Aware we’ve attracted more attention, I allow Tate to pull us away from the terminal. Too overwhelmed to do anything else, I follow him. What’s happening here?
A black Lexus waits with a driver at the end of the concourse, and Tate opens the door, then half shoves me in. LA airport always pulls me out of reality and into chaos. Add in Tate Daniels meeting me, fans accosting us, him dragging me into a car, and my power of speech fails.
I strap on my seatbelt. “I was going to talk to you but—”
“When it suited you? I told you, you had to speak to me before we left or I would find you.”
“But at the airport—” I begin.
“I’m not interested in you calling the shots anymore.”
“Right.” I look out the window. I need to plan my words, because with his surprise move, Tate’s cut short my ability to form a constructive argument.
24
Tate’s place is cooler and emptier than the last time I visited on the night of the party and our deal making. Filled with bodies, the home felt small. Now, empty apart from us, the heavy tension following from the car into his house shrinks the space.
Tate flings his house keys on the table and props my case against a wall near the door. Should I be frightened by his demeanour? The laid-back guy’s face shows no sign of the fun-loving Tate he switched on for his fans half an hour go.
I run my hands across my hair. “I don’t know what’s happening here, but can you bring your kidnap victim a drink of water please? Or are you about to tie me to a chair? Seriously, don’t. I have enough of that in the show.”
“Very funny.”
“You’re being weird, Tate.”
“I am sick to death of this bullshit between us, at you behaving like I’m the bad guy who should take all the blame. I’m pissed off with you treating me how you do because you won’t admit what’s happening here. What happened to bring us to this place?”
I toy with saying “your car” but his actions and shadowed expression suggests he’s not interested in banter.
“Is now the right time, Tate? I’m tired and—”
Again, he interrupts me. “You shut me out. Again. You run and don’t deal with anything that happens between us. Not anymore.”
“Tate, I promise, I’ll talk to you about this, but you’re freaking me out right now.” I edge towards the door. “I’ll go home and—”
Arms crossed over his broad chest, figure stiff, this man worries me. He hides behind a calm and laid-back exterior, but I’ve poked the wasp nest underneath. How could I know he’d react like this?
“Go in there and sit down.” He jabs a finger at his lounge room.
I pause, hand on the front door handle. “What’s with the alpha bossy thing, Tate? That won’t wash with me.”
“Shut up and sit down.”
“Whoa.” I back away. “Not if you talk to me like that.”
Tate steps forward and looks down, the emotion radiating beyond anything I’ve seen from him before. He doesn’t frighten me, but the intense response and his next words surprise me. “If you don’t, I’m going to hold you against that wall and kiss you stupid.”
“I wouldn’t let you.” But my body surges with a desire for Tate to do what he says, for him to kiss me like he did in the hotel room. This is why I avoided him, now and years ago. I don’t trust myself, and avoiding the brain and body-melting effect he has is my number one priority.
“Try me,” he says in a low voice. I glower at him, and he places a hand on the wall above me. His mouth nears mine, and he shifts his body closer. “I don’t think you’ll say no.”
I duck beneath his arm. Move. Now. “Okay. I’ll sit down and talk.”
I walk into his lounge. Can Tate see I’m shaking? I don’t know why I am. Anger? Desire? Both? I sit on the edge of a cream coloured leather sofa in the bright, marble-tiled room. Tate doesn’t follow, but appears a few minutes later and shoves a glass of water into my hand.
I sip, and he watches as he lowers himself into the seat opposite me. “Is this about what happened the other night?” I ask.
“Partially. You avoided me, and you refuse to discuss something major that happened between us. You’re being immature, Myf.”
I balk. “Excuse me?”
“Like I said in the car, I can’t do this shit anymore. We straighten this out. Now.”
“Okay.” But it’s not. I don’t want to stop hiding from him, from how I feel.
“Right. Vegas,” he says.
“We’re doing this now? I thought we were talking about what happened the other night?”
