‘Ah, that’s so sweet, but you won’t have to manage without me.’ She gave his arm a light squeeze. ‘I’m always here for you.’
Michael smiled weakly, making a mental note to tell Robert the next time he had a bright idea about sending Georgina some flowers, to keep it to himself.
Jessie was sitting with Jack and Luke in a box to the right of the stage. All around her was elegance, from the deep red velvet chairs to the glittering gold paintwork and the twinkling lights of the chandeliers.
In their box though, no so much.
‘I feel like a prince. Do you think I should do a royal wave,’ Luke asked, munching his way through the bag of Maltesers she’d asked him to keep until the interval.
‘I don’t think princes have chocolate smeared around their mouth.’ Smiling indulgently, she took out a tissue and attempted to clean him up.
‘Yes, result.’ Jack looked up from his iPad. ‘This place has Wi-Fi.’
It hadn’t taken much to persuade the boys to come out tonight. After all, they were the ones who’d applied for her to go on The Week of Your Life just because they thought she’d get the chance to meet her heartthrob. They weren’t about to stop her from seeing him sing. Or in their words, as long as we have chocolate and our iPads we can put up with it.
The lights dimmed and as the orchestra began to warm-up, Jessie felt a flutter of anticipation. It had been years since she’d last heard Michael live. Sure, she’d sung with him only a few months ago, but for the most part she’d been too terrified of her own performance to concentrate on his. This time she could give him her full attention.
Jack, Luke and Wi-Fi permitting.
Slowly the curtains moved back. Under the glare of a single spotlight, Michael strode on to the stage in a swirl of mist. Dressed in a black tuxedo he looked bold, dashing. Beautiful.
And then he started to sing.
His voice, so distinctive, so powerful, brought a massive lump hurtling into the back of her throat. It was so wonderfully familiar, yet she’d forgotten its pull. Forgotten how it could leave her enthralled, spellbound. Nailed to the seat by the raw emotion it conveyed.
The first song ended and the audience clapped wildly. Finally Jessie remembered to breathe. She glanced at Jack and Luke who were staring down at the stage, iPads temporarily forgotten.
Michael moved quickly from song to song. Some were classical opera, which had the boys turning back to their games, but others were well known pop songs. Classic ballads.
When he began the next song, Michael’s eyes swept into the box. And straight into hers. ‘You are so beautiful, to me.’
As he continued to sing and hold her gaze, Jessie felt her heart swell, bouncing against her ribcage.
‘OMG, Mum, he’s singing to you,’ Jack whispered.
‘Can’t be, she’s not beautiful,’ Luke countered.
‘Shh,’ Jessie admonished, her voice strangled by emotion. Jack was right. Though Michael looked around the auditorium, his gaze kept coming back to her.
‘You’re everything I hoped for, you’re everything I need. You are so beautiful, to me.’
When he finished the song, tears were streaming unapologetically down her cheeks. She couldn’t imagine a more romantic gesture, ever.
He gave a last, lingering look in her direction before accepting the applause of the audience.
‘I’d like to add one more song,’ Michael announced. ‘This is for two special guests here tonight.’
The opening bars of ‘Who Wants to Live Forever?’ echoed round the theatre and Jack and Luke gaped at each other in disbelief, their grins a mile wide.
By the time Michael walked off stage, Jessie was so emotionally wrung out she could barely stand. But while his gesture had been incredible, it had also brought home, with crashing clarity, how she wasn’t the only one at risk of being hurt when this fling came to an end. For this man who made her feel so alive, so beautiful – who’d done more than touch her heart, he’d slid right into it – this man had shown her tonight how he felt.
Not just one, but two hearts caught up in a relationship that had no realistic future. They were living off snatched moments, their lives at all other times heading in such very different directions. Her eyes swept over her sons, who were grinning and clapping.
A weekend to remember; a touch of the extraordinary. Yet a million miles away from reality.
Pushing her concerns away, Jessie led the boys out of the box, where a member of the security team was waiting to take them backstage. Looking tired but infinitely handsome still in his tux, with his bow tie undone, Michael ushered them into his dressing room.
