Fifth Avenue Box Set: Take MeAvenge MeScandalize MeExpose Me

by Maisey Yates

  “I didn’t think so.”

  “I’ve never had a man stay the night before.”

  “I’ve never stayed over before.”

  He gave her a long look, one that told her clearly just how new this territory was—for both of them. Amazing how quickly they could go from banter to emotion. To honesty.

  And yet still keep so much back.

  She went into the bathroom, a hymn to luxury with a sunken tub and two-person shower. “Definitely no razor,” she quipped as she opened the medicine cabinet and took out her facial cleanser.

  “Whoa, what’s with the Band-Aids?”

  Chelsea paused, one hand still clutching the cleanser. “What...?”

  Alex flipped the door once more. “Were they on sale?” he asked, his eyes glinting amusement even as Chelsea started to flush.

  Okay, so she had way too many of them. Boxes and boxes of all different sizes, from ones for your little toe to huge sticking plasters. She could see how it might seem a bit...neurotic.

  She closed the bathroom door firmly. “I like to be prepared.”

  “I’ll say.” She felt Alex’s considering gaze on her and knew he was wondering. Also knew she wasn’t ready to explain. That happy childhood? Not so happy. And whenever, as a child, she’d needed a bandage, there never had been one around. No one to care about her stupid skinned knees. Her mom hadn’t run to kiss her boo-boos.

  Such a small thing, and yet its power over her psyche was evident in the stockpile of sticking plasters in her cabinet. She hadn’t even realized she’d been collecting them; only that whenever she went to the shops she stuck a box in with whatever else she was buying. Just in case. Just to be safe.

  Even though she’d never actually felt safe. She hadn’t felt really safe until she’d been with Alex.

  It was only when she was at work and a list of the same old preapproved questions had been faxed over that she felt that lurch of panic. Three weeks until her big, prime-time interview. Could she really think about sabotaging it? Confronting Treffen?

  Just the thought made her palms tingle, spots dance. She willed the panic away. Alex had to find someone else to come forward. They’d both acknowledged that; until then, she couldn’t do anything.

  Even if the look in Sarah’s eyes as she’d lain naked and supine on that bed haunted her, because she’d recognized it. She’d seen it in herself, in every photo of her that had been taken during her three-year tenure in Huntsville.

  She hadn’t wanted Alex to know that, hadn’t shown any emotion on seeing the photo at all. But she’d felt it. She’d felt the despair right down to her soul, as if Sarah had been crying out to her. Learn from my mistakes.

  She hoped she had.

  Two days later she boarded a plane to Miami and settled into a sumptuous seat in first class next to Alex.

  She watched him peruse the newspaper he’d been offered, one hand casually resting on her thigh, and was amazed they’d both arrived at this place. On the outside they looked like any other normal couple, and yet in its normalcy this moment seemed so precious, because for once things felt easy. Right.

  Alex made her feel this way. Alex, this powerful, complex, compassionate man...whom she loved.

  She was helpless to keep herself from feeling it, or even from wanting to feel it. It had simply gone too far for that. Forget staying safe, sane or self-protected. She loved him, wanted to love him even though she knew the risk.

  Alex might decide she was too difficult or damaged and say he’d had enough. He was done. Would she even blame him? She knew she was a mess. She just didn’t know how long she could hide it.

  * * *

  Three hours later they checked into a luxurious resort right on Miami Beach. Alex stepped out onto the wraparound balcony and breathed in the balmy air. Amazing how happy he felt. Amazing how good it had felt to tell Chelsea everything.

  Well, almost everything. His hands tensed on the balcony railing as realization rushed through him, along with a scorching shame.

  You haven’t told her everything, asshole. You haven’t told her anything.

  And she hadn’t told him...stuff. Stuff he still wasn’t sure he wanted to hear. He sighed restlessly, hating how much he knew they were still hiding, and yet knowing neither of them was ready for more.

  This, he decided resolutely, would have to be enough. A warm, sunny day. A beautiful hotel room. A gorgeous woman.

  He heard the snick of the sliding glass door and Chelsea joined him on the balcony. “Enjoying the view?” she asked and he nodded and smiled, felt the tightness inside him ease.