“Yes. You need to hear what happened and what you did and how that affects everything.”
I swallow down rising fear that I’m about to hear a lot I don’t want to. “Oh.”
“I’m just laying all this on the line, Myf. Everything.” A muscle twitches in his jaw. “That night, I won’t ever forget, but you’ve forgotten everything and that hurts. I was on a total high with you. I remembered why I obsessed about you years ago; Myf the no-nonsense, hilarious girl living life.” Tate’s voice and expression soften for the first time.
“No, I was drowning a broken heart, Tate.”
“But underneath, she was still there. Mostly.” His face darkens again. “Twice you broke down in front of me, and seeing you in pain tore into me. What Miles did to you is worse than anything I could’ve done, if you’d had a relationship with me years ago. I’ve never treated anybody like that, and I never would. I’m not a coward who hurts others by pretending and lying. Straight up, you get what you see from me.”
“Tate, you told me you don’t do relationships, and you certainly didn’t back at college. I wanted someone who would love me back then,” I blurt. “I didn’t want to be someone’s one night fun. That would’ve hurt me.”
He wrinkles his nose. “I understand why you avoided me then, but you’re getting to know me now and still behave as if I’m the older guy preying on the sweet, innocent Welsh girl. I’m not him. This is different.”
I laugh. “Seriously, Tate? The girls, drink, drugs...?”
“You’ve seen me. I’m changing my ways. My career’s more important than pouring my life down the drain.”
Is this another new side of Tate I’m seeing? I joked with him our fake marriage would keep him on the straight and narrow; is that what’s happening?
“You’re serious about changing?”
He rests back and places a leg across his other knee. “I told you in Vegas, I’d been told to clean my act up. The lifestyle was becoming expensive, and there’s only so many times I can piss studios off, isn’t there? Do you think I only swore off some of that behaviour because of our marriage? No. Being around you again helped keep me straight, but mostly I don’t like being out of control in life. Everything I did to prove I was in nobody’s control took me further away from my own. I needed to get a grip.”
“I’m happy for you.” I give him a weak smile, heart aching as I look back at the Tate I want him to be; the one who I see glimpses of behind the act he puts on. “I hope you’re happier.”
I could tell him I want to share that happiness if he has changed, that I’m prepared to unguard my heart, but the words won’t come. If summer hadn’t broken me, if Miles hadn’t treated me that way, would I have more trust for Tate and allow him to prove the man can be who he says?
My recent relief I never married Miles grows daily. I spend almost all my time around a man who has always been straight down the line about who he is, has never hidden his faults, but embraces them. Does it make sense that Tate who knows himself so well could change? That he’s genuine?
Tate inhales deeply and closes his eyes, before letting out the breath and opening them. “Is the fame an issue, like with Dylan? Do you judge me based on him?”
“Huh?”
“You and Dylan. You’re friends now, but did something happen when Blue Phoenix hit the big time?”
“I don’t understand what you’re asking.�
�
“Once, in London, you said nobody could hold onto me because I’d move on and out of everybody’s lives.” He laughs softly. “You were one of the only people who it mattered believed in me, who told me I would go places. Back then, your words made me more determined to take you with me to the future.”
“What does this have to do with Dylan?”
“He moved on from you when he became famous. Right?”
I slam my head against the back of the sofa, eyes skyward. “For fuck’s sake,” I mumble. “You too? When will the world just drop the ‘Dylan and Myf have a past’ crap?”
Rumours ebb and flow through the years, about my supposed on again-off again relationship with my best friend. Dylan and I began to avoid each other, which made things worse when we were seen together. I stopped attending functions with Blue Phoenix, refused to meet Dylan in public thanks to the media scrutiny. The last time I stayed at his apartment alone whispers started, even though I was engaged to Miles. Dylan and Sky face rumours all the time, and I hurt when I’m dragged into lies woven around us again.
“You don’t have history? Were never lovers?”
I grit my teeth. “No. Jesus... The band taught me to avoid men uh... free with their affections.”
