Crush (26 page)

“I promised you time.” He latched onto the one shot he had left. “It hasn’t been twenty-four hours yet. Forget I proposed. Let’s just continue as we have been. You can always change your mind.”

“But I won’t change my mind.” Fine lines of misery sprouted between her eyebrows. “I’m so sorry, Lucas. Please. Go.”
While I can still let you go.

His heart danced erratically as he searched for something else to say, something that would change her mind and take them back to where they had been before his proposal. He wanted to grab her, to swear his eternal devotion to her. But her beautiful eyes were blind to all but the past heartbreaks she had endured. He reluctantly accepted that the harder he tried to convince her, the more willingly she would cast him off.

“As you wish, Miranda.”

She sat frozen on the sofa, her stomach twisted into a tight knot. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead. Only after Lucas had dressed, collected his coat and closed the front door behind him did she find the power to speak or move. “What have I done?” she whispered in the otherwise empty apartment. “
Ó Deus
, what have I done?”

A hot wave of nausea washed over her, and she ran for the bathroom. Her torso convulsed from the force of the dry heaves that continued long after she had sicked up the scant contents of her belly. She sat on the bathroom floor for a long time, sure that she had done the right thing, her only comfort coming from the cool porcelain bowl of the toilet.

Chapter 11

“What is it with your boyfriends and St. Louis?” Meg asked after slithering alongside Miranda as she made her way to the
Herald-Star
parking lot.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Miranda groaned. She had abandoned her toilet bowl only to come to the office to get her assignments from Hodge and pick up her mail. She had needed to get out of her apartment to escape the Karmic Echo fans who had returned in renewed numbers and chanted, “Will you ‘I do?
’
” beneath her window. She never would have made it out of the building and to her car if her downstairs neighbor hadn’t been kind enough to let her climb out of his kitchen window and onto his fire escape, which luckily overlooked the parking lot in the back of the building. Miranda was in her car and speeding down the alley before the crowd noticed her and began to tail her.

For the first time fans were waiting for her at the gates to the
Herald-Star
parking lot. For once, there was actually a security guard manning the attendant’s booth. He came to Miranda’s assistance when a fan sprinted onto the lot and begged Miranda for her autograph.

A neighbor’s photo of Lucas standing on her “engagement” rock had made
Psst!
along with a quote from the double-crossing QWIX courier and a headline that read:
Rock Star’s Proposal Rocks
Herald-Star
Reporter
. The courier had vividly described Miranda’s Valentine’s Day ensemble of Emma Peel boots and soccer sweatshirt, and although he hadn’t known for sure what the box contained, he knew that he’d been sent to deliver a ring box. Miranda hadn’t been able to mourn in private, thanks to the media storm Lucas’s proposal had generated. She’d had to unplug her phone directly from the wall, and for the first time in her entire journalism career, she wasn’t carrying a cell phone. She hadn’t logged on to her e-mail account, and she probably wouldn’t for the foreseeable future. And now she had Meg tailing her down the urine-colored
Herald-Star
corridor like a pit bull after a wounded duckling.

“I’m talking about Lucas’s trip to St. Louis to meet Tess Cullor, that pretty young singer he’s supposed to duet with,” Meg said. Her heavy thighs hissed in her silk pantsuit as she tried to keep up with Miranda’s long strides. “It seems that every time your boyfriends go west, they come back and they aren’t your boyfriend any more.”

“Drop dead, Meg,” Miranda said. “As usual, you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t I?” Meg said. Her lips made a wet, smacking sound as they thinned into a wide smile. “I know that Lucas didn’t go to St. Louis because you threw a jealous tantrum.”

Color flared in Miranda’s cheeks.

“Don’t be so surprised, Miranda,” Meg said. “My tipsters come from everywhere, even from airplanes flying over Costa Rica.”

Miranda walked a little faster.

“I also know that Lucas asked you to marry him on Valentine’s Day, and judging from your miserable face and the fact that you look like you haven’t slept in a week, you probably said no. Or was he the one who changed his mind about
you
? Perhaps he’s bored of his ethnic experimentation. Did you notice that you were the only…how should I put this?” She tapped her chin. “You were the only woman with a
natural tan
in Lucas’s top twenty-five. Did you really think that you were the one?”

Miranda broke her stride to step in front of Meg. She backed the wider, older woman into the wall, and stood nose to nose with her as she said, “This stops right now, Meg. This is my life you’re messing with. If I see one more tease, headline, or story about me in your column, I will roll the
Herald-Star
into a tight little tube and beat you bloody with it. Do you understand me?”

