by Aria Ford
“Great! I’ll chat later. We can plan more then.”
“Okay,” I said cheerfully. “Chat later then. Bye!”
“Bye.”
After I hung up, I leaned back, feeling much happier.
It was only after I’d thought about it for a bit that I realized that Harper, in her own special way, was probably planning to set me up with someone. I wasn’t sure I wanted that. Not now.
There was only one guy I’d ever really loved, I thought sadly. I sighed.
He was not for me. For so many reasons. But even so, he was on my mind a lot at the moment. Maddox Jefferson.
It was, I decided ruthlessly, about time I stopped thinking like that. I was twenty-six years old, and I should have grown past these rare stabs of nostalgia in which I missed Maddox. The times when I thought of him and wondered what had happened all those years before when he had, so abruptly and without any reasoning, ended our relationship.
It was time I got over him and opened myself out to someone new and special who would sweep me off my feet.
The thought made me smile. Maybe there was a guy like that out there for me. Someone sweet and funny and kind who would fall for me as much as I fell for him. Another guy. Maddox had been the first. But who was to say there wouldn’t be others. It had happened once, after all. And now it seemed like I had a chance to find out if something that lucky could happen to one person, twice.
A party for Valentine’s, organized with Harper Hampton’s special flair for a party. Who knew what might happen?
I put my phone back in my Calvin Klein handbag, feeling better than I had for a while.
CHAPTER ONE
Maddox
“Damn it.”
I leaned back on the sofa and put my head in my hands. Sometimes, I wonder if I’m okay in the head. Reese, my pal from work, insists I’m fine—just a few knocks too many from football—or so he says. Myself, I’m not so sure.
I rolled my shoulders, the muscles aching from my session at the gym this morning and threw my overdue bills on the countertop. I ran my hands through blond hair and closed my eyes.
If I was as okay in the head as he insists I am, I probably wouldn’t be doing any of this.
Well…that’s not exactly true. I’m very glad I’m doing some of it. If nothing else, it’s really great to have a job. And a good one too. At least, the pay is good. It’s boring, but it’s good.
I reached for the other envelope, the one from Maxwell Security, my employers. I hadn’t opened it yet. I guess I was nervous, fearing bad news.
“Dear Mr. Jefferson,” I read. “With reference to your excellent record in the company thus far, we have selected you as part of the team to work in Gracefield Mall. This additional work will of course bring added remuneration benefits and a revised schedule for the next two years.”
Well, that sounds perfect.
I read through the rest of the letter, feeling some of my anxiety drain from me. The “remuneration” they mentioned (why can’t they just say wages? I’m a simple guy, no fancy colleges or anything) was a big help. Just what I needed, in fact. I was struggling on my current pay as the lowest grade of security officer in the firm. I needed this break. And now I had one.
Whew.
The rest of the job description explained that I would have shadow the existing security guard for a fortnight, just to make sure I was clear on protocol and stuff. After all, they had fancy clients in the mall—a new upmarket shopping establishment in the Inglewood district. I was on probation for the first month.
Which was good, since the first month started, technically, tomorrow.
“What?”
I cursed the postal service under my breath and checked my calendar. It was right: Today was the ninth of February, and my term at the mall was going to start on its opening, the tenth. I was free tomorrow afternoon, which was just as well: my first shift started tomorrow lunchtime.
I needed coffee. I went through to the kitchen, wincing as my leg cramped after too long on the treadmill this morning, and switched on the kettle.
Tomorrow, things are finally looking up.
I was excited. Any change is a good change. At least, I was telling myself that. Not that all the changes in my life had been good just recently. My single status, for example, was a change I was a bit ambivalent about.
I guess it’s actually better after all. Cheri wasn’t the right girl for me. She had been demanding and critical and I knew she was looking for a guy way different than me. At least now we were both free. Or that’s what I told myself.
I put the kettle on, put the granules of coffee in my mug and waited for it to boil. My mind strayed to Cheri as I stood there. It wasn’t her fault things didn’t work out. It was mine. My heart has never been mine to give.
That was because someone had taken it and I’d never quite succeeded in getting it back.
Macy Trent.
I closed my eyes as the kettle boiled, the water bubbling and chortling in the background, and let myself recall her.
Macy. That soft chocolate-brown hair and those big gray eyes. Her skin, like satin, scented with roses. Her beautiful face. Her body, like all my crazy teenage fantasies were made of sweet flesh. I had never fallen for anyone the way I’d fallen for her. But she was so far above me it wasn’t worth thinking about.
The kettle boiled, and I took the coffee through to the sitting room, mind lost in memories.
We met at a christening. Of all the crazy things. I was friends with her cousin, Grady. Given that I was the kid who grew up playing football in the seamy backstreets of the Vermont Hills district, that seems weird. It was.
I met Grady Mansfield at Lakewood College, the prestigious school where I had a football scholarship. Grady—lively and as close to ADHD as anyone I’ve ever met—hadn’t wanted to attend the christening of his cousin’s baby alone. He’d said it would be too boring. So I went along with him.
