by Susan Ward
My brows hitch up. “Really?” I smile. “Now I know where you get your extraordinary voice. You sort of sound like him.”
That comment Alan ignores, and he looks kind of angry. Jeez, what did I say to piss him off?
“The music is beautiful,” I say to break the acutely tense silence. “What is the opera about? What is he singing?”
He doesn’t look at me. “It’s about a man who falls in love at first at sight. He must answer three questions to claim his bride. He answers the questions, but the princess doesn’t want to marry him. She recoils. So the man puts a challenge to her. She has to tell him his name by morning. If she does, she can execute him. If not, she has to marry him.”
For some reason, I’m captivated by this. Maybe it’s the sound of his voice. Or maybe it’s the story. In a convoluted way, it’s so Alan.
The music changes and he looks up and smiles. “Ah, this is my favorite aria. ‘Nessum Dorma.’”
He starts to move the contents of a dish into the pan with a knife, and I listen. I’m not an opera fan, but for some reason I’m deeply affected by this. It’s haunting and beautiful.
I run my wineglass along my lower lip. “What do the words mean?”
The song ends and he flicks a button on a wall panel which kills the speakers in the kitchen.
Those mesmerizing, potent black eyes lock on me. “None shall sleep! None shall sleep! Even you, O Princess, in your cold bedroom, watch the stars that tremble with love and with hope! But my secret is hidden within me; none will know my name! No, no! On your mouth I will say it when the light shines! And my kiss will dissolve the silence that makes you mine!”
A jolt shoots through my body. Fuck, I’m feeling it again. Intrigued, aroused, and attracted to him. Only this time, he didn’t even touch me.
Crap.
I watch him as he adjusts the flame on the stove. I change the subject. “So why are you so paranoid about people finding out you used to be an actor?”
He moves the contents of the pan with a spatula. “It can only end up one of two ways. People might take everything I’m trying to accomplish as a joke because I used to be an Alfie Wells. A musician can become an actor without it tainting his musical reputation. It doesn’t work the other way. I never wanted to be in the acting profession and I don’t want it to be a part of me anymore.”
I nod. “I see your point. That TV show was a killer for David Cassidy and he was one of my favorites growing up.”
Alan laughs. “I would never have taken you for a Partridge Family girl.”
I smile. “Why not? They were happy. The entire family traveled around on a school bus singing. A dream for a girl like me from Reseda.”
Alan gives me an amused, sympathetic smile. “Remind me never to invite you to watch a movie. Your taste in television is dreadful.”
I laugh at the way he says dreadful, push the hair back from my face and follow him with my gaze as he moves to the butcher block island to chop vegetables.
I frown. “What’s the second reason you don’t want people to know you used to be an actor?”
Alan gives a slight nod, but he doesn’t look up from his task. “Ah, the band might catch on only because people used to love the movies I made. Either way, unwanted result, and I won’t ever know what people really think of my music.”
I reach across the counter for the wine and refill my glass. “I see your point,” I concede, and I do.
He’s looking for personal validation and affection and he wants it honestly. It’s almost like he’s playing roles in real life—though I am sure he doesn’t know it—-somehow thinking he can recreate himself, or maybe, just sever ties with his own nightmarish early years.
I watch him transport the contents of the cutting board into the pan. Alan is cooking me dinner. This I never expected. Setting the table, pouring the wine, the music, and the candles—it’s almost like he’s pretending we’re on a date.
In my mind flash images of him with the band and on the road. His vile antics are very different from this guy in the kitchen with me tonight.
My eyes narrow as they fix on him and suddenly everything makes sense. Oh, no wonder it has felt as if I’ve not really met him yet. I haven’t. He never reveals to anyone the real Alan. He plays different roles, depending on who he is with, trying to fit in somewhere, anywhere. With the band he’s one of them from the gutter. Here with me he’s a perfect gentleman. Pinocchio wants to be a real boy and doesn’t know how to.
