Ben could feel the color draining from his face. He’d never had a problem getting sex. Even from ordinary, beautiful romance novelists in a coffee shop. That didn’t make things sordid. Jo had enjoyed herself as much as he did. He hadn’t taken advantage of her. They were adults, and unlike the others, he still couldn’t stop thinking about her, even now.
“We’ll tell you what.” Jett broke the sizzling tension at the table, taking in a breath and sitting back. “We are still willing to bankroll this little musical of yours.”
Ben narrowed his eyes, caught between relief and resentment over the condescension in Jett’s voice. Not to mention the sly, knowing look Ashton wore as he crossed his legs and listened in.
“Go on,” Ben prompted him.
The twins exchanged looks, then Jett said, “We want to write a book.”
The statement came from so far out of left field—and skated so close to the kinds of things he and Jo had talked about in their whirlwind romance—that Ben was knocked totally off-kilter.
“A book?”
“Yes,” Ashton said, his eyes alight with a glow that could only be described as infernal.
Jett leaned across the table to Ben again. “Can you imagine how many copies a scintillating tell-all of Broadway’s underbelly would sell? They’ll be lining up to read all about who’s sleeping with who, what little perversions are going on in the minds of the bright and shiny.”
Ben didn’t think it was possible for his stomach to sink more, but there it was, somewhere down by the subway. “I don’t know anything,” he said.
“Liar.” Ashton winked.
“I don’t.”
“Of course you do,” Jett murmured. “You don’t sleep with half the female population of Broadway and not have stories to tell.”
“I didn’t—” He let out an exasperated breath. “I don’t have anything for you.”
Jett shrugged and sat straighter. “Then we don’t have anything for you.”
“Money, that is.” Ashton added the obvious.
Ben drew in a long, shaky breath, wiping a hand over his face. This couldn’t be happening. There was no way he was being backed into a seedy little corner by two men he’d thought were friends. He was an award-winning director, dammit. He had a place in this community, a good place. This was his life they were messing with.
A buzz from his coat pocket caused him to flinch.
“Do you need to get that?” Jett asked.
Instinct told Ben to say no, to fight the battle in front of him. It was a battle for his career, his life. He would not let these two hypocrites tear down his life’s work or turn it into something sordid.
“Let me check,” he said instead, reaching for his phone.
“Stopped at a rest stop. Did you make it to your meeting on time?”
Ben’s heart burst into something resembling warm, sentimental, inconvenient goo at the sight of Jo’s words. But dammit, he needed the reminder that there was something good and artless in the world right then.
“Mostly.” He typed a quick reply. “Not going well. Déjà vu, right?”
“Something we need to know about?” Ashton arched an eyebrow as if he had the stink of gossip in his nose.
“Business,” Ben said, slipping his phone back into his pocket. He cleared his throat, then stared Jett down. “I have nothing for you. No gossip, no stories, no headlines.”
“You have none or you’re not willing to kiss and tell?” Ashton asked.
“Same thing,” Ben replied. He may not be perfect, but he wasn’t a complete ass. Or a complete idiot.
“So you do know things,” Jett said. It wasn’t a question.
Ben kept his lips shut. His phone buzzed. He resisted the urge to snatch it up. At the same time, that one little buzz gave him courage. Jo would be proud of him taking the moral high ground for once.
Wrong thought, right time.
Jett let out a breath, the frivolous fairy persona returning. “Well, if you won’t play with us, then we see no reason to continue to play with you.”
“Speak for yourself,” Ashton added, watching Ben and biting his knuckle. “I could play with him all day.”
“Oh, come off it, Ashton.” Ben reached the end of his patience. “Everybody knows you’ve got a buxom, Latino mistress and two children living in Connecticut. And that you spent a week at the Playboy Mansion last year,” he added for Jett.
Ashton paled, but a wide grin spread across Jett’s painted face. “See? That wasn’t so hard, was it? Give us more dirt like that and you can have all the money you want for your show.”