  This was enough. It had to be.

  “So what shall we do this evening?” Chelsea asked lightly, her shoulder brushing his as they gazed out at the ocean. “Dinner on the beach, or downtown or in Coconut Grove?” She turned to slide him a flirty smile. “Or we can just order in.”

  “That last option is definitely the most tempting,” Alex answered, “but I’m taking you to Allapattah.”

  “Alla-where?”

  “A Latino neighborhood in western Miami.”

  She eyed him thoughtfully and then nodded. “Okay.”

  What he didn’t tell her, because he didn’t want to freak her out, was that he was taking her to his mother’s.

  Although in reality it was freaking him out. It had seemed natural two days ago, when he’d called his mother. She lived in Miami now; why shouldn’t they all meet up? But now it felt like he was assigning an importance and a depth to Chelsea’s place in his life that alarmed him more than a little.

  But hell, maybe he was. Alex swallowed and gave Chelsea a quick smile. She smiled back, her face softening, everything about her relaxed and open and appealing.

  Maybe he was.

  * * *

  He’d told her to dress casually for dinner, forgetting that she didn’t do casual. She’d packed a pair of crisply tailored capris, another of trousers, an LBD and a few classic tops but nothing really casual. Nothing she felt like wearing now.

  So while Alex was in the shower she nipped down to one of the boutiques in the lobby of the hotel and bought a sundress. A floaty, silky number in sunshine yellow. It had skinny straps and the top was cut so you could see the top of her scar, just a tiny bit of puckered flesh. She’d never worn anything like it in the ten years since Brian Taylor had beaten her senseless before taking a knife to her.

  But she’d wear it now.

  She wore only a little lip gloss and left her hair loose around her shoulders. She’d bought a pair of strappy sandals, too, that were a far cry from her usual stilettos.

  As she stepped out into the main room of their suite Alex gave her a long look.

  “You look,” he said as he came toward and kissed her, “amazing.”

  And she felt amazing.

  But how long it would last? How long before one of them decided that this was all a bit too much, a bit too intense and emotional, and it was time to back off?

  Out on the balcony Alex had seemed preoccupied, and she’d wondered what he was thinking. She hadn’t dared to ask.

  Some relationship.

  Baby steps, she reminded herself just a little bit desperately. Baby steps, even if some of them were going backward.

  They drove in the rental car, a convertible in cherry red, through Miami as the sun sank over the ocean and the city night came to life.

  “So where exactly are we going?” she asked as he left Miami’s downtown for a residential neighborhood. “Do you know some super secret restaurant?”

  “You could say that,” Alex said as he pulled up in front of a small bungalow with a neat garden. “My mother is a great cook.”

  Shock turned her rigid. “Your mother?” she finally repeated in disbelief and no small amount of panic. “You’re taking me to your mother’s?”

  “Yes—”

  “But I thought you grew up in the Bronx!”

  “I did. But she moved to Miami when I went to college to be closer to her sister, my
aunt Patricia.”

  Chelsea shook her head, her hands pressed to her cheeks. “You should have told me, Alex. I’m not ready for this—”

  She didn’t think he was ready for this either. He’d just rocket-launched their relationship, frail little fledgling that it was, into the stratosphere. She was meeting the parents.

  “I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d freak out,” Alex answered calmly. “My mother is a very loving, very accepting person. And she’ll accept you.” He drew a breath, let it out slowly. “This isn’t some test or goal post, Chelsea. It just is. She lives in Miami, and I wanted to see her. That’s it. I promise.”

  Was that a promise or a warning? Don’t read something into this, Chelsea.

  Fine, she wouldn’t. But she still had to go meet his mom.

  “Okay,” she said, and her voice sounded calm. Thankfully. Alex gave her a quick smile.

  “Now let’s go. My mother makes a mean empanada.”

  Chelsea followed him toward the bungalow, her heart starting to thud and her palms going damp. Was she having an anxiety attack, she wondered with a lurch of panic, then realized she wasn’t. No, she was just experiencing the normal nerves at meeting her boyfriend’s mother.

