* * *
Sabrina Garcia had just finished posting next week’s housekeeping schedule, when the front desk paged her. A guest wanted to see her. Sabrina made her way to the elevator unconcerned. Probably just someone uptight because their towels weren’t fluffy enough. The hotel got that type of guest every once in awhile—people whose self-importance inflated in direct proportion to the amount of time they complained. The best thing to do was smile and promise to fix the problem. Ego boosting: just one more service offered by the Waterfront Place Hotel.
She rode up the elevator, walked across the lobby, and only then took a look at the profile of the man leaning against the front desk. He was in his late forties but was still fit and good looking. He had a full head of blond hair which was slightly tussled, as though he’d just run his hands through it. Small wrinkle lines surrounded his blue eyes. His still-gorgeous blue eyes.
Thoughts of guests with towel issues disappeared. This was worse. Alex Kingsley was here.
She nearly cursed. He had said he would call. Instead he had shown up here without warning, probably to find Alexia so he could whisk her off somewhere. And now Sabrina had to face him unprepared and wearing her shapeless blue housekeeping uniform. She was just glad she’d put on makeup and done her hair this morning. The man apparently didn’t know how to use a phone.
Alex turned and watched her walk up, his gaze taking in every inch of her.
As she reached the desk, he smiled at her softly, casually. “Hello Sabrina.” Then he didn’t say anything else. So that was it? That’s what he had to say to her after nineteen years and a daughter? She stared back at him without answering.
He shifted toward her slightly. “I’m Alex Kingsley.”
Yes, she knew. He didn’t look that different, and besides, Debbie the desk clerk was mouthing the words, “It’s Alex Kingsley!” excitedly behind his back. Debbie looked rapturous about this fact.
“I know,” Sabrina said. “I didn’t forget you.” She hadn’t meant it to come out as an accusation. She only meant that of course she kept up with his singing career. She’d always known she would see him again someday. Perhaps at Lexi’s college graduation or wedding. On both of those occasions she would be prepared—emotionally distant and dressed in something sophisticated, having fussed over her hair, makeup, and nails.
Alex kept his gaze on her. “Is there somewhere we can go to talk? Can I take you out for lunch?”
She looked around as though it could help her find an excuse, an escape. She wasn’t ready to talk to him. Ever since Alexia came home, Sabrina felt like her heart had been scrubbed raw. Fragile and weepy. “I work until three,” she said.
Alex didn’t budge away from the counter. “I’ll talk to your boss and see if he’ll let you off early.”
Her boss, Mr. Crandall, would probably not only agree, he’d get an autograph and then spend the rest of the day bragging to the guests that Alex Kingsley had dropped by. And Alex knew it too. All he had to do was ask and the world moved for him.
Sabrina didn’t want to see this phenomenon in action, and she didn’t want Alex to think he had more power in her hotel than she did. She sighed and turned to Debbie. “Will you tell Mr. Crandall I had to leave early?”
Debbie nodded. She was still standing behind the desk grinning like an idiot.
Alex motioned to the door. “You know the restaurants around here best. Where would you like to go?”
Somewhere I could yell at you if I wanted to, she thought. She didn’t say it. She wasn’t going to yell at him. She wouldn’t let him know she had ever cared that much about him. “What sort of food do you like?” she asked.
“I’m not picky,” he said.
Not surprising. He hadn’t been that picky about women either.
They both headed across the lobby toward the front door. She stole a glance at his profile. Why had he come all the way to West Virginia? There was only one answer. He wanted to take Lexi away from her. He’d come here personally to ask if he could sweep Lexi off to a mansion in Hollywood or take her on a cruise to the Bahamas or something equally horrible. Sabrina wouldn’t let him do it, though. Lexi only had a few months left before college. Sabrina was keeping her home where she belonged until then.
Sabrina smiled pleasantly. “Can you walk into a regular restaurant without getting mobbed?”
Alex took hold of the front door and held it open for her. “The fans are usually pretty considerate. Besides, I’m so far out of my element here, I doubt I’ll be recognized.”
