Harlequin E Contemporary Romance Box Set Volume 3: Falling from the SkyMaid to LoveWhen the Lights Go DownStart Me Up

by Sarina Bowen

  He supposed he should be happy there wasn’t a photo of him with his hand down Maxie’s pants in the park.

  “You do fly in some rarefied atmosphere,” she murmured, scrolling down the article.

  “I don’t fly anywhere. I keep my name out of the papers.” He ground the words out and stepped on the gas, skimming around a slower vehicle to take advantage of the green light ahead of them.

  “Okay. One, this isn’t a newspaper. It’s some bored housewife in the Gold Coast who thinks a blog is the hot new accessory this summer. Twelve people are going to read this other than your mother.”

  “Twelve people, who will talk to a hundred more.”

  “Are you seriously worried about this?”

  “Worried? No. Annoyed? Irritated? Frustrated? Yes. It’s gossip that’s going to follow me around for months, if not longer. I’ll get asked about it in my next dozen interviews, and not just with the guy who hates me. It’ll come up at every charity function and business meeting. Every lunch with potential partners. It will take the focus off everything I’m working on to promote with Temporal and those guys will suffer because I can’t keep everyone’s focus where it needs to be, on what really matters.”

  The color drained from Maxie’s face and he cursed. Shit. He hadn’t meant to imply she wasn’t important.

  “Hey, you know I don’t mean—”

  “Don’t.” Her hand, her face, her voice cut him off. “I know that what I do, who I am, seems frivolous to you. But it matters to me. And to a lot of other people, none of whom have penthouses on Lake Shore Drive, by the way.”

  “There it is.” He should have known it wouldn’t take long for her to come around to this again.

  “What?” The crack of her voice warned him, but he was pissed now, too, the heat rising in him and pushing the bitter words off his tongue.

  “God, it’s not a crime to have money! And it’s my job, for Christ’s sake, to help people bring their dreams to life. To start the companies they’ve schemed about in their basements for years. I can make that real for them.”

  “For a profit.”

  “Of course. I’m not Ghandi. I’m a businessman.” He pulled up in front of the District 12 station. He’d have to figure out where he could park. No question about risking an illegal parking job at a cop shop.

  Maxie was out of the car and on the street before he could tell her that. She’d grabbed her small purse out of her weekender. “Just leave my bag with your doorman. I don’t want to worry about it.”

  She slammed the door.

  As if he were planning on leaving her at the curb.

  By the time he made it inside to talk to the desk sergeant, his muttered curses had reached new heights of creativity.

  He was welcome to sit his ass down in the lobby and wait if he chose, but no, he could not see Ms. Tyler. Nor could she confirm whether or not Ms. Tyler had an attorney present. People streamed in and out of the building—cops escorting sullen, bruised men and women, a pale-faced teen who was met by a scowling mother. Finally, after two hours, a tall blond man in a suit that screamed lawyer.

  “Spencer Reed, attorney for Maxine Tyler.”

  By the time the words penetrated his zombielike fugue, the man had already been swallowed by the bowels of the station. Nick swayed to his feet, the waves of exhaustion no longer washing over him but crashing into him.

  What was he doing here? She obviously didn’t need or want him. He was making a fool of himself. He dragged his cell phone out and hit Call on the number that was always near the top of his contacts list.

  “Tommy? Sorry for the short notice, but I’m not safe to drive. Can you cab it to Racine and Blue Island and drive me home?”

  * * *

  “Why is your angel sitting in the lobby?”

  Maxie dragged her eyes away from the toothpaste-green cinderblock wall. “What?”

  “Nick Drake’s out there, looking like he’s stoned.”

  “Still?” Two hours of relatively polite questioning had gone by. No one had read her her rights yet, so she supposed she wasn’t technically under arrest, but it sure did feel good to have Spencer with her. He had apologized for arriving late and she’d apologized for pulling him away from his wife and new baby. He wasn’t taking on any new work during these first weeks, and she felt like a blue-ribbon jerk for breaking into his private family time with her crisis. “He must be exhausted. I don’t think he’s slept since last night. I mean, the night before last. God.” She scrubbed her hands over her face. “Worst. Twenty-four hours. Ever.”