  Her boyfriend. Could she really call Alex that?

  She swallowed past the dryness in her throat and tried to pin a bright smile on his face. Alex, she knew, still thought she’d had a happy childhood, would be familiar with family gatherings, when in fact nothing was further from the truth. She’d never met her mother’s relatives, and Thanksgiving, Christmas and birthdays had usually passed unremarked. This was new territory in so many ways.

  “Alex!” A woman opened the door of the bungalow and held out her arms. Alex stepped into them with a sheepish smile, and she spoke in rapid Spanish for several seconds before she turned to Chelsea.

  “Welcome. My name is Beatriz,” she said in English. “I am so happy to meet you.”

  “And I’m happy to meet you,” Chelsea murmured. She liked the look of Alex’s mother; she was tall and proud-looking, with dark hair streaked with gray and the same golden-brown eyes as Alex had. “Come inside,” Beatriz urged, and reached for Chelsea’s hand. “Everyone wants to meet you.”

  Chelsea felt herself go rigid once more. “Everyone?” She shot a panicked look at Alex, who was looking surprised and not a little discomfited.

  “Who did you invite, Mama?” he asked and Beatriz clucked.

  “Just Patricia and her girls, their husbands and children. You know.”

  That sounded like a lot of people, Chelsea thought, and she felt her vision start to swim. Okay, now she was having an anxiety attack.

  “Just a sec, Mama.” Alex tugged Chelsea by the hand, kept her outside while Beatriz went into the bungalow. “Shit. I should have known she would do something like this.” He glanced at her, and she was touched to see concern shadowing his eyes. “If you’re not okay with this, we can leave.”

  “Are you okay with this?” she asked, heard that sharp note of cynicism enter her voice. Alex frowned.

  “It isn’t ideal, but that’s hardly the point right now, Chelsea. You’re not okay in crowds, and I don’t want to make things worse for you.”

  Or worse for him. Chelsea had a feeling Alex was seriously regretting this little dinner, and whatever impulse that had made him arrange it.

  Well, too bad. She wasn’t going to turn tail and run. Not because of a panic attack, at any rate.

  “Just give me a minute,” she said, and he nodded. She bent over, taking several deep breaths as she willed her heart rate to slow, her breathing to even. She felt Alex’s hand low on her back, rubbing in slow circles, and just that little touch gave her the courage to straighten, smile.

  “Okay,” she murmured, and standing tall and proud, she entered his mother’s house.

  It was crazy. Loud, vibrant, with people crowding the small rooms, laughing and shouting, sharing food and drink. Chelsea felt instantly overwhelmed, but also accepted. No one looked at her askance or wondered why she was here. No one even glanced at the scar peeking over the top of her dress.

  Beatriz’s sister Patricia grabbed her by both hands, kissed her on both cheeks, and gushed about her show. Alex’s cousins asked for her autograph, shyly, but then they also asked about her, not Chelsea Maxwell the celebrity, so she felt like a real person and not just a talk show host.

  She felt great...until she glanced over at Alex and saw him frowning. He wasn’t enjoying this evening quite as much as she was, and she was afraid to know why.

  They stayed until after midnight, and finally Alex stated, rather tersely, that they needed to get back to the resort. Chelsea’s insides lurched a little at his tone; he almost sounded angry.

  She helped clear the picnic table where they’d eaten delicious sancocho and black rice with shellfish, followed by the empanadas he’d promised his mother would make.

  She was stacking plates by the sink in Beatriz’s small kitchen when the older woman came in, stood in the doorway.

  “Please don’t hurt him.”

  Chelsea tensed, everything in her icing over. She turned slowly to Beatriz who was gazing at her with the same steady certainty she’d seen so often in Alex’s eyes. “Why do you think I would?”

  “You have been hurt before, yes?” Surprise made Chelsea speechless. “I can tell, because I have been hurt, too,” Beatriz said quietly. “By a man.”

  Chelsea remembered what Alex had suspected about his father and tried to find her voice. “Yes,” she confessed quietly, “I have. But that’s...that’s what makes me so grateful for Alex.”

