“Even the ones with Casey and Dare?” she asked. “Even with your team?”
“Casey and Dare and I saw one another at rock bottom,” he said, pulling his arms out of the straitjacket and tossing it aside. “I believed everyone was hiding something. But I came to realize that I was, too, hiding my true self behind the illusion of the man I wanted the world to see. Because I was deceiving myself, I saw that deception reflected in everyone around me.”
He hopped down off the stage and walked to her. “Then I met you, and I thought, ‘She’s sweet and sassy and so damned honest. How can I ever be my true self around her?’” He caught her gaze. “I’ve had a lifetime of pretending to be something I’m not. But until I met you, I didn’t realize what it was costing me.”
Chapter Fifteen
Zelda wasn’t sure what Nicholas was trying to say. Her heart had started racing the moment she entered the auditorium and saw Nicholas in the spotlight. God, she’d missed him so much. It had only been four days. How was she going to spend the rest of her days without having him in her life?
She had been trying to find a way back. And the reaction she’d gotten from her sister had shown her that she needed to start by forgiving herself. She had even begun to hope that maybe the karmic scales were evening out. Maybe she was closer to paying off the debt she owed the universe.
Nicholas was a good man. But he had been treated poorly. She’d seen the vindictive way Jade had behaved firsthand and had heard through Trixie that the other woman had stolen his water chest as well. Jade had used everything she’d learned about Nicholas to hurt him. So, in a way, Zelda could understand the way he’d reacted. Her desire to help him, as well as her own struggles with magic, had created the perfect storm to ruin a love that had taken them both by surprise.
He looked better than she remembered. How was that possible? But it was. His tight leather pants were slung low on hips that seemed leaner but more tempting than before. She hadn’t slept a wink since he’d been gone. The old nightmare that had plagued her since the accident had changed subtly, with Nicholas taking the place of Zoe as Zelda tried desperately to reach him.
His hair was disheveled from the way he’d taken off the straitjacket and tossed it aside. Seeing him in it had immediately brought her body to life. But she was struggling to rein in her desire because, as good as sex was between them, they needed to sort out the other issues first.
It was a struggle to be this close to him and not be with him. And not just for sex, though it was hard to tear her eyes from his muscled chest. His words hinted at something she wasn’t sure she deserved.
“Are you apologizing?” she asked carefully. If he was, what did that mean? She’d heard through the lawyer that he’d offered to pay her and Zoe for the trick and the footage of them. Her sister had signed it all over to Zelda. Zoe wanted nothing from their Waterstone legacy.
“I am,” he said, coming closer to her. He put one hand on his hip and rubbed his jaw with the other. She noticed that there was a bit of stubble on his jaw, and she laced her fingers together to keep from reaching out and touching him. “I was wrong, Zelda. I shouldn’t have turned on you like that.”
“It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean the stuff you said. Hearing about my connection to the Waterstone family on the heels of Jade’s show was too much to take. I knew the timing was wrong, but I felt if I waited to tell you about the illusion, you wouldn’t have time to rehearse and save your show.”
Her words were coming too quickly, as if she thought if she explained it faster, he’d believe her more. But she knew there was nothing she could say. To him, that secret had been a betrayal, and she wasn’t sure there was an end that would justify the means. No matter what her intent was.
He dropped to his knees in front of her, putting his hand over his heart. “Even now, I realize how unworthy I am of you. I hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive me. I have done my best to keep a part of myself back in relationships. After I heard the truth about being an orphan, I thought all those years with my grandparents were a lie. I hated that I loved them so much but they’d never been honest with me.”
“Nicholas, they gave you—and themselves—the family dynamic you all needed. Your grandfather gave you such a gift,” she said.
“I know that now, but at the time… I let my guardian’s hurtful words wound me,” he admitted.
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen,” he said.
She wanted to hug him, but when she moved forward, he held his hand up.
