It's nearly nine thirty when Emma glances at the door, uselessly, for perhaps the hundredth time. Alex still isn't here. He'd been reluctant about attending the Middletons' New Year's Eve party when she pestered him about it weeks ago, and she has a sneaking, sinking suspicion he's decided to forego the event entirely.

There are drops of melted snow covering the floor in shallow, oddly shaped puddles. She drags the pointed toe of one of her red pumps in a line across the puddles, taps the heel with an audible click click click.

Trust Alex Knightley to be too much of a boring homebody to come to a party she persuaded even her father to attend. He's probably fast asleep in front of an open Excel spreadsheet somewhere. Emma smushes her lips together and tugs at her dress.

"Emma, my dear," Mr. Woodhouse's voice draws her out of her reverie, "Why are you standing so close to the entrance? You'll catch a chill with all that cold air blowing in every time someone opens the door."

She smiles up at him. "I'm fine, Daddy. Just waiting for—just getting some air."

"Yes," he looks around mournfully at the warehouse-turned-art-gallery the Middletons rented out for the evening; a compelling and dynamic space for an event, but a source of never-ending concern for her father. "You never know with the vents in these places. Do you remember, just five years ago, when one of my very good friends caught Legionnaire's disease from the air conditioning unit at the club? I ought to ask whether—"

Emma gently takes his hands. "I'm sure Mr. and Mrs. Middleton took every precaution. Have you eaten anything?"

She manages to steer him towards the hors d'oeuvre to fix an acceptable plate for him, and before long he's engrossed in conversation about the recent cold front with one of the other guests. Emma takes the opportunity to get herself a drink. While she would never do anything as gauche as get drunk at a social event, she can't help taking rapid, extended sips of her Manhattan until the world seems just a little blurred around the edges.

Which is why she doesn't realize she's been effectively cornered by a vulgarian in an untucked dress shirt (with a fondness for art history and poor double entendres, no less) until her maraschino cherry is bobbing low in its glass.

/

He's barely stepped past the threshold of the door when Emma materializes at his side, grabs his wrist, and drags him further in with unexpected determination. Alex lets himself be pulled along; he's too used to Emma's ways to really fight this kind of thing anymore.

"You're late," she hisses, helping him with his coat.

"Ow!" He bites back a wince as Emma twists his arm out of the sleeve. "What is so urgent? I had a meeting, I told you last week—"

She hands off the coat and continues talking over him, brushing the snow from his hair. "Anyway, listen, I'm calling in that favor for the time I got you out of orthopedic shoe shopping with Maddie Bates—" She cuts off mid-brush, her hand poised somewhere beneath his ear. "Did you walk here?"

Alex shrugs. "It's only sixteen blocks from my apartment."

"I don't know why you insist on walking everywhere when you have that perfectly lovely Panamera just sitting in its garage. And don't give me some environmentalist nonsense; it's a hybrid. You do realize some of our business partners are here, right? Not to mention potential clients. Look at your oxfords, they're covered in slush."

"If people interested in our services are more concerned with the state of my shoes than our actual business practices, my driving habits are the least of our worries."

His tie feels tight around his neck. He pulls at the knot, fumbling with his shirt collar.

Emma reaches up to help him. "Temps walk to a social event where there are important contacts in attendance. Serious adult businessmen do not. It isn't—dignified. Oh, for heaven's sake," she suddenly stiffens, swearing under her breath. A man with sandy blond hair is approaching the two of them. She grabs Alex's hand and whispers, "Just go with me on this."

The man's eager glance at Emma falters when he spots Alex at her side, their hands clasped. She beams at him.

"Have you two been introduced? Alex, this is John Thorpe. John, Alex Knightley," she firmly and not very gracefully wraps Alex's arm around her waist. His palm is flat and rigid, tentatively pressing against the side of her stomach. "Alex, darling, John was just giving me the most fascinating lecture on the characteristics of chiaroscuro. I'm sure he'd be simply thrilled to share his thoughts with you, too."

As it turns out, John isn't interested in any arrangement besides private tutoring on his extensive art knowledge, and he beats a hasty retreat. Emma's laughter over it bubbles through the rest of the evening; she kisses her father's cheek at midnight, and Alex smiles, hands stuffed in his pockets, and thinks about the warm pressure of her fingers tightly interlaced with his.

He is honestly minding his own business, waiting for Emma to come to their monthly marketing strategy meeting, when a woman seats herself next to him at the bar.

"Buy me a drink?"

Alex looks up from the article on proposed changes to international financial reporting standards he's reading, and shrugs. "Uh…sure."

"Aren't you sweet," the woman smiles, "I was just about convinced gentlemen didn't exist on the west coast."

She introduces herself as Augusta, and a few minutes of conversation are enough to convince him that her name is one of her better qualities. Alex isn't sure why he needs to know the price of everything she's wearing, but by the end of five minutes he's learned Augusta opted for Italian leather shoes despite the additional grand it cost her ("When you're as successful as I am, dear, the expense isn't anything.") He also finds himself continuously inching back in his seat.

Somehow Augusta's hand keeps traveling up his arm, though.

That's how Emma finds them—Augusta's fingers resting too familiarly by Alex's elbow, and Alex leaning his neck back at what he's sure is an unflattering angle. She catches his eye over Augusta's shoulder, her lips bent upward, her eyebrows raised.

"Emma!" Alex almost trips over his feet when he stands up. Under the guise of taking her hand to help her to a seat he leans in and whispers: "Help."

Emma flashes her shiniest smile at Augusta. "Are you actually managing to make friends without me, Alex?"

Augusta's eyebrows are nearly touching her widow's peak. "And who would this—delightful person be?"

"This is my—this is—" Alex coughs. Emma somehow manages to invisibly shove her elbow into his stomach. At her pointed look he at last very awkwardly bends and kisses her cheek. "This is Emma."

His ears are scarlet.

"Al, you sly dog," Augusta's laugh is thinner than the rice paper umbrella in her cocktail. "You never said a word. Don't worry, dear," she says conspiratorially to Emma, "I would never steal your inamorato."

She finishes her drink in a rather too-casual single swallow, winks at both of them, and saunters off.

Emma turns to Alex, her dimples showing. "You might actually be the most hopeless man alive."

"At the risk of regretting this question: what?"

"Grandparents peck each other on the cheek like that. Or cousins, or possibly worse."

"I didn't want to be too—forward," he grumbles, running a hand over the back of his neck.

"Regardless. You have to give it something, you know."

"I'll keep that in mind in the future."

She rolls her eyes at that. "All the ladies just love Alex Knightley. Manhattan," Emma says to the bartender at her approach. "And Alex will have an Old Fashioned," she adds, knowing perfectly well he'd prefer a scotch and soda, but she curves the words around a smile and somehow everything between them shifts back to its proper place.