Ben swallowed, sick at the thought that he had blurted out gossip so easily. He stood, taking one last sip of his coffee, then thumped the mug on the table. “No.”
“Then this is the end of our beautiful friendship,” Jett said.
Ben shrugged. “You’re not the only producers in town.”
Jett continued to smile. “Maybe not, but there aren’t a whole heck of a lot of people who can afford to bankroll a new musical. We know most of them. All of them, probably. And between us and the accusations that are being made against you in reputable publications now, do you really think anyone else is going to work with you?”
Ben’s pulse slammed so hard against his chest that the corners of his vision went black. “I’ll find someone else to work with.”
“Will you?” Jett’s stare was unyielding.
“At least you have your cute little television show to fall back on,” Ashton added, then burst into a snigger.
Thank God for Second Chances. Even though throwing himself into the show would look like he was running and hiding from the mess he’d made on Broadway.
“I don’t think there’s anything more to say here.” The statement would have had a lot more impact if his voice wasn’t so hoarse.
“I think you’re right,” Jett seconded. As Ben turned to go, he added, “Give us a call if you change your mind about the book.”
“I won’t,” Ben called back over his shoulder.
But as he stepped out into the frosty afternoon and pulled the collar of his coat up, he had the acid feeling that he’d slipped on black ice, knocked his head, and ended up on life-support with the Pollards standing over him, ready to pull the plug.
Chapter Five
Jo turned off the road and started up the long, winding drive of her family’s estate. Coming home had always filled her with relief and a sense of “Thank God that’s over” after every previous trip to New York. This time, her mind had been thoroughly engaged in daydreams and fantasies of a certain tall, broad-shouldered, achingly sexy Broadway director.
Ugh. Engaged wasn’t the right word. Not even close. It was a fling, she reminded herself. No one mentioned anything about getting together again.
But it was hard to forget that when the sex god in question called you to make sure you’d gotten on the road okay, and then texted you in the middle of a bad meeting and told you to call if you wanted to talk.
It’d been impossible not to think about Ben as the miles grew longer and the damp, gray roadside morphed into ice-covered dirt, then a thin layer of powdery snow. The woods leading up to her house looked as though they’d been dusted with a liberal amount of powdered sugar as she wound through the trees. When she reached the point where the trees had been culled to reveal a sloping, snow-covered lawn, she sighed her way into a smile.
That lasted until she spotted the two, ugly stumps in the fading twilight where decades old maples had stood only a month ago. She growled at the sudden tension in her gut and fought off the imaginary sound of a cash register ringing as she kissed her money goodbye. No one ever realized how expensive trees were until they fell over. At least neither had fallen on the house. Now she didn’t even have the security of a book advance coming her way to foot that bill.
The Burkhart house itself sat at the top of the hill, high enough to provide a stunning view out every window, but not high enough to be unreachable on an
icy driveway. Great-Grandfather Burkhart had made his fortune in glass in the late nineteenth century, and had built this house as a retreat from the madness of everyday life. It was huge—twelve bedrooms—and fashioned of stone in a style that was usually found further south.
The house had been built in a lopsided T-shape. Its wide, gravel front courtyard had once held a fountain, but that had been removed to make room for cars in the 1950s. On the other side of the north wing, a flagstone patio looked off the other side of the hill onto miles and miles of rolling, untamed, pine-covered hills. It was the ideal place to take in a sunset in the summer. Right now it probably looked like a picture postcard or the January photo for a high-end calendar. In fact, it had once been the January photograph for a calendar that Nick had been involved in shooting.
Speaking of Nick, it was a relief to see his SUV parked in front of the house. She pulled up beside it and cut her engine.
