All rational thought fled, except for here, this moment, right now with Chance. She closed her eyes and tilted her head, ready to accept his kiss.
Oliver coughed and rolled over in his bed. Madelyn’s eyes flew open and she flung herself away from Chance, who blinked as though coming out of a spell. She tugged the front of her robe tighter together, suddenly feeling vulnerable, alone in the room with him.
She’d been down this road before, and it hadn’t worked out. She now had a son to think about. An entire life where Chance didn’t belong.
Chance nodded his head toward the balcony and motioned for her to go first. Madelyn felt the heat of him at her back, every nerve tingling at his closeness. She slid the doors open, breathing in the fragrant breeze that lifted the gauzy curtains.
She moved to the edge of the balcony to put space between her and Chance, but her heart still hammered at the memory of almost kissing him. She gripped the cement edge and looked out over her view of Bourbon Street, lit up brightly against the night sky. The sounds of talking, raucous laughter, and music drifted in their direction.
Chance stood beside her at the balcony, his arms folded across the top, the masculine scent of him filling Madelyn’s senses. “Why did you leave me in college?” he asked. From the corner of her eye, she saw him staring just as studiously toward Bourbon Street as she had been.
His question hung between them, precarious, uncertain, waiting for an answer she didn’t know how to explain.
“It was a long time ago,” she said quietly.
He shook his head, and let out a short laugh. “I wish I didn’t care. But it’s always bothered me. What did I do?”
Madelyn bit her lip, the sting of emotion hitting her eyes.
“It was right after I introduced you to my parents,” he continued. “I asked them if they’d said anything mean to you, and they promised they didn’t. But they’re difficult people, so it’s hard to know. I thought I’d let it go, but seeing you again has brought all those questions back.”
“It’s complicated, Chance.”
“I thought you were dead. I called every hospital, the police, your roommate. I tried tracking down your mom or where she lived, but I didn’t know her new last name, and it was like you’d fallen off the face of the planet. For days, I was frantic, Madelyn.” His jaw tightened. “So please, try uncomplicating it for me.”
“Didn’t you get my letter?” She never considered that he might not find the note she’d stuffed in his mailbox on her way out of town.
He smiled humorlessly at the night sky. “My roommate found your letter three days after you left, stuffed in a large pile of mail.” His voice mocking, he recited, “Graham—I’m sorry, but it’s better this way. Please don’t try to find me. Goodbye.”
She’d written at least fifteen variations of that note, some with lengthy explanations, others that just said: I love you too much to be another project.
In the end, she went direct and simple with her message, convincing herself it would be the least painful way for both of them. Instead, the pain of it had surprised her. In a way her mom’s needs had almost been a blessing, because they had made it impossible to curl up in a ball and give up on living.
She gathered her courage with a deep breath, and when she spoke, her voice was soft. “Do you remember the night my mom ran out of gas just outside of L.A.? You went to help me fill up her tank.”
He nodded slowly.
“It started then.”
He waited a beat. “What started?”
“The realization that I’d begun to rely on you too much.”
He turned toward her fully now, and she felt the weight of his gaze pulling her in, until she looked at him as well. “Relying on each other is what couples do.”
She shook her head. “That night, my mom thanked you for coming and said, ‘It’s so much easier when a man helps you.’ I’ve heard her say stuff like that a million times, but I realized I was letting you help me too much with things I could do myself. I’d promised myself I’d never be like her, and I didn’t like what I saw in that moment.”
“I liked helping you,” he said, confused.
“Believe me, I know,” she growled, pushing away from the balcony ledge to put some distance between them.
“I feel like I’m missing something here. You broke up with me because I helped your mom get gas?”
“If that’s all it was, I might have been able to let it go. You were so full of energy and life and so capable. I craved that. Whenever I was with you, I didn’t feel drained or emotionally exhausted. You liked me for me, not what I could do for you.”
He took several long strides across the balcony and grabbed her hand. “I loved you.”
“I loved you, too,” she said, nearly choking on the words and the raw emotion they brought up.
“So what happened?” he asked, frustrated.
“You took me home to meet your family.”
His face clouded with anger. “I knew they said something to you.”
She shook her head. “I met your mom, and she was lovely. A little offish, which I had expected, but the epitome of kindness. It was like walking into one of those sitcoms I used to watch as a kid and I would dream I had their family. All the perfection started adding up, surrounding me like towers, while I stood in the middle, shadowed by places I could never go, things I’d never be. It was the family I’d always wanted, and I realized I didn’t fit.”
He ran a hand over his mouth. “I never fit there either, Madelyn. It’s not the perfection you think.”
She continued on, as if he hadn’t spoken. If she didn’t get this out now, the words might never come. She stared at her hands. “I overheard someone refer to me as another stray Graham needed to take care of.”
“Who?” he asked, his voice a deadly sort of thunder.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It sounds like something Christian would say. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”
“What was I supposed to say?” she said angrily. “I was embarrassed and dismayed. I couldn’t be that girl, Chance. A stray. It was everything I never wanted to become.”
