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  Franklin Mitchell said something that got a loud burst of laughter from the others at the table, and Diana shifted her gaze to the left. Conner and Missy Desmond were also at the table, and everyone was laughing except—Diana’s searching gaze collided with a pair of piercing gray eyes that locked on to hers, refusing to break the glance. Clearly disinterested in both his meal and the people at his table, he was leaning back in his chair, openly watching her, his expression strangely speculative.

  Diana couldn’t imagine why he was looking at her that way, but a polite smile seemed appropriate and she gave him one.

  He answered with a slow nod and a smile that was as warm as it was bold, but what disturbed Diana was the odd, almost calculating look in his eyes.

  Hastily, she yanked her gaze from his and joined the conversation at her own table, but her mind was on Haley Mitchell and what she was likely to say to Cole if she’d seen him arrive with Diana. Haley thrived on vicious gossip; she created it and then used it like a weapon against anyone she didn’t like, and there were many she didn’t like—nearly all of them women.

  She particularly despised Diana because one evening several years earlier, when Peter was still single and particularly drunk, he’d stood up during a wedding reception where he was a groomsman and Diana was a bridesmaid, and instead of proposing a toast to the bride and groom, which everyone thought he was going to do, he proposed marriage to Diana. She had tried to pass it off as a joke, and everyone else let it go at that—except Peter himself and Haley, who’d been in love with him for years.

  He’d married Haley soon after that, but Haley never forgot that she was Peter’s second choice, and Peter never forgot that Diana had turned him down. Haley despised Diana with a jealous loathing that seemed to grow stronger with each year, as did the rumors that Haley’s marriage was in trouble. Diana knew beyond a doubt that if Haley imagined there was anything between Cole and Diana, she’d launch a hate campaign right there at the table in front of him.

  That possibility added yet more stress to the evening that lay ahead of her, and Diana couldn’t cope with it. Instead, she looked across the table at Doug and Amy and asked what plans they’d made for the rest of Amy’s visit in Houston; then she picked up a fresh glass of wine and forced herself to concentrate on every word they said.

  She was so determined to participate and distract herself that she didn’t notice that Spence, who was on her left, had a clear view of Cole and that he was watching the other man in frowning silence. Corey noticed his grim preoccupation, however, and when the main course was being cleared away, she leaned close to him. “What’s wrong?” she whispered.

  He waited until a waiter had finished filling his coffee cup, then tipped his head toward the head table. “Harrison’s looked over at Diana several times tonight, and I don’t like it.”

  Corey was surprised but far from displeased. In Diana’s present predicament, Corey thought that a little flattering attention from a highly desirable male couldn’t do anything but help lift her status and bolster her pride tonight. “Why don’t you like it?”

  “Because I don’t like Harrison.”

  “Why not?” Corey asked, stunned.

  He hesitated for a suspiciously long time, then tried to dismiss the matter with a shrug. “Among other things, he has a reputation for being devious and single-minded. Diana is in a very vulnerable state right now, and her guard is down.”

  “Spence, Cole is an old friend, and you’re being overprotective!”

  Laying his hand over hers, he gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You’re right.”

  Corey would have pursued the subject, but she was prevented from doing that by the auctioneer, who’d walked onto the stage to open the auction. He rapped his gavel on the podium, and excitement surged through the huge ballroom, silencing conversations and causing everyone to turn and look in his direction.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he proclaimed, “when we’re through here, you’ll have an additional half hour to enter your final written bids on those items being offered at the silent auction in the Empire Ballroom. That brings us to the moment you’ve all been waiting for. Without further delay or further comment, I invite you to open your hearts and your checkbooks, and to remember that every dollar of the proceeds from this auction will go directly to cancer research. Now, if you will refer to the individual catalogs at your table, you will find a complete listing of the items being auctioned off, along with a description of each.”

  There was a general rustling as people reached for their catalogs. “I know many of you are eager to get to the Klineman sculpture,” he said, and jokingly added, “in an effort to minimize your wait and heighten your tension and desire, we have placed that article partway down the list at number ten.”

  Laughter rippled around the room, and he waited until he had everyone’s complete attention before he spoke again. “Item one,” he proclaimed. “This is a small pencil sketch by Pablo Picasso. Who will open the bidding at forty thousand dollars?” An instant later, he nodded with satisfaction. “Mr. Certillo has offered forty thousand dollars. Do I have forty-one thousand dollars?” Within a few minutes, the sketch was sold for $66,000, and the next item was introduced.

  “Item two is a splendid Tiffany lamp, circa 1904. Who will offer fifty thousand dollars? . . .”

  Chapter 23

  THE “HONOR” OF BEING SEATED at the head table was one that Cole would have gladly forgone. His official host was a tall, distinguished-looking, gray-haired man named Franklin Mitchell, who was the vice chairman of a family-owned oil company and a conceited, superficial pain in the ass. Mitchell’s guests were his wife, his son and daughter-in-law, and a young couple named Jenkins, who appeared to be close friends of the son’s. The six of them represented the sort of arrogant superciliousness that Cole most despised.

  The other two couples at the table were a portly bachelor in his fifties named Delbert Canfield and his ancient mother, whom he dutifully referred to as “Mama,” and Conner and Missy Desmond. The Desmonds were an attractive, middle-aged couple who made a brief, valiant effort to find some sort of common ground with Cole. Unfortunately their personal interests seemed to be limited almost exclusively to their golf handicaps, their tennis games, and their friends. Since Cole was neither interested in nor conversant in those three topics, conversation lagged and then collapsed.

  Rather than waste an evening listening to idle gossip and meaningless small talk, Cole simply ignored his table companions and put his time to better use. For a while he thought about Cal’s illness and his outrageous demand that Cole marry within six months, and occasionally he allowed himself a glimpse of Diana to see how she was holding up; then he turned his thoughts to problems he could actually solve.

  By the time the first course was being cleared away, he had mentally outlined his agenda for the annual meeting of his board of directors and had decided to declare a stock dividend in advance of the meeting to ensure his proposals were ratified.

  During dessert, while Mitchell boasted about his strategy for getting himself elected president of River Pines Country Club, Cole silently mapped out his own strategy for putting Cushman Electronics at the top of the computer-chip industry.

  The auction was well underway, and Cole was working out alternative uses for his newly acquired subsidiary, in the event their new chip didn’t live up to its promise, when he realized that Franklin Mitchell was talking to him. Having failed to engage Cole in conversations on topics ranging from Cole’s ancestry and personal background to his opinion about the Houston Oilers’ chances of making it to the Super Bowl next year, Mitchell had evidently decided to introduce hunting as his next subject. “Have you done any shooting, Cole?”

  “Some,” Cole replied, stealing a glance at Diana and then reluctantly turning his attention to Mitchell. For some reason, she looked far more tense now than she had an hour ago.

  “I ought to invite you to our ranch to hunt deer. Splendid place—fifty thousand acres.