His Leading Lady

by Maggie Dallen

  She was starting to shut him out, he could see it as clear as day in the way her posture stiffened and her eyes grew shuttered. She was retreating, and it frustrated the hell out of him. He was putting himself out there—he was offering to derail his career plans for her, and she was shutting him out. Again.

  He couldn’t disguise the anger in his voice as sheer frustration took hold. “Alice, I care about you. I’ve made that clear from the start—just like you’ve made it clear that you don’t want me.”

  She stiffened at that—but it was the truth, and she knew it.

  “Tell me you want me to stay and I’ll stay. Let me in, Alice, and I’m yours. We’ll make decisions together. Hell, we’ll create a new plan—for the two of us.” He’d hoped to lighten the mood with that, maybe see an inkling of a smile, but he was losing her. He could see her emotional retreat just as surely as if she’d took off in a dead run.

  “You don’t mean that,” she said again but louder this time. There was no doubt in her voice. She wasn’t looking to be contradicted. She was assuring herself that she was right not to trust him in the first place.

  Desperation had him plowing ahead, even though he knew his words weren’t registering through that thick wall of defenses she’d built around her. Still, he had to say it. He was losing her, and he couldn’t have that. Not without a fight. Not without laying it all out on the line. “As important as my career is…I love you more.”

  The silence that fell between them was so thick he thought he might scream just to shatter it. There it was. The sacred words he’d never said to another woman. He was nearly as shocked as she looked, but he felt the rightness of them. He’d known it for ages, possibly from the first moment they’d met. Love at first sight was a cliché he’d never believed in until he’d felt it.

  But none of that mattered if she didn’t feel the same way. Any hope that he’d been harboring withered and died as he watched her expression shift from surprise to something else, something hard and unreadable.

  Alice turned then, not giving him a second look as she stalked off toward the avenue leaving his words hanging out there in the cold, her arms wrapped around herself as if she was in physical pain.

  He didn’t go after her. He couldn’t. His chest was ripping open, his heart tearing in two. So this was it. This was love. Claudia had been right—it was not convenient, it was messy, and it doesn’t fit into any of the well-planned boxes in life.

  It also hurt like hell.

  * * * *

  He stumbled back to Claudia’s to nurse the pain. Luckily the other guests had left shortly after he and Alice so he was free to sprawl across her couch and let Claudia and Frank stare at him with pity. He couldn’t bring himself to care how pathetic he looked.

  Claudia handed him another drink—one he definitely didn’t need. “So let’s get this straight,” she said with a forced lightness. “This was your first official date…. And you told her you loved her.”

  He groaned as he threw an arm over his face. “I’m an idiot.”

  “No,” Claudia said quickly. “I’m not mocking. It was a gutsy move.”

  “Very brave,” Frank added, raising a glass as if to toast the courageous imbecile.

  What had he been thinking? Nothing could scare her away faster than talk of love. He didn’t have to be a psychologist to figure that out. But as much as his words haunted him, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. At least he’d said his piece. If he never saw her again, at least he knew that he’d put it all out there. That he’d tried.

  He shut his eyes as another wave of misery washed over him. What did trying matter if he lost her for good?

  He turned to look at Claudia—wonderful, competent, emotionally intelligent Claudia. She always knew what to do, and there was nothing she loved more than giving advice.

  “What now?” he asked.

  Claudia stared at him blankly. “What do you mean, what now?”

  He shifted so he was sitting upright. “What do I do now? How do I make her see that we should be together?”

  Claudia and Frank exchanged a look that had some of his newfound hopefulness fading as quickly as it came about. Then they both turned to him with pity in their eyes, and the remainder of his hope faltered and died.

  “I don’t know that there’s anything you can do,” Claudia said. “You told her you love her. You’ve told her you’d give up this promotion for her, if she asked it…. I don’t think there’s anything more you can say or do at this point.”

  He stared at his friend in shock. This was not the Claudia advice he was looking for. “So what—you two think I should give up?”

  “Not give up,” Frank said quickly. He and Claudia exchanged another one of those couple looks where they seemed to be communicating telepathically.

  “I just think this is up to her now,” Claudia said. “She needs to figure out if she can trust you.”

  If she loves you… That was the unspoken part she left off.

  She was right and he knew it, but it still sucked. It was out of his hands. He took a sip of his scotch and stared into its amber depths. No amount of strategizing or planning could help him now.

  He’d never felt so useless.

  Chapter 11

  Alice found herself on Meg’s doorstep. It was late but she had a key and she hadn’t been able to bring herself to go home to her empty studio. She just couldn’t do it. Using her spare key, she slipped into their downtown apartment. She didn’t want to wake Meg, she just couldn’t stand the thought of being alone. Not tonight.

  “Welcome home, Sis,” she heard Meg’s voice say from the darkness of the living room before a light switched on.

  Meg was in a rocking chair feeding the baby, and she was smiling until she took one look at Alice’s tear-stained face. “Oh, honey, what happened?”

  One hour and two cups of tea later, Alice had told her sister everything. The baby had long since fallen back to sleep, and guilt gnawed at Alice. “You should get some sleep too,” she said. “You’re going to be exhausted in the morning.”

