Chapter Thirty-Two

Picking up the her favorite blue bottle, Richie filled Stephanie’s wine glass before picking up the Johnnie Walker Blue to add another splash to his high ball glass.  He turned to watch her as she interacted with his friends.  She was smiling and seemed to be enjoying herself. Not at all nervous in a room full of strangers.  Still, he was glad he kept the party small.  

“You’re not over doing it are you?”  Heather motioned to the short glass on the bar in front of him as she sidled up next to him.

He shook his head at his ex-wife.  “I’m fine.”  He looked back over at Stephanie and found her watching him and his interaction with his ex.  He smiled and winked at her.

“She’s not your usual type.”  Heather hadn’t missed the way Richie had been watching this new woman, how he had barely left her side all evening.  From where she was standing, Richie was clearly smitten with this woman.  While Stephanie seemed nice enough, she just didn’t fit the hardened, Hollywood type he had been gravitating toward lately.  There was something softer, more vulnerable about her.  Add to that the fact that she was a brunette, Heather didn’t understand the attraction.

Richie sipped the smooth whiskey, “my tastes have changed.”  It wasn’t her business anymore anyway who he chose to spend his time with.  She gave that right up when she asked him for a divorce.  “She’s a nice woman who has no interest in the ‘business’ of Hollywood.”  His eyes once again drifted from Heather to Stephanie.

Heather smirked.  “But what does she have an interest in?”  She followed his gaze to where Stephanie was engaged in conversation with Mike’s wife, Liz.  “How did you two meet?  Are you sure she doesn’t have any ulterior motives for falling in with you?”  She wasn’t trying to be mean, but she didn’t want to see Richie hurt if things didn’t work out.  They might not be married anymore, but she still cared about him.

He didn’t like what Heather was insinuating.  His grip tightened on his glass and he set Stephanie’s back on the bar.  He didn’t want to snap the stem.  She couldn’t have meant that the way it sounded.  “Not that it’s any of your business” he hissed, “but Stephanie is the least conniving woman I have ever met.”  He leaned in close, he didn’t want anyone else to hear what he was about to say, “she’s here because she wants to be with me, not because she needs my money, or because she needs to be in the limelight.”  Unlike you. Straightening, he picked up both glasses off the bar.  “Now, if you’ll excuse me” he left Heather staring after him as he headed toward Stephanie.

Stephanie watched as he practically stalked across the room to her.  What in the world had Heather said to make him so mad?  

“Here you go, sweetheart.”  Richie handed her her glass and took a healthy swallow out of his own.  No way Heather could be right about Stephanie.

“Are you okay?”  His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were not happy.

He nodded, “yeah, I’m fine.”  He let the fingers of his free hand tangle with hers.  He felt calmer for the contact.  “Heather just...yeah, she’s just being Heather.  Nothing to be worried about.”  He turned to the group that was talking to his right.  Suddenly he wished everyone would leave.  He really just wanted to be alone with Stephanie.  He hated that Heather could still make him feel like every choice he made was the wrong one.  “Let’s go into the other room where the TV is so we can see what Dick Clark and Ryan Seacrest are up to.  It’s about half hour til the ball drops.”  With any luck, after they toasted in the new year everyone would want to go home and he could convince Stephanie to stick around for breakfast.

He held Stephanie back as everyone moved into the other room.  “Help me with the champagne?”  

She nodded and followed him into the kitchen.  “Sure.”  She watched him stalk to the refrigerator and yank out two bottles of Krug and then hip-check the door shut.  When he turned to the cabinet in corner she laid her hand gently in the middle of his back, between his tense shoulder blades.  “What’s wrong?”  For every time he had been there when she needed someone, she really wished he would let her be there for him.

He set the two bottles down on the counter and turned around, his cool hand cupping her cheek.  He should say something, apologize to her for acting like a complete ass, but all he could focus on at the moment was her mouth and how luscious her lips looked.  His leaned in and dropped his mouth to hers, kissing her with an urgency borne of anger and frustration.  When he pulled back, he didn’t miss the confusion warring with desire in her witchy green eyes and he felt like a heel. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.”  He turned back to the champagne, not giving her a chance to even catch her breath.

She stepped around him, her hand not quite steady as she reached for the cupboard to get the glasses.  Dropping her hand from the cabinet pull, she fingered her lips.  Where had that come from?  She turned to ask him again what was bothering him, but found him working deliberately to open the champagne.   She turned back to the cabinet instead and pulled out the glasses.  “Do you have a tray?” she asked quietly.

