Cat on the Fence Read Online Free PDF Page A

Tower only requires a minimum of two weeks’ notice
and they just had a cancellation. I’ve already checked.”
    “And people will show up on such short notice?”
    “You don’t think so? It’ll be Valentine’s Day. People are
always looking for something to do for that holiday anyway.”
    “You’d have to make it a catchy gimmick,” she’d suggested. “How
about a costume ball?”
    “Any kind of costume?”
    “Animal costume.”
    He’d scoffed. “I don’t see that happening.”
    “Why not? It’s to help out injured animals. And it’s being
thrown by a zoo, for goodness’ sake.”
    “I don’t know how many upper-class folks would be willing to
show up at a party downtown dressed like animals.”
    “Then just make it animal masks,” Karabi had suggested.
    And just like that, they’d had an animal masquerade in the
works.
    Karabi had not expected Alex to be able to pull all of this
off in a month but he had. She hadn’t expected so many people to RSVP but they
had. And apparently they were here.
    Which meant she was going to have to get out of the cab and
make the awkward trek into the building amongst all these people, in her
three-inch-high heels and the long, flowing, cheetah-print dress she was
wearing underneath her wool coat. Hopefully she wouldn’t fall flat on her face.
    “All set, ma’am? That’ll be six seventy-five.” The driver
snapped her back to reality.
    Karabi paid and thanked him, then pulled her homemade
cheetah mask down over her face. Thank goodness it was a masquerade ball. At
least no one would recognize her if she did trip over her own feet.
    As soon as she got out of the cab she moved as quickly as
her wobbly legs would let her. It was cold out and the sidewalk was a little slushy
with old snow. She wanted to get indoors as soon as possible. Once she was
inside there was a long line to get on the elevators, so she had to wait. Quickly
growing hot, she took off her coat and draped it over her arm. The wait was awkward
because it looked as though everyone else there was part of a pair, whereas she
was by herself. Karabi was feeling more than a little lonely. It was Valentine’s
Day and here she was at a ball without a date. So sad.
    Technically she was there to work, not spend time with a
date. She would be with the other staff members helping run the party,
including Alexander. Alex . Her pulse quickened a little as she thought
about him. She’d spent the past month working very closely with Alex yet trying
to emotionally keep her distance. Whenever they were in too close a proximity to
each other, sparks would fly and the mood was always hot but awkward.
    Although Karabi had done her best to try to play it off, the
truth was there’d been so many times she’d thought about jumping Alex’s bones.
But she still barely knew the man. She didn’t want to look like a complete
hussy. And hadn’t she just learned her lesson about moving too fast? Plus there
was the fact that for some reason she was almost frightened to really get to
know him. He’d asked her out to lunch several times, even dinner once, but she’d
refused each time. Her legitimate excuse was always that she was too busy
working with Musaka and Kimba, or collaborating with the new temporary staff who
had come on board to help out. Alex had accepted her rejection with patience
and even consideration—at least once a week he’d brought lunch to her when she
was too busy to think about food. He’d even sat in the same room with her and eaten
within her vicinity until the smell enticed her enough to stop what she was
doing and sit down with him for a few minutes to munch.
    But she hadn’t let it get too much further than that. She
couldn’t shake the fear that if she got to really know this one, she’d like him too much. It’d only been about six weeks since she’d broken up with Rao
and she was still kind of stinging from that. Maybe this was what it was like
to be what was called “on the rebound”?