Kerry scanned the crowd, heart pounding, for a face from the night before, since Judd had warned her that a few stars had mentioned they might show up. Would she suddenly be confronted with the sight of Linda Ronstadt or Michael Bolton seated casually at one of the small tables in the back of the room? The lighting and the press of people confused her vision, but after several seconds of panicked surveying, she decided none had shown up, not for this first set, at least.
“What do you think?” Henry murmured, although the recorded music was so loud they couldn’t possibly be overheard.
“It’s…small.”
“Space is a premium in New York. Besides, lots of people like these little places. Consider them cozy, I guess.”
Kerry considered them claustrophobic, but she’d never say so, standing here with Henry on the threshold of her career. The road to singing in a huge concert hall began in tiny rooms like this. Intellectually she knew that, but the smoke was already tickling her nose and the back of her throat.
“You stay put,” Henry instructed. “There’s a powder room to your right, if you need it. I’ll tell the band we’re here.”
Kerry stepped back to let him pass. She imagined the club must be air-conditioned. It would have to be for anyone to survive down there in the summer heat, yet the coolness didn’t reach into the alcove where she waited. Her stomach danced an Irish jig, and her makeup felt heavy and ready to slide right off her face.
She tried to think of something to calm her nerves and remembered her tenth birthday when her father had taken her out alone on his fishing boat. It was a ritual all the Muldoon kids had enacted when their age reached double digits, and she was the last. She remembered the fog, and the gentle song of the boat’s engine as they’d chugged out to sea. She’d laid her cheek on the rail and thought she even heard words to the song. She couldn’t recall them now.
She’d asked her father that day if he thought she’d become famous. “I don’t know, lass,” he’d said. “Nobody can know that. I just hope you’ll be happy.”
Henry ducked back through the curtain. “Ready?”
She smoothed her dress with her hands and took a deep breath. “Ready.”
* * *
JUDD TRIED several things to distract himself as the hour drew near when Kerry would step onto the stage at Compulsions. He tried to finish some paperwork he’d brought home, but he couldn’t seem to concentrate. Television had never worked very well as a time filler for him, and it didn’t now. As a last resort he put on earphones and cranked up the latest release from Kenny G. His mellow saxophone only made things worse, touching chords in him already sensitized by Kerry’s presence in his life.
He had to have something to do. Finally he dug in the back of a closet and dragged out his own saxophone case. Probably couldn’t even get a squeak out of the thing, he thought, but at least he’d have a challenge for the next couple of hours.
He assembled the horn with movements that had become habit and would probably remain so. Miracle of miracles, there was an unopened package of reeds stuck in the case. He moistened one in his mouth and fit it into the mouthpiece before lifting the strap over his neck. He was surprised by a rush of excitement as his fingers found the keys and his lips fastened over the mouthpiece. Good thing he was alone; he was about to make a colossal fool of himself.
At first he sounded as bad as he’d expected. The off-key squeaks assaulted his trained ear like fingernails on a chalkboard. But gradually his tone improved, although playing was tough on his lip.
At last he began to settle in and closed his eyes as the music reached inside to a place that hadn’t been explored in a long, long time. Not since Steve had died. He hadn’t thought about it much, but he hadn’t touched the instrument after that. Not that he’d played a lot before the accident, but once in a while—to amuse Michelle and, later, baby Rachel—Steve would haul out his trumpet and Judd would warm up the sax.
Judd played, ignoring the pressure on his unconditioned lip and his lousy phrasing. How he loved the sound, loved making the sound. Listening to a sax didn’t hold a candle to playing one. Memories of Suzanne surfaced again, and he realized the pain of losing her had faded into sad regret. Emotions he hadn’t allowed himself to feel found their way out through the music. Steve’s death hammered him, and he found the courage to play though it, cleansing the dark places, letting in light. Yes.
It was a while before he realized the phone was ringing. Holding the sax, he picked up the cordless phone on the table behind the sofa. He had to clear his throat before he could speak. “Roarke.”
“Judd, this is Henry. Listen, our girl is struggling.”
“Kerry?” His gut twisted. “But—”
“I don’t know what it is. The crowd may not be very good. There can be nights like that. Maybe it’s nerves. But she’s not reaching them. Johnson from development and Hammond from artist relations were here and left. They didn’t seem impressed. The atmosphere is flat.”
Judd consulted his watch. He’d lost track of the time while he played. “You still in the first set?”
“Almost finished.”
“I’ll come down for the second set, but don’t tell her. I’ll stay in the back, out of sight and try to figure out what’s wrong.”
“Maybe the second set will go better. I hate to roust you out, but you said to keep you informed. Is she someone special to you or something?”
Judd bit back his irritation and kept his tone steady. “Just promising talent, Henry. We’ve already spent some change on her, and I don’t want to waste it. I’ll be there in half an hour.” He hung up the phone and lifted the saxophone strap over his head. As he laid the instrument back in its case, he decided not to return the case to the back of the closet just yet. Maybe he’d feel like playing again sometime soon.
