An Heiress to Remember (The Gilded Age Girls Club #3) - Maya Rodale Page 0,65

that he had learned the only way to earn a woman’s love was to ruthlessly earn a fortune at her expense?

“Might I remind you that it’s not just your fortune on the line here, Dalton?” Connor said hotly. “I have much to gain—or lose—too.”

“I know. I haven’t forgotten.”

He just didn’t care in the same way he once did. Dalton yearned for Beatrice with a ferocious passion that even years of enmity couldn’t put a dent in. He sought to win her in the only way the world had ever showed him—more money, more power—yet it wasn’t working.

Now Dalton had to decide what mattered more: winning a battle or winning the girl.

Goodwin’s Department Store

Beatrice stood happy and proud in a flurry of feminine energy and activity. There was Adeline making final tweaks to the models attired in her designs, seamstresses fluttered about dangerously with pins in their mouths and needles and threads, making last-second alterations. The air was tinged with girlish, nervous, excited chatter and laughter.

There were pretty dresses. A frenzy of activity. A friendly audience clamoring to see, for the first time, a dress on a woman’s body before they bought it. New styles had been promised. And pockets. Nothing made a woman mad with delight like a dress with pockets.

It wasn’t Wild Rose Pink but it was certainly something captivating. And the women were enchanted as models walked among them, carefully turning and deliberately showing themselves off at all angles because a dress and a woman’s body existed in multiple dimensions and it took up space.

“I hate to admit it . . .” Adeline began to confide in Beatrice.

“But the only way this would be better is if you could have used the Wild Rose silk?” Beatrice finished her sentence. “I am thinking the same thing.”

“You said it,” Adeline replied. “Remind me why we are not?”

“Because he has some idea of revenge and ruining my store. I sometimes even fear he may be wooing me to get to it. I can’t let him take down my dreams, and this store and everything it represents and everyone it serves. Not even over his exclusive Wild Rose Pink.”

“Noble.” Adeline nodded sagely.

“And I cannot let him win my store—or me,” Beatrice continued. She wanted to say more, but her something with Dalton was still secret and certainly not to be discussed in a crowd so thick it felt like all the women in Manhattan were there. Everything was so complicated, in spite of her efforts to keep a neat division between rivals by day and lovers by night.

Her pride was at war with her desire and it felt . . . ridiculous.

“But does it really have to be either/or?” Adeline mused.

“But what is the alternative?” Beatrice asked.

“And/and.” Adeline flashed a grin. “Must one of you have to lose in order for the other to win?”

“He’s the one with the ideas about revenge and—”

“Women have a dreadful habit of thinking too much about what men want, and not enough about what we want,” Adeline replied smartly. “We respond rather than light up the path we want to travel. Like a beacon. What do you want, Beatrice? What does happy even look like to you?”

But Adeline was off before she could answer; a hemline was askew and it was an urgent crisis that required her immediate attention. Customers were waiting with bated breath and open purses.

Beatrice was alone with her thoughts. Alone as one could be in a mad flurry of activity and the hum of feminine chatter, and the cacophony of women shopping, which is to say, the joyous ruckus of a sound of women publicly owning their desires.

She had made this possible.

She had created this moment.

She had orchestrated this wonder of women seeing and experiencing the world tailored for them for the first time, supported by each other, and full of opportunities. Be a beacon, they had asked of her, demanded of her. She, who had nothing to lose could afford to risk all to give them everything.

She couldn’t give that up.

This, this was what she wanted.

That’s what she was thinking when Dalton stepped into view.

Dalton was not interested in all the women demonstrating the new fashions or the women purchasing them. He was not interested in all the ready-made garments for sale.

He only had eyes for one woman.

Beatrice caught his gaze and made her way through the crowd toward him. As if by mutual agreement, they had not seen each other these past few nights. Ever since he had asked her