It is completely crazy, and a touch sad. And it’s not going to work. Nothing is ever going to make Alan Manzone an Average Joe. He is him.
Alan will never be ordinary; he was born a star.
Six
I open my eyes to a room of mid-morning light, surprised by how rested I feel. I did not expect to sleep well here. Here and definitely not alone in a house very near him.
I sit up in bed, pushing the hair from my face. When things change in your life, Linda, they change quickly. Yesterday morning I believed I worked for Sandy Harris. Today I know that my financial stability while in the UK and my ability to finish school rests in the hands of Alan Manzone.
Crap. It’s bad enough to know Alan; it’s worse to know I work for him. Frowning, I can’t help but wonder what else has changed, if my agreement with Sandy Harris is going to be kept at the end of the tour and if I’ll get my part-time job in the public relations office in London so I can go to school as planned.
But that nagging voice of instinct warns me that nothing is going to pan out simply. The strangeness of my circumstance is mind-blowing. Alan withheld that relevant tidbit that he would be my employer. Even stranger, he picked me to be…what was it he said?…someone to talk straight to him and protect his interests.
The kid is one fucked-up, paranoid dude. I shake my head. Brilliant and amazing, too. The kid is definitely on a fast track to superstardom. Once he crosses the pond to the States, it will happen quickly, like the fast drop of a rollecoaster. American girls are going to go wild over him. And what the girls love, the guys buy. The recipe for stardom and Alan has every ingredient. That’s the only thing I’m positive of today.
I debate with myself whether to call Jack. He’s always so practical and calm thinking. He’d know what I should do. What I should watch out for. But I don’t want to worry him with three back-to-back daily calls, or the predicament I unknowingly stepped into.
Instead I shower quickly¸ pull on an unspectacular outfit of jeans and a black pullover sweater, and brace myself for more minutes of Alan Manzone. How the heck am I going to survive another three days alone with him here?
Downstairs I start poking my head into rooms, but I don’t spot him. Jeez, it’s a big house, and I struggle to remember where the kitchen is. I make my way to the back of the house and I freeze in the doorway.
Holy hell.
The room is immaculate, so clean that it looks like no one cooked here last night. Only Alan cooked. He made quite a thorough mess across the black marble counters and the center island, and dirtied more pans than I would have ever done cooking a single meal.
I don’t recall him washing dishes. We had brandy in the sitting room before bed, and I know I heard him on the stairs twenty minutes after I left him, but—poof—this morning everything is perfect again.
The pristine look and orderliness of the room is a touch unnerving. Weird, but it is. There is something not right, wound too tightly, about this guy.
I note that someone has already made a pot of coffee and I cross the white marble floors and grab a cup. I’m just taking my first sip when Alan appears in the room.
“Good morning,” he says dryly, sinking onto a stool at the center island.
To my disappointment, my knees grow a smidge weak at the sight of him. God, he is gorgeous, but he looks very different today. He’s casually dressed in a long-sleeve button-down cotton shirt and faded jeans, resembling something more like what Jack would wear than that I’ve ever seen Alan toss on.
He doesn’t look like a kid anymore. Not that he ever did. Not really, and that delusion isn’t helping right now, not that it helped block the physical reaction I get at the sight of Alan. The way he looks sitting at the center island makes it a pointless endeavor to continue calling him the kid in my head.
Alan Manzone is not a kid, Linda. He’s a man. And it’s better to remember that, especially with how he looks today. Like a man who’s climbed from bed, purposely dressed casually chic, and hurried in here without appearing like he hurried.
Oh fuck, he’s created a new role. He’s trying to be Jack appealing. Casually chic. That last thought does me no good at all and my stomach turns over as another thought soars through my brain. Fudge, the coffee. He was awake before me, when Alan hardly ever wakes before noon.
My eyes narrow as I study his face. What the hell is he up to today?
