One Ring to Rule

by Christa Maurice

  But then she met Kent, who, in addition to being hot, could have drawn perfectly round circles freehand around the boys who’d ignored her in school. And in bed, she’d never imagined sex could be anything like it was with Kent. The two times she’d allowed a relationship to progress as far as the bedroom in the four years since he'd been gone, she’d wondered if she’d been imagining things. Ascribing superhuman talents to Kent because he was the one who got away. Based on that kiss this morning, she hadn’t been. If anything, she’d underestimated him.

  Lindsey drifted toward the deep end of the pool, watching the patterns of light on the ceiling. Her friends had been so jealous that letting them go hadn’t seemed like a big deal. And living with such an amazing artist made her a person of consequence around the office. That just served to make keeping the relationship of paramount importance. And it wasn’t a hardship, was it?

  Except on those occasions when Kent went out without her. She’d tried to do some writing but had no ideas. She’d spent most of her alone time playing games on the Internet and fretting about Kent meeting someone he liked better. That had been why she wouldn’t let him go to a convention alone. After all, she’d met him at a convention. Who was to say he wouldn’t meet someone else?

  In retrospect, that was stupid. She’d been smothering him. And in her efforts to smother him, she’d lost herself.

  She felt a ripple and, annoyed that she hadn’t heard the door with her ears under water, she lifted her head to see who had invaded her space.

  Kent slipped into the shallow end and waded toward her, looking hopefully bewildered. “Great minds think alike?” he offered.

  Chapter 3

  “I was just leaving.” Lindsey rolled over and stroked for the side of the pool.

  “No need to go so soon.” Kent cut off her escape. He caught her wrist. “Come on, it has to mean something that we ended up here together.”

  “It means I have really bad timing.”

  His grip on her wrist was so light she could have pulled away at any time, but she didn’t want to. If she stretched, her toes just brushed the bottom of the pool. He stood upslope from her. If he wanted, he could tow her closer, but he hadn't so far.

  “What are you doing here anyway? Didn’t read the sign? The pool’s closed now,” she asked.

  “I was a little wound up after our elevator ride and needed to work off some tension, but some genius made the workout room into a fishbowl facing the lobby. Then I remembered that just because the pool is closed doesn’t mean you can’t get into it.”

  Lindsey swallowed. So maybe great minds did think alike.

  “Remember when we found that out? I wonder what the staff thought about the weird prints we left on the window.” He glanced toward the windows and Lindsey followed his gaze. She remembered telling him that making love against the windows was insane. He’d responded with a fiendish grin and proceeded to show her how insane.

  His arm slid around her waist, pulling her tight against his bare chest. She thought she might swoon when her hands rested on his warm, smooth skin. Her contact with the bottom of the pool disappeared. She felt the scattering of wiry hair tickling her belly.

  “Obviously you were as wound up by our little discussion in the elevator as I was. Admit it Lindsey. You still want me.”

  “I’ll admit to being horny,” Lindsey said.

  “I’ll see your horny and raise you lusty,” Kent countered.

  “Please let me go,” Lindsey whispered.

  “How can I refuse such a sweet request?” He brushed his lips along her jaw and made no move to release her.

  “I thought you were going to let me go.” Lindsey found her fingers digging into his shoulders.

  “I just asked how I could refuse you. Do you want me to let you go?” He started nibbling her earlobe.

  Lindsey responded by moaning. Her body came alive with the memory of his touch. She seemed to remember more vividly than she ever could have imagined.

  “Sweet Lindsey,” he whispered. “You are so beautiful.”

  She wrapped her legs around his waist so she could catch his face in her hands. His eyes were dark with desire just like they had been in the elevator. His jaw felt tight under her fingers, and she thought she saw tears on his lashes, but decided it was just pool water even through the rest of his face was dry. She wanted to ask him again what he wanted, but she was afraid of the answer. Couldn’t he see it would never work? Couldn’t he see there was too much pain between them?

