by Maisey Yates
He thought she’d had a kind, loving dad, when in fact just like him she’d never known her father. Never even known his name. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, and Alex just shrugged again.
“You don’t really miss what you’ve never had, right?”
“I think you do,” Chelsea answered. She’d certainly missed the childhood she’d never known growing up. A house. A backyard with a swing. A dad. Safety and happiness, the freedom to worry about little things, like what you got in your lunch box or how hard your homework was.
Not whether you’d have any food at all, or if your mother’s boyfriend would wake you up in the middle of the night with his hand under your nightgown.
“Maybe you do,” Alex agreed. “I used to imagine my dad surprising us, just appearing one day, like it was all a big mistake that he wasn’t around.” He shook his head. “That was never going to happen.”
“Why not?” Chelsea asked quietly, even though she could guess. Why did any father walk out on his wife and kids? Because he just wasn’t interested. Because it—they—weren’t enough reason for him to stay.
“He was married to someone else.”
Chelsea blinked. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Alex gave her a twisted smile, his teeth gleaming in the darkness. “My mother didn’t want to tell me. She didn’t talk about him at all, but when I was about fourteen and a little too full of myself, I pushed and pushed her and she broke. She told me he was some executive at the office where she cleaned nights. They had a brief fling, and she was deeply ashamed. It wasn’t until later...” He stopped then, shaking his head, and even in the dark evening Chelsea could see how his expression was shuttered.
Normally she wouldn’t pry. She’d made it her policy not to ask personal questions off the pink sofa, because she didn’t want them asked back. But she was curious now, and not just with the idle curiosity of an acquaintance, but with the deep, burning need to understand another person. She wanted to know what had made Alex close in on himself, and how she could open him up again.
What a joke. She did not have the first clue about any of this. Intimacy. Honesty. Understanding. Still, she felt a need, frightening as it was, to try. “What happened later?” she asked quietly. “Did your mother tell you something else?”
“No, not really.” The words came slowly, offered up with reluctance, but still offered. “But something about the way she’d talked about him—the disgust—made me wonder if it hadn’t been a fling, after all. If she’d been forced.”
Chelsea went cold. “How awful,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”
“I’ve never asked her. I visit her every couple of months but we never talk about that.” He turned to her with a smile that was both wry and sorrowful. “So you can see how your dad taking you to football games seems like a pretty sweet deal to me. The whole normal childhood thing.”
Which she hadn’t had, not remotely, yet she could hardly tell Alex that now. Her whole existence was based on lies, because that was the only way she’d known how to leave the past behind. Now she felt the burden of deception weigh heavily on her. She’d never been fully honest with anyone, never been tempted to try, not even with Michael.
As Alex held her gaze, his smile still a little wry and somehow sad, she was tempted. She wanted to tell him that her mother had never spoken about her father, but she and Louise had found a photo in their mother’s underwear drawer of a man with sandy hair and the same gray-green eyes that they had. He’d looked so friendly, with an easy, open smile, and it had made her wonder what she’d done to make him leave.
She forced the words, as well as the impulse, down. There was no point in being honest with Alex, because this wasn’t going anywhere. It was one date, maybe some sex.
Alex hadn’t offered anything else, and she wasn’t looking, not really, not even if in these unguarded moments she felt everything in her yearn for something more. Something deeper.
“I suppose it’s easy to take what seems normal for granted,” she said, although this was pure conjecture. She’d never known normal. “It’s freezing out here. Maybe we should go back down.”
“Wait.”
Chelsea stilled as Alex put his arm around her in a gesture that, in its casual spontaneity, felt weirdly more intimate than some of the other things they’d done. “Look.”
He pointed into the darkness, and Chelsea turned to see the Statue of Liberty illuminated in the harbor, her torch-bearing arm held proudly aloft.
“I will take you there,” Alex said, and for a second, no more, Chelsea let her head rest against his shoulder, enjoying the weight of his arm around her, the shelter of his embrace.
“I consider myself warned.”
Laughing softly, he led her back downstairs.
They drank another glass of champagne as the bus headed back uptown to the circus at Lincoln Center, and Chelsea started to feel pleasantly relaxed and a little dizzy. She normally abstained from alcohol, and two glasses of champagne pretty much went to her head.
Which made this evening feel a little more reckless with possibility.
“I could get used to this kind of travel,” she said as she stretched out on the purple sofa. Alex grinned.
“Makes for a change from pink, doesn’t it.”
She crossed her arms above her head and her feet at the ankles in an affected pose of nonchalance. “It certainly does. Why did you bid on a Family Fun Evening, anyway?”
Alex came to sit beside her, lifting her stretched-out legs and plopping them back on his lap. “Because like I said, I never got to go to the circus as a kid.”
“I’ve never gone either, actually,” Chelsea said, and Alex arched an eyebrow.
“That surprises me, just a little. Based on your bio, I would have assumed you’d had every classic childhood experience.”
Chelsea just shrugged. So she might have overdone it a bit with the false bio, cramming in every wished-for detail of her lonely childhood.