“Hi,” a friendly voice had said as I stood in the marquee, trying to keep away from the rest of the guests. A shy, friendly voice. I turned around. I stared.
She was at my shoulder, a shy, smooth-faced young girl with soft brown hair and the biggest, most striking gray eyes I’d ever seen. Long-lashed and wide, they’d drawn me in and drowned my soul in their misty gray depths. I hadn’t been able to think, much less look anywhere else. The scent of her perfume had wafted across to me and I’d lost my wits.
“Uh,” I’d stammered. Come on, Maddox. Get a grip. “Hi,” I’d said. My voice sounded like it had melted, along with most of my brain. I shook my head, trying to clear it. “Hi. I’m Maddox.”
She’d smiled at me. “I haven’t seen you before,” she said. “Are you here with my cousin?”
Her soft lips, were painted a pale rose color with some lipstick. When she smiled it lit those amazing eyes. Her lips were plump and moist and I felt my groin ache. She was smiling at me? I tried to focus, hoping I wasn’t embarrassing myself overmuch.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling my face stretch with a big stupid grin. “I’m a friend of Grady.”
“Oh.” She’d raised a brow. “Auntie Cheryl mentioned he’d brought someone with him. You must be him. The friend.”
“Yeah,” I’d laughed. “That’s me. The friend.”
She giggled. “That’s nice. Pleased to meet you. Maddox is a nice name. Like the painter. Maddox Brown.”
I drew in a deep breath, feeling like I was trying to breathe through Elmer’s glue. “How did you know that?” I asked.
She giggled. “I studied art history, Maddox. It was just a guess,” she’d added modestly, looking down. I sighed in wonder.
Maddox was the name my mom had picked for me. She was a pianist, actually, not an artist. She came from a different background than my dad: her dad was a college lecturer and her mom a painter. She’d named me for the artist Grandma most admired. It had been a stupid name to have at a Vermont Hills junior high and when I’d got the scholarship I’d hoped the teasing w
ould go away. It had, but simply because no one really bothered with me either way.
Macy was the first person who’d guessed the origin of the name.
“Yeah, you’re right,” I said. “Ford Maddox Brown.”
“Wow,” she’d said. “That’s right.”
I was eighteen years old, and this was the first time I’d actually had to introduce myself to a girl. Crazy, that. I was hardly innocent of guy-girl stuff, but I’d never formally met someone before. All my other encounters had happened at friends’ parties. My ignorance partly accounted for the fact that I took a full five minutes to realize I hadn’t asked her name. I cleared my throat.
“Who…”
“Hi,” she said, taking the words out of my lips. “I’m Macy.”
We looked at each other and our eyes locked. I swallowed hard. She was so beautiful. She was wearing a soft blue dress with a little matching jacket and high heels. She smelled like heaven, some mix of roses and other flowers that set my senses racing, and her skin shone in the sunlight. I felt as if my whole body was catching fire.
I had dried up, totally unsure of what to say next. I shrugged, my face red. “It’s a nice day,” I said lamely.
We were in a marquee tent, tables and chairs stretching out under the dense plastic. Everything was decorated to perfection. The sun shone in through the entrance, making dark shadows on the floor. I rolled my shoulders in my suit, feeling like I was suffocating.
She giggled. “I guess we should find a place to sit, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
To my utter amazement, she led me to sit beside her. When I noticed that another name was on the placemarker, she’d rolled her eyes mischievously.
“What do you say we do some swapping?”
I’d stared at her, aghast. “No way! We can’t do that!”
“Who said we couldn’t?” she’d asked.
I shifted uncomfortably. “Well…”
Even as I spoke, she was swapping the elegant calligraphic place names, moving them a few seats down the table and replacing mine and Grady’s with the ones she’d moved. I winced.
“We’ll get in trouble,” I whispered urgently.
She winked. “Leave it to me.”
That was the start of our association.
I think that I fell in love with her at that moment. After the luncheon, we’d walked in the garden together. I’d followed her as if I was attached to her, every nerve screaming that if I let her out of my sight I might die.
“Macy,” I said softly as we stood in the sunlight, overlooking fragrant flowerbeds.
“Yes?” she’d asked.
“Would you, um, come to the football match Tuesday?” I asked. I felt like I might faint—asking her out was scarier than anything I’d ever done.
“Yeah,” she said softly.
We’d gone to the football. Then to dinner. Then came that night, a month after we’d met, when I’d taken her to a fancy restaurant and we’d walked in the park after, kissing under the stars. That was the night I would never forget. The night I was her lover.
After that, things had got confusing. Pressure from my friends wasn’t helping any: They kept on pointing out that I wasn’t good enough for her. And her family too. They actually hated me. I could feel it. On the odd occasion I saw them, they were rigidly polite. I felt as if I might be able to crack the air around them like glass or ice. The Boy from Vermont Hills was not for their little girl.