  “I think you should really be grateful that you haven’t been locked up at this point, so, you know, not so much the worst.”

  She shuddered. She knew there wasn’t even a lock on the door to this sterile little meeting room. Interrogation room, her brain insisted. She also knew that if she stood up and walked out, the conversation about the guns in her office that had been relatively low key so far would be cranked up to DEFCON 1.

  “Tell me I’m not gonna end up in the pokey?” She batted puppy-dog eyes at her brother-in-law and tried to smile, but the reassuring way he squeezed her shoulder before he sat down told her that he wasn’t fooled. She was pissing her pants with fear right now and a friendly face felt like a lifesaver in stormy waters.

  “Let’s work on getting you out of here, okay, champ?”

  Five hours later, she wrapped her arms around herself and danced a little jig as they left the police station.

  “I half-expected you to fall to your knees and shout, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last!’” Spencer said, texting an update to her sister.

  She spun in a little circle before flinging herself at Spencer and squeezing him tight. “What do you think I am, some kind of drama queen?” she said, sniffling into his collar. “Don’t answer that. Thank you so much. I would have been terrified if you hadn’t been there with me.”

  “Anytime, sister mine. But not really. If this happens again tomorrow, please call someone else.”

  She threw her head back and laughed, revved to the max on sweet, sweet relief and the surprisingly heroin-like joy of knowing she wasn’t going to prison. “You got it.”

  “Need a lift home?”

  The joy fizzled out of her like a popped balloon.

  Ugh.

  “Mind if we make a stop on the way? I need to pick up my bag from Nick’s doorman.”

  “Sure. Wonder what happened to him anyway?”

  She slung her arm through Spencer’s and walked with him to his car. “No idea. But you stuck by me and that’s all that matters.”

  If her heart was breaking at the thought that he’d waited, that Nick had stuck by her after all, just not long enough, well…no one had to know but her.

  * * *

  “What do you mean, you don’t have it?”

  The young man in the suit behind the reception desk grimaced and shrugged, clearly uncomfortable.

  “Sorry, miss. Mr. Drake said to send you up.”

  Sighing, she dug her phone out and shot a quick text message to Spencer. No need to hold up the new dad any longer.

  Gonna be a while. Go home. I’ll grab cab.

  Ok. Call if you need help. :)

  As if. Her brother-in-law had already hauled his ass all around the city on a Sunday for her. She knew his offer was genuine, but she wouldn’t call him on it unless she was literally put behind bars.

  She knocked hard on the mahogany reception desk, making the doorman blink large eyes at her.

  “Knock on wood. Sorry.” She saluted him, trying her best not to be rude just because she was mad at Nick for making her haul her ass all the way up to the forty-fourth floor.

  The plush carpet in the hallway made it impossible to stomp her feet from the elevator to Nick’s door, where she knocked hard enough to make her knuckles ache.

  She threw her shoulders back and braced herself for battle, but it still felt like a punch in the chest when Nick opened t
he door, barefoot and wearing jeans and a plain blue T-shirt. “Fifty dollars for a T-shirt,” a snotty version of Macklemore sang in her head, “that’s just some ignorant rich shit.” She wondered what had happened to the thrift-shop T-shirt she’d bought him.

  She definitely did not notice how the rich-guy shirt brought out the blue in his eyes. Nope.

  That was probably a plot to make her weak in the knees.

  It was working.

  Nick didn’t say a word, just held his door open and swept one arm out, indicating that she should enter. One tanned, thick forearm, brushed with dark hair—an arm she could so easily picture draped across her naked stomach from the last time she’d been in bed with this man.

  She took several steps inside and heard the door click shut behind her.

  “I’m just here for my bag.” All she wanted was to get out of here before he could see how hard it was for her to be around him.