“Home at last,” she sighed, grabbing her purse and pushing open the car door and meeting the blast of freezing Maine air. Everybody raved about how gorgeous and rugged and perfect Maine was in the summer—when the whale boats took vacation-goers out on the ocean, lobster was in abundance, and hikers went moose-hunting in the mountains. No one wanted to deal with the below freezing temperatures and biting winds of winter. But as far as Jo was concerned, that was when Maine was at its secret best.
Her sneakers crunched along the snow-covered driveway as she walked swiftly around to the east wing of the house and to the kitchen door. No one used the front door unless it was a holiday or an emergency.
The fragrant steam of soup bubbling on the gas stove met her as she stepped into the mud room.
“Mmm, what a way to come home,” she sighed, knocking snow from her sneakers before crossing from the mud room to the kitchen itself.
“I thought you were only going down to New York for the day,” Nick greeted her, all concern. “I expected you home hours ago.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Jo laughed. She carried her purse through the long, open kitchen, through the corner of the dining room—which was big enough to host an epic feast—hanging it on the railing at the bottom of a massive, curving staircase. Great-Grandfather Burkhart had loved that staircase, as the dozens of antique photos taken of him and Great-Grandma Helen, their kids, their grandkids, and a few notable historical figures who had come to visit, attested.
With her purse in the spot where she kept it so she wouldn’t lose it, she headed back to the kitchen.
“I sent you a text when I stopped for gas in Connecticut,” Jo defended herself belatedly.
“I got it,” Nick nodded. “I was concerned is all.”
Jo grinned and crossed to hug him. Nick was her little brother, but he was six inches taller than her and built like an oak. His long hair was tied back, and his hipster beard and moustache made him look every bit like the adventurous photojournalist he’d been for the last eight years.
“Can I have some of that?” she asked, nodding to the soup even as she crossed to get a bowl from the cupboard.
“That’s what it’s here for,” Nick answered. He left the soup and opened the oven. Another drop-dead amazing scent filled the air—homemade bread. Nick was going to make some woman a brilliant husband one day. If he could stay in the same spot for more than a few weeks at a time.
“Anything interesting happen while I was gone?” Jo asked, helping herself to soup and a glass of water, then setting herself up at the kitchen table. It was the same kitchen table her family had eaten at when she was a kid, the same table her dad had eaten at when he was a kid, and the same probably went for her Grandpa Joe too.
“It snowed,” Nick stated the obvious. “The bill for plowing is on the counter there.”
Jo made a growling, choking sound, stirring her soup.
As if sensing where her thoughts had gone, Nick glanced to her and asked, “How did your meeting with Diane go?”
There was no sense keeping the worst from him. “Frost Square will only give me ten thousand as an advance for the optioned book.”
Nick’s jaw clenched, and he shook his head as he took the bread from the oven. Coming from Nick, that was as good as throwing a fit.
Jo sighed, resting her elbows on the table and rubbing her face. “Diane thinks I should try a different genre and self-publish,” she went on. “She says the money is in contemporary right now.”
Nick’s shoulders relaxed. “So write a contemporary.”
She sent him a weary smirk. “I’m not sure I have one in me.”
As Nick took the bread out of its pan and tossed it around in that ridiculous way he had of cooling it, Jo fished her phone out of her purse. She hadn’t looked at it for the last couple of hours of the drive as the light had grown dimmer and the roads slicker. Her heart leapt to see a text from Ben.
“Text me when you get home so I know you’re all right.”
With a smile that cut through the weight pressing down on her, she typed, “Home. Safe and sound. Thanks for checking.” She put her phone down beside her place as Nick joined her, setting a platter of steaming bread between their places.
“What caused that smile?” he asked.
Let’s see, pretend to Nick that nothing unusual happened in New York and deal with him seeing right through her or fess up?
“I met someone at a coffee shop yesterday.” She opted for something in between. “We hit it off, and we’ve been texting.”
“You? Meeting someone in a coffee shop?” Nick grinned. “Doesn’t that involve talking to another live human being?”