  Meg waved off her concern. “I’ll be exhausted in the morning no matter what. It’s called being a new mom. Besides, I’m your big sis first and foremost.”

  Alice felt tears welling up once again— God, she was so sick of crying. But Meg had always been so much more than just a big sister—she was mother, father, and sister all in one. And right now she was channeling the mother role in a big way.

  “What is this really about?” she asked, her arms folded over her chest.

  “He lied to me.”

  Meg tilted her head as she considered that. “Not really. He just didn’t tell you about a possible promotion.”

  “That would make him move.” Alice stuck her lower lip out and realized belatedly what a stubborn child she must look like. “He should have told me.”

  “When?” Meg asked.

  Alice’s head shot up. “What do you mean when?”

  Meg arched one brow. “I mean when do you think he should have discussed this with you—when you were kicking him out of your apartment? When you were rejecting his phone calls and turning down his requests for a date?”

  Alice scowled at her sister. Why was she on the defensive here? Still, some of her sister’s logic was starting to sink in, and she hated the growing pit of unease that told her maybe she wasn’t totally in the right—and maybe he wasn’t completely in the wrong.

  She had been pushing him away. But she’d been right to… Hadn’t she?

  “He’s just going to leave. He would have left no matter what.”

  Meg stared at her. “That is the most cynical thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Alice rolled her eyes. How her sister turned out to be such a romantic was a mystery. They’d grown up in the same household, after all, seen the same disastrous conclusions to every new “romance” that came up. It was all giggles and smiles in the beginning but sobbing and binges in
the end.

  No, thanks.

  She sniffed and avoided her sister’s watchful stare. It was for the best. Sure it hurt now, because she’d stupidly let herself get close—but better to get hurt now than to be crushed by him later after she’d well and truly lost her heart.

  Too late. A fresh round of tears started to well up and she clamped her lips together to hold them in.

  She heard Meg sigh beside her. As usual, her sister seemed to be reading her mind. “Oh, honey…. You’re in love, aren’t you?”

  “No!” Yes. An inner voice mocked her instant and vehement denial. “Maybe.” She could feel Meg’s eyes on hers and didn’t want to see the pity there. She focused on toying with the edges of a baby blanket on her lap. “I don’t know, okay?”

  How was she supposed to know what it was that she was feeling when it was nothing she’d ever felt before? She’d thought she was immune to love—she’d done everything in her power to keep it at bay, to ward it off. But whatever it was she was feeling for Nicholas, it was strong and overwhelming, and it made her heart feel like it might burst out of her chest.

  Just thinking of the way he’d looked at her when he’d said those words that were too good to be true, As important as my career is… I love you more. The L-word echoed in her ears, mocking her, taunting her. It was a gauntlet thrown down, a challenge to her—to her heart and her willpower and to everything she’d trained herself to believe for the last twenty years.

  Meg wrapped an arm around her shoulders, and after a moment of resistance, she let herself be pulled in for an embrace. The hug shattered the last of her self-control and the tears she’d been battling came out in a gut-wrenching sob that tore her heart in two.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she choked out through her tears.

  “What’s the problem, Alice? He loves you, and it’s pretty obvious that you care about him as well.”

  She hesitated only briefly before nodding. Yes, she could admit that she cared about him. He was kind and gentle, and he’d worked his way past her defenses. Of course she cared, she wasn’t heartless.

  “So what’s the problem?” Meg asked again.

  Alice took a deep bracing breath, trying to stifle the sobs. If there was anyone who could understand, it would be her sister. “I don’t want to be like her.”

  By Meg’s sigh, Alice knew her sister understood.

  “You’re nothing like her.” Meg’s tone was so sharp, so insistent, Alice drew back in surprise. She moved so she could see her sister’s face and was shocked anew at the ferocity she saw there.

  “Mom was scared of everything,” Meg said. “She couldn’t handle challenges, couldn’t be on her own.” Meg sighed again, and the exhale held a world of sadness. “Mom, God bless her… She wouldn’t have known true love if it smacked her in the face.”

  Alice blinked at her sister in surprise. They’d never talked about their mother like this. After her death, they’d only ever focused on the good, as if by some unspoken rule. So to hear Meg criticize her was like opening a door that had been long sealed.

  “Why not?” Alice asked. “She thought she was in love...so many times.”

  Meg’s face softened, her eyes filled with pity at the memory of their mother and her pathetic dependency on men. “I figured out a long time ago that she never truly loved those men. She couldn’t have because our mother was too afraid to fall in love.”

  Alice frowned at her sister as the words registered. She couldn’t deny that their mother lacked in the courage department. Everything from her choice in men to her dependency on drugs spoke of a deep-seated weakness. An inability to face life. But afraid to fall in love? It was what their mother did best… She was forever in a state of falling for one loser or another.

  Meg brushed Alice’s hair out of her face like she had when they were kids. “You know what I learned when I fell in love with Jake? That falling in love…real love…is scary. Quite possibly the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me. I think it’s even scarier for us, in particular, because we’ve seen what bad relationships look like up close and personal.”