“Men like me.”
“Like you.”
“But the band members changed their attitudes.”
“Have you?” I throw back. “What about the man I met in Vegas? Is he here?”
“The man in Vegas who looked after you?”
“The one surrounded by girls and loving every moment.”
“The one spending the evening with the girl I fell for years ago. She was with me and some asshole had changed her in one shit moment.”
The words continue to fly between us, a tennis match nobody’s winning.
“Miles did me a favour. He showed me that I shouldn’t be manipulated by my emotions again.” I rub my eyes. “Tate, can we do this some other time. I’m tired.”
“No. I said, we sort this. I didn’t want you to disappear out of my life again without the chance to show you how I’m different around you. I wanted a chance to show you who I could be because you partly made me into the guy I am today.” He pauses and lowers his voice. “I wasn’t going to let you go that easily after Vegas.”
No way. “Is that why you asked me not to divorce you?”
“Ah, the divorce is a different issue. That’s because I wanted to win.”
I blink at him. “Win? Was this some kind of crazy Vegas...?” Omigod. “Was this whole situation a bet?” I stand.
He laughs. Downright, throaty laugh. “Yes and no. But that’s my advantage: you made the bet.”
No. I set my glass down before my shaking spills the water. “What did we bet?”
“Why the fuck can’t you remember? You. Us. We were finally spending time together—no ifs, buts, or bullshit.” He stands too, and we face off as in the hallway. “But you still talked about Miles, and I wanted to smack him so he felt just a small part of the pain I saw in your eyes. You told me all men are cheating bastards; that marriage means nothing and you wouldn’t fall in love again. Your words: ‘I may as well marry you since I’m wearing my wedding dress.’”
“And you joined in? Why?”
“Same reason as you. I was drunk and thought it would be a laugh.” Tate steps closer and looks down at me, spreading his fingers across my cheek. “I asked you to marry me. I told you I could make you fall in love again, and treat you the way you deserved. I’ve wanted to since the day you told me I never could.”
“And I said?”
His mouth twitches with amusement. “You said: ‘I bet you can’t.’ You laughed, and at that moment, in my drunk state, I decided I would and I’d win.”
I stare, dry-mouthed, hanging onto reality by my fingernails. He’s lying. But why would he? “No. That’s crazy. All that. I don’t believe you. That’s the reason you married me?”
“I guess I discovered what happens when alcohol and infatuation switches logic off, Myf. I don’t know why you affect me the way you do, and I know that was partly behind the the insane decision to marry you.”
A shiver sets from my scalp to toes as he brushes hair from my face. “I wanted to win, and I think I might’ve done? Otherwise why would you be so hurt the other night?”
“You think I fell in love with you?” I twist my face into derision, through the denial. “Seriously?”
“I think you’re falling.”
Freefalling. Over the edge.
Tate’s unwavering look doesn’t lose the intensity and I put a hand over my mouth, as if it will stop him attempting to kiss me again. He thinks he’s won? Well, two can play at his game. “I keep remembering things about Vegas. Weird things. Snapshots.”
“Yes?” He quirks an eyebrow. “Such as?”
“You told me you loved me.” He blinks rapidly. “By the Bellagio fountains. I remember, you whispered in my ear.”
I wait for Tate to back-pedal, but his response stuns me. “I’m not denying that.”
“That you love me or you said it?” I ask, voice hoarse.
My chest fills with trepidation, stomach knotting at how my attempt to call him out backfired.
“I meant I love who you are, Myf. You were with me again and I had to tell you. I love everything about you, every part of the girl I was obsessed by years ago. Does that mean I love you because you’re the sum of those parts? Yes, I think I do.”
I can’t keep up. I’d convinced myself his words were because he was drunk. Love. “And what was my reply?”
He bites the corner of his lip. “You said, ‘That’s bullshit. Prove it’.”
“Oh.”
