by Susan Sey
“It’s Nixie,” he said. “I’m concerned--”
He broke off when the door jerked open and Tyrese Jones stepped onto the balcony.
“I’m sorry,” Karl said. “We were hoping to speak privately for a moment. Do you mind?”
Tyrese ignored him, his gazed fixed on Mary Jane. His face matched his tux perfectly, Erik saw with disgust. Exquisitely designed, expertly constructed, no expense spared on materials. But as with Karl, the eyes didn’t fit. He stood there like the king of elegant cool but his eyes burned with an anguish Erik didn’t want to recognize. It was too close to the emotion that filled Erik’s own heart.
But he wasn’t in the mood to examine his own heart. He focused on Tyrese instead, and realized with a shock that anguish wasn’t all he saw in the other man’s eyes.
It was fear, too. A deep, horrible, naked fear, as if he’d found the one woman he needed and had screwed it up beyond redemption. As if he’d have to spend the rest of his life knowing he’d held a gift in his hands and through his own ignorance, fear and stupidity had fucked it all up.
A vicious tremor of recognition shot through Erik, but he shoved it aside. He’d deal with that later. Right now, he had to protect the woman wearing his grandmother’s ring.
“Mary Jane,” Tyrese said, and put out a hand.
She shook her head and moved backward until she was pressed against the railing. “Oh no,” she said, hugging her elbows. “You are not allowed to do this. Not here. Not now. Not ever. This is over.” A lock of silvery hair dropped out of the elegant knot at her crown and floated against her cheek.
Erik stepped forward, put a protective hand on Mary Jane’s arm. “This isn’t the time or place, Tyrese,” he said. “Why don’t you--”
“Why don’t you stay the fuck out of this, Dr. Larsen?” Tyrese said, his tone utterly polite. “This is between me and Mary Jane.”
Mary Jane vibrated against Erik’s arm, whether from fury or hurt or nerves he couldn’t tell. But she glanced up at him and patted the hand on her arm. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll handle it.” Erik nodded and stepped aside. But not so far that he couldn’t knock the crap out of Tyrese if he laid a finger on her.
Mary Jane turned exhausted blue eyes on Tyrese and said, “We’re over, Ty. I’m done with all this...drama, okay? So spare me one last scene. I told you before, I’ve moved on.”
“What, with him?” Tyrese snarled the words with elegant disgust and white-hot fury. “You think you’re going to be happy with some white-bread doctor? He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t love you. Not like I do.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly the point.” She laughed, and it was like listening to glass break. “Because you know what your love is like? It’s like being stuck in a waiting room for the rest of my life. Waiting for the police to show up at my door telling me you’re finally dead. Waiting for you to wake up one day and by some miracle actually love me more than your job, your neighborhood. More than that fucking anger you’ve been cherishing all these years. Waiting for a ring that’ll never come, and a life together that’ll never start.”
She stepped back into Erik’s side and he automatically wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. “Erik loves me like you never did, and that’s exactly what I want,” she said.
“And you think I’m being dramatic.” Tyrese shook his head and eased forward, nearly close enough to touch her. Erik’s free hand fisted. “Come on, Mary Jane. I just want to talk to you.”
“He asked me to marry him,” she said softly. “I said yes.”
Tyrese dropped back as if he’d taken a blow to the chest, his face going slack with surprise and disbelief. “Like hell you did.”
She silently held out her left hand. Erik’s ring twinkled there, catching every drop of moonlight and tossing it back into the air with a smug glow.
“Well now, this is an interesting development.” Karl spoke from the shadows where he’d melted. Erik started. He’d forgotten the guy was even there. “Is it true?”
Erik’s stomach dropped with a sudden burst of insight. This was wrong. Mary Jane wasn’t supposed to have his ring. Nobody was supposed to have his ring but Nixie.
Holy Christ, what a mess. He was in love with Nixie. Maybe unwillingly. Maybe unwisely. But completely, madly, and irrevocably in love. Had he really thought getting engaged to somebody else could change that?