Meg sidestepped away. “Are you threatening me, you snot-nosed little minx?”

“You bet your fat ass I am,” Miranda said grimly as she started back down the corridor.

* * *

Miranda spent the next few weeks in hell. A splinter group of Karmic Echo fans, calling themselves the Miranda Penney Fan Club, took turns camping out across the street from her building, hoping to catch a glimpse of Lucas sneaking in to see her. They followed her to the supermarket, the gas station, Mama Brown’s, and even attended basketball games so they could cheer
her
rather than the home team.

Her conventional mail and e-mail had quadrupled as Lucas’s admirers from all over the world saw fit to write to her, to tell her they were happy that she was marrying Lucas, or to say that they hated her for marrying Lucas. She had her home phone number changed not once, but twice, and even had to get a new cell phone number. Karmic Echo fans were gradually overshadowed by entertainment shows and magazines, all of which were desperate to get to the truth: Did Lucas propose, or didn’t he? Did Miranda accept, or didn’t she? Most were convinced that Miranda and Lucas were feigning a breakup, so they could sneak off and get married in a private ceremony.

On the first day of spring, Calista arrived in Boston for the second fitting of her wedding gown. The press, particularly the
Herald-Star
, jumped on the visit, speculating that Calista was in town for a wedding, all right, but Miranda’s, rather than her own.

Calista and Bernie—who had tagged along for the fitting—giggled like children after fighting through the crowds in front of Miranda’s building. They stood at the window, waving at the fans that whistled and called for Miranda. When Miranda stomped over to the window and snatched the curtains shut, her guests decided it was time to get to the bottom of her exceptionally sour mood.

“Miranda,” Calista began, “Bernie and I think we need to talk.”

“I’m listening.” Miranda plopped onto her sofa and turned on
SportsCenter
.

Calista and Bernie sat on either side of her. “I figured you would have spilled the beans by now about what happened between you and Lucas,” Bernie said. “You’ve been holing up in this apartment when you aren’t out jumping through b-ball hoops for Rex. You’ve lost weight, you never smile any more and you’re developing unsightly luggage beneath your eyes. I know that Lucas has been overseas for the past two weeks recording at Conwy, but this is more than you just missing him.” Bernie threaded his fingers through hers. “What’s going on, baby?”

“Did you two have a fight?” Calista asked, placing an arm around her sister’s shoulders.

Miranda shook her head. She was afraid that she would burst into tears if she dared speak. She’d had her anger to bolster her when Meg had asked about Lucas, but she had no defense against the united kindness of her sister and her best friend.

“J. Harold Christ,” Bernie said suddenly, his eyes wide in shock. “He really did propose, didn’t he?”

Miranda nodded, her chin quivering.

“Andy,” Calista sighed. She touched her head to Miranda’s and hugged her. “I hope you did the right thing.”

“I hope so, too,” Miranda croaked.

“I don’t know how you two have managed to keep it a secret,” Bernie said. He took the remote and began flipping through the stations. “I’ve been getting calls every day from people who want to know if you and Lucas are getting married, if you were already secretly married, or if you killed him and have him stored in your freezer. Rex is being painfully kind to me, hoping that I’ll reveal something he can use to sell his dusty old newspa—
The Blue Lag
oon
!” Bernie set down the remote. “This is just what you need to feel better. Brooke’s eyebrows, Christopher’s loincloth…Got any microwave popcorn?”

Calista took Miranda by the hand and led her up to her bedroom, leaving Bernie alone with his favorite movie of all time. In the darkened room, Calista kicked an empty shoebox under the bed as she sat on the edge of it. “Why did you say no?” Calista asked.

Miranda leaned against the wall. Her misery seemed to have taken solid form, weighing down her shoulders to the point where the mere act of breathing caused her pain. “I know myself well enough to know that I couldn’t survive it if he ever cheated on me,” she answered wearily.

“That’s not fair,” Calista said. “To you or to him. Don’t you trust him?”

“Yes.”

“I know you love him.”

Miranda nodded.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Even in the dim, Calista seemed to glow, like a daffodil against a bed of black soil. She had always been the more easygoing and forthright of the two Penney girls. To Miranda’s thinking, Calista was proving to be the most daring, by charging ahead with her plans to marry Alec.