  “He is a good man,” Beatriz acknowledged. “And I want him to be happy.”

  Chelsea flinched. “You think he can’t be happy with me?” she asked, knowing it was what she was afraid of herself. That her secrets, her pain, would be too much for him. They’d drive him away.

  “I think when you have been hurt once, you think you will be hurt again. It can be hard to trust. To love.”

  “I know,” Chelsea whispered. She blinked back tears and Beatriz smiled in sympathy.

  “I know how it hurts. You have scars—and I am not talking about that.” She gestured to the inch of ridged flesh above Chelsea’s dress. “Scars on your heart, on your soul. They go deep.” Chelsea just nodded. “I only say this because Alex cannot heal those scars,” Beatriz said quietly. “Not truly. No man can heal you. Only you can do that.”

  Again Chelsea simply nodded. She understood what Beatriz was saying, even if she wasn’t sure she believed it. She didn’t know if she could be healed, by Alex or anyone. She wanted to believe she could, but...

  She wasn’t sure she did.

  She was quiet during the ride back to the resort, and so was Alex. On the surface the evening had been a success, but underneath?

  Maybe it had been too much for both of them.

  Don’t hurt him.

  She didn’t want to hurt him, but she also didn’t know if she could help it. She’d made so many bad choices in her life, choices that haunted and hunted her to this day. Choices that would hurt Alex because she still didn’t know how to trust, to love. A relationship still felt like a minefield, and inching through it was exhausting. Overwhelming.

  Too much.

  And yet these past few days had been wonderful. Hard, utterly draining in some ways, but still wonderful. And she knew she wasn’t going to let it all go that easily. She’d been burned in the past, yes, but she still wanted to try. She wanted, she realized with a lurch of pure panic, to tell Alex the truth.

  It was up to him just what he did with it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  So he was a complete idiot for taking Chelsea to his mother’s house for dinner. What the hell had that been about, anyway? He should have known his mother would go crazy; he’d never brought a woman to meet her before. Never.

  And he knew he’d done it because part of him wanted to go the distance with Chelsea, and part of him wanted
to run the hell away. Get off this train while he still could.

  And he had a feeling Chelsea knew it. Maybe she felt as conflicted as he did. They both still held secrets, and nobody was pressing anybody else for more truth-telling. Soul-baring.

  Not a tempting proposition in the least. I’ll keep my secrets neatly tucked away, thanks very much.

  Except they weren’t tucked away so neatly anymore, and neither were Chelsea’s. He’d shown her the photo. He’d told her about Sarah. She’d spoken about her scar. She’d admitted to her panic attacks.

  It seemed like those secrets were going to spill out, whether they liked it or not.

  Unless he ended it.

  Why did that thought seem like hell on earth? How could he make this thing work?

  As soon as they were back in their suite of rooms he took her in his arms. He didn’t want the messy complications of words. Just this. This was simple. Easy. And she must have understood what he was doing because she wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him with an urgency that made his heart ache.

  They made love without speaking. Not one word, because even that would shatter the fragility of this intimacy, the safety of sex. Afterward they held each other as closely as they could, arms and legs twined, hearts beating against each other.

  And still they didn’t speak.

  When morning came Chelsea woke him with a kiss that stole his heart right along with his breath. Kissed her way down his body, tasting him, teasing him, before she shook her hair back in a move of feminine power as old as time and straddled him.

  He remembered the first time they’d had sex—and that’s what it had been, just sex—and she’d done the same. Now, whether either of them wanted to or not, it felt completely different. She rose above him, naked and unashamed, a smile curving her lips as she rode them both to pleasure in what felt, damn it, like an act of love.

  Afterward they showered together and made love again, and eventually they managed to get out of the hotel and hit the beach, do the kind of touristy things Alex had promised they’d do in New York.

  He didn’t know why everything felt so poignant, so bittersweet. He was enjoying himself, walking along the beach hand in hand with Chelsea, tasting shrimp in the outdoor market and having lunch in Little Havana. He was having the time of his life, and yet it also felt...fleeting. Almost like an ending. Almost as if they’d both come to a wordless agreement last night that this was all they were going to have.