Well, no. He’d been hoping, but that was different than believing. He glanced at Mary Jane, her ring hand outstretched and defiant, her eyes full of pain and bravado, and knew she didn’t really believe it either. Why else would she have insisted on keeping the whole thing quiet? That wasn’t normal, was it? Getting engaged and not telling anybody?
But Erik hadn’t been overly concerned with details like that at the time. He’d been too busy running from the unpalatable truth in his heart, a truth that had just reared back and kicked him in the teeth at the worst possible moment. He was in love with Nixie and no engagement could change that. It only complicated the shit out of things.
And now judging from the malicious gleam in Karl’s eyes, those complications were about to go public. Really, really public. But now wasn’t the time to untangle the situation. Maybe getting engaged to Mary Jane had been a mistake--possibly the biggest of his life--but there was no way Erik could abandon her now. Not even for Nixie, though God knew Nixie wouldn’t want him to. She understood what love cost, in all its incarnations from friendship on up.
“Of course it’s true,” Erik said, giving Mary Jane a reassuring squeeze. She was shaking hard enough to loosen her fillings. She looked up at him with grateful eyes and leaned her head against his chest. “That’s my grandmother’s ring she’s wearing. It’s been in my family for generations.”
“Congratulations,” Karl said, smiling at Erik with genuine pleasure.
Tyrese stood as if rooted, all emotion carefully blanked from his face. He offered a hand to Erik. “Congratulations,” he said, his voice once again DJ smooth.
Erik smiled grimly and shook the man’s hand. Tyrese turned, slipped his hands into his pockets and strolled back into the ballroom as if nothing of consequence had happened. Mary Jane gave a choked sob and turned her face into Erik’s lapel. Karl gave him a little finger wave and slipped through the doors, as if discreetly allowing the lady to indulge her emotions.
Right. Erik wasn’t fooled. The guy was probably mowing down old ladies and small children so he could go bash Nixie over the head with this, the ultimate proof of Erik’s stupidity.
He toyed briefly with the idea of tackling Karl onto the buffet table and punching his lights out, but that would be self-indulgent and rude. No, responsibilities came first, and right now that meant being the shoulder Mary Jane needed to cry on.
For now he would just pray Nixie would understand. He could beat Karl’s smug ass later if absolutely necessary.
God, he hoped it would be necessary.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“Where are we going?” Nixie asked as James towed her across the crowded ballroom. She tried to inject some interest into her tone. She should be interested, shouldn’t she?
“To the bar,” James said. “I need a real drink.”
At the bar, he surveyed the array of bottles with a practiced eye. “Give me a bourbon,” he said to the bartender. “Rocks.”
He tossed back the entire shot in one mouthful, placed the glass precisely on the bar and said, “Another.” He glanced at Nixie’s lifted brows. “Better make it a double,” he told the bartender.
A trickle of alarm seeped into Nixie’s stomach, the first thing she’d felt since leaving her own apartment nearly an hour ago.
“This isn’t drinking. This is anesthesia,” she said. “What are you planning?”
“What am I planning?” He laughed, but it was a harsh, unamused noise. “Me? I don’t get to plan, Nixie. I don’t get to want. To dream. To follow my goddamn bliss. That shit is for the common folk. Guy like me? Crown prince to a
political dynasty? I have responsibilities, Nixie. A sacred fucking duty to be a successful, photogenic credit to the family. Anything less, the wrong guy might get elected. There goes the economy. There goes foreign policy. I fall down on the job and the head of every American household is either out of work or getting his ass shot off in one of those countries you’re always cleaning up. And it’s all my selfish fault.” He saluted her with his fresh glass. “See, I’m just like you, Nixie.”
Nixie stared at him as he poured fifty bucks worth of bourbon down his throat. Just like you. I’m just like you, Nixie. The words rang inside her head, echoed in that vast, cavernous space where her heart used to be.
“Got to be honest with you, though,” he went on. “I didn’t give two shits about my responsibilities until Daddy dearest made access to my trust fund contingent upon living up to them.” He paused to study the empty glass in his hand. “Turns out I dislike being poor more than I dislike being told what to do, when to smile and who to fuck. Another thing we have in common.” The smile he gave her was brilliant and charming. “I underestimated you, Nixie. You’ve got some kind of stainless steel balls. I mean, it’s one thing to let my dad pick out my dates. But letting your mother fuck your boyfriend for the press coverage? That’s hard core.”