“You slept late this morning,” he says in a way that makes me aware I’ve been standing here mute, staring at him, and missed my turn to speak. I fight hard not to look flustered. “I trust that you slept well?”
“I s-slept,” I stutter, and I note that he’s containing a smirk. Damn him, he knows he’s unnerving me.
I turn back to the coffeemaker and refill my cup, which is a totally stupid gesture because I’ve only taken two sips, but it gives me a reason not to look at him.
“Are you hungry?” he asks.
I hear him rising from the stool and I turn back to face him.
“Listen, ugly—” I feel heat rise on my cheeks. What the devil made me call him that? “—I can fix my own toast, thank you. And I’m really getting sick of whatever this game is you’re playing with me. Why don’t you tell me what’s going on so I can decide if I want to stay here or hop a plane back to LA?”
“Are all American women as suspicious as you?” He pauses and frowns. “Politeness doesn’t normally stir paranoia in the UK.”
The way he says that turns my lightly pink cheeks to crimson.
“Politeness, my ass.” I stare at him, frustrated. “American women don’t like to be fucked with. Remember that.”
It’s a good exit point, so I slam my coffee down on the counter and move toward the door.
“How would you like your eggs?” he asks, inflectionless.
Is he deranged?
I whirl around to face him and then wish I hadn’t. He’s smiling, his face washed with humor. He’s impossible to stay mad at when you look at him. Especially when he’s being uncharacteristically not difficult.
“Please sit,” he says softly. “Why don’t we start this morning again? While I make your breakfast, you can tell me what’s gotten you so pissed off. It wasn’t my intent to piss you off.”
It’s just sunk one level beneath wretched. Alan being the bigger person. I stare at him, suspicious, and then I drop heavily onto a stool.
“You’re a very frustrating guy,” I snap, leaning across the counter to grab my coffee cup. “All normal people would be frustrated by you.”
“I’m not trying to be frustrating.”
Crap, that sounded sincere and against my will it deflates my anger.
“Well, you are. You shift with lightning speed from obscene rock god from hell to country squire, to I don’t know what the fuck you are today. What’s up with that?”
Alan laughs as he whisks eggs in a bowl. He looks up, his shimmering eyes locking on mine, and my insides begin to burn. “Today is me trying to make you breakfast. That’s all. Nothing more complicated or sinister than that.”
I laugh and I don’t want to. “Sinister, huh? Interesting choice of words.”
Crap, that was said more sarcastically than I wanted, but Alan just smiles.
“It fits those thoughts in your head, doesn’t it?”
The kid has got a point.
“So how did you meet Jack?” he murmurs.
The question takes me by surprise. Why does he want to know that? I debate how to answer, and then decide honestly since the truth is less repulsive than the way I used to meet famous musicians.
“On a beach,” I say peevishly, though a smile tugs at my lips because that sounds so ridiculous, so wonderfully ridiculous.
Alan sets a plate of toast in front of me. “A chance encounter in the sand. Interesting.”
“Yep.”
“Why are you here and not with him?”
I sit back on my stool. “How did you find out about me and Jack anyway?”
“I told you. I had Sandy check on your background before he hired you. It isn’t exactly a guarded secret in the insider circles. In fact, it’s pretty common knowledge.”
Common knowledge. Crap. I’m more certain than ever it was right to leave the States until the custody battle over Chrissie is finished. I shudder, not wanting to think what Walter would do if he found out about me, and am stunned that he hasn’t yet.
He studies my face. “I can tell by your reaction that you didn’t know that. Why does it distress you that people know about you and Jack?”
That question I ignore and arch a brow. “What else did your nifty report about me say?”
He doesn’t look the least bit apologetic about having rummaged around in my personal shit. He smiles. “I’ve told you everything. I didn’t request details on anything. It wasn’t necessary.”
I search his face. “Necessary for what?”
He shrugs. “To decide if I wanted Sandy to offer you the job or not.”
