She dashed inside, and was immediately enveloped by the sleek, dimly lit decor of chrome and leather, the cheerful clink of glassware, and—mercifully—no piped-in Christmas Muzak. Instead, sinuous strains of vintage Coltrane provided a tasteful sound track for the ultrachic crowd. Gratefully, she shrugged out of coat, hat and gloves and handed them to the coat-check girl.

She ducked into the ladies’ room. Her ivory cashmere slacks and sweater looked fine—particularly with the buttery-soft Manolos, she thought—but her hair and makeup were a disaster. Yet another thing she hated about Christmas—the rough winds, not to mention the brutal cold and the icy streets.

She fluffed her hair back into a shining blond bob, then took out her compact and went to work, restoring order to her face with practiced strokes. Her mind worked furiously as she performed the damage control.

So Byron had dumped her. She had to decide the best way to play it. On the one hand, she could assume the role of the wounded party, fragile and in desperate need of support. That would allow her to bask in her friends’ soothing platitudes about how the jerk didn’t deserve her, how he’d never been good enough for her in the first place, how he’d grow old and bitterly regretful, thinking of the opportunity he’d passed up with her.

Leaning toward the mirror, she used an eyelash comb to de-clump her mascara. On the other hand, she could mask her humiliation and disappointment behind sarcasm, turning Byron Witherspoon into the joke of the day among their crowd. In throwing her over for a grade-A bimbo, he’d certainly given her adequate material.

Okay, she thought, holstering her lip-gloss wand and pasting on a smile. It’s Christmas Eve. The perfect time for amusement. She’d breeze through this, pretending the loss of her boyfriend was nothing.

Except she didn’t have to pretend. Her brow puckering a little, she studied her image in the mirror. Not bad, with that tousle-haired, cashmere-sweater, gold-earring thing going on. She hardly looked like a woman scorned.

Searching her feelings, she discovered she’d suffered no emotional breakdown over this. The only twinge of regret she felt was that losing Byron now meant showing up at her parents’ party dateless tonight. How terribly inconvenient. She’d never hear the end of it.

She was actually a little disappointed in herself. Where were the pain, the trauma, the weeping and the wailing? The wallowing? Wasn’t this supposed to be a personal train wreck rather than the emotional equivalent of a broken nail? At least if she wept and carried on, even for a few minutes, it would mean that she hadn’t wasted the past six months dating a guy she didn’t care about. But she had no urge to cry and carry on. She felt like getting some work done.