Hooked

“You’re quite the little dancer.” When she looked blankly at him, he clarified, “I saw you at the reception last night. You know, with Cassie and the bridesmaids out on the dance floor.”
    “Oh, well—” Steph laughed, with precious little humor “—there’s a perfectly good explanation for that. I taught Cassie and her friends to dance when they were in middle school, and since then, she always pulls me out onto the floor and makes me relive the experience.”
    “Well, you’ve got all the right moves,” he said with too much emphasis and too much eyeballing. “You put the younger crowd to shame.”
    Ah, the maneuvers of a CEO on the prowl. Charge in like it’s a hostile board takeover, toss out some left-handed flattery, and then flash some of the good life in the dazzled quarry’s eyes… . Yep, there was the Presidential Rolex, right on cue. Bob propped his left elbow on the table, baring his twenty-thousand-dollar timepiece in a fairly casual way.
    “Terrie says you’re based in Atlanta now.”
    “I moved the corporate headquarters from Phoenix to Atlanta four years ago,” she said, “and it was a good move. Silk and Steele has really taken off…seventeen markets now. Plus, I have two sisters in Atlanta, and nieces and nephews aplenty. It’s been great to get back to family. Do you have children, Bob?”
    “Two. East and West Coasts. Thank God for boarding schools. Pretty much leaves me free to…have fun.” He waggled his eyebrows, saluted her with his mimosa and then drained the glass. “What about you? What do you do for fun, Stephie?”
    “It’s Stephanie, Bob,” she said, smiling, and battling an urge to turn her sharp little hooves on his tragically insecure underbelly. But she was a decent and rational human being, not given to inflicting emotional pain on desperate, dead-muskrat-wearing executives fresh from thedivorce wars. “And lately…I’ve been too occupied to water-ski, bodysurf, hike, train my dog or even use my gourmet kitchen.”
    “Occupied?” He gave a wicked laugh and looked her up and down. “I just bet you have. With what?” He laughed again. “Or is that whom? ”
    She didn’t mean to do it. It wasn’t part of some grand discourage-the-masher plan. It just came out. Pure and simple. The truth.
    “With radiation therapy, Bob.”
    He huffed a half laugh, frowned, then finally got that she was serious.
    “Radiation?” He recoiled, albeit unconsciously. “You mean for…”
    “The big C.” When he continued to stare, she smiled again and felt a rebellious pleasure at the release of the tension that had coiled in her middle. She had simply told him the truth.
    And the rest of the truth was that she didn’t feel like playing dating games just now…or maybe ever again. Until now, she’d refused to tell anyone except her sisters about the breast cancer diagnosis or the treatment that left her drained of energy and depressed at times. She hadn’t even told Terrie, one of her oldest friends. All their phone conversations over the last year had been about the engagement, the wedding plans and the way the Phoenix store was doing. There just never seemed to be a good time to say “Cassie’s got to have the Vera Wang for the wedding, and by the way, I’ve got breast cancer.”
    She hadn’t told any of the people at her corporate offices, either. The first surgery had taken her away from work for a week, which she’d listed as “vacation.” The second surgery had taken another week, scheduled just after Fashion Week in New York, so everyone assumed she was taking a little downtime in the Hamptons.
    Why she had chosen to break her careful silence with old Bob Slidell was something of a mystery. Except that he was here and she was tired of hiding the truth she lived with day after day. Too late to recall it now. The muskrat was out of the bag.
    “Damn. That’s tough stuff…cancer.” Bob’s gaze flicked around the room as if Terrie or her husband or any of the seventy-five other guests could help him out with something to say. “Are you…I mean…okay?”
    “So far. Two surgeries and some radiation later, I seem to be clear.”
    “What kind of cancer was it?” And damn if his gaze didn’t go straight to her breasts. Probably unintentionally. But he was, after all, on the make. Most likely had breasts on the brain.
    “Yep. That’s the one. Breast cancer.” She watched color rise in his face. And because of what she’d been through, of