Alex stroked one hand up her jean-clad leg, letting his fingers curl under her knee. He didn’t even seem aware he was doing it, his brow furrowed and his mind clearly on something else, but something about the way he touched her, with such thoughtless ease, made Chelsea yearn all the more.
“When were you in that car accident?” he asked, jolting Chelsea right out of her moment of quiet pleasure.
She almost asked what car accident before she remembered that particular lie. No one ever saw her scar, so it hadn’t tripped quite as easily from her tongue in the telling, and maintaining it was just as hard now.
“Umm...ten years ago.”
“It must have been a pretty serious accident.”
“It was.” Accident was one way of looking at it, she supposed. Assault would be another. And utterly idiotic on her part for letting it get to that point still a third.
Alex lifted his head to meet her gaze, his own liquid and dark. “You don’t like to talk about it.”
She arched her eyebrows. “It shows?”
“A little bit,” he acknowledged wryly. “Sorry. I’m not trying to pry.”
Yes, you are, Chelsea thought. You’ve been prying your way into my life and even into my heart since the moment I met you.
She didn’t say anything though, and a moment later the bus came to a halt in front of Lincoln Center and the driver turned back to them with a smile.
“End of the line, I’m afraid.”
“Time to see some clowns,” Alex said with a grin, and he reached for her hand.
It felt entirely natural for Chelsea to take it, to let his strong brown fingers encase hers as he pulled her to her feet.
She was still enveloped in that fragile little bubble of happiness as Alex led her into the big top erected on Lincoln Center’s plaza. Crowds milled and pressed around her, and she saw half a dozen sharp, curious glances, and knew she’d been recognized.
She was a celebrity, far more recognizable than Alex, whose work was almost always behind the scenes. Sh
e was used to being stared at, but usually it was from behind the tinted window of her own limo, or at least the protection of her usual business or evening wear ensemble, so she looked and felt distant, untouchable. Safe.
Now, even with Alex’s hand threaded through hers, his presence steady and sure right beside her, she felt that terrible yet familiar lurch of panic. Her heart started beating hard and spots danced before her eyes. Perfect, an oncoming anxiety attack and she knew from experience how hard it was to suppress it. Her palms went to pins and needles and she had to remind herself to breathe. In. Out.
Even so she felt her vision start to tunnel, her head go light. She could not faint. Not here, not in the middle of everything, with Alex by her side. Another breath, but suddenly it was so hard to breathe, like taking treacle into her lungs. Her head felt like a balloon floating on a string and her heart still pounded so hard it hurt.
“Chelsea?” Alex tugged on her hand, his voice rich with amusement. “Come on, slowpoke. I really don’t want to miss the clowns.” He turned to face her for she’d stopped moving; she felt as if she couldn’t move, as if her feet were glued to the floor. “Chelsea,” he said again, quietly, because it must have been obvious that something was wrong.
She tried to open her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. She wasn’t even sure if she managed to get her mouth open.
Then she felt Alex’s arm around her waist, warm and strong, and gently he pulled her to his side. “Come on, Chelsea,” he murmured and with his arm still around her he guided her to their seats in the front row, the circus ring just meters away.
She sat down jerkily, and he slid in next to her, his warm thigh nudging hers. The simple touch brought her a much-needed comfort and she dragged a deep breath into her lungs, felt her vision return and with relief she knew the attack was receding.
But it was still too late to pretend it hadn’t happened.
Alex didn’t speak for a moment, and Chelsea stared blindly at the program someone had placed in her lap. Finally he spoke.
“You told me you weren’t afraid of clowns,” he said, all mock accusation, and relief rushed through her, cold and sweet, that he was going to make light of it. She couldn’t have handled anything else, and maybe he couldn’t have either.
“Do you think I’d ever actually admit it?” she joked back, and her voice thankfully sounded normal.
“Have you considered therapy?”
“I thought coming face-to-face with my fear might help.”
Alex’s eyes glinted amusement, and maybe something more. Something like admiration. “Clearly it hasn’t. But considering your condition, it was brave of you to agree to come with me to the circus.”
There was, Chelsea thought, just a little too much truth to this silly conversation, and it had nothing to do with clowns.
“It’s called coulrophobia, you know,” Alex said, and his voice was quiet now, thoughtful. “The official term for a fear of clowns.”
“I didn’t know there was an official term.”
“Quite a few people legitimately suffer from it,” he answered, and then turned to face her directly, his gaze holding no amusement at all. “But not you.”
No, not her. She was afraid of a lot of things—too many—but clowns wasn’t one of them. She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to say something—but what? What could she say, how could she begin? There was so much he didn’t know. So much she didn’t want him to know, wasn’t ready to admit even if part of her craved the release of all those secrets, the true and total revealing of herself.
Alex was silent for a long moment, and Chelsea stared at her program again, the lurid colors of the clowns and costumes on the cover blurring. “You know,” he finally said, his voice quiet and yet conversational, “I could find out whatever secrets you’re hiding. Probably in a matter of minutes.”
Chelsea’s insides iced. “I’m sure you could, considering you have your own news network,” she answered after a moment, when she trusted herself to speak and sound normal. She turned to him, her eyebrows raised. “Is that a threat?”
