where I was quite sure everyone who’d been around me was racing to the bathroom to wash their hands just in case I was sick or contagious.
And I still couldn’t stop sneezing.
A warm, large hand on my back alerted to me to Dane’s presence. I didn’t even have to look to know it was him. His touch was familiar to me by now and the faint but expensive scent of his cologne was extra but unnecessary confirmation of who it was with me.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice warm and soothing but thick with concern.
I was laughing too much to answer him right away, but when I turned my face toward him, I saw that he was looking at me like I was crazy. His eyes widened a fraction when he glanced down and caught sight of what had to have been a pretty ugly rash by now.
“Are you allergic to the perfume?” he asked, whispering as disbelief filled his eyes and his gaze locked on mine.
“Yeah, I’m pretty sure I am,” I said between sneezing and laughter. If I ever wrote an autobiography about this campaign, I’d call it that. Between sneezing and laughter.
Dane seemed to have been rendered immobile by my admission, but I saw the moment he realized what this meant. Then he was laughing with me, even though he couldn’t know all the reasons why.
“Do you need to go to the doctor?” he asked after a minute when his laughter had started subsiding.
I shook my head. “I have ointment back at the hotel for the rash, and the sneezing will end as soon as I get some air. It could’ve been much worse. I’m just grateful that my reaction to it was mild at best.”
“So am I,” he said, then wrapped my hand in his and zeroed in on a door nearby that seemed to lead out to a balcony.
We went outside and I headed right for the railing, gripping it as I took in breath after breath of clean, unscented air. While I was gulping down oxygen like it was beer at a frat party, Dane disappeared and was back a few minutes later with a wet cloth.
“This is the best I could come up with from the restrooms,” he said, holding it out to me. “Will it help if we try to rub the perfume off?”
“Not for the rash, but maybe to keep it from spreading.” I took the cloth from him gratefully, wiping around the affected area on my neck and then cleaning my hands. “Thank you. I’m so sorry about this.”
“It’s okay,” he said, his voice back to that honey-like, soothing quality it had had earlier. “We should’ve tested it on you before springing it on you like this. I didn’t even think about it.”
“I should’ve told you there was a possibility,” I said. “Rick told me that if I ended up being allergic to it, that I should just grin and bear it for the year. My allergy isn’t bad. It’s just a bit of discomfort. I really thought I could do it.”
“The good news is that you don’t actually have to wear the perfume to promote it,” he said gently. “In fact, I’m sure we could even find a way to work this into the campaign.”
“That your main face of Beautiful Moments is allergic to it?” My brows rose as I stared up into his blue eyes which shone silver in the moonlight out here on the balcony. “I doubt that will go down well.”
“We’ll figure something out,” he promised, but I was starting to wonder if I was just always going to be more trouble to him than I was worth.
Having me on this campaign was becoming more complicated by the minute. I didn’t know what to do about it yet, but I needed to think of something.
“We should go back inside,” I said after a brief pause.
There was no doubt in my mind that he meant it when he said he’d figure it out, but I didn’t want him to have to. This wasn’t the place to talk about it, though.
Dane nodded and took my hand, but as we walked back into the ballroom, Jefferson was suddenly there. His white eyebrows were knitted together and tension was just about radiating off him.
“Why aren’t you mingling?” he demanded in a soft but insistent tone. “What was all that racket about earlier? Everyone is talking about some kind of sneezing fit before the two of you disappeared.”