Light graced the room, brought out its warm yellow walls. There was plastic sheeting over the coffee coloured carpet, a trestle table with a strip of wallpaper frieze laid across it ready to paint with glue. He’d been trying to match the animals. An elephant, a bear, a zebra, a kangaroo, a giraffe, a lion, a hippo.
There was a Coke can and a tiny brown shrivelled apple core. Shannon’s iPod. The big wingback club chair she’d been going to have reupholstered. Leaning against the far wall was the packing box with the cot inside, ‘This way up’ emblazoned on it.
The ladder was standing A frame against the wall where half a frieze was up, waiting for the next elephant in the sequence that would never come. He folded it, turned it, tucked it under his arm, and when he looked up Bailey was standing in the doorway with a white-faced look of horror highlighting her bruises.
“One ladder at your service.”
As though she was frightened by him she backed into the hallway. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“How could you?”
“What happened?”
He made a mess of negotiating the turn into the hallway, smacking the top of the ladder against the opposite wall. “She was thirty-eight weeks.”
Bailey was subdued all the way back to the city. Another person altogether to the ninja who’d balanced on chairs, and taunted him to lose his head over kissing her. It took less than ten minutes for him to use the ladder to fix the spotlight. He left it there. It could go back to the office with the rest of the gear after the event.
When they left the venue, to go to their own cars, she gave him a look of such sorrow, her eyes glittering in the light from the emergency exit sign. He put his hand to her face. “It’s ok, Bails. I had to open that room up sometime.”
“I would never have said those things to you.”
“You mean called it like it is.” He was a man who’d lived in a house with a room closed off because he was frightened of confronting yellow paint and an animal frieze. She’d called it right.
“No. That was unfair, wrong—so wrong. I’m so sorry.”
“You can make it up to me.”
“How?”
“You can take up the partnership. Get it sorted. Have it out with Blake once and for all.”
She nodded.
They stood in the green neon glow separated by bags and laptops. She was a warrior, brave, battered and proud and he was chicken shit.
44: Partners
The cot box in the baby’s room had ‘This way up’ stamped on it, but nothing was the right way around. Bailey was breathing so heavily it was a wonder the glass wall of Blake’s office hadn’t fogged up.
“I thought we’d gotten past our issues. I thought you were telling me everything. I thought I could forgive you and trust you and believe in you.”
Blake sat slumped in his chair looking like a thundercloud ready to unleash ice and bluster. He did not like 7am starts. He did not like being yelled at. Bailey was enjoying the yelling, but not the sick feeling inspiring it. She felt pulled inside out.
“How can we be equal partners if you lie to me?”
Blake kept running his hand through his thick blonde crop, rolling his head on his neck. “I don’t understand why you’re so upset. I thought we were ok.”
“We’re not ok. How could you not tell me?”
“Tell you what? I’ll tell you anything you want know, Bails. No secrets, no lies.”
“What about omissions?”
He inclined his head, considering. She pounced. “How could you not tell me Shannon was pregnant when she died?”
“Ahhh!” Blake stood and came around his desk. “That wasn’t my story to tell. You know that. What happened?”
“I said horrible things to Aiden last night. I called him chicken shit.” Blake flinched. “I told him to get over Shannon, get over himself and start living.”
“Oh, fuck.”
“Then we went to get his ladder and I saw the baby’s room.”
“Ladder?”
“Forget the ladder. This is your fault.”
“My fault? How is you tearing into Aid my fault? You’re being unreasonable.”
Bailey hugged her ribs, holding on to her anger even as Blake’s responses were laying foam on her fire. He was right, much as it annoyed her. It was her own fault she’d said those things to Aiden, and goaded him into kissing her. And it would’ve been more than scorching kisses if Doug’s ice baths had done a better job. But she wasn’t in the mood to play nice, or back down. She’d show Blake unreasonable. She walked towards the door.
She had her back to him when he said, “You’re going to walk out on me?”
“I’m going to finish this discussion by leaving the room. Don’t make it more than it is.”
“Don’t leave me like this.”
Blake used the words of lovers not colleagues or potential business partners. She turned back to him. Now he was being ridiculous. She intended to say something to that effect when she saw his eyes, glassy with emotion. He looked suddenly stripped raw, not a thundercloud, a tremulous bubble, overweight with feeling and ready to burst.
“Blake.” Anything else she thought to say froze in her throat. She’d managed to unhinge two men in the space of twelve hours. That had to be a personal best. It didn’t bear thinking about adding Chris into that equation.
There was something off about Blake. He was unsecured, unearthed. He took two long strides and took hold of her arms. He was so close she was virtually in his embrace. He wasn’t trying to restrain or contain her, he was trying to hold her to him.
“Bailey, I can’t lose you.”
More words for bedrooms and private discussions not glass walled offices. What was he talking about? She shook her head, which way was up? “I’m not yours to lose.”
He was so close she could count his sandy eyelashes, smell sandalwood cologne coming off him in waves of heat. He was breathing hard as though he’d bolted up the stairs. She knew he wanted to kiss her the second he lowered his eyes, but she was too shocked to move. He held still, his forehead almost resting on hers as though he was summoning his power. Bailey heard his rough exhalations and the pounding of her own heart. Her hands were on his chest so when he stepped back abruptly, she swayed on her feet, her body echoing the notion in her head that everything was lopsided.
