Chapter Five
DID HE SAY he was getting a drink? Susan hurried after him, wishing her legs were longer so she could keep up. Amazing how the man could cut through a crowd like butter.
She finally caught up with him—nearly collided with him, actually—when he stopped cold about a foot from the bar. “What are you doing?”
“I—I…” He washed a hand across his lips. “Something stupid.”
Exactly what she’d feared. The question was why? After all his talk about reforming his image, why would he risk sabotaging himself right as his plan was taking off?
There were too many people around to have this conversation. Lewis’s arrival had most of the room starstruck. She could see people all around them sneaking glances.
Grabbing his hand, she moved past the bar and down the back pathway where she spied a water display in the far corner. The splashing water from the falls discouraged most people from standing too close. They would have privacy there.
There was only one other couple lingering by the water’s edge.
The pair shot them a look upon arrival, with the woman, not surprisingly, looking a bit incredulously at Susan.
Ignoring them, Susan pulled Lewis off the walkway and into the foliage.
There was only a small spot of bare ground, but if they stood close together, they wouldn’t trample anything.
“What are you doing, Lewis?” she hissed, just loud enough to be heard over the water.
“I thought you were a ‘changed man.’ Pretty sure making a beeline for the bar isn’t one of the sobriety rules.
And don’t try to tell me you meant to grab a glass of water, because I saw the look on your face.
” It was like a mask had dropped over his features. The muscles by his jaw began to twitch.
He wore a different expression now. Eyes lowered, his brow drawn together. “I know. It was stupid. I wasn’t thinking.”
Something had flipped his switch. “People don’t just fall off the wagon without some kind of trigger. What happened?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, it does matter,” she told him. “I didn’t agree to this little charade only to have you muck it up and embarrass us both.”
Plus, not that she’d say so out loud, his sudden change in demeanor worried her.
He was supposed to be this sexy, confident “reformed” playboy.
The man she saw a moment ago had looked vulnerable and dare she say, insecure.
Insecurity was her albatross. Men with perfect faces and perfect lips didn’t experience self-doubt.
“You don’t have to worry,” Lewis told her. “It was a momentary blip. Nothing more.”
“I believe you.” After all, he’d stopped himself before even getting to the bar. “Still, I’d feel better if I knew what set the blip off.”
“Silly really,” he said, looking downward.
“I’ve faced down some of the world’s toughest players with thousands of people watching without flinching, but put me in a room full of tuxedo-wearing strangers and I’m a bundle of nerves.
” Susan’s breath caught as he moved his hand toward her shoulder, only to fiddle with a frond hanging behind her.
“I’m sure that sounds ludicrous to someone like you. ”
“What do you mean someone like me?” The branch he was playing with was brushing against her curls, causing little ripples of awareness.
“This is your world. Sophisticated. Highbrow. You belong in it.”
Hardly, but this wasn’t the time to argue. At least about that. “Excuse me, Mr. Celebrity Millionaire. This is your world too.”
“You know,” he said, “I tell myself that very thing all the time. That I belong.”
“But?” She could hear the doubt in his voice.
“But then I look at these people and I can hear them thinking What is he doing here? It’s like they know where I came from.”
“So what if they do?” she asked. “You have nothing to be ashamed of. Heck, half of this room is probably wondering how they can wrangle an introduction. More than half, likely.”
“For now.”
Susan frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“You said it yourself. I’m a celebrity. The more distance between me and my playing days, however, the less it’ll matter. Until eventually I’ll be just some bloke who was once a somebody and they’ll wonder…” He shook his head. “Never mind.”
“Tell me. Please.” If whatever was on his mind was distressing enough that he would consider drinking, she wanted to help.
He answered so softly, she almost didn’t hear. “And they’ll wonder why they ever wanted me around in the first place. Silly, huh?”
A piece of her heart broke for him. “No,” she told him. Illogical perhaps, but far from silly. He wasn’t talking about reality; he was talking about a feeling that dwelled deep down inside a person. A feeling logic couldn’t always touch.
“The Collier men are all very tall,” she told him. “Very tall, very handsome and very charismatic, like my father. My mother is very beautiful. Like stop-traffic beautiful.”
He was looking at her with dark, fathomless eyes. “I’m not following.”