“Is that why you left?” He seemed to do the calculations in his mind. “It was only a few weeks later that you went home and didn’t come back to school.”
“It was all of it added together, Chance. All the times you helped. All the times I let you. How much I’d come to rely on you. I’d fooled myself for a long time thinking I was becoming someone new and independent.” She laughed humorlessly. “My mom and her many problems and all the baggage I had from her many husbands cycling through my childhood—these things are always going to be a part of me. Even cleaned up, I’m forever the stray.”
“You didn’t even give me a chance to convince you I didn’t think of you as a stray!” His voice rose, but Madelyn remained calm and quiet.
“Because I knew you didn’t feel that way about me.”
“Then why did you leave?”
“Because I didn’t like who I might become if I stayed,” she said, feeling the passion rising in her to meet his, but holding it back. She had to remain calm and logical, not let her emotions reign.
“It was fear.”
His words stung, and some of her calmness cracked, along with her voice. “You have no idea what it was like to walk away from you.”
“No. But I do know what it’s like to buy an engagement ring because you are planning on proposing to the girl of your dreams, only to learn she’s disappeared without a word.”
She collapsed into the plastic balcony chair, her legs unable to bear her weight another second. “You’d bought an engagement ring?”
“Yeah.” He sat in the chair beside her, exhaustion running through the lines on his face. “The day after we saved your mom. I’d been carrying it around for a few weeks, trying to figure out the perfect time to ask you.”
Her heart hammered, and she took a moment to wonder what life would have been lik
e if she hadn’t run off, if she’d stayed and gotten engaged and then married to this man in front of her. But the images were too blurry in her mind. It wasn’t worth thinking about. She’d made her choices.
They sat side by side for a few minutes, the sound from Bourbon Street floating in the silence between them. Chance stared out to the city, and she knew he was processing everything she’d just told him. He hadn’t stormed out of the hotel room yet, but his silence made her nervous. He might not have liked or agreed with her explanation for leaving, but she’d told him the truth, and it was all she had to give. Relief had flooded through her at the realization that she wasn’t carrying the burden of this story anymore, but she still had one more thing she had to do.
“I’m sorry, Chance.” It was something she should have said when she’d first seen him at the arena. She stared at her hands, the words coming out in a babbling rush. “I was young and immature and breaking up with you the way I did was unforgivable. I’m planning on finishing this story for Verity as soon as I can, and I promise you’ll never have to see me again.”
“No,” he said, his low voice firm. She blinked against the sudden sting behind her eyes. She knew he wouldn’t forgive her, but it was still hard to have it happen. “I don’t like that promise.”
She blinked. “What?”
He stood and held out his hand. She automatically took it and let him pull her up beside him. “I very much want to see you again.” His voice was low, and sonorous, and wrapped around her like a warm blanket.
“But we can’t,” she said breathlessly, trying to bring her scattered thoughts back together, an impossible task with Chance so close.
“Why not?” The tiniest of smiles ticked his lips upward.
“Because of all the things I just told you!”
“You are nothing like your mom. And needing other people doesn’t make you weak, Madelyn. It makes you human.” His fingers slid between hers, the soft rasp of skin against skin sending her senses whirling.
“You don’t know me well enough to say that.” She took a tiny step back to clear the longing to believe him from her thoughts, but he followed, his thighs pressed against hers, his warm breath on her forehead. She stared at the patch of soft, golden skin at his neck, where his pulse fluttered recklessly. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“I know alligators make you nervous. And you eat beignets like a pro.”
She shook her head at his teasing. “Those aren’t real things.”
“Fine.” He tipped her chin up, and she met his intense gaze. “I know you’re one of the bravest, loyal, hardest-working women I know. The people you love—you love fiercely. Your mom and Oliver are lucky to have you in their life.”
The distance between them seemed to shrink in an instant. Madelyn parted her lips and their breaths mingled for a second, every part of her yearning for more from him, and finally his lips crushed against hers. Madelyn closed her eyes and gripped his hands tightly, giving him everything he was taking, and demanding more for herself in return. She felt the balcony at her back, and Chance’s body pressed against hers. She untangled their fingers and threw her arms around his neck to pull him even closer to her, his mouth tasting of mint and desire. His kiss reverberated through her whole body, both grounding her and sending her back to a time when she’d been the happiest in her life. Slowly their kisses transformed from a frenzied passion, to an achingly tender slowness. Chance brushed his fingers through her hair, and she gripped his shoulders when he started to pull back.
She felt him smile against her lips as he kissed her once more, and then again, before he rested his forehead against hers while they caught their breaths.
Her chest rose and fell heavily beneath the thick robe. She covered the rawness of her mouth with her hand. His hooded stare was doing things to her stomach that should be illegal.