He obviously didn’t realize how many country western fans lived in West Virginia. Sabrina walked through the door feeling odd that he held it open for her, that he offered her that little piece of respect. You weren’t around to open any doors for me when I was nine months pregnant and couldn’t see my feet, she thought, then chided herself for being petty. She had worked through that resentment long ago. She had taken responsibility for her own actions, for her own foolish blind hopes. And besides, she didn’t regret having Lexi. She couldn’t regret her daughter’s eyes, her smile, all of the things she’d gotten from Alex. So where had these bitter emotions suddenly sprung from?
Sabrina smiled at him just to show herself that she could. “We can go to Los Mariachis if you still like Mexican food.”
Perhaps she shouldn’t have revealed that she remembered that about him. His eyebrow rose ever so slightly at the mention. He was cataloging that detail: that she knew trivia about him.
“Still love it,” he said. They’d reached the parking lot, and he gestured toward a sleek black rental car, unlocking it with his key fob.
She had been silly to think that he would remember they’d eaten Mexican food that night. After the concert, Alex told one of his assistants go out and buy food for them to eat in his hotel room. She asked for a chicken chimichanga. She hadn’t specified what sort of sauce she wanted, so the assistant brought her three, one with each kind of sauce to ensure he got it right—as though she would have cared. She had been too nervous, too excited, to eat much anyway.
They reached Alex’s rental car and he went around and opened her door for her. He was probably used to opening doors for starlets wearing sequined dresses and spiky heels. It seemed so out of place here in the parking lot while she wore her hotel uniform and tennis shoes.
“Thanks,” she said.
Alex shut her door, then went around to his side and got in. He turned on his GPS to the restaurant function. “Los Mariachis,” he told it.
His voice sounded the same. She would have recognized it anywhere. Somehow it had imprinted on her mind without her knowing it.
Sabrina tore her gaze away from him and looked around the leather interior of the car. It smelled new and the dashboard was spotless. Not like her own car, which had a perpetual layer of dust clinging to the cracks and crevices. She realized she was clenching her fist by her side and made herself relax. This was ridiculous. She didn’t have to compare herself to him. She didn’t have to worry that she wasn’t good enough. He didn’t have that kind of power over her anymore. She no longer believed he was some demigod to worship. He was just a man and she wasn’t a starry-eyed teenager.
Still looking at his GPS, he said, “As I recall, you liked mango salsa.”
“What?” she asked.
“You told me you liked mango salsa. I’d never heard of it before. Now every time I have some, I think, ‘She was right. It’s good.’”
Sabrina didn’t remember telling him that, but she must have. She’d always liked mango salsa.
She stared back at him half flattered, half incredulous. “You remember that, but you didn’t remember my name?”
“I remembered your first name . . .” The sentence trailed off. His eyes met hers, and she realized that he was nervous. His gaze was apologetic, asking for her to understand. “I just didn’t think that night would matter to you very much.”
“You were wrong,” she said.
The engine was i
dling. He didn’t move the car. They sat there in the parking lot surrounded by empty cars.
“I remember that night every time I look at our daughter,” Sabrina said. “I remember it whenever your face pops up somewhere or I hear your songs.” How could she not? “And now that Kari is a star, I remember you whenever I see her face or hear her songs. She looks so much like Lexi. I keep thinking . . .” Sabrina didn’t finish the sentence. I keep thinking, Lexi could be there too, living that life, and I’m glad she’s not.
Sabrina knew she couldn’t have it both ways—feeling mad at Alex for not being there for Lexi, and at the same time feeling glad he wasn’t. It didn’t make sense, but then, emotions didn’t have to.
“You don’t know much about me,” Sabrina said. “I’m not the type that—I mean, I wouldn’t have gone with you that night unless you had really mattered to me.”
Alex stiffened and shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was still grieving back then. I’d lost my wife and you looked so much like her.” His gaze went over Sabrina again, then rested on her face with an intensity she hadn’t expected. “You still do. I can’t help staring at you and thinking: this is what Maribel would have looked like if she’d lived.”
“No, Maribel would have been wearing nicer clothing.”