  Alice met her sister’s eyes. She knew what her sister was getting at, and she finished for her. “But those relationships weren’t real love.”

  Meg shook her head vehemently. “No. They weren’t. You know why? Because to really love you have to trust. And trusting is another person is scary, especially for the women in the Klein household, because we were never shown how it was done.”

  Trust. The word was like an accusation in and of itself. She’d only ever truly trusted one person in this world, and she was sitting right beside her.

  “You can’t have love without trust,” Meg continued. “But it works both ways, you know. He has to trust you too. He’s trusting you not to break his heart.”

  Let me in, Alice, and I’m yours. Alice slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from sobbing out loud. Had he meant it? Had he meant it when he’d said he loved her? Only she could decide that, but it would require trust. She would have to have faith that he was being honest with her. And if he was?

  Then he loved her. He’d put his heart in her hands. And she had the power to break it. The thought was humbling. If he’d truly meant it… Then she’d just walked away, and left him there. Alone. Now it was guilt that had her chest tightening with a fresh wave of tears.

  “I don’t want to hurt him,” she said.

  Meg tilted her head to the side. “What makes you think you would?”

  She looked at her sister with one brow raised in disbelief. “Are you kidding? I don’t know the first thing about being in a relationship…about being in love.” The word was even hard to say out loud. “What if I’m not capable of love?” Like her?

  Meg met her gaze with a level look. “You’re nothing like her, Alice. You are strong, you always have been. The only way you could end up like her is if you cave in to your fears and run away from genuine emotions.”

  That was exactly what she’d been doing ever since their mother’s death, and they both knew it. She’d been gliding along pretending that casual sex was a good enough substitute for a real relationship, keeping their friends at arm’s length, keeping the world at arm’s length.

  “Pushing love away,” Meg said slowly, “it might keep you safe from having your heart broken, but it’s no way to live. That’s not life.”

  Alice drew in a deep breath and let her head fall against her sister’s shoulder. “It didn’t work.”

  “What?”

  She almost laughed at the patheticness of it all. “I tried so hard to keep my heart safe by not falling in love but…it happened anyway.” He’d slipped through her armor somehow, and whether she wanted to admit it or not, he’d gotten to her. He’d made her fall in love.

  Meg’s shoulder moved beneath her head, and Alice realized her sister was laughing softly. “Yeah, love has a tendency to hit you when you least expect it.”

  Alice found herself smiling despite herself. “So you’re saying I got struck with a case of stealthy ninja love?”

  Meg laughed out loud at that. “Exactly.”

  Alice sighed and for a moment they sat there in silence, lost in thought.

  “Hey, you want to see if there’s an old musical on TV?” Meg asked.

  Alice smiled but she could hear the exhaustion in her sister’s voice. “Nah, you get some sleep while you can. Besides, much as I’d love to escape, I think it’s about time I face the real world.”

  Her sister gave her a hug before heading off to bed, leaving Alice alone with her racing thoughts and a heart that refused to be ignored.

  * * * *

  The next morning was an Operation Petticoat morning. Alice had planned to skip it the night before, but after a night of sleepless tossing and turning on Meg’s pullout couch, she was stir-crazy and itching to get out.

  Maybe a little manual labor was exactly what she needed.

  It was a mista
ke. From the moment she walked through the door her friends seemed to know just how messed up she was. Maybe they could tell she’d spent the night crying thanks to her puffy eyes, or maybe it was the fact that she couldn’t manage to summon up a smile for the life of her.

  It was just Caitlyn, Tamara, and Marc that morning since Meg and Jake were still too consumed with the little one. Her friends at the theater tried to get her talk several times but eventually gave up, respecting her privacy.

  But that didn’t stop them from talking, and when Tamara brought up the bachelor auction, Alice froze mid-sweep and stared at the ground.

  “That sounds fun,” Caitlyn was saying. “Who all is being auctioned off?”

  Nicholas. She’d bet her life that the brunette from the gala the other night would scoop him up right away—probably pledge millions just to get her claws into him. She found herself gripping the handle of the broom so hard it hurt.

  As much as she’d tossed and turned, she never had come to a conclusion about what she would do. Part of her felt like she was still digesting Meg’s words, still sifting through her feelings and the revelations about her mother. She needed to make a decision. Needed to act, but she was frozen. Instead she stood there, uncharacteristically undecided.

  What do you know? There was only one thing she knew for certain—she did not want to see Nicholas auctioned off. She couldn’t. She might not know how she was going to resolve things with him, but she refused to hand him over to another woman without a fight.

  Because I love him. The thought was so jarring she stopped mid-sweep and stared at the room around her in horror.

  “Alice, you all right?” Marc asked. Caitlyn and Tamara had stopped what they were doing to turn and stare at her as well.

  Alice let out a small choked laugh. After all those hours of thinking and stewing and trying to make sense out of her jumbled emotions, the truth had hit her like a ton of bricks. While she was sweeping a movie theater lobby. All it had taken was the idea of losing him to make her see the truth that had been staring her in the face.