“His company's planning to demolish the Starlight Theatre. Have you heard of it?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you have. Everybody's heard of the Starlight. Well, everybody who actually likes New York.”
The stranger looked as though he was struggling to maintain a straight face.
Maggie glanced toward the ballroom doors.
“Anyway, I probably shouldn't be telling you this.”
“Probably not.”
“If he turns out to be as awful as everyone says, I may simply pour champagne over his head.”
“I'd advise against that.”
“Why?”
“It would be a terrible waste of champagne.”
She laughed.
“You're funny.”
“I've been accused of worse.”
A beautifully dressed receptionist approached them.
She wore a tailored ivory jacket with pronounced shoulders and a gold name badge. Her blond hair was swept into an immaculate French twist.
She glanced at the man.
Her face brightened with immediate recognition.
“Mr. Sterling, they're waiting for you.”
Maggie stopped breathing.
The receptionist continued.
“The board members have already arrived, and your father would like a word before the presentation begins.”
The stranger nodded.
“Thank you, Denise.”
Then he turned toward Maggie.
She stared at him.
He smiled.
A slow, devastatingly handsome smile.
“Maggie Bennett,” he said, “I believe you were about to pour champagne over my head.”
For a moment, the entire city seemed to go silent.
Maggie's eyes widened.
“No.”
He tilted his head.
“No?”
“No, you can't be.”
“I'm afraid I am.”
“Nicholas Sterling?”
“At your service.”
She looked at his face.
Then his suit.
Then the receptionist.
Then his face again.
“Oh, my God.”
He gave a small shrug.
“If it helps, I've been called worse than a parking meter.”
Maggie closed her eyes.
She wanted the elevator doors to reopen.
She wanted to step inside.
She wanted to ride straight down to the lobby, walk into the street, and change her name.
Instead, she stood frozen while the most powerful man in the room watched her with unmistakable amusement.
Finally, she opened her eyes.
“Mr. Sterling.”
“Yes?”
“I would like to formally withdraw approximately eighty percent of the conversation we just had.”
“Only eighty?”
“The remaining twenty percent concerned my zipper. I'm standing by that.”
He laughed.
And to Maggie's horror, she realized that she liked the sound.
Nicholas Sterling extended his hand toward the ballroom.
“Come along, Miss Bennett.”
“Where?”
“To the reception.”
She stared.
“After what I just said?”
“Especially after what you just said.”
He leaned a little closer.
“And for the record, I don't think the Starlight should become a parking garage either.”
Before Maggie could respond, he stepped into the ballroom.
Leaving her standing beneath the chandeliers, wondering whether she had just ruined her career or accidentally found herself in the middle of the most extraordinary evening of her life.
Maggie had not always been the sort of woman who entered corporate receptions carrying architectural drawings in a battered leather portfolio.
At twenty-nine, she was still trying to decide whether that made her ambitious or merely stubborn.
She lived in a fourth-floor walk-up apartment in Greenwich Village, where the radiators clanged in winter, the kitchen window overlooked a brick wall, and her roommate, Tessa Morales, ran a small vintage clothing shop that made almost enough money to pay its rent.
Almost.
The two women had met six years earlier when Maggie accidentally knocked over a display of secondhand evening gowns while chasing a runaway sketch across Bleecker Street.