He laughed. It was a deep, rich, familiar sound, even though she didn’t remember when she’d heard him laugh before. Had he laughed on the night they met? She could only recall the sadness in his eyes—the quiet longing in them.
On that night, they had talked for hours in his suite. When it was closer to morning than night, he reached out and took her hand, pulled her slowly to him. He hadn’t needed to ask the question. It hung in the air between them, unspoken, while his eyes pleaded with her. In response, she had reached up and wound her arms around his neck, pressed her face into the soft skin at the base of his neck. They stood like that for a minute, just holding one another, until he titled her face up and kissed her.
Those memories sat in her mind with perfect clarity.
“That’s the other thing I remember about you,” he said, still smiling at her joke. “You made me laugh. I hadn’t done that in a long time.”
So he had laughed that night. Strange she didn’t remember it.
The car still idled without moving. It was wasting gas, but he didn’t seem to care. Alex’s voice dropped, grew serious. “I want to make it up to you.”
“Make it up to me?” she repeated. She couldn’t believe he thought it was possible. Memories flashed through her mind. Lexi crying every night during that first year. Sabrina had staggered out of bed to feed her. She couldn’t turn to a husband and say, “Can you get her this time?” Sabrina remembered combing garage sales for baby clothes and buying some boy ones because they were cheap and Lexi needed something to wear. Sabrina had told herself that babies didn’t care what they wore, but Sabrina had cared. She wanted her daughter to wear nothing except soft pastels, new and lovingly chosen from a store.
“I didn’t realize you were so young.” Alex’s voice was soft and full of self-recrimination. “I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you. I’m not usually like that. Maybe that’s why I never tried to find you. I had a chance to go back to Charleston the next year to do a concert and I turned it down. I think I was afraid I’d see you again.”
“You wouldn’t have,” she said. “Not after your manager told me to leave you alone.”
Alex looked out the window and swore before turning back to her. “He never told me you called. Alexia told you that, didn’t she?”
Sabrina nodded. She’d always wondered whether Alex knew or not. Back when she was a new mother, not knowing had hurt. Now she knew, and it still hurt, only in a different way.
Alex held up a hand and let it fall. His lips drew together in a tight line of frustration. “You could have found me and told me yourself. My concert schedule was always posted. I would have talked to you if I’d seen you. Or you could have gotten a lawyer and sued for child support. Instead, you hid Alexia away and told her I didn’t care. She’s got nothing except resentment for me now.”
Sabrina hadn’t expected this burst of anger. She’d been prepared for regret, embarrassment, indifference even. But it was anger he was showing her here in the car, raw and painful. It took her aback.
“Maybe I didn’t think it would matter that much to you,” she said.
He flinched enough to show that the words had stung. “I don’t deserve that. I had a daughter, and I had the right to know her. I would have made sure she had everything she needed. I would have made sure you had everything you needed. I missed her entire childhood.”
He would have made sure she had everything she needed? The sentence cut into her like it was slashing open an old wound. She leaned forward, shivering, even though she wasn’t cold. “You expect me to believe that? You didn’t even call me.”
He let out a sharp breath and gripped the arm rest at his side. The muscles in his arm pulsed. “I’m sorry I lost your phone number. I’m sorry I was messed up and only thinking of myself. I’m sorry you had to raise Alexia by yourself. I’m sorry. How many times do you want me to say it? A hundred? A thousand? Just let me know and I’ll say all of them, but you owe me an apology too.”
Sabrina felt tears pushing at the back of her eyes. Now that the veneer of pleasant banter was gone, it seemed all she had was emotion. Resentment mostly. He had no right to make her feel guilty. It was easy now to swoop in and say you would have been a parent. She had been the one struggling to do it. “Fine,” she said. “I want a sorry for every time Lexi asked about you, and I couldn’t tell her anything because I thought you wanted nothing to do with us. I want a sorry for every Father’s Day gift she made in school that I had to throw away. I want a sorry for every time I saw a man holding his daughter’s hand, and ached because Lexi couldn’t do that. And I apologize for not hunting you down and making sure you knew the truth, but don’t tell me you would have made sure I had everything I needed. You have no idea what I needed.”