‘The Queen song was mega.’ Luke stared up at Michael with something that looked like awe, and a little of Jessie’s unease returned.
‘Sorry it wasn’t “Fat Bottomed Girls”. I wasn’t sure the rest of the audience would appreciate it.’
Though it was wonderful to see the boys talking to Michael now, after that awkward beginning, she couldn’t help worrying if it meant they’d want to see him again. Worse, if they’d be disappointed if they couldn’t because, while she could put up with her own heartbreak she couldn’t, wouldn’t, put them at risk of hurt, too.
Michael caught her eye and frowned. ‘Something wrong?’
The concern in his eyes brought her up short. This man had just delighted her sons, and sung the most beautiful words to her. Now wasn’t the time for a freak out. She pasted on a smile. ‘Nothing’s wrong.’
His eyes held hers, searching. ‘Did you enjoy your song?’
He seemed to hold his breath, as if unsure of her answer. This time her smile was unforced and totally real. ‘How could I not?’
‘See, I told you it was for you,’ Jack muttered, breaking the emotional tension, and they all laughed.
Michael held open the door. ‘We’ll leave through the rear stage door. Should avoid the crowds that way.’
But to Jessie’s dismay, the moment they stepped outside, a burst of camera flashes lit up the dark night.
‘No.’ Grabbing hold of Jack and Luke she pushed them back into the theatre. Michael followed behind and they shut the door on the cameras, though not before several photographs were taken.
Feeling terribly shaky, she clutched the boys to her. ‘How could you let us walk into a bank of photographers?’
He jerked back, as if she’d slapped him. ‘You think I knew?’ With a heavy exhale, he walked towards her. ‘Look, I’m sorry.’ He tried to put a placatory arm around her but she pulled away, still too shaken, too angry. Hurt flashed through his eyes. ‘There aren’t usually any photographers around when I leave. I don’t know where they came from.’
‘You sang extra songs, for your special guests.’ Too sharp, too sarcastic. Later, when she wasn’t so overwrought, she knew she’d regret talking about his beautiful gesture in such a harsh way. ‘Perhaps someone put two and two together.’
Michael’s jaw tightened. ‘I’m sorry,’ he reiterated. ‘But I think you’re overreacting here. We’re both single adults. We’re not doing anything wrong. We’ve got nothing to hide.’
‘It’s very wrong if pictures of my sons are splashed over the newspapers.’ Jessie took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself.
‘I don’t mind having my picture in the paper.’ Luke’s small face looked up at her, watchful, innocent.
She smiled weakly at him. ‘Better hope they took a good one, eh?’
‘I’ll go and speak to the security guys.’ Michael’s voice sounded resigned, his face strained, and shame slammed into her. Her bellyaching was the last thing he needed after a two-hour performance.
But this was a taste of the public side of him, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for it.
Or if she’d ever be ready for it.
He needed a glamorous celebrity who’d lap up the publicity. Not an ordinary mum, desperate to shield herself and her family from the prying lens of a camera.
The security team managed to
smuggle them out of an alternative exit and into a waiting car. The journey back was quiet; Jack and Luke tired, she and Michael on edge.
After tucking the boys into bed, Jessie found Michael on the sofa in the sitting room. Head back, eyes closed. He still wore his suit, though the jacket was flung over the armchair. He’d not put on the lights and the sight of Paris at night provided a dramatic backdrop to his darkly handsome figure. The mellow light of the moon touched his face, highlighting his fatigue. A sign of how much of himself he put into a performance.
As if sensing her watching, he opened his eyes. ‘Are they asleep?’
Guilt brushed up against the dying embers of her shock and she felt tears prick. ‘I never thanked you properly for the song. It was so beautiful,’ she whispered, settling down next to him. ‘I’m sorry I was such a bitch.’