His gaze felt like a searchlight moving over her face, seeing into her soul. “No, it’s a promise. Because I won’t go digging, Chelsea. I don’t want to find out about you that way. I’ll wait until you trust me enough to tell me.”
That quiet promise reverberated right through her. She hadn’t known he’d even wanted her trust, her secrets. And the fact that he did still scared her near senseless. She swallowed, looked away. “I thought this was just a date, Alex. Sex and the circus.” She turned to look back at him, raised her eyebrows again, this time in challenge. “Right?”
Alex frowned, a sudden confusion shadowing those golden eyes. “Yes,” he answered slowly. “Right.”
* * *
The lights dimmed then and the show started. Alex stared straight ahead as the ringmaster came into the circus ring with a flourish and a thundering of applause.
He barely noticed. His brain reeled and raced. Why on earth had he said that? Meant it?
This whole evening had been an aberration. A date. Flirting. Talking about his mother. His dad. He didn’t do any of it, ever, and yet ever since he’d asked Chelsea to go out with him he’d been breaking all his rules. Acting on instinct, out of a need he didn’t even want to name.
Because it felt so good to be real with someone, to say things. Because Chelsea was like him in so many ways: tough, strong, independent, isolated.
And yet she also had panic attacks. Secrets. Did he really want to deal with all that?
He blinked the circus back into focus and then turned to Chelsea, half expecting her to be rolling her eyes at all the over-the-top antics of the performers. He’d bid on the tickets because he’d always wanted to go to the circus as a kid, and he’d wanted to share that experience with Chelsea even if it was ridiculous and corny.
What he hadn’t expected was for her to be enthralled. There was no other word for her expression as she leaned forward in her seat, her hands clasped to her face, her eyes like silver stars as she watched two acrobats perform a half dozen backflips in a row. He almost laughed aloud when she gasped and put her hands to her throat when a trapeze artist did a death-defying twirl through the air. And she laughed aloud, a crystal peal, when the clowns started running dizzy circles around the mat, making Alex’s heart swell.
Hell, he wasn’t even paying attention to the clowns or the acrobats. The far more interesting show was the play of honest emotions across Chelsea’s face. So much of her was artifice, he realized, and when he got glimpses of the real woman beneath the talk show hostess mask, it made him want to know her even more.
It also made him want to touch her. To draw her onto his lap and lose himself in her softness—for a woman who was bent on making the world think she was hard, Chelsea Maxwell could be almost unbearably soft.
“So,” he said when the lights finally came on and she rose, blinking, from her seat. “You like the circus.”
It was a statement, because her enjoyment had been so wonderfully obvious, and for a moment the magic still had her. Everything about her was flushed and soft and pretty; her hair fell in curling tendrils about her face, her rosy lips were slightly parted and her eyes still sparkled.
“I loved it,” she admitted it with a little laugh. “Who knew?”
“I certainly didn’t,” Alex answered as he slid his arm around her waist. “But then there are a lot of things I don’t know about you.”
She shook her head, and just like that the doors swung shut and the walls came down and Chelsea Maxwell was back to doing what Alex was fast realizing she did best.
Hiding.
The more time he spent with her, the more Alex believed a real and warm heart beat beneath the layers of ice, a warm and even generous woman hid underneath the bad-ass attitude.
But just what did he intend to do with that information?
A limo was waiting for them outside Lincoln Center. Chelsea turned to him with an a
rched eyebrow. “No more double-decker bus?”
“One way only, I’m afraid. But in any case I can’t make love to you on a bus, with the driver right there. I do have my limits.”
Heat flared in her eyes as she slid into the luxurious leather interior. “And who says you’re going to make love to me in a limo?”
Alex sat next to her, his denim-clad thigh nudging hers, and the driver closed the door. “Is that a challenge?”
Color touched her cheekbones, which just made him ache all the more to touch her. Hold her. Bury himself so deep inside her he forgot his own name. “Merely a question.”
“Then I’ll answer it,” Alex answered softly. “I say.” He wrapped one hand around the back of her neck, his fingers curling around warm, delectable skin, and drew her slowly toward him. He felt her resistance leach out of her as he brushed his lips against hers in a soft hello of a kiss. Heard her give the tiniest and most telling of sighs as her body relaxed and she leaned a little bit into that kiss, lips parting under his in this small surrender.
In response he merely brushed his lips against hers again, once, twice, even though his libido was begging him to go deep and hard and fast. Last time their kisses had been about control, about losing it or having it or forgetting it altogether. There was no balance of power in this kiss; there was only sweetness.
And sweetness must have been what Chelsea wanted because he felt her hands come up to his shoulders, drawing him closer as she steadied herself on the seat, lips touching his, her breath coming just a little bit faster. But he still set the pace and she let him as he continued to kiss her softly, taking his time, savoring the feel and taste of her. Delicious.
He brought his hand up to cradle her face, his thumb grazing the corner of the mouth he still kissed. His fingers slid up the softness of her cheek and he paused because his fingertip touched dampness. When he drew away he saw a single tear sparkling on her eyelash like a dew drop.