  She kissed him, letting her lips taste his before teasing open his mouth. She ignored his fingers plucking at the ties of her top. The wet fabric slithered away and his free hand cupped her breast. She shivered. His fingers brushed her with a sweet agony. Her body tensed in anticipation of relief.

  But it was wrong. It was broken and could never be fixed.

  “Lindsey, I love you,” he murmured.

  She gave a strangled moan and pushed away from him.

  His arms tightened around her. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “Please let me go,” she sobbed, trying to wiggle away.

  “Why? What is it?” He released her.

  Lindsey floundered to the side of the pool and pulled herself out. “Please. No more.”

  “No more what?”

  Grabbing her robe, she pulled it on so roughly a seam split. Kent heaved himself out of the water. He splashed on the tile behind her. She bashed against the door with a clang, throwing herself through it.

  “Lindsey!” Kent shouted.

  The sound echoed around the tile and glass room. He skidded across the wet floor and out the door in time to see the stairwell door drifting closed. “Lindsey!” he shouted again inside the stairwell.

  Her feet pounded down the stairs.

  He raced after her, taking the stairs three at a time until he nearly fell down half a flight. Diving through the door to her floor he saw her room door closing. He ran to it and stopped himself from pounding on the closed portal.

  “Lindsey,” he said through the seam of the door. “Come on. Talk to me.”

  In the air-conditioned corridor, the wet suit clung to his skin like cold mud. Every romantic notion he'd had since walking into the pool and finding her already there shriveled with other parts of his anatomy. He pressed his forehead against the door. It had seemed preordained when he found her floating on her back in the middle of the hotel pool. This should have been his lucky break.

  Something was broken.

  And now he had to go down to the lobby in his wet bathing suit to get a replacement key for his room, because his own was locked in the poolroom.

  Which was closed at this hour.

  Well, at least he'd be able to find someone to vouch for his identity in the lobby, since he also didn’t have any ID in his wet bathing trunks.

  * * * *

  The next morning, Kent leaned on the corner of a table far enough away from Lindsey that she wouldn’t notice him in the crowd, but where he could still watch her. Her hair was frizzy like it had dried braided. He wondered if she smelled like chlorine. Her assistant Amy stood beside her as Lindsey reviewed portfolios. Even if he couldn’t see the wan cast of Lindsey’s face, her assistant’s behavior would have told him how awful she felt this morning. Amy looked like she wanted to crawl under the table or leap on top of it and beat the fans away with stacks of free comics and buttons. To her credit, Lindsey was managing to be nice to the people who approached her for reviews. No one walked away in tears. Easier said than done in this atmosphere.

  He’d been over and over what happened last night, from the moment he walked up to her at the party to the moment he’d realized, standing outside her closed door, that he had no room key or identification. There were no missteps anywhere. He’d talked to her. Maybe he pushed things a little too fast in the pool, but not any faster than appropriate. She seemed willing. The top of her suit was drying in his shower. He hadn’t managed to tell her what he wanted to, but he'd
thought he was being clever by taking advantage of the moment.

  Terribly clever, judging by the pallor of Lindsey’s face.

  “What did you do last night?” Gary demanded.

  Kent glowered at him. He didn’t deserve to be interrogated.

  Gary met his glower point for point. “Hey, look buddy, I put my career on the line getting her to this show, and getting you into that party. I probably ought to be thanking you for taking her down a notch, but she looks wretched, and I feel like a jerk.”

  “Wretched?” Kent asked.

  “Yeah. You should have seen her at breakfast. I think she managed to choke down a couple of drops of orange juice. I thought you just wanted to talk to her.”

  “I did. I did talk to her,” Kent protested. “It just didn’t work out the way I thought.”

  “Do me a favor. Leave her alone today. She’s got a full plate of panels and the costume contest tonight. It’s gonna be a miracle if she makes it that far. And don’t tell anybody I’m the Wicked Witch’s defender, okay?”

  “Yeah.” Kent slouched against the table. How was it that his every effort to make things better only made things worse?