He let out a faint laugh. ‘You were a mum, protecting your children.’ He sighed, and she sensed he was trying to pick his words. ‘Please don’t let what you saw tonight come between us. It doesn’t happen often. I’m really not that newsworthy.’ He gave her a searching look. ‘We’ve talked about media interest before though.’
‘I know, and I said it unnerved me.’
‘You also said you weren’t going to let it scare you off,’ he reminded her quietly.
God, she had. And she didn’t want it to come between them. ‘Gossip about you and me is one thing. The boys were never touched by it.’
‘Which is the part that angered you tonight.’
It wasn’t a question, but she answered it anyway. ‘Yes. I deliberately kept them out of the press, even though the show wanted to use their letter in the promotion.’
‘And the speculation about us?’
‘All the questions came through the studio because nobody knew where I lived or how to contact me. Once they released the statement, the interest stopped.’
‘Ah yes. The statement that said you couldn’t believe people thought Michael Tennant would be interested in you.’ A smile tugged at his mouth. ‘For your information, he’s more than interested. He’s besotted.’
His words washed away the last of her angst. There, snuggled in his arms, she felt spoiled, and unbelievably happy. ‘I’ll be free in a couple of weeks, in Barcelona.’ He kissed the sensitive skin behind her ear. ‘It’s a beautiful city. Can you come?’
As his warm mouth nuzzled and teased, Jessie’s eyes fluttered closed. ‘I’d love to,’ she found herself saying.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sunday evening and Michael had been in Vienna for an hour, not that he’d know it because he was sitting in his hotel room, curtains drawn. Insecurities snapping at his heels. It had been a week since he’d said goodbye to Jessie and every day he was apart from her, he feared the distance between them widening. And he wasn’t talking physical distance. Paris had been such a tumult of emotions; joy at seeing her, relief at bonding with her sons. The intensely emotional moment when, for the first time in his career, he’d publicly sung to a woman.
A connection that had almost been obliterated by the damn press.
He was tangling himself in knots over a woman who couldn’t bear to have her photograph taken with him. Unfair? Perhaps, but if she didn’t feel he was worth the occasional moment in the spotlight, their relationship was doomed.
With a sigh he looked at his watch. He was due at the Wiener Stadthalle in half an hour for a meeting about tomorrow night’s performance. Did he have enough time to phone her? He hadn’t overcome his aversion to the method of communication, but he was trying. Sadly between her work, the boys and his travel there weren’t many times they could actually talk, and when they did it was all so hurried.
Relationships were hard. Relationships when the couple were in different countries, harder still. If you add to that the complication of vastly different jobs (he was generally free during the day, her the evening) and children – did it all add up to being impossible?
His heart faltered and he snatched up his phone and sank onto the bed.
‘Hey.’ Her soft voice, laced with surprise, was a balm to his worry-riddled soul.
‘Is now a good time to talk?’ In the background he could hear conversation, lots of it. Female voices, male voices. Laughter. ‘Sounds like you’re having a party.’
‘Almost. We’re celebrating a famous victory for the boys’ football team.’ Her voice sounded breathy with excitement. ‘They’re into the area finals.’
Instantly he felt a million miles away. ‘I wish I was there.’
She let out a huff of laughter. ‘There aren’t many people who’d swop… where is it you are today?’
‘Vienna.’
‘There aren’t many who’d swop Vienna for a muddy football field and a raucous pub.’
‘You would.’
The silence her end told its own story.
He heard a male voice shouting her name. ‘Hang on a minute.’ There was a brief, muffled conversation before she came back. ‘Sorry, just putting my drink order in.’
‘Was that Phil?’ Jealousy, mean and nasty, coiled inside his stomach.
‘Umm, no. He’s here, but that was John. He coaches the team. Also happens to be my boss so I have to be doubly nice to him.’
It was on the tip of his tongue to ask how nice, but he hauled his jealousy in. Possessiveness wasn’t attractive, so Paula had told him repeatedly. While she’d been banging another man.
‘Is this John single?’ So much for his internal pep talk.
She let out a long breath. ‘Yes. He’s also a good friend. Nothing more.’