She couldn’t look away from Blake, and he couldn’t look at her. He had his head down, his fists clenched in front of his hips. “Bails, you’re in love with Aiden.”
He shocked a denial out of her. “I’m not. How could I be?”
“You are.” He looked up and she backed away, wary, then discomforted by the intensity of his examination. “You just don’t want to admit it yet.”
“What’s wrong with you, Blake?”
“God, Bailey. I should’ve kissed you years ago, when I still had the right to. I love Olivia. She is my life. She is everything to me. But I’ve loved you too. Like you love me.”
“What! No. No.” That voice raised and hysterical was hers. This was not a conversation that needed to be had. Not a conversation that did either of them any good. This was about as far away from Aiden’s definition of professional as kissing in car parks.
Blake’s chin went up, “You know it.”
“You’ve lost your mind.” If she didn’t agree with him, this wouldn’t be real, they could go back to the way they were. Nothing had happened. Nothing would happen. Blake was having a lapse into momentary madness and they’d laugh about this.
“We were smart enough to know we were close but not right.”
She shook her head, hands raised to hold Blake’s words back. “No.”
“You know it. That’s why nothing happened. All those days, all those nights, weekends, years. Nothing ever happened.”
“You’re making this up.”
“You know I’m not.”
She walked in a tight circle, half horrified, half fascinated.
“Bailey. You love A
iden. He’s your right.”
“No. He’s still in love with Shannon.”
“He doesn’t know how to let go. He needs someone to hold on to when he does.”
“That’s not me. He doesn’t want me.”
“You’re smarter than that, Bails. That’s why I love you.”
What was he saying? Blake didn’t love her. And anyone who loved Aiden had to compete with a dead woman. Madonna and child—perfection six feet under. She didn’t love Aiden, he wouldn’t let her. She didn’t love Blake. She didn’t love Chris. She didn’t love anyone.
“You’ve gone completely insane.” She spun about to leave, but Blake caught her hand.
“Bailey,” he tugged and she wheeled back. The way he said her name was an evil enchantment.
She’d never know who moved first but she was in his arms, braced against him and this time she was ready for his kiss—their kiss.
His lips came down on hers, firm, uncompromising. This wasn’t an accident, not a denial waiting to happen. There was something old and inevitable about it. Bailey’s hand went to Blake’s hair, his to her back. He shifted her closer, she pushed at his chest. He tasted of coffee, and sugary biscuit he shouldn’t have been sneaking for breakfast.
As suddenly as they’d come together, they sprang apart. Bailey’s fingers came to her mouth. Blake ducked his head, but held her eyes. “Are you going to hit me?”
She should. She’d never slapped anyone before, but this was good cause for a slapping, wasn’t it? “No.”
Blake was braced, pleading. “It’s ok, you can hit me. I deserve it.”
Bailey was half hit, half run. “If you keep asking me I will.”
“Did you feel anything?”
Her lips buzzed, her stomach churned. It was a good kiss, nothing indecisive, sloppy or weak about it. No reason to dislike it, but feel anything, apart from totally weirded out by the utter wrongness of it—hell no. She shook her head. “You?”
“No.” Blake shrugged as though this was the equivalent to trying a new food and discovering it didn’t live up to its hype. “We had to know.”
“I could’ve lived without it. I think I’m going to be sick.”
He grinned. “Maybe we should try again, just in case we did it wrong.”
“We didn’t do it wrong.” Her shout could’ve stripped plaster of the walls.
He raised a questioning eyebrow. This was Blake who never gave up the chase until the race was over.
“We’re not doing it again.
He had a naughty kid look on his face, a caught smoking behind the toilet block look, a never know till you try look. She did love him. She always had. Bailey launched herself at him and he caught her, and kissed her, this time with more control, with less haste. They let it develop, breathed through it, and then released each other.
Blake was laughing. Relief written all over his face. “It so doesn’t work.”
Bailey wiped her mouth and laughed too. She loved Blake, but not that way. “It was really awful.”
“It wasn’t that bad.”
“No bells.”
“You hear bells?”
“Sometimes. Yes.”
“With Aid?”
She nodded. “With Olivia?”
“Soaring string orchestras.”
Bailey studied her fingernails. “I’m feeling mighty disturbed by this.”
“I know what you mean.” Blake reached for her hand and she let him take it, let him look in her eyes and see her confusion. “You don’t have to love only one person. But it’s better if you’re in love with only one person at a time.”
He was telling her it was ok to be in love with Aiden. Hot, itchy tears built behind her eyes. “I should’ve slapped you before you made me cry.”
“If I threaten to kiss you again will you quit it?”
Blake was back to being himself again. Back in control. He pulled her hand and drew her toward him, and she walked into his arms, tucking her head into his shoulder. He was shelter against the rapid roll of uncertainty coursing through her body. “Will you tell Olivia?
She felt him deflate. “God. Yeah. I can’t help myself. I’ll tell her.”