He caught a cab to Compulsions and tipped the hostess generously to find him a place in the darkest corner of the club. She had to dislodge a passionate couple in order to accomplish that. As the man and woman glared at him, he handed them two hundred dollars and suggested they get a room somewhere. It infuriated him that two people would be groping each other when they should be listening to Kerry sing. If this couple was any indication, Kerry had been handed a bad audience tonight. Sometimes it happened—illogical though it might seem—that nearly everyone in a crowd was a bumblehead.
Kerry came out to lukewarm applause and he ached for her. From last night’s triumph to this. As she sang he wanted to go up and haul her off the stage. The crowd was bad, filled with rude people more interested in being stars on the dance floor and comedians at the table than acknowledging talent on the stage.
But Kerry was a little off, too. The sparkle he’d seen each time he’d watched her perform was gone. Technically she wasn’t bad, although the indifference of the crowd made her miss a few entrances and bungle the words to one verse of a song. But she persevered, and he saw the mark of the professional in her gritty determination to finish her set, no matter what.
As he sat in the dark, wanting to protect her from the agony of this moment, he remembered all the times he’d played for audiences that couldn’t have cared less that he was up there giving them his heart and soul. But it was the nature of performing. Sometimes they loved you, sometimes they hated you and, perhaps worst of all, sometimes they didn’t give a shit.
Surely this had happened to Kerry before, but the stakes hadn’t been so high. He could read misery in the depths of her green eyes, even from the back of the room.
The forty-five-minute set was pure hell, and he endured it with her. By the end his fists were clenched and he’d barely touched the scotch and soda he’d ordered. As she left the stage, the smattering of applause was almost an insult.
He was out of his seat before she got to the curtain, through the curtain before she was halfway down the hall to the back door. “Kerry!”
She turned, and when she glimpsed him her stoic mask nearly crumbled, as if his presence there made her hum
iliation complete. But she composed herself and lifted her chin. “Turns out I’m the Blarney stone, after all, Judd,” she said in a bravely resonant voice.
At that moment he began to love her.
9
“I DON’T HAPPEN to think so.” Judd’s voice was the unsteady one. “Thanks for handling this, Henry. I’ll take it from here.”
Henry, who was escorting Kerry to the car, took one look at Judd’s face and stepped aside. “Sure thing. I’ll just go back and see how the band’s doing. They might need help packing up.”
Judd walked toward Kerry. “Zorba’s out there?” he asked.
“Henry called him.”
For once he was glad Henry had disregarded his policy of not calling the chauffeur late at night. “Then let’s go.”
“Judd, if you don’t mind, I’d rather be alone. As you can imagine, bombing out at a time like this makes people less than sociable, and I—”
“I said let’s go.” He took her arm and propelled her toward the back door.
“So this is how a CEO gets to behave,” she muttered as they walked outside to the waiting gray limo.
“That’s right.” He handed her inside with a nod at Zorba.
“That’s not what you said yesterday.” Her green eyes flashed in the dim light from the alley as he climbed in beside her and Zorba put the limo in gear. “You said nobody at Lighthouse gets to be pompous, especially you.”
“I’m not going to argue semantics with you, but this isn’t being pompous.” He glanced up at the front seat. Zorba must be getting a charge out of this conversation. “You took a direct hit tonight, and I’m here for damage control, whether you want me or not.” In the confines of the limo, he became aware of the scent of her perfume which was heightened by the heat of the performance and the warmth of a July night. His body tightened in response.
A tremor passed through her. “Whether I want you or not,” she murmured, looking away. “My, my. What a difference a day makes, as they say in the old song.”
He fought to keep his head. He couldn’t act on impulse now. What she needed more than anything else was reassurance of her talent, not a seduction. But God, he wanted her. Now, here in the limo, in the heart of traffic. “Kerry—”
She faced him, eyes brimming. “I don’t want your sympathy, okay? If you weren’t interested when I was on top of the world, don’t come around when I’m sinking out of sight. Let me go away quietly. Or are you here because you want your money’s worth, one way or the other?”
With an oath he leaned forward and slammed the window shut between the front seat and the back.
She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t want Zorba to know about your baser instincts?”
“It’s not like that, dammit!” He was seething with desire, but she couldn’t know that, could she? “And you didn’t seem to have such a low opinion of me last night in the cab. What was that all about?”
“You tell me.” She glared at him through her tears. “You tell me what’s going on between us, because I haven’t a clue.”
He gazed into her eyes and saw it. Lust shimmered beneath the surface of her anger and his. Lust, but also something more delicate, something that might disappear if they turned a white light on it. It disturbed and confused him. For the first time in years he’d hit a crisis he didn’t know how to handle. His natural impulses, which he’d followed when he’d kissed her last night, would only get them in more trouble. “I’m sorry,” he said at last, feeling frustrated almost beyond endurance.
She swiped at her eyes, smearing her mascara. Then she looked out the window at the stream of cars surrounding them. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply you were some lecher. I know you’re not. You see, Judd, I wanted to hurt somebody, and you were available.”
“You had a bad audience.” He wanted to hold her so much his arms ached from the effort to keep them at his sides. “It happens to everyone.”