He released the cork with a slight “pop” and turned around.  “What?”

“Do you have a tray for the glasses?” 

“Oh, yeah.”  He reached down to a slim cabinet and pulled out a festive holiday tray.  “Here, sweetheart.”

She reached for it and their hands touched.  Before she could pull hers back he gripped her fingers. 

“I’m sorry.” 

She raised her head and met his gaze.  “Are you going to tell me what happened in there?”  She indicated to the living room.  “Or do I have to guess?”

He shook his head, “if you’ll stick around after everyone leaves, we’ll have a nice long talk.”  Among other things.  Hopefully.

She studied him for a long moment.  “Okay.”  He deserved at least that much.  She glanced up at the clock.  “We’d best get the champagne into the other room.  It’s two minutes til next year.”

~

After the ball dropped and happy new years’ kisses, hugs and handshakes were exchanged, Richie’s friends started disappearing.  By one o’clock they were alone.  Richie closed the door behind the last of his friends and found Stephanie in the living room picking up the odd dirty glass or crumpled napkin.  “Here, let me do that.”  He took the items from her hands and set them on the bar.  “I didn’t invite you here to clean up after me.”

She shrugged.  “It’s no big deal.”  She was used to helping with the clean up after a party.  It was just something she had always done for her family and friends. 

“Come on” he took her hand and tugged her along through the kitchen, stopping to grab the last bottle of Krug and two glasses before detouring out onto the patio.  It was cool, but the heater made it comfortable.  He settled himself on the lounger and patted the cushion in front of him.  “Have a seat.”

Nestled between his legs, she rested back against him, twirling the delicate champagne flute between her fingers.  “Are you going to tell me what had you all riled up earlier?”

His sigh ruffled her hair and he took a sip of the decadent bubbles.  “Heather.”  He set his glass on the ground next to the bottle and ran his fingertips lightly up and down her arm.  “She always seems to know just which buttons of mine to push to piss me off.”  He took her glass from her fingers and set it next to his before taking her hand and bringing it to his lips.  “I’m sorry for acting like such an ass earlier.  You didn’t deserve to have my bad mood taken out on you.”

Turning so she was resting on her hip, she looked up at him.  “Just talk to me next time, Rich.  If this relationship is going to work, you need to know you can talk to me as much as I know I can and you make me, talk to you.”

He fluttered kisses across her forehead.  “I know sweetheart, you’re right.  I just-” he sighed again.  “There are days when I wish she would just keep her mouth shut.”

Stephanie thought back to what she had witnessed between them earlier in the evening.  “She was talking about me, wasn’t she?”

He nodded.  “Yeah.”

Stephanie frowned.  “What did she say?”

With another sigh he relayed their conversation to her.  “I don’t believe a word of what she said and I told her so.”

Stephanie nodded.  “Is she so insecure that she needs to question the intentions of someone she barely said hello to?  And, just so you know, between the life insurance, selling my house and the settlement I got from the trucking company, I have more money than I will ever be able to spend.  I don’t even have to work if I don’t want to.”  She pushed away from him and stood, agitation making her pace.  “I don’t want your money, Rich.  I have no desire whatsoever to be in the spotlight.”  She leaned down and picked up her champagne, drinking it down in one long swallow.

Richie stood and took the glass from her, setting it on the table.  “Come on sweetheart, don’t get yourself all worked up.”  He ran his hands up and down her arms.  “She’s not worth your anger.”  Things were not going at all as he had hoped.  He needed to calm her down and work her up in a much different, more passionate way.  His fingers slid up her shoulders, kneading away the tight knots that had formed.

“Mmmmm” she closed her eyes.  “That feels good.”  She let him go on a bit longer.  “Sorry to go off like that.  It just makes me mad to be judged like that when she didn’t even care enough to take the time to talk to me.”

He brought his hands around to cup her face and tilt it up.  “And that’s her loss.  It doesn’t matter to me what she thinks.”  He kissed her gently.  “I know you and that’s what matters.”  He kissed her again, a kiss born of desire and need this time instead of anger and frustration.

She melted into him as he kissed her.  A nervous, excited shiver ran through her as his tongue swept into her mouth and his hands moved over her.

“Sweetheart” he murmured against her lips.  “Come back inside with me?”

Taking his hand, she tamped down her residual anger and growing nerves and followed him back into the house.