Midnight Lily(56)

"Lily, what is the matter? You look positively pale, darling. I'm trying to introduce you to Mr. Bradley. He's the—"

"I have to . . . I can't . . ." I choked out breathlessly.

Where do you fly, Lily?

Away. I fly away.

His eyes were on me now, wide, unblinking.

Ryan, it was Ryan.

Just as I'd already known. His face, his beautiful face. He looked shocked, pale. The woman next to him was saying something. And oh, I couldn't do this. I was going to fall down. I was going to fly away. And suddenly in what seemed to be an instant, he was right in front of me.

"Lily," he choked, grabbing on to my bare upper arms. I squeaked. I couldn't make my mouth move. "Lily!" he almost shouted. He shook me and I let out another small squeak. My heart lodged in my throat. He was here, in front of me. With another woman. Oh God, why?

"What in the world?" someone demanded. "What are you doing? Miss Corsella, do you require assistance?" My eyes darted briefly to him and then back to Ryan. I could barely breathe let alone answer him.

"Let go of her," my grandmother said shrilly to Ryan, ignoring the man next to her.

Ryan turned to the man. "Do you see her?" he demanded. The man's face became a study in confusion.

"I beg your pardon? Do I see Lily? She's standing right in front of me. Are you all right, young man?" He turned to my grandmother. "Bianca?"

Ryan ignored the man and turned back to me. "Lily? How? How?" he asked, his voice cracking, panic in his tone. Or was it joy? Oh no, that was worse. That was far worse. Wasn't it? His eyes moved quickly down my body and then back up to my eyes in one quick blink of movement. "Jesus, Lily," he breathed. "Lily."

"I . . ." The single syllable died on my lips. I tried to pull away from him, but he latched on harder. Oh Ryan, Ryan, Ryan. And I wanted to scream, because mixed in with the shock and intense jealousy of seeing him with someone else, I felt joy of my own. A dazzling spear of elation that spiked straight through my heart. Ryan, my Ryan, my mind insisted.

Only he wasn't mine at all.

"No," he said, "no."

"Ryan, what's happening?" the woman he was with asked softly, standing just to his side and a step behind, looking around, probably embarrassed and confused. I only saw her in my peripheral vision, unable to take my eyes off Ryan. He ignored her, his eyes still trained on me as well.

"Let go of her," my grandmother repeated, more loudly. She didn't want to attract any more attention than we already had.

"Please," I finally managed, "please let me go, Ryan." Time seemed to stop as his real name fell from my lips, the room seeming to grow brighter around me. Ryan's eyes widened even more.

"You know my name," he said. "You do know who I really am. I wasn't sure . . ."

The woman he was with took a tiny step back, looking between the two of us.

"Let her go, Ryan," my grandmother repeated for me. "You're making a scene."

"Grandma, it's okay . . . " I glanced at my grandmother, and Ryan, following my gaze, finally looked from me to her.

"You," he said. "You were there."

"Yes, now let go of her and we can step outside and talk. Let go of her." She looked around, offering a small smile to the crowd in general, some milling nearby, some looking at us and whispering. Nothing to see here, folks, nothing at all.

Ryan looked back to me, his eyes wild, his expression still arrested. He dropped his hands from my arms, and I stumbled back slightly. He stepped forward to steady me, but my grandmother was closer and wrapped one arm around my waist, holding me up. "Let's just step outside," she repeated. She smiled at the man she'd been talking to, the man who I briefly noted was watching the scene with a worried frown on his face.

"Yes, please, I'd just like to go," I said, turning, my grandmother moving with me. My legs felt like they were weighted as she led me out of the ballroom. I had to focus to make them move. Behind me, I heard Ryan speaking to the woman he was with momentarily, and then I heard his steps on the marble floor behind us. I was woozy as if the half of a martini I'd consumed had gone straight to my head. As if I were drunk.

I felt his heat behind me before I turned, his hand again on my arm. "Lily, please," he said. We were just outside the ballroom now, the music filtering out into the vestibule where we stood. "You're real," Ryan whispered, his hand took mine and his thumb made a circle over my pulse as if he was checking to make sure I was really alive. I blinked. "You're real," he repeated as though he needed to say it twice to convince himself.

I felt my face move into a frown. "Did you think . . . that I wasn't real?" I finally asked, confused.

He let out a gust of breath. "I, Christ, Lily, I wasn't sure. I questioned it. I've been questioning it."

Something about that hurt. "I . . . see," I said. If he hadn't known if I was real or not, he couldn't have missed me, pined for me as I'd pined for him. He couldn't have. He mustn't have. That's why he was with that woman, giving her his body and his heart. He'd forgotten about me, moved on. He'd dismissed me as nothing more than a dream.

"You left. Why?" he asked. "Why didn't you tell me you were here? In San Francisco? How long—"