“But you were different right from the beginning. I think I fell in love with you the night you invited me in for tequila. It was the middle of the night, and I’d let you down, but you were open and forgiving. I should have known then…but I was afraid to trust.”
She reached out and touched his shoulder. A tingle went up her arm, and she pulled her hand back from him. “You are worthy of being loved. I know you’ve been hurt and betrayed before. And my past…it’s my secret. I hide it because of the guilt I feel at walking away pretty much unscathed when my sister didn’t. It’s not something I ever wanted to have to tell you about, but the more I got to know you—the more I started to love you—I realized that I was going to have to mention it at some point. But when? How?” she said, trying to explain to him that she’d never meant to keep quiet for so long. “It wasn’t about keeping it from you—it was about sparing myself the pain of talking about it.”
“You owe me no explanations, Zelda. I was the one who behaved badly, and I’m sorry. If you’ll have me, I’d like to start over. Start fresh,” Nicholas said.
She looked down into his dear face, his electric blue eyes so brilliant and sincere, and she felt the love that had been hiding in her heart, afraid to admit it was still there, start to grow inside of her, filling her with happiness. But she also knew that they couldn’t start over. There was no way that either of them could ignore the past.
She was done lying to herself and pretending that she was ever going to be the kind of woman who wasn’t defined by what had happened to her. She had tried that when she’d moved to Vegas, and magic had managed to find her.
“I don’t want to start over,” she said.
…
No.
Of course, she was fully within her rights to say that. But he’d hoped…maybe mistakenly, that she could look past his being a total d-bag and move on. He told himself he could work with this. He would just keep on coming back until she finally gave in. Oh, God, was he turning into a pathetic loser?
But he knew that he’d never find another woman to love like Zelda. She was the other half of his soul. Not his twin—she didn’t complete him—but he didn’t need her to.
“Okay. I know I was so horrible that night. I wish I could go back and change the way I reacted. I was just not in the right state of mind—”
She leaned forward, shifting out of her seat and coming down onto her knees next to him. “I accepted your apology, Nicholas. I don’t think we should start over because I fell in love with you without meaning to. I don’t know if it was the night we did shots or the first time you did the straitjacket trick for me. But somewhere along the way, you wormed your way into my heart, even though I had told myself I was done with magic. I didn’t want a magician in my life. But I couldn’t help falling for you.”
She put her hands on his face, on his jaw the way she did when she was going to kiss him, and his body reacted in a purely physical way. She leaned in closer, her forehead resting on his, her chocolaty brown eyes meeting his, and then he felt the brush of exhalation over his mouth.
“I love you,” she said, her lips brushing against his with each word.
Blood rushed to his head, and he wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly, but his heart knew he had. Zelda Quincy was his. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her more fully against him as he deepened the kiss
.
“I love you, too,” he said. “You know that, right?”
She touched his face, and he saw tears in the corners of her eyes. “No, I didn’t know that. I am so glad that I didn’t drive you away by—”
“You did nothing wrong. And you couldn’t drive me away for long. It was my ego getting in the way and making me act as if you should have just told me your life story the very first moment we met, which wasn’t realistic.”
She smiled, and a shaft of desire went through him. “I don’t want to be presumptuous, but I have the next three hours off from rehearsing the show. Would you like to go up to the penthouse with me?”
“They gave you three hours off?” she asked.
“I think they were afraid I would need it to win you back,” he said.
She started laughing, and that was when he knew that she had forgiven him. “You have won me back. I’d love to go up to the penthouse with you, but I can wait if you need to work.”
“I need you more,” he said. “I used to think it was magic that gave me purpose and helped me make sense of my life, but now I know that it was all an illusion. All those stunts that I worked to make my own weren’t real. Nothing was real until you. You are the magic I need in my soul.”
“Oh, Nicholas. I…don’t think I deserve that, but I needed to hear it. I’d thought that staying away from magic was the way to fix my karma, easing the guilt I felt for what happened to my sister. Then, when I met you, I thought that maybe if I could help you, I’d get the forgiveness I needed. But you brought magic back into my life in a way that I hadn’t thought I’d ever be comfortable with.”