“She’ll hate me.”
“She’ll hate me worse. She was the one who pointed out I loved you. She thought we’d been lovers.”
Bailey lifted her head. Appalled by the idea of Olivia thinking she didn’t own Blake heart and soul. “We never!”
“I know. I was there, Bails.”
“She’ll really hate you.”
He sighed again. His misery was apparent in the tension around his eyes and the resignation in his voice. “She should. She won’t. And that just makes me feel like more of a bastard. She knows I’d die for her. She knows you’re in love with Aid. None of that means I won’t be sleeping in the spare room till she’s forgiven my sorry ass.”
Bailey couldn’t meet his eyes. This man she loved to work with and loved having in her life, but who she wasn’t in love with, and never really had been. “This is totally weird.”
“This is better. No wondering, no dishonestly between us. We’re bigger than this crazy moment. We’re going to be partners for a long time, Bails.”
She nodded into his chest. This had to be the oddest partnership acceptance occasion ever. “We are.”
“Thank God.” He put a finger under her chin and lifted her head, kissed her forehead softly. “I love you, Bailey.” He brushed a tear away with the pad of his thumb. “Now go get him.”
45: Bruising
There was only one thing Bailey could think of doing to get Aiden well and truly out of her system. It probably wasn’t what Blake meant by, ‘go get him’, but everything to do with Blake was suspect at the moment.
Maybe actual sex with Aiden would be awful, and that would be enough to stop feeling like this about him. If she could finally get the place and the mood right, maybe he’d still reject her. That didn’t seem all that likely, but if she got sudden squalls Aiden, instead of clear skies Aiden, it was anyone’s guess.
Something had to happen though. She couldn’t keep feeling like this; tuned to his station, rocking his playlist of push and pull, compromised intentions and confused logic.
After the episode with Blake—what else to call it? They felt like a soap opera—right down to the fact they were about to sign up together for a long running season—Bailey spent the day with the Bitters team walking them through the event and managing the dress and technical rehearsals.
It was an Aiden free zone in a physical sense, but mentally he was all over her. The feeling of his hands on her body, the wet lick of his tongue behind her ear, the narrow strength of his hips between her legs and the way he kissed. Hah, that man could do things to her with a kiss that took away all pain. It was hard to stay focused on scrims and follow spots, cues and marks when her body was replaying what happened on the very table she was now conducting a meeting with a bunch of techs from the production team.
This morning she’d sent out another pic Aiden would puzzle over. A shot of the natural rock amphitheatre bathed in moonlight. The place he’d been sitting when she first stole his image. MacGuffin got it, eerily so, quoting Paul Coelho, ‘Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering’. MacGuffin must’ve been a witch to know that’s what the picture meant to Aiden. In the real world, MacGuffin was probably an eighty year old grandma; still Bailey was getting close to considering her a virtual bestie.
Rehearsals went so well she ended up with an early mark. All the better to plan her attack. This evening she was shifting the campaign into high gear. She had the time, she had the secure location. She had an ice bath, a muscle relaxant and arnica on her bruises. She was still purple, green and yellow in patches but there wasn’t much she could do about that. Make-up wasn’t going to help, and anyway he knew what she looked like, and she had surprise on her side to make up for it. One way or another he’d be forced to declare himse
lf.
Of course there are dependencies with every battle plan, and the first thing she had no control over was when he’d get home. The whole plan could fall in a tattered heap if he stayed in the office till all hours like he often did. She parked in his street behind a big paperbark tree with a view of the house around 8pm, hoping he’d be home soon. The half hour she waited for his car to pull into the drive was long enough to make her reconsider everything.
What kind of person did this? Tracked a man down with the express intent of throwing herself at him, so she could seduce him, and get him out of her system. Her mother would be so ashamed of her. Sarah would think she was a goddess. MacGuffin would probably quote Jane Austin or Sookie Stackhouse, Gandhi or Charlie Brown. She felt suddenly incredibly stupid for believing this might work. There was no way Aiden was going to go for it. Especially in his own home, when he’d not wanted her there, and she’d seen the full extent of his pain and loss in the room with the yellow walls and the animal wallpaper.
She drove past his house as he was turning lights on inside and was two streets away before her own taunt echoed in her ear. She was chicken shit if she didn’t try to make things happen. Blake said Aiden needed someone to hold on to before he let go. Why couldn’t she be that someone? She needed a stiff drink. She needed more courage than she’d ever summoned. She turned the car around.
He had a mug of coffee and a confused look when he opened the door. “Bailey, what’s wrong?”
Nothing. Everything Him. She hadn’t rehearsed this bit. Hadn’t factored in the dry mouth, stuck lips, cemented down feet, and deafening thud of her heart. But she never backed away from a challenge and she wasn’t doing it now.
He turned sideways in the hall. “You’d better come in.”
“If I come in it’s with a purpose in mind.” It was only fair to warn him.
“Sounds about right. Should I be worried?”
“Yes.”
“Ok. What’s wrong?”
“You and me. But mainly you.”
He sighed, put his mug on the hall table and his hand on the door as if in readiness to close it on her. “Is this about the partnership?”
White Balance Page 31