She used all of her willpower to push away from him. He stood where she held him an arm’s length away, while she caught her bearings again. She wanted to take a hold of his words, believe what he said about her not being like her mom, but the truth was he didn’t know. “We’ve been together on all these adventures. This isn’t real life, Chance. You wouldn’t be interested in me in real life.”
“I will,” he said firmly, but she shook her head, blocking his words out.
“We’ve been doing all these amazing, adrenaline-inducing things, and the heightened emotions have confused us. There’ve been studies about this kind of thing.” She tightened the sash on her robe and walked purposefully toward the sliding door.
“Maybe you could trust me this time,” he said, his low voice right at her ear, sending tingles down her spine.
She paused to soak in this one last moment of closeness. The delicious scent of him. The invigorating feeling of his closeness. “The stakes are too high.”
“Madelyn—”
She slid the door open and walked inside. She heard his padded steps behind her, could almost feel the restraint it took not to grab her arm, twist her around, and make him see his side of things. But that had never been his way, even if some part of her hoped for him to do just that. She opened the hotel door, and stood far enough back that he could leave without having to brush past her.
She gripped the edge of the door once he left. She called out, “Let’s pretend this never happened, okay?”
He turned then, a frustrated expression crossing his face. “Madelyn, when it comes to you, I’ve learned it’s impossible for me to forget.” He kissed her on the forehead then, a soft, tender kiss that made her want to collapse against the wall. She closed the door when he walked away, not sure if she felt sad or relieved he was gone.
“Relieved, Madelyn,” she told herself, firmly.
Then she sat down and opened her laptop, knowing after that kiss—the one she wasn’t going to think about—she was going to be up all night anyway. Distraction was key.
She had to finish this article. The sooner she could get Chance Risk out of her life, the better.
Chapter Eighteen
Madelyn put her hands behind her back and stretched out the sore muscles. She’d worked a double shift since Jason had Oliver for the day and she’d take every extra cent she could make.
“Why don’t you take a break?” Linda gave her a concerned frown. “You’ve been on your feet for hours. Grab a muffin, too.”
“Thanks.” She went to the tiny break room that smelled of bacon grease and syrup and collapsed as best she could onto one of the uncomfortable metal chairs. Linda had put a few muffins out on the table, and she took a blueberry one before pulling her phone out.
Her heart skipped when she saw a waiting message. But it was only Trent from Verity, not Chance. She’d emailed Chance her new article three days before and still hadn’t heard a word from him. She knew he was spending an extra day filming in Louisiana, but he should have had time to read through her article by now.
She clicked on the email.
Hi Madelyn,
Ms. Phillips would like a status update on the Chance Risk story.
Regards, Trent.
She took a bite of her muffin before replying.
The story is coming along nicely. Please let Ms. Phillips know I will have it to her soon.
She sent it off and willed Chance to reply back to her email with approval. But by the end of her break, and two muffins later, there was still no word. She went out into the mostly empty diner and started to wipe tables down. They were open for another hour still, but the only people who would come in at this point were truckers and teenagers.
The bell on the door sounded and Madelyn looked up to assess which group she’d be dealing with for the remainder of her shift.
Chance stood there, his platinum-blond hair combed into submission, wearing a black long-sleeved shirt and a dark pair of jeans that fit him perfectly. He had his hands in his pockets as he scanned the room, his gaze finally landing on Madelyn, where she stood frozen. Seeing him again, after their kiss o
n the balcony, brought all her feelings back, front and center. She tried to kid herself that they could forget what happened, but seeing him like this, she knew he was an irrevocable part of her.
Linda called out to him from the counter before Madelyn could move in his direction. “Take a seat wherever you like. Madelyn will take your order in a moment.”
He didn’t take his eyes off of her as he grabbed a menu from the hostess counter and walked in her direction. With every step he took, her heart rate ratcheted higher and higher until she felt like she’d finished running a race. He stopped right in front of her, the heat emanating off of him.
“Hi, Madelyn,” he said. Her lungs seized at his intent stare, but he finally broke away to glance around the room. She set a hand on the table next to her to get her bearings.
“What are you doing here?” she whispered.
“I just got back in town and I’m hungry.”
She folded her arms. Right. “And you just happened to come into my diner.”
“Well, I did hear from somewhere that this diner has the best service in all of California.”
“I’m working tonight,” she warned him. “I can’t sit and talk.”
He held up his hands, the menu still in one of them. “That’s fine. Where’s the best table?”
“Right there.” She pointed to the one beside the front window, where you could watch people walk by while you ate. He used to love observing people, thinking about their lives, why they made the decisions they made. She’d theorized that his study of people was partly what had made him so successful on the stage. His characters were never just names on a paper to him; they became three-dimensional and real.
He walked to the table and she called out to him, “Would you like a drink?” She felt Linda staring her down at the counter. Madelyn never yelled after people for their drink orders, but the less time she had to spend at his table, the better.
Take a Chance on Me_A My Heart Channel Romance Page 13