“What do you mean?” he asked. Talking wasn’t what he’d had in mind, but he could see she had stuff she needed to get off of her chest. “You owned an antique shop that specialized in magic props.”
“I know. That was as close as I could get. I ignored the rest of it,” she said. “But then you showed up, staring at me through the shop window and forcing me to leave the safety of that corner I’d happily hidden myself in.”
“I’m glad I did,” he said. “Without you, I’d still be only half-living.”
He lifted her into his arms and carried her out of the auditorium, putting her on her feet next to the private elevator that led to his penthouse.
As soon as the elevator doors closed behind them, Nicholas pulled her into his arms and kissed her, long and hard and deep. The time for talking was over. He needed to make love to her, sealing the bond between them in a very physical way.
He brought her hands to his chest, and she pulled her mouth from his. “It was killing me not to touch you when you took that straitjacket off. I want you.”
“I was hoping you would. I was willing to use every advantage I had to make you want me again.”
“You know I love it when you take off your shirt,” she said.
“I do,” he responded. “I was counting on it. I even did Leo’s muscle-building diet for the last day and a half to get ready for you.”
“You didn’t have to do anything special,” she said. “I love you the way you are.”
No one had said those words to him before, and he realized how much it meant to him. She made all the pieces inside of him come together as one big whole. And with her by his side, he never had to worry about breaking again.
…
Nicholas made love to Zelda in the elevator and then again in the penthouse. He couldn’t get enough of her, and she wasn’t complaining. When it was time for him to go back down and rehearse, she went with him. She was surprised when the trickling sound of water started at the beginning of his show. She had seen the previous version and loved the way they’d changed it subtly to make it different from Jade’s. Taking it from the desert to the water worked perfectly. And as she watched, she realized how much she’d missed being this close to magic.
When he got to the finale and her trick, she held her breath knowing what was coming and was surprised when she saw it. In the illusion, it looked like Suria was standing at the top of the tank, waving to the crowd, and then she saw her dive toward the bottom of the tank. The film she’d watched a million times was softer now. She saw the part the audience hadn’t seen that day—what happened behind the curtain. In the illusion, the girl, Suria, was trapped, and Nicholas started to perform the illusion, freeing the ghost of the past. It had been the theme of the show, wowing her as he disappeared from the stage.
She knew Zoe would love this. She had hoped when she met Nicholas that he’d free her from the past, and she realized as she watched the entire rehearsal of Phantasm that he had. He’d taken all those ghosts that had been circling in her mind and freed them. Freed her.
He walked up behind her, startling her when he put his hands on her shoulders. “So, what did you think?”
“I loved it. You are amazing, Nicholas.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I wouldn’t have been able to do any of this without you. Falling in love with you made me realize the hold the past has on all of us. I needed to release it so we could build a future together.”
“I want that,” she said.
“Me, too,” he admitted.
“Hey, lovebirds, let’s get this cleaned up, then go and celebrate,” Leo called from the stage.
Zelda worked alongside the team, and before long, they were up in the penthouse again, this time with his team and his friends. The party went on into the night, and in the early morning hours, when they were finally alone again, Nicholas pulled her into his arms.
“I’m not ever letting you go, Zelda. You’re the magic in my soul.”
She hugged him back, thanking her lucky stars that she’d come to Las Vegas, where she could make peace with her past and meet the man who’d make her life worth living.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to my husband, Rob, for being my rock while I write and listening to me ramble about everything as I figure out the plot.
About the Author
USA Today bestselling author Katherine Garbera is a two-time Maggie winner who has written more than 108 books. A Florida native who grew up to travel the globe, Katherine now makes her home in the Midlands of the UK with her husband, two children and a very spoiled miniature dachshund. Visit her on the web at http://www.katherinegarbera.com, connect with her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter @katheringarbera.
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