She hadn’t meant to say the last part. This was about Lexi, not her. The words came out anyway though. Sabrina hoped Alex would ignore them, pass over them and push the conversation in another direction.
Instead he picked up those words like a shopper examining goods. “What did you need, Sabrina?” He said her name easily and, despite herself, it gave her the same jolt it had when she was younger. Her name on his lips. The syllables of her identity spoken in his smooth, rich voice.
She was obviously incurably foolish. Why not crack open her soul a little further and show him every wound that lay there? The tears were already pooling in her eyes and spilling onto her cheeks. It wasn’t like she could pretend indifference. “I needed you,” she said. “You weren’t about to give me that.”
Sabrina looked away as soon as the words came from her mouth. She didn’t want to see his expression. It would show pity or some sort of manifestation that he considered her too far beneath him, or worse yet, that she was delusional. All of which was probably true. Their relationship had only lasted one night for him.
Outside, the rows of empty cars looked like soldiers in a line, their headlights surveying one another placidly. Sabrina brushed the tears off her cheeks. “I shouldn’t have said that.” She shook her head wearily. “I’m a grown woman with a fulfilling life, but I get into the car with you and I suddenly feel like a needy eighteen-year-old.” She placed her hands in her lap. Her nails were short and unpolished. The hands of someone who was constantly working. “I used to believe we belonged together. Let’s just say it was a hard reality to wake up from.”
The hum of the engine was steady, not revving wildly like her heart. This was because the car knew when to keep its mouth shut. Something she wished she had done.
Alex stared at her silently then said the obvious. “It wasn’t real love. You didn’t even know who I was. Not really.”
It would have been easy to agree with hi
m, to pretend she’d only been foolish back then. But doing so would have betrayed her eighteen-year-old self, and that girl, hurting and alone, needed fierce loyalty. Even if it was only in memory. “I knew everything about you,” she said.
“You knew my image,” he said. “You knew who I was when I was smiling for a crowd and what the tabloids said about me.”
She let out a little laugh that wasn’t a laugh at all. It was surprise that he didn’t realize his personality had always been clearly on display. It had shined out in the cadence of his calm voice, the directness of his gaze, his self-assured walk. “I knew you through your lyrics. When I listened to your albums, I could tell which songs you’d written before I checked the credits. The rest of your band wrote songs about drinking, chasing women, and breaking up. Your songs were about life.” Deep songs, meaningful words that repeated in your mind long after the music faded.
Sabrina shifted in her seat to better look at Alex’s face. “I bet I could tell you which songs of Kari’s you’ve written.” Without waiting for a reply she said, “Two Hearts Apart; A Long Way to Go; and Dreaming of a Better Place.”
Sabrina had bought Kari’s albums when they came out, hiding them away so neither her mother or Lexi would catch her with them. The albums listed Kari as the composer. Sabrina had listened anyway, checking. She wanted to see if Alex was there too, if he’d left a part of himself there to mingle with the notes and chords. She had recognized him in a few of the songs. It had been like getting an unexpected letter from a long-lost friend.
Alex let out an amazed whistle and stared at her.
“I’m right?” she asked, even though his expression already confirmed it.
“I helped on those songs,” he said. “The only one you missed is “Love, Your Style.” I guess I should be flattered you missed that one, though. I was in a black mood when I wrote it. I’d just been through a bad breakup.”
Sabrina silently reviewed the song, seeing it in a new light. It was filled with pain and cynicism.
She had just exposed her own feelings and was still shaky from the experience. Alex, on the other hand, set his heartbreak to music for the whole world to hear. It was either brave or fanatically entrepreneurial to make money off your own pain that way.
She wondered if he would write a song about her now . . . and what it would say.
Alex leaned back against his seat. She looked at his arms and wondered what he’d done to get so tan. The beach? Golf? It had to be some outdoor activity. He wasn’t the type to use a tanning bed or a spray on.
He regarded her cautiously. “What else do you know about me?”
“That you’re not really that hungry. We don’t seem to be moving very far.”