“I didn’t...” She faltered, her chest constricting. The emptiness at her core shifted, morphed into an unsettling sense of pressure, an urgent restlessness she’d never felt before. She touched one cold hand to her cheek, found it burning.
That awful moment in Kenya reared up from her memory in a rush of disjointed impressions. The frantic creak of ancient bed springs. The musk of sex on stagnant air. Sloan’s face, pale and perfect against the sheets. The petty sting of James’ betrayal. The vicious slice of her mother’s.
Funny how different it all looked now that Nixie’s flash-frozen heart wouldn’t produce the usual filters of outrage and pain. Details previously content to lurk behind the hurt suddenly thrust themselves forward and demanded notice.
Little things. Like Sloan, whose sexuality had always been more a weapon than a pleasure, moaning her way to a theatrically timed climax. Like Karl, who’d never flinched at using Sloan’s body and reputation in service of the cause, allowing Nixie to walk into that scene with the press corps at her back. Karl, who’d never liked James, standing deliberately aside while the flashbulbs strobed.
Yes, Sloan had betrayed her. But Nixie finally saw with a stark clarity that the betrayal hadn’t been Sloan’s idea, or probably even her inclination.
It had been Karl’s.
Her hand drifted to the base of her throat. Her pulse bumped there unevenly, startling evidence that, despite everything she didn’t feel, she was still alive.
“I didn’t realize--” she started faintly but James cut her off.
“Of course you did.” He raised his glass to her in mock salute. “I’m not saying you sold her cheap or anything. I’m sure the payoff was lavish. But don’t fuck around with me, Nixie. Not after what we’ve been through. What we’ll go through yet tonight. One child of fame to another? Everything has a price tag. And if you’re going to sell your soul, you might as well get your money’s worth. God knows I am.”
He set aside his glass, an alcoholic film finally dulling the slicing brightness of his eyes. “Now let’s get this over with.” He snatched up her hand with a grim determination that stopped Nixie’s breath in her chest. “Where’s Sloan?”
Karl had disappeared, leaving Sloan on one of the small balconies that studded the ballroom. It would do, she thought, pulling open both doors. A frame for the drama she was about to stage. Yes, it would do very nicely.
She snagged a fresh glass of champagne from a passing waiter and arranged herself in the open doorway. If Nixie was even remotely on task, she’d come. If she wasn’t, well, Sloan had a lovely view of the entire room. She’d find them.
But no. Not necessary. Here they came now, James scissoring through the crowd, Nixie bobbing in his wake like an unhappy little boat. An ugly flush rode high on his sharp cheek bones and that pretty mouth of his was clamped into a tight, determined line. Sloan smoothed her face into the customary almost-expression her public expected, sipped her champagne and let them come to her. Supplicants to her queen. A nasty little burble of self-disgust mingled in her stomach with the champagne, but it would settle. It always did.
“Well, Nixie and James,” she said when they’d stopped in front of her. Completely off the mark, too. No way to get everybody in the picture from there. Christ. Maybe James was an amateur but she expected more from Nixie. She sighed and crossed to the other side of the doorframe, lounged there. Better composition for the photos. “What a surprise.”
“Sloan.” James bent a dimpled smile on Sloan, but something hard and ugly burned in his eyes as he said, “Good to see you again.”
She inclined her head then turned back to Nixie. “Your dress is fabulous,” she said. “Bagdley Mischka?”
“Good eye.” Nixie gave her a tense smile, then edged in front of her date, as if by putting him behind her shoulder she could forget he was even there. She lowered her voice and leaned in. “Listen, Mom. I’ve changed my mind, all right? We’re not doing this.”
“Doing what, baby?” She spoke to Nixie, but let her eyes linger on James. Let them sparkle with scorn and just a hint of sexual knowledge. Of power. He wanted her. Men did. Even when they hated her, they wanted her. It photographed very well.
“This,” Nixie said, twirling a finger between the three of them. Her face was very white, the freckles on her nose standing out like splattered ink. “Selling our family for the greater good. No good is this great, Mom. It’s not worth it.”