I dip my toast into my coffee, my eyes fixed on Alan like a hawk as he sets a plate of scrambled eggs in front of me.
“Speaking of him, where does Sandy not really being my employer leave me?” I ask. “He promised me a job when the tour was done, or has that changed?”
“It’s yours if you want it.”
The way he says want it puts my nerves on edge.
“I definitely want the job. I start school in September,” I add.
“Why? School is the trap of ordinary people, Linda, and you are not ordinary. You already have a degree from USC that will not take you farther than your brains will.”
“School is what poor people do not to be poor forever.”
He looks amused, a smidge insultingly so. “I don’t think that’s something you’re ever going to have to worry about. Even without your brains, your beauty could get you pretty much whatever you want.”
The random compliment pleases me more than I want to admit to myself. Crap, Alan Manzone thinks I’m beautiful. I never expected to find two men on the planet with poor vision. Jack sees things the way he wants to, but Alan is a hard-core realist. Every thought that comes into his head he speaks whether he should or shouldn’t.
Alan sets his plate on a mat and sits on a stool across the island from me. “You are a very beautiful woman, Linda.”
My flesh starts to heat, but I manage a cool glance and some surface composure. I stare down at my fork as I poke at the eggs.
“Why does that make you uncomfortable?” he murmurs.
I don’t look up. “It doesn’t, especially. I just would prefer if you didn’t pay me compliments.”
“Do you dislike compliments in general or me complimenting you?”
My brows hitch up. “Both. So knock it off. I don’t like it. I would prefer to keep our relationship of a business nature.”
Alan takes a sip of coffee and studies me for a while. “So who do you live with? Everyone shares a flat these days.”
I have to fight to keep from visibly clenching my teeth. Hello, I said business nature. “Why? Do you want to hit on her?”
He arches a brow. “Is she fun?”
The way he says that makes me grin against my will. “Jeanette? Hell no. She has an old money bat up her ass bigger than yours.”
I shrug. “She was my roommate at USC. We’re sort of friends. I didn’t know anyone here and she’s from London. Her parents offered me a place to stay rent free and it was better than anything I could afford.”
“Ah, rich girl, poor girl. It doesn’t sound like you like Jeanette.”
“I do like her.” I crinkle my nose. “Just not a lot.”
His eyes sharpen on my face. “You envy her, that’s why you keep her around when you don’t really like her. You shouldn’t, you know.”
I flush. “Shouldn’t what?” I’m enormously pleased that my voice sounds mildly bored and a touch amused.
Those black eyes fix on me more intently. “Envy her. I don’t think I would like her. You, I like.”
My cheeks warm since I’m foolish enough to internally gloat and savor a ridiculous flash of superiority over Jeanette. He wouldn’t like her. It’s ridiculous, but it makes me happy.
Jeanette gets everything in life she wants, and Alan is right, I do envy her. As much as I dislike her at times, I try like the devil to be like her.
I stare into my coffee cup. It hasn’t worked, the being like her thing. No power on earth could ever make me as flawlessly beautiful, fashionable and elegant as her. The unattainable gifts of good genes, good family, and old money.
I peek at Alan as he lights a cigarette. Even the gestures of his hand as he does this are elegant. He’s just like Jeanette. They’d be perfect together. Damn, why does that thought bother me?
“I should introduce you to Jeanette sometime,” I say.
Alan smiles, amused. “You don’t need to fix me up. Attracting women is not an issue for me.”
God, that was said conceitedly, and darn if it isn’t a smidge sexy the way he says that. He’s had me on the run conversationally all morning. It’s time to turn the tables.
“Is that why you’re into the group sex thing? One man, too many women lusting after you,” I taunt.
When he looks at me I’m laughing, but the expression in his eyes instantly silences me.
“I prefer group sex because it is more physical, less intimate, and less of a risk for emotional complications. Fucking. Nothing more, Linda. It’s emotionally liberating. You should try it.”