  Gary ambled away in the opposite direction, taking a circuitous route back to the table. Kent watched another disappointed yet satisfied reviewee. He admired her for doing portfolio reviews at all. She hated doing them. He felt she had no place telling an artist how to draw when she couldn’t draft a grocery list without help. And to be doing it, well, under the strain he’d caused her, reminded him what a wonderful person she was. Not as a lover or a friend, but as a human.

  Amy stood up and leaned over Lindsey’s shoulder. Lindsey shook her head, and Amy squeezed between the tables. Kent skirted the booth he'd been leaning on to catch her on the other side.

  “Hi!”

  “Oh, Mr. Farrington. What are you doing here?” Amy glanced over her shoulder toward Lindsey, but he'd picked his chance meeting spot carefully. Lindsey would need x-ray vision to see them here.

  “Call me Kent.” He beamed and wondered if this counted as being a manipulative bastard.

  Amy flushed and looked at the floor, mumbling something that might have been his name.

  “So where ya headed?” he asked.

  “The cafeteria downstairs.”

  Kent wrinkled his nose. “Not for food I hope.”

  “No, just a drink.”

  “Getting something for Lindsey?”

  Amy looked over her shoulder again. She frowned at him. “Are you really trying to get her back? Because it looks more like you’re trying to drive her nuts.”

  Kent grimaced. He didn’t know if it was an honest grimace or part of his charming act. “Yeah, I am. I’m just not doing a very good job of it.”

  “You really hurt her, you know. I didn’t start working for her until over a year after, but it was like a gaping wound. I felt kinda guilty when I started to like your work.”

  “I don’t think she’d hold it against you.”

  “If she knew. She doesn’t even know about your recent stuff with the book covers and stuff.”

  “I’ve got a calendar for next year,” Kent added.

  Amy brightened and then frowned. “She doesn’t know about any of your work. I don’t think she reads anything but comic scripts anymore. She went through a Chick Lit phase last year, but it didn’t last long.”

  Kent nodded and tried not to let the information sink in until he could deal with it. His Lindsey always had a book going. She would read the back of a cereal box if there was nothing else around. The fact that she’d stopped reading sunk in like a fist to the gut. This was much worse than he’d anticipated. He'd ruined her life. Then after he'd left, she'd continued the downward spiral. He swallowed hard, hoping everything he'd done would be enough to fix how stupid and self-centered he'd been. “So are you getting anything for Lindsey?”

  “She said she doesn’t want anything.”

  “She looks like she needs a stiff drink.”

  Amy shrugged. “She needs a good meal, a night’s sleep, and to be left alone.” She fixed him with a glare that was meant to be stern, but she couldn’t pull it off.

  “If she gets away from me this weekend, I don’t know if I’ll ever manage to get her back at all,” Kent confessed. “Look, why don’t you get her a Coke and a slice of lemon. That always works with her. That or a cinnamon bun, but I wouldn’t trust the ones in that cafeteria.” He found a five-dollar bill in his pocket and handed it to her.

  Amy took the bill. “You know she still loves you.”

  “I get that impression.” He rolled his eyes.

  “No, really,” Amy said. “I was looking for something on her desk one day, and I found a picture of the two of you together at a convention. It was pretty well worn. I figured she handled it pretty often. I never saw her touch it, but I know she had to have it out sometimes.”

  “If she still loves me so much, why doesn’t she let me get close to her?”

  “Don’t feel too special. She doesn’t let anybody get very close to her. She keeps herself to herself. I’ve worked with her for almost three years, and I don’t know her parents' names.”

  “Bill and June. Why don’t you stop by my table later? I’ll sign one of the calendars for you. Just skip the line and ask Macey for it. And don’t forget Lindsey’s Coke.”

  “I don’t know if I should.”

  “Sure you should. Professional courtesy.” He walked away from Amy before she protested again. The fact that Lindsey kept a picture of them in her desk inspired him with a lot of hope. At least she didn’t wish him dead. Plus, he was remembering more of the little things he used to do to make her happy, like delivering a Coke and a slice of lemon to her when she felt run down. And she was always a sucker for a good cinnamon bun. Unfortunately, he had promised to leave her alone today, and he had no idea where to get a good cinnamon bun in this town. But if someone else delivered it, he could leave her alone and still make amends.