It was after a family dinner that I’d walked away. It was at The Walton, an unimaginably fancy restaurant. And I’d embarrassed myself profoundly in front of her family. I thought Macy would never forgive me. So I’d hid. Not returned her messages. Blotted the whole experience out of my life. It was the last in a series of promptings that had made me decide she’d be better off without me.
Now, I wished I hadn’t.
The sound of a motorbike blasting down the street brought me back to the present moment. I sighed, rolling stiff shoulders, and went through to the kitchen. Made myself another cup of coffee.
Somehow, no matter how many years passed, I still found a small corner of my heart belonged to Macy. Now that I was single and feeling sorry for myself, more than ever I found myself talking to her.
“Macy,” I sighed. “If I hadn’t walked away, would you have pushed me out?”
I was in some ways glad that I would never know—but in other ways, deep down in my heart, I wished I had stuck around to find out.
CHAPTER TWO
Macy
I sat on the leather couch in my top-story apartment and checked my phone. I drew in deep breaths of the lightly floral air freshener and tried to relax. I felt jittery. Dad is coming back from overseas on Friday. That thought had occupied me for the last three days. I always felt like that when he left me in charge: I suppose it was my own sense of inadequacy to the task, and I kind of dreaded his assessment of my management.
He trusts me way more than I do.
I drew my focus to my phone, breathing deeply. My messages weren’t all that exciting—something from a local charity, inviting me to an event. Something from dad, just photos of the company launch at his new branch in Singapore. I scrolled through them idly. Then my eye fell on a new message.
I grinned to myself, noting it was from Harper. I wondered what that was about. It was characteristically short.
Want to chat?
I sighed. Why not? It was six o’clock in the evening, and I was feeling a bit lonely after all.
“Okay.” I sent back a message. Yes. A second later, the phone vibrated insistently.
“Hi!” Harper’s voice bubbled on the other side of the phone.
“Harper! Hi. What’s up?” I asked. She sounded wired. That in itself wasn’t a cause for concern—I knew her well enough to know she always sounded wired. I wondered what it was this time.
“Just running into some last-minute challenges with that party…you know where I can get paper streamers from? Not the nasty ones…those nice ones like you had at the do last month?”
I blinked. The party! It was insane, but I’d completely forgotten about it. “Uh…” I frowned, trying to think. “You should probably ask whoever’s doing the catering,” I said. “But the place we usually source them is at Tesor…they have a section for that kind of thing.”
“Oh. Heck. Thanks, Em. You always know this kinda thing. So organized…” she sighed.
I smiled fondly. “Thanks.” Harper was anything but organized. We’d met at college: she was studying design and I was studying management. I’d been pretty amazed by her scattered manner then, but it seemed to work. we’d both graduated in the same year and she’d gone on to work in her father’s company too—Hampton Architectural Ltd.
“So,” she said. “Just to check. I’ve got the catering from that place you recommended before. I’ve got balloons coming in round midday tomorrow and the space is booked. What have I forgotten?”
“If you’ve got something to wear, no sweat,” I commented. “All done.”
“Something to wear!” she sounded like she was smiling. “Sure. Did that bit before I got the rest done. I went to this stunning new shop…oh, what was the name? LeBlanc.”
“Sounds good,” I commented.
“Oh, it is,” she said. “I’ll send you the homepage…it’s worth checking out.”
“Thanks,” I said. My mind was working furiously. I had completely forgotten about Harper’s plan. I had literally nothing to wear. Well, nothing new that she hadn’t seen before. I wanted to do something special—it was her plan for me to meet someone at this party. She hadn’t said so, but I knew that was why she’d invited me.
Maybe I should go and check it out.
I looked at my watch. It was quarter past six. I scrolled to the link Harper had shared.
“Mm. Not bad.”
“What’s not bad?” Harper asked.
“This place. The website you sent? Looks nice.” It did look nice. They had really simple, p
retty dresses. Just what I wanted.
I looked at the opening times. It closed at eight pm. It was about half an hour’s drive away. Feeling spontaneous, I decided to go and check it out.
“I’m glad you like it,” she said smugly. “Anyhow. I should go. Got to head to a dinner. Tootles.”
I grinned at her typical ending statement. “Bye,” I said. I hung up. Thinking about my plan.
“It isn’t like I have anything better to do. And I do need something pretty.”
I went to the bathroom, restyled my hair—the chignon I always wore it in had kind of fallen flat during the day—changed my white jacket for a softer blue one and headed downstairs.
As I drove through the darkening streets, I found myself feeling strangely excited about the prospect of the party. It wasn’t like I tended to socialize all that much. Besides company events, I hadn’t actually headed out for a while now. This was going to be fun.
“Typical Harper to decide to matchmake,” I thought aloud. She was always trying to introduce me to people—wealthy clients of her father’s company, mostly, or people she met at parties. None of them were my style: smooth, suave and sexy, they all lacked an essential something.
Something Maddox had.
I rolled my eyes at myself in the reflection in the window and put my foot on the gas, heading into town. I was twenty-six. What was I doing hanging on to someone from my childhood?