“Not worth it?” Sloan stared, nearly choking on the sudden rush of rage lodged in her throat. She’d spent half her life now trying to pay off the cosmic debt she’d incurred when she’d let Archer love her, let him give her a beautiful baby. How could she have known that baby would grow into a woman who would judge her for paying the very debt responsible for her existence?
Sloan forced a tinkling laugh. “I’m sorry, I must have missed the part where you paid for anything. But don’t mind me. I have a particular gift for doing the, ah, dirty work.”
Nixie flinched like the words had been a slap. “I never asked you to--”
“Of course you didn’t. You’re the messiah, Nixie. The chosen one. How does Karl always put it? The Princess Diana to my Angelina Jolie? You’re special and pure. Other people were more than willing to ask on your behalf.” Sloan felt nasty. Ugly. She didn’t know where the words were coming from, the venom. But she was spilling it all over Nixie and for what? For having the gall to point out that she herself had never sunk to the point of fucking other people’s boyfriends for the cause of the week?
“That’s not fair.” Nixie’s lips hardly moved, and her pupils all but eclipsed her irises.
“Fair. Pah.” Sloan waved a dismissive hand, finished up with a flick of one careless finger over the curve of Nixie’s cheek. “But don’t worry, baby. Mama’s here. I’ll take care of everything.” She turned her attention to James, but Nixie’s hand landed on her arm, icy cold against her skin. Sloan blinked at the shock of it.
“No.” Nixie’s fingers dug in, the first hint of genuine emotion heating that tattle-tale complexion they shared. “Mom, I’m begging you. If you love me, don’t do this. Please.”
It had never occurred to Nixie, not until those shocking, unplanned words hung in the air between them, that Sloan might not love her. She’d always just assumed. Under all the bad behavior and righteous conviction, surely her mother harbored some kernel of affection for the child she’d cradled in her womb. The child she’d pushed out into the world and taken the trouble to keep relatively close at hand for the next twenty-eight years.
Sloan’s face flushed, then went bloodless as she turned deliberately away from Nixie. She looked instead at James. And in that endless moment, Nixie realized the truth.
r /> She had assumed too much.
The knowledge thudded home, directly into the vacuum at her center. It drove the breath from her lungs and everything in her vibrated with the aftershock. Her brain clicked and chugged but simply refused to process this final insult.
That’s three, she thought a bit wildly. First Erik, then Karl, now Sloan. Three chances to love me, three no thank yous in varying shades of politeness. Three strikes. You’re out.
But, miracle of miracles, she was still standing. Okay, her knees were locked and she couldn’t feel a damn thing, but standing was standing. She wasn’t on her knees. She wasn’t dissolved in pitiful tears. Possibly it was because she couldn’t move, but whatever. Maybe she was frozen but she wasn’t goddamn broken. Not yet.
And if the old wives tale about shitty things coming in threes held true--please God let it hold true--then she was safe. She’d paid her cosmic tab and was, for the moment anyway, free and clear.
She pressed her palm to that urgent and expanding pressure behind her ribs--so strange--and turned to watch the farce about to play out between James and Sloan.
“What are you doing here, James?” Sloan asked, in full-on, sultry, never-gonna-get-this-back mode. “Daddy trying to rehab your image?”
“I suppose you of all people would recognize an image overhaul in progress.”
Sloan let that pass. She arranged a curl in front of her shoulder and sipped at the champagne in her hand.
“That being the case, I’m willing to be guided,” James told her.
Sloan cut a look at Nixie, which she returned without expression. Without curiosity.
“Nixie’s a bit shaky tonight,” Sloan said. “We’ll have to take the lead. Are you up for a bit of high drama?”
His eyes glittered with the same bitter fatalism as Sloan’s. “Ready when you are.”
Sloan didn’t hesitate. “You ass,” she said, in a calm, ringing tone that cut off the background chatter at the knees. A hush dropped over the crowd and every face--and every camera-- turned toward the scene Sloan was staging. “You unspeakably crude ass. How dare you show your face here?” She emptied her champagne glass onto his tuxedo shirt with a careless flip of the wrist.