‘Okay, sorry.’ He ran a hand down his face, wondering if this call had been a good idea. Not being able to talk to her, to share the triumphs and the mundane, the important and the trivial, was a constant source of frustration. How many times a day did he just want to hear her voice, see her smile? Yet sometimes phoning her when he couldn’t sense her mood, couldn’t see her reaction, was even harder. The phone left too many silences he could fill with his own paranoia.
‘It’s okay to ask.’ She paused and he heard another burst of laughter in the background. ‘I wonder about you and Georgina often enough.’
Frustration spiked again. ‘I told you—’
‘There’s nothing going on. I know. It doesn’t stop me thinking about how many women must be waiting for you at the end of every performance.’
He realised she must feel exactly how he felt now. Impotent. Unable to do anything but trust and hope. ‘This is hard, isn’t it?’
He didn’t know why he asked the question. If she said no, she clearly wasn’t as invested in their relationship as he was. And if she said yes—
‘Yes.’ Her voice was breathy, almost tearful. ‘It’s very hard.’
The answer felt like a punch to his gut. Hard enough for her to consider ducking out? He wasn’t ready for the answer, so he changed the subject, though what he had to say next was going to be no less difficult. ‘I don’t want you to flip, but I’ve been contacted by one of the gossip magazines. They want to know who I was singing to in Paris.’ Her sharp intake of breath caused his stomach to knot. ‘I’m not going to tell them, Jessie.’
‘I should hope not.’
Frustration reared inside him, adding to the churning in his gut. ‘It’s not the way I want it,’ he told her tightly. ‘Hiding this, hiding us. It feels like I’ve got something to be ashamed of, when in fact I feel entirely the opposite.’
For a few beats she said nothing, and once again he cursed the phone. All he could hear was the joviality in the background and her shaky breath. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered finally. ‘If you feel uncomfortable keeping your love life private, maybe you’re with the wrong woman.’
‘What?’ He lurched upright. ‘Christ, Jessie, you have to know that’s not what I’m saying.’ Hadn’t he just told her he wanted to announce to the world who he was seeing?
Again she went quiet on him, but her breathing… was she crying?
‘Je
ssie, please tell me you’re not upset with me.’
‘I’m not.’ Yet her voice sounded so strained, it was hard to believe her. ‘At least not with you,’ she added. ‘Just with the situation.’
He fell back on the bed, his heart aching for her. For them both. ‘I wish I could put my arms around you right now.’
Her laugh sounded more like a sob. ‘I wish you could, too.’
He had no more words. Just a notification alerting him that his car was here to take him to his meeting. ‘I have to go.’
‘Yes, me too. There’s a glass of wine with my name on it and right now I really need it. Good luck tomorrow night.’
He was left with a dial tone, and a terrible feeling that Jessie was pulling even further away from him.
Tears streamed down her cheeks as Jessie rushed straight to the ladies. God, he’d said this was hard, but that wasn’t nearly strong enough for how she was feeling.
This was agonising.
She felt like she was on drugs. The ups – when she was with Michael – were incredibly intense, but they were followed by the most awful downs. Right now her withdrawal symptoms were so rough it was making her wonder if this was all worth it.
The door swung open and Annabel strode in. She took one look at Jessie and threw her arms around her. ‘I thought there was something wrong. I saw you walking further and further away from us, and your bottom lip getting more and more wobbly.’ Taking a step back she studied her, eyes full of sympathy. ‘Was it Michael?’
‘Yes.’ Jessie grabbed at a paper towel and inelegantly blew her nose.
‘Did you have a fight?’
‘Not exactly. He phoned to warn me some magazine was asking about the woman he sang to in Paris.’
‘Did he mention you?’
‘No, but then he said he didn’t like hiding our relationship. I told him if he thought that, he was with the wrong woman.’ She let out a pathetic sounding laugh. ‘How about that for a grown-up response? It’s not like I even need to put the idea in his head. There are plenty of women only too happy to do that for him.’
Reach for a Star Page 19