  “What happened with the police? Is everything cleared up or did you bust out and you’re on the lam?” She wasn’t sure, but she thought he might be teasing her. For a second, she softened and some of the tension eased from her shoulders.

  Then she remembered why he was asking and snapped out the words before she vetted them for good sense, “If you wanted to know, you could’ve stuck around long enough to find out.”

  He turned his head as if he was trying to hear her better. Took a step toward her. She backed away from the sudden tension in his frame.

  “Excuse me?”

  She’d never been a fan of retreat. “You heard me. How long did you wait, Nick? Ten minutes?” She knew that was a shitty accusation even as she said it, since Spencer, who had been two hours late, had seen Nick in the lobby when he arrived. All she could think of was that he’d left. Even if she’d never once asked him to stay, it still felt like Damian all over again, knowing that he’d left.

  Nick crossed his arms and inhaled sharply. She waited for him to snap at her, but instead he shifted toward the leather couch and rested a hip on it.

  “It was pretty clear that you didn’t want me there.”

  “I didn’t want you there because you didn’t want to be there.” She was well aware that her argument was sinking to a five-year-old’s grasp of logic. Crap. That didn’t bode well.

  “Oh, please. You made it perfectly clear that you didn’t need me, Maxie.”

  “Didn’t need you?” Her brain stuttered to a halt. How had they gotten so far off the script? “Jesus, Nick! I was walking into a police station hoping I wasn’t going to be arrested and thrown in jail. Of course I needed you!”

  “Then why didn’t you tell me that?” The outrage in his voice could have peeled paper off the wall. He paced across the polished-stone floor. Stopped with his hands spread wide at his hips. “For Christ’s sake, I would have stayed with you.”

  “I don’t…because I don’t want to need you, okay? I know this is nothing but fun times for you, so I’m not expecting you to act some kind of til-death-do-we-part role here. I know better.”

  “I have to tell you, this last bit? Not that fun.” His voice was sour like bitter lemons.

  “Oh, screw you.” Damn it. Now she was crying again. Traitorous body, turning anger and vulnerability into tears. “And don’t think I’m crying about you. I’m just mad. You act like all I had to do was ask.”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t believe you.” She shook her head. She’d seen the way he braced himself when her actions threatened to embarrass him. “You may be up for the initial fun. The preliminary investment, is that what you’d call it? But you’re not a long-term kind of guy are you?”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “So, tell me. Do you hang on to all these companies you invest in forever?”

  She could see it, the moment he spotted the trap. He argued with her anyway. “Of course not. At a certain point, it’s time for me to sell and take my profit. That’s my job.”

  Just like Damian. Nick wasn’t an asshole on purpose, of course, but all she could think was, Here’s another rich boy who would leave you in the long run. “You’re a stand-up guy for some people, Nick. For your mom, I guess. But I’m not the latest cool investment opportunity and, even if I was, you’d move on to the next one sooner or later.”

  “You say that like you’re not exactly the same.”

  “Bullshit. I am not.”

  His eyes flashed with heat. “Lie to yourself if you want, but I know better, Maxie. You didn’t for one minute think we were doing anything that was going to last beyond the life of the show.”

  “I don’t—”

  “You dress like a wild woman because it’s just play for you. Wardrobe isn’t something you take seriously, so you have fun with it. But when was the last time you took a relationship seriously?”

  She couldn’t answer. She didn’t take relationships seriously, hadn’t let herself do so for years. Someday, she always told herself. Someday, when her business was well established and her position in Chicago’s competitive theater scene was secure, she’d be able to look up from her tight focus and find someone. A man with no connection to the ocean of chaos and drama she swam in on a twenty-four/seven basis.

  Eight years.

  That was how long she’d been telling herself that, someday. Maybe it was time to admit that she’d never really believed someday would come.

  “Talk about conservative. At least I’m open to the possibility.”