She reached across the corner of the table to smack his arm. “I’m not that much of a recluse.”
Nick arched an eyebrow.
“Would you rather I spend all my time socializing or working so that we can keep the house?” Jo was halfway through laughing when her phone rang. The quiet sound was as good as an air horn. Her back snapped straight, and she swiped the phone off the table. Her heart bounced to her stomach as the screen flashed Ben’s name. Oh, she was going to catch some sort of hell for this.
She tapped the screen to accept the call. “Ben,” she greeted him. “What’s up?”
Nick mouthed the word, “Ben?” reaching for a slice of bread and the butter already on the table.
“So you made it home in one piece.” Ben’s voice was as deep and resonant as ever, but right away Jo picked up a note of exhaustion.
“I did,” she replied. “Did you? You sound tired.”
A long sigh preceded his answer of, “It’s been a long day.”
“Tell me about it,” Jo commiserated.
Nick mouthed, “Who’s Ben?” as he spread butter on his bread.
Jo frowned and held a finger to her lips as Ben said, “My meeting was dismal. Jett and Ashton Pollard—who are top-ranked producers here on the Broadway theater scene—not only yanked my funding for the show I was planning to do next year, but they seem to think they have my balls in a vise.”
Jo nearly choked on the spoonful of soup she’d eaten while he was talking. Did people really talk that frankly with someone they’d just met? Well, met and slept with. Several times in one night.
“Not sure I needed that image burned in my brain, but all right,” she said. Nick watched her with growing curiosity.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t throw all this on you.”
Rather than putting her off, the strain in Ben’s voice led Jo to say, “No, no. By all means, throw it all on me. I’ll listen.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line. Jo listened for traffic, sounds of people, anything to give her a sense of where Ben was at that moment. She heard nothing, not even music or a television. Her mind conjured an image of him at home, lying in bed. Naked, of course.
“I’ll spare you most of the details,” he said, “but suffice it to say, it was a frustrating meeting.”
“No one likes to have their plans derailed.” She, of all people, knew that. “But these Jett and Ashton people�
�and by the way, who on earth names their children Jett and Ashton?”
“Their real names are Jeff and Arthur.” The faintest hint of a chuckle in Ben’s voice helped Jo to relax another hair.
“Okay, then. But those two can’t be the only people with money to fund a show in all of New York. I mean, Frost Square isn’t the only publishing house in the world either.” Saying that out loud made her feel a teensy bit better.
Ben took too long to reply. “Not a lot of people have that kind of money. The Pollards…want something from me, or else they plan to blackball me.”
Jo frowned. “A little dramatic, don’t you think?”
“It’s theater, darling,” he replied, campy as all get out.
Jo laughed, and fortunately, Ben laughed with her.
“I’m sure something else will come along,” Jo went on. “I mean, you won the most prestigious award theater has, right?”
“Right,” he replied slowly, as if he was holding something back.
Jo shrugged, meeting Nick’s observant eyes as if he was part of the conversation too. “So you’ll find other financiers. And in the meantime, you’re going to be up here filming Second Chances soon, right?” She winced at the thread of neediness in her voice, but in all honesty, she’d give her right arm to see Ben again.
On second thought, she needed that right arm to type if she had half a chance of coming up with the fresh, new book Diane wanted her to write.
Across the table, both of Nick’s eyebrows had inched their way practically up to his hairline. “Here?” he mouthed, pointing at the table.
Jo shook her head and waved him off.
“Soon,” Ben said. His voice dropped to a low, seductive purr. “I wish I was there right now. I’d wrap my hands around that beautiful ass of yours and kiss you until you were breathless.”
She went breathless right then, not to mention turning beet-red. Her eyes flickered to Nick, who pinched his face in question.
“All I want is to bury myself deep, deep inside of you right now, to run my hands along your skin and leave bite marks up and down your porcelain neck.”
Catch a Falling Star (Second Chances Book 3) Page 7