“When I was seven or eight—right before my mother took off—my parents threw a party. I wore this fancy party dress and my father told me how pretty I looked. I asked if I was as pretty as Mommy. And when he replied, Absolutely, my mother replied, Don’t lie to the girl, Preston.
That was the moment I knew that I wasn’t like the rest of them.
No matter how hard I tried, I would always be the odd one out. ”
Now it was she who felt judged as Lewis’s gaze bore down on her. She’d meant the example as a sign of solidarity. Instead, she’d revealed that she was the Ugly Duckling of her family. He must think her daft. Why did she share anything?
His deep brown eyes moved closer. “Thank you. Knowing you understand means a lot.” He ran the back of his hand down her cheek. “More than you could know.”
A shiver worked its way through Susan’s body. Odd, since she’d suddenly grown very warm. Between the greenhouse temperature and the warmth emanating from Lewis’s body, the air around her had grown thick. It was making her light-headed.
“Everything all right?” Lewis asked.
“Can we sit down somewhere?”
“Of course. Come with me.” He tucked a curl behind her ear.
Since the other couple had departed—escaping the awkwardness of standing near a couple whispering in the bushes no doubt—Susan assumed they would head back to the walkway. Instead, Lewis took her hand and together they picked their way toward the waterfall.
“You were looking a little pink,” he said, as he guided her to a seat on a nearby rock. The air was noticeably cooler by the water.
“We’re going to get in trouble for being off the walkway.”
“We won’t stay long. Besides, the gardeners or whatever walk through here, don’t they? That’s why there are paths.”
Susan shook her head. “You’re funny. One minute you’re telling me you worry about fitting in and the next you’re flouting the rules. One would think you’re self-sabotaging.”
“Psychoanalyzing again, are we?”
“I told you, psychology’s my thing.” Fat lot of good it ever did her though. Being able to psychoanalyze everyone but herself.
“Bit of an odd hobby, isn’t it?” Lewis asked.
“What can I say? I’m rubbish at arts and crafts. I got into it when I was a teenager. My attempt to understand my mother better.”
He touched her knee, his hand bringing a steadying warmth. “Did you? Understand her better?”
“I learned a bunch of terms, all of which boiled down to her being a selfish piece of work who didn’t want to share the spotlight with a child. They want so much attention, you know.”
She tossed aside the last part with an overdramatic voice, but the sting never really left.
When she was younger she blamed her looks, thinking if she was taller or thinner or elegant like the Collier boys, then her mother might have wanted her around.
As she grew older, however, she realized her mother wouldn’t have wanted the competition.
The sad truth was her mother just plain didn’t want her.
“At least you knew how she felt,” Lewis said. “My mum cried holy hell when they took me away, but not so much that she couldn’t get her act together.”
“Just like Belinda,” she said. “Guess that makes us two odd peas in a pod.”
“Guess so,” Lewis replied with a smile.
She slipped her hand over his, and their fingers entwined. With the connection came a strange, full kind of feeling. Kinship, Susan realized. For the first time she felt understood. It was a heady, seductive feeling.
Ironic that she would set out to comfort him and end up being the one comforted.
“I’m not the only one who’s an enigma,” he continued.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, for one thing, I keep looking for this unlikable shrew part of you, and I can’t see it. I mean, you’ve got sharp edges, but who hasn’t, right?”
He couldn’t have said a nicer thing if he tried. “Thank you.”
“Just calling it like I see it. And what I see looks pretty nice. Very nice, in fact.” His smile sobered as his gaze dropped to her lips. Susan’s pulse quickened, remembering the last time he’d looked at her mouth.
Instead of leaning in like she thought he would, however, Lewis suddenly released her hand and rose to his feet.
“We should get back on the path before we get in trouble,” he said. “Won’t do either of our reputations any good if we get tossed out on our ears. I can see the headline now. Stay Off the Grass, Lewis!”
“I’m sure they’d come up with something punnier than that.
” Although an example escaped her. She was too busy hiding her disappointment behind smoothing her dress.
Her embarrassment too, for thinking he’d been about to kiss her.
Talk about foolish. There were no cameras, no giant screen.
Why would he want to kiss her if there was nothing to gain?
They snuck out of the plants the way they’d come, emerging to the backs of several other partygoers who were standing on the path.