island. The vantage point is spectacular. I think you will enjoy it.”

The yacht set off into the New York Harbor, away from lower Manhattan. Champagne was passed on trays. Ethan and Holly mingled with a few guests onboard, sharing mainly superficial banter.

He introduced her as part of his interior design team and she shook a few hands. When they were out of anyone’s earshot he instructed, “You can discuss the Chelsea Plaza project. Tell people you are currently analyzing the requirements. That you are handling the art, and much will depend on what materials the furnishings are made of.”

During their next chat, around a standing cocktail table, the project came up. Holly interjected with, “We are assessing how people will move through the public spaces.”

Ethan subtly nodded his approval. Holly was grateful for the positive reinforcement. She had never interacted with these mega-rich type of people before. Many of them were older than her—men in dark suits and women in their finest jewels. Wall Street leaders, heads of corporations, prominent doctors and lawyers. All of whom, apparently, with their charity dollars, were helping to keep the Statue of Liberty standing proud.

There would probably be many more people like this at the shareholders’ gala on Saturday. Ethan had been smart to bring Holly here, so she could get a taste of this world she knew nothing about.

As they ferried closer to Liberty, Ethan led Holly to the yacht’s railing to gain the best view.

“She is amazing.”

Holly could only gawk up at the massive copper statue, famously green with its patina of age. From the spikes of Liberty’s crown—which Ethan had told her represented rays of light—to the broken chain at her feet symbolizing freedom, she was a towering monument to emancipation. And her torch was a beacon of enlightenment.

Lady Liberty seemed to speak directly to Holly tonight. Holly looked into her eyes and pleaded for her wisdom and guidance.

“‘Give me your tired, your poor...’ Isn’t that poem about this statue?” she asked Ethan.

“The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus.”

“‘Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’” Holly had been suffocating in Florida. All her ghosts were there. “Maybe in New York I can breathe.”

“What has constricted you?”

Making up for her mother’s failings, with no father in the picture. Protecting her brother. Appeasing her explosive ex-husband.

“Where I come from nobody thinks big. Everyone is just trying to survive one more day.”

Ethan moved a bit closer to Holly. They stood side by side while the yacht circled Liberty, allowing them to observe her from every angle.

“Fate has such irony. I know so many people who have everything,” he said, “and yet it means nothing to them.”

“Gratitude is its own gift.”

He smiled wryly and nodded.

“As I mentioned, after Aunt Louise retires I plan to move Benton Worldwide’s new construction solely into housing ventures for disadvantaged people. I like giving houses rather than just money. Because I can supply the knowledge and the labor to build them properly.”

Colored lights began to flash on the deck and a band started playing in the dining room. Guests progressed to make their way inside the boat.

Ethan didn’t move, and Holly stayed beside him as the boat turned and the tall buildings of Manhattan returned to their view.

“I have seen so much poverty in the world,” Ethan continued musingly. “People living in shacks. In tents. In cardboard boxes. If I can help some of them have a safe and permanent home I will have accomplished something.”

“You can only imagine what a house might mean to someone who doesn’t have one.” Holly knew about that first-hand, having moved from place to place so many times as a child.

“In any case...” Ethan shrugged “...for all my supposed wealth and success, giving is the only thing that is truly satisfying.”

Once all the other guests had filed inside, Ethan gestured for Holly to follow him in. At the dining tables they sat with some older couples who were discussing a landscaping project for the grounds around the statue.

When the band began a tamer version of a funky song that Holly loved, she stood and reached her hand down for Ethan’s. “May I have this dance, sir?”

Ethan’s signature smile made its slow journey from the left to the right side of his mouth. He stood and followed her onto the dance floor, where they joined some other couples.

She faced him and began to swing her hips back and forth to the music. When her hips jutted left, her head tipped right. Then she flung her head left and he hips responded to the right. Like ocean waves, her body became one undulating flow. Back and forth. Back and forth.

The dress was slinky against her skin. She loved how it swung a little with every move she made. From what she could surmise in Ethan’s watchful eyes, he liked the movement of the dress, too.

At first he just rotated one shoulder forward and then the other, in a tentative sashay. But after a bit any self-consciousness dissolved and he let his body gyrate freely to the beat of the music.

He had a natural rhythm—just as Holly had known he would. It was part of that primitive side of him—the part he kept hidden away. The part she wished she could access.

Their eyes locked and their movements synchronized until they were undeniably dancing together.

There was no doubt of their attraction to each other. But they were doing a very good job of keeping the evening friendly and nothing more, just as planned.

As a matter of fact, when he had been talking on the deck earlier, about the good feeling of giving, it had been as if Holly was an old pal he could confide in. Pals were good.

Which was why when the band switched to a slow song Holly turned to leave the dance floor. Slow dances weren’t for buddies.

But a strong arm circled her waist.

“This doesn’t fit in with our no touching policy this evening.” Holly shook her head in resistance.

Ethan pulled her toward him and into a firm clinch. He secured her against him with a wide palm on her back.

Her breath hiccupped. Tonight was supposed to be time off from physical contact with him. After their intimacy at the Empire State Building last night had gone far outside the realm of their contract. Tonight, the last thing Holly needed was to have her face pressed against his neck, with the smell of his skin and his laundered shirt intoxicating her into a dangerous swoon.

“We may as well have a run-through, future Mrs. Benton,” he murmured into her ear. “We will be expected to dance together at the gala.”

He lifted one of her arms and placed her hand on his broad shoulder. He clasped her other hand in his.

“I don’t know if I can do it,” Holly protested.

“Surely I am not that irresistible.”

She laughed, although that was only half funny. “What I meant was, I don’t know how to partner-dance.”

“Well, young lady, you are in luck. I happen to be three-time champion of the Oxford Ballroom Dance Society.”

“Really?”

“No. Of course not.”

He began moving and she followed in line.

“But it is not that difficult. Can you feel my thigh leading yours...?”

* * *

When they got home, before they retreated to their separate sleeping quarters, Ethan retrieved the engagement ring from his jacket pocket.

As he replaced it on her finger, he asked, “Holly, would you marry me...again?”

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