“So I did. Dumb, drunk, and determined to prove a point. So with the bet and then you telling me to prove how I felt, I had no choice. I don’t like people telling me I’m wrong. I’ll go all out to stick my middle finger up at them and prove I know what the fuck I mean and what I’m doing.”
“Whoa.” The sudden aggressive tone and hardening features are directed elsewhere, because he mumbles an apology. “What’s that all about, Tate?”
“It’s about my life. About why I’m here. We all have a past that influences our present, right? No big deal.”
Somehow, I don’t believe him.
“So you married me to win an argument?”
He shakes his head. “Like I said, didn’t think it was legal. I thought I was just proving a point. The whole thing happened so fast once we bought the licence. We weren’t even in the chapel, but in the street under the chapel’s neon sign. Seriously, how could we believe the wedding was the real deal?”
The street.
Tate holding my hands and me attempting to focus on his face, repeating the vows in my best-ever acting role. Attempting not to laugh as he placed a ring made from paper torn off a napkin and twisted.
Afterwards, he picked me up, flung me over his shoulder, and the street lurched as the ground flew past my dizzy head, hair falling against his back.
“You remember something else don’t you?” he asks in a soft voice. He moves closer and waits, watching me as the heat reaches my ears, and I swallow. “You know, Vegas is one issue, but this all started in London, didn’t it?”
I stare at my hands unable to take in his words. “London was a long time ago.”
“But is with us now. Has been with us every minute since we met again. Hell, calling this between us unfinished business is a bloody understatement, Myf.”
“We can’t rewind, Tate.”
He ignores me and presses on. “In the dressing room on closing night, do you remember?”
I lift my eyes to his and don’t need to respond, because he’s reflecting back his own memories. “Yes,” I whisper.
“Why after all those weeks holding me at arm’s lengths did you let me in and then push me away again?”
“Everything in my head was a mess, Tate. I wanted you, but knew I’d never have you. I couldn’t g
ive you what you wanted.”
“I wanted you so fucking bad, Myf. Not just in my bed, or against the wall in the dressing room for five minutes, but you. When we were out with mutual friends and you avoided me but let other guys near you, I was so fucking jealous. I wanted to be enough for you, couldn’t understand how they were and I wasn’t.”
The words roll from his tongue like a gathering storm, lost in the past he’s sharing. Tate told me some of this at the time, but I always saw his words as extra tricks in his repertoire.
This stunning man, with everything and everybody exactly how he wants, still needs more. He’s never shaken me. How can one person remember so much from years ago; how they felt about somebody, with such passion? Only if the emotions are deep and waiting to be tapped.
Tate is telling me the truth.
“It wasn’t because you weren’t good enough, Tate. I couldn’t let you under my skin,” I say in a quiet voice, as if I’m the girl back then.
“But you knew there was something between us we couldn’t shake, right? Still do?”
The time he talks about floods in, the truth spilling. “I’d never met anybody like you, Tate. You were the embodiment of the guy I dreamed I’d meet at college. Talented, hot as hell, and going places. You were out of reach. But you’re right. There was something about you, I couldn’t stay away from however hard I tried. It started out as raw attraction, I know that much, and I wanted you. But then I saw your real passion was in your work, that you lived and breathed ambition. And I saw that’s why you couldn’t give yourself to anybody.”
“You’re wrong. I told you I loved you once before, Myf. That night in the dressing room jumps into my head almost every time I see you these days.”
A familiar ache that always joins my memory of that night starts. I’d kissed few guys before him—on stage and in reality—but never reacted the way I did when he kissed me. Tate, pressed against me, the two of us intoxicated by the play’s success and the relief we’d finished the run. High on the reviews and accolades thrown our way. Lost in each other. I fell apart beneath his kiss, resolve crumbling beneath his fingers as he stroked my skin. The impossible gentleness from his mouth, the tender touch exploding need through, disoriented me. This wasn’t a guy who wanted sex, but somebody whose longing wasn’t just a physical need.
Unscripted Page 15