She gripped the armrest and wouldn’t look at him. “A good performer can turn an audience around.”
“Not always.” He clenched his hands to keep from reaching across the short space between them. The headlights of passing cars shone on her glorious hair and sparkled in the crystals at her ears and throat. “Dozens of top performers start out like this, with a miserable night when nothing clicks. The amateurs go home. The pros pick themselves up and go out there again.”
He watched the convulsive motion of her throat. She was fighting like a tiger not to cry in front of him.
“You’re a pro, Kerry,” he said gently.
She turned toward him then. “Not at this moment,” she said, tears spilling down her cheeks. “Oh, Judd.”
Only a man made of stone wouldn’t have opened his arms to such distress. Judd wasn’t made of stone. With a sigh he gathered her close and she buried her face against his chest while she cried.
He hated to see her cry, loved that he could hold her while she did. He rested his cheek against her hair and breathed in the wildflower scent of her shampoo. He meant to keep his embrace loose, brotherly, but the longer she stayed in his arms, the firmer his grip became. He had no idea what he said to her as she snuffled against his shirt, but at last she peeked up at him, her eyes red and ringed with mascara.
“You’re pretty good at this comforting stuff,” she said with a tiny smile.
“Thanks.” His heartbeat quickened at the soft look of acceptance in her eyes. Acceptance and something more. A flame was stirring there. Lord help them, a flame was stirring in those emerald eyes.
“I hope you know of a good laundry, or it’s the end of the trail for this shirt,” she said.
He glanced down at the white silk Armani. The fabric was stained with her tears and stage makeup that might never wash out. “It’s only a shirt,” he said, keeping his arms firmly around her.
“I guess it’s better that I sacrificed your shirt, instead of this dress. It has to last me through the week.”
He felt dizzy, as if they were being propelled toward an inevitable conclusion. Maybe he was a fool to resist. “Then you’re staying?”
“Must be that stubborn Irish blood.”
“I guess so,” he said, his voice husky. He thought of her admission that she’d come to New York with one cocktail dress to her name, one outfit to conquer the city that was a primary fashion mecca. Her vulnerability wrenched his heart. But if anyone could pull off a coup like that, it was Kerry.
“The car’s not moving anymore,” she said.
“No.” He watched the flame in her eyes grow stronger.
“I guess that means we’re at the Salisbury.”
“Yes.” He didn’t loosen his grip. Somehow he couldn’t conceive of getting out of this car and telling her good-night at the door. Not after her tears. Not after her bravery. He couldn’t douse the flame that beckoned him closer, closer. What he was thinking was dangerous for him, perhaps for her, too. But he couldn’t send her away tonight.
There was a button on the armrest that activated an intercom. Holding her with one arm, he reached over and pushed the button. “Zorba?”
“Yes, Mr. Roarke.”
“Take us to my apartment.”
* * *
KERRY’S GAZE snapped up to his face. There she found the intensity that had lurked in his eyes from the first day she’d seen him. She had no doubt why they were going to his apartment.
Maybe she was naive, and this was the music-industry version of the casting couch. But she didn’t believe it, despite the accusation she’d flung at him in the heat of her frustration over her performance tonight. She believed that Judd was a good and honorable man.
She held his gaze, chest tight with anticipation, as the limo whizzed through the night.
When the car stopped on Central Park West and she realized she’d soon be walking in front of the apartment building’s doorman, she started to struggle in his arms. “I’m a mess. Let me—”
“You’re beautiful.” He held her fast until she felt bath
ed in the sensuous warmth that radiated from him. Suddenly she no longer cared about her smudged makeup or her red-rimmed eyes. To bask in this powerful radiance, if only for one night, would be worth whatever price she had to pay. Maybe she’d end up with a broken heart. But maybe she’d end up with the glass slipper.
Zorba’s expression was unreadable as he opened the car door for them. The doorman, too, showed no expression as Judd guided her through the revolving doors into the lobby.
She and Judd didn’t speak as they rode alone in the subdued elegance of the elevator. He held her hand loosely, his thumb circling lazily against her palm, his gaze fixed on her. She knew that later they might talk, but for now, words would only get in the way.
What they were about to do made no logical sense, but they were doing it, anyway. If they spoke, they might decide to take a more prudent path, but with the blood rushing through her veins in response to his simple caress, she wouldn’t seek a more prudent path. His leisurely touch reminded her of his long, supple fingers that she’d admired once on a sunny day in Eternity. Perhaps she’d known, even then, that one day those supple fingers would prove their artistry on her body.
He let her into the apartment where soft lights were burning, lights he must have left on when he rushed off to rescue her. He led her through a foyer carpeted with an oriental rug into a living room decorated in rich tones of plum and moss. Despite the intrusion of the ever-present traffic noises of New York, the room seemed hushed and private, like a sanctuary.
She noticed a leather instrument case on the lacquered coffee table and started to ask about it, but he pulled her to him and cupped her face in his hands.
The hard planes of his chiseled features seemed almost fierce as he drew a shaky breath. “Last chance to back out.”
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