He looked at the steering wheel as though just noticing it and sat forward in his seat. “Sorry. I was supposed to take you to a restaurant, wasn’t I?”
He took hold of the gear shift, and she chided herself for being flippant, for being too afraid to answer his question honestly—that she still knew everything about him. It had been her secret vice to keep up on him. And why shouldn’t she? She had needed to know those sorts of details for the day when she finally told Lexi about him. It was only for Lexi. Sabrina had fallen out of love with him and moved on long ago. Hadn’t she had her share of boyfriends? It didn’t mean anything that she’d never actually wanted to settle down with any of them. Raising Lexi and finishing her degree had just always taken precedence.
Alex shifted the car into reverse. Sabrina put her hand on his arm before he could pull out of the parking space. She didn’t want to go sit in a restaurant and put the veneer of polite conversation back on again. “You don’t have to take me anywhere. I don’t really want to go out in public. I’m a mess.”
His gaze ran over her. He didn’t shift back to park. “No, you’re not. You look great.”
She tilted her head at him in disbelief. “I’ve just been crying, and I’m wearing my housekeeping uniform.”
“You still look great. I know women who spend all day in the salon trying to look as beautiful as you do—” He broke off suddenly, as though he’d said something wrong, and put the car back into park. “Look, I’m not trying to hit on you or anything.”
“What?” Her mind was still lingering on his comment, and she hadn’t processed the implications of the rest of his sentence.
“I don’t want you to think I’m hitting on you again. I’m not a total jerk. I realize you probably have a boyfriend, and even if you don’t, you spent too much time over the years throwing darts at my pictures to care what I think. I’m just trying to make amends.”
“I never threw darts at your picture. Curses, maybe, but not darts.” She smiled despite herself. He thought she was beautiful. She felt a spiteful sense of happiness that he was complimenting her instead of all those starlets she’d seen with him in tabloids.
He turned toward the backseat of the car. She followed his gaze and saw a pair of small, slender boxes sitting there. One black, one white. He picked up the black one, fingering it nervously. “I’m not . . . I know that . . .” He ran a hand through his dusky-blond hair, apparently at a loss for words.
“What?” she prompted.
“This is probably stupid and I shouldn’t do it, but I feel bad that you and Alexia had to carry around Maribel’s necklace for years. I shouldn’t have stuck you with that memory. I shouldn’t have compared you to her in the first place.” He gave a frustrated grunt. “Even knowing that, I did it again. Two minutes after we climbed into this car, I told you how much you look like her.”
“I never minded that,” Sabrina said, somehow unable to let him feel guilty for that part. She had always liked the fact that she looked like his first wife. Back when she was younger it was one of the things that had convinced her she and Alex belonged together—even God thought so. Otherwise he wouldn’t have formed Sabrina to be exactly Alex Kingsley’s type.
“I know you’re not her,” he said. “I just wanted to tell you thanks for the sacrifices you’ve made to raise Alexia right. That says a lot about you.” He handed the box awkwardly to Sabrina. “Consider each one of those stones an “I’m sorry.” Now I’m only a few thousand apologies short.”
Stones? She took the box from him, stunned. She should feel something at this moment. Maybe gratitude, or perhaps indignation that he thought he could throw money around to win her over. But he seemed so genuinely eager for her to like the gift that she couldn’t refuse it. His genuine nature. That’s what had attracted her to him in the first place, and here it was again, swaying her actions.
She flipped open the box. Snuggled against black velvet was a necklace dripping with rubies. They grew progressively bigger until the center stone, which was a perfect, winking red circle.
She stared at them, entranced.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
She didn’t touch the necklace. “It’s stunning.” It belonged on the neck of an actress. Someone who was off to a posh red-carpet event. Sabrina had no idea when or where she’d ever be able to wear it, which deflated her a little. Alex Kingsley had finally given her a gift meant for her, and she would only be able to stare at it in the box. This necklace belonged to a completely different world than she did.
He must have read apprehension into her gaze. “It’s a purely platonic gift,” he told her. “I’m not hitting on you.”