  Macey stood behind his table doing sales with one hand and crowd control with the other. “Back from spying?” she asked.

  “It’s not spying.”

  “Not exactly, but you are watching someone who doesn’t know they’re being watched.”

  “Anyway, can I be a pain in the ass prima donna?” he asked, sliding into his chair and flexing his hand to start signing.

  “If you’ll stay at the table for more than half an hour, I’ll let you do anything you want.” She winked at him and laughed.

  “I need a good cinnamon bun. Not one of the hockey pucks from the hotel, but a really good one.”

  Macey raised one eyebrow at him, still managing to look amused. “Where am I suppose find a good cinnamon bun here?” She made quote marks with her fingers when she said ‘good.’

  “I don’t know. That’s why you’re the media contact.”

  “I know where you can get one,” the girl standing at the front of the line waiting for him to sign her print offered. “There’s a bakery about six blocks from the convention center. I could go get one for you, if you like.” She looked hopeful.

  “If you really want to do me a favor, you could take it to Lindsey Cartwright sometime this afternoon. Doesn’t matter when.”

  “Lindsey Cartwright,” the girl breathed. “Wow.”

  Kent stood up. “Here, let me give you some money.”

  “No, it’s okay.” The girl waved her hand. “I got it. I didn’t know she liked cinnamon buns.”

  “Just don’t tell her I told you. That part’s a secret.” Kent grinned. He wondered if he should tell someone about Lindsey’s M&M fixation. That could get ugly by the end of the Con. He decided to save it for tomorrow. “So, how do you want me to sign this?”

  * * * *

  Lindsey stared at the cinnamon bun on the table in front of her. The third one this afternoon. She wasn’t sure if she should be pleased or alarmed. She hadn’t eaten a cinnamon bun in years before today. Once upon a time, she’
d made a pan of them every Saturday so she could pop them in the oven Sunday morning for friends and neighbors who would drop by. She even got her Sunday New York Times for the price of a cinnamon roll for years from the neighbor upstairs. But then Kent happened, and the drop-ins slowed to a trickle until it wasn’t worth making them at all.

  Today had been a little weird, starting with not sleeping the night before. She still ached all over from lying awake frustrated. If she’d had any sense, she would have given in to Kent. She could have used the relaxation. The memory wouldn’t have been bad either since she seemed headed right down celibacy lane.

  This morning Amy had returned from the cafeteria with a Coke and a slice of lemon muttering something about helping her get through the morning. At lunch she’d gagged down a wilted salad because she was dizzy, all the while listening to a fan wax poetic about comics and feeling guilty because he annoyed her. When she arrived back at the booth, she found a girl waiting with a decadent looking cinnamon roll the size of a dessert plate. Tasting even better than it looked, it probably contained enough fat and calories to power Detroit for a week. It had banished her dizziness and carried her though the first of her two panels. She didn't even bite anyone’s head off. She didn’t remember telling anyone about her passion for them, and the only person here who might remember the occasional pan she’d brought into the office was Gary. There was no specific reason for him to be nice to her. Unless, of course, he was the cause of Kent’s presence. The jury was still out on that.

  She didn’t for a moment believe it could be Kent’s doing. Not after the way she’d blue balled him last night.

  The second cinnamon roll appeared in the hands of a skinny boy with more piercings than orifices right before her second panel. It came from the same bakery judging by its size and decadence. Politeness dictated she eat it. So she had, causing great amusement among the audience members by licking her fingers with relish. She couldn’t fathom the second one. If Gary wanted to butter her up for some reason, wasn’t one treat enough?

  This third one, lovingly delivered to the booth by a grinning, balding man, looked different. She suspected it had come from a coffee shop somewhere nearby. It was smaller around, but taller, and she doubted she could eat it. The last one still gurgled around in her stomach, almost distracting her from her heartache.