  Feeling naked had always made her defensive and liable to strike out. “Open to the possibility of some Lincoln Park Trixie maybe. But not a real woman. Not someone whose every move isn’t calculated to impress.”

  “Do I care what people think? Yes. It bothers me to be a spectacle. To be the center of gossip. For as long as I can remember, my parents have caused scenes everywhere they—we—go. It’s tiring. It’s old. So forgive me for wanting to fade into the background sometimes. I don’t want the spotlight. I don’t want to be part of a spectacle.”

  “Neither do I. But I’m not afraid of it, either.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eye sockets. God, she was tired. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “If you say so.” Nick hadn’t taken a step toward her this entire time.

  So. That was that.

  “Listen. You deserve to know what happened. Whatever else…” She couldn’t finish it. Couldn’t think about what she’d have to do to fix this disaster after she lost her show. She inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly. All she had to do was explain and then she could go.

  The story didn’t sound as awful as she’d imagined. Nick didn’t say a word while she stood and twisted her hands in knots, flashing back to all of her monologue assignments in theater classes over the years. Or to that night in the hotel, the time he’d quizzed her about everything she knew about production and Smith’s show. But this monologue wasn’t going to end in a sweaty-yet-somehow-sweet wrestle in the sheets. The pang under her breastbone made her stutter.

  “I just…didn’t know what to do. So I figured I’d turn them in. After I bought them, which is pretty illegal as it turns out.” Her laugh was bitter. She’d been lucky to escape with a slap on the wrist and she knew it, but that didn’t make it any less humiliating. Being interrogated at the police station, even if no charges were filed, was the single scariest experience of her life. She hoped with every fiber of her being that the rest of the drama in her life would be confined to the stage. She was so not ready to join the cast of Orange is the New Black.

  “I’m glad you’re not in trouble.”

  “If I sneeze sideways in the next five years, Lieutenant O’Donnell will kick my ass. And then he’ll arrest me.” She almost managed a grin. Almost. “We just couldn’t let them take the guns home, you know? All Marcus could think of was what if something happens? What if someone gets hurt or killed with that gun I turned away? We just…couldn’t.” She’d hesitated at the time, but she still thought it had been the right call.
<
br />   “I emailed my attorney that night before I went home, asking him how I could turn them over to the police without getting into trouble.” That’s what had saved her in the end. Spencer, who had yelled at her for paying some other lawyer when she could just as easily have asked him, had her log in to her email account on his laptop so he could show the cops the email exchange with time-date stamps. Lieutenant O’Donnell’s boss was a take-no-prisoners woman who looked like Maxie’s mother but with a lot less affection in her eyes. She clearly thought Maxie was an idiot, albeit not a criminal one.

  “Forgetting they were locked up in my office is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done. I understand that you have to cut me from the production. But please don’t fire my staff because I’ve been irresponsible. This may all seem like a joke to you, but there are a lot—”

  “God, you just don’t have any faith in me at all, do you?”

  She couldn’t even remember whether it was her turn to be mad now. She swayed on her feet and the room went blurry for a moment.

  “Maxie?”

  “I have to go. Can I have my bag please?” She couldn’t be here another minute without snapping the fragile threads that were holding her together. When Nick dropped her weekender at her feet, she couldn’t look him in the eye. It was too much. “Thank you.”

  “Goodbye, Maxie.”

  She waited until she was in the taxi to let the tears run again, knowing they weren’t going to stop until she was empty, dry as dust and hollow.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Darling, you’re not fired.”

  She had called Alfie first thing on Monday morning to plead directly with the woman in charge on behalf of her people. Nick’s mom had agreed to meet with her right away at Maxie’s apartment.

  “I’m not?” For just a moment, the bubble of light that rose in her chest expanded to press against her ribs.

  “Of course not. Nick explained everything to me last night at our meeting and I understand completely. You were only trying to do the right thing.”

  Wait, Nick? What?

  “I’m sorry, did you say Nick explained it to you?” Clearly she must have misheard.