She glanced up from the box. “You know, I wouldn’t mind if you hit on me a little. ‘Women scorned’ like that sort of thing. It’s vindication.”
He cracked a smile. “Okay, in that case, I’m hitting on you a little, just so you feel vindicated.”
She laughed, checking his gaze to see if there was any truth to his words. His blue eyes met hers and flashed with some emotion. Perhaps earnestness. Perhaps he was testing the waters. Or maybe it was just her imagination. She was, after all, incurably foolish where he was concerned.
He gestured at the box. “If you don’t like it, I can get you so
mething else.”
“No, it’s beautiful.” She ran a finger over the rich red gems. “I’m just not sure where I would wear something this elegant.”
“Ahh,” he said, with a note of understanding. He unclipped the necklace from the box. “You’re in luck. These are all-purpose, dress-up, dress-down rubies. Here, let me show you.” He undid the clasp and reached toward her. She only had time to sweep her hair away from her shoulders before he was leaning over, putting his arms around her while he redid the clasp. She sat stiffly, trying not to react to his sudden nearness. She could smell his aftershave. His fingers brushed against her skin, making her neck tingle.
He’d done this the last time they met too. He had put a necklace on her, and his fingers had lingered, gently caressing the back of her neck and making their way to her shoulders.
This time he sat back and surveyed her with satisfaction. The memory of the first necklace vanished. She was back in the present. Alex Kingsley was sitting just inches away. It seemed unfair that after nineteen years he was still handsome enough to make her heart stutter several beats. He flipped down the passenger-side mirror for her. “See, it’s the perfect way to accessorize any hotel uniform.”
She nodded, breathing too hard to speak.
Definitely incurably foolish.
“I could take you out to an exclusive restaurant,” he said, still surveying her. “Then you’d have some place to wear it. I don’t mind waiting if you want to change.”
She grinned, not because he’d said anything funny, but because she’d been so worried about meeting him, and here he was trying his hardest to please her. He wanted her friendship. That knowledge relaxed her. Maybe it was time to change lots of things. “Why don’t you come to my house for dinner instead. Lexi will be anxious to see you again.”
He hesitated. “She was pretty steamed when she talked to me last. What’s the best way to handle this now?”
With patience, Sabrina thought. And lots of forgiveness.
Sabrina reached out and put her hand on his arm in a confiding manner. “Lexi wants to love you. It will just take some time. But that’s okay. She’s a wonderful girl.”
He nodded, his gaze first on Sabrina’s hand, then her eyes. “I wanted to talk to you about that. I’d like you and Lexi to come out to my ranch in California so we can spend some time getting to know each other. I’ve got horses, a pool, a weight room, a music studio—if she’s interested in that sort of thing—and it’s not too far away from shopping and the nightlife . . . .” His voice trailed off. He was waiting for reaction. “I can hit on you if that would help to sway your decision . . . .”
She laughed—a happy, tinkling sound even to her own ears. “We’ll talk to Lexi about it. Let’s go to my house and get something to eat. I’ve got mango salsa.”
He smiled at her and put the car in reverse.
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NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR
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Janette
Contact me on-line at my website, JanetteRallison.com (email: [email protected])
Other titles by Janette Rallison
Son of War, Daughter of Chaos
My Fairly Dangerous Godmother
My Fairly Dangerous Godmother audio book
Blue Eyes and Other Teenage Hazards
Just One Wish
Just One Wish audio book
Masquerade
My Double Life
A Longtime (and at One Point Illegal) Crush
The Girl Who Heard Demons
Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Free Throws
Playing The Field
The Wrong Side of Magic
My Fair Godmother
My Unfair Godmother
All’s Fair in Love, War, and High School
Fame, Glory, and Other Things on my To Do List
It’s a Mall World After All
Revenge of the Cheerleaders
How to Take The Ex Out of Ex-boyfriend
Slayers (under pen name CJ Hill)
Slayers: Friends and Traitors (under pen name CJ Hill)
Erasing Time (under pen name CJ Hill)
Echo in Time (under pen name CJ Hill)
What the Doctor Ordered (under pen name Sierra St. James)
My Double Life Page 39