“Don’t tell anyone,” Miranda said. “My life is hard enough as it is. The last thing I need is for this to get out right now.”

Calista went to her sister and gave her a big hug. “You got it, sis. Your secret is safe with me.”

* * *

Miranda froze, her hand tightening around the paintbrush she was using to cover the wall of her kitchen with pale pink paint. She had thrown herself into the remodeling project to distract her from her desolate feelings about Lucas. Pink was supposed to be a depression-busting color, but the actual physical exertion of painting was doing more for her peace of mind than the color. Calista had stayed a few more days before going back to Maryland, and Bernie had assumed the role of caregiver. He sat in the living room, watching television, while Miranda painted.

But now, Miranda was paralyzed by a voice other than Bernie’s.

She knew that Lucas was on the opposite side of the continent, in Los Angeles, yet his voice filled her head. It filled her apartment. And the soulful, melodic words he sang belonged to Al Green.

Miranda’s feet spun cartoonishly, her socks unable to gain purchase on her linoleum before she ran into the living room and slid to a stop before the television. Lucas was on the big-screen. He was alone onstage in a soft wash of warm blue light. Blue highlights shimmered in his hair, and a black silk shirt complemented his tanned skin. His head bowed over a slim black microphone stand, he splayed his right hand over his chest. His left hand absently tapped one leather-clad thigh to the beat of “Let’s Stay Together.”

Miranda swallowed hard.

“It’s the Creative Arts Music Council Awards,” Bernie said. “According to the press release, Lucas was slated to perform one of his own songs. Guess he changed his mind.”

Lucas’s voice was enough to make her weep in ecstasy, but the words of the song, and the emotion he put behind them, altered the rhythm of her heartbeat.

“Remote,” she gasped, unable to shift her eyes from the television. Lucas, gripping the mike in both hands, subtly shifted his lean hips from side to side in time to the music. “Change it,” Miranda demanded anxiously, her hand going to her throat. “I don’t want to see this, Bernie.”

“Can’t find the clicker.” Bernie lounged deeper into the sofa.

“Bernie, please,” Miranda squeaked. She sidestepped toward him, her gaze on Lucas as she blindly felt for the remote on her cocktail table. “Check the sofa cushions. You have to get rid of him.”

The music swelled as Lucas belted out the chorus. His face filled the screen, his plea filling his eyes and his eyes seemed to be right on Miranda. She dropped weakly onto the sofa, tossing pillows left and right, hoping the remote control would appear.

“If you truly don’t want to see him,” Bernie said flatly, “you could actually walk over there and change the channel the old-fashioned way.”

With a groan of frustration, Miranda marched across the room and kneeled before the television. Lucas, his image larger than life, sang the hell out of Al Green’s signature song. Her finger on the channel up button, Miranda couldn’t bring herself to press it. Her eyes drifted shut, her pulse throbbed in time to Lucas’s provocative and soulful performance. “Lucas,” she whispered as the song ended and applause rose to drown out the last notes of the music. She opened her eyes and brought her fingers toward Lucas’s image. He gave the camera a tiny, brittle smile but his eyes remained somber as he tipped his head toward his appreciative audience.

When her fingertips struck the glass, Miranda found herself touching a deodorant ad. She looked back at Bernie, who held the remote control.

“Found it,” he said softly. “Channel’s changed.”

* * *

A production assistant dressed in black muttered into a wireless headset transmitter as she led Lucas through the congested backstage of the Creative Arts Music Council Awards show. She guided him past the “kiss and cry” area, the place where teary-eyed and joyful award recipients clutched their statues and posed for photos while answering questions from a dense crowd of reporters. His role as one of the evening’s entertainers completed, Lucas had the option of either taking a seat in the audience at the next commercial break, or going home.

Lucas pulled away from the production assistant’s grasp and headed straight for the rear doors. Fellow artists, fans and production staff fawned over him as he pushed his way through the crowd. Women with backstage passes corralled him at every turn, and his bodyguards had to form a wall around him just to get him out of the building in one piece. Once he was safe inside his limo, he directed the driver to take him directly to the airport.

Six months ago, he would have stayed for the rest of the show, quietly basking in the adulation and attention of his fans and peers. He would have been admitted to any after-party he deigned grace with his presence. He would have had his pick of the available women…as well as some of the more aggressive and adventurous unavailable ones.

If what he’d wanted was a woman to laugh at his every utterance, who’d welcome him into her body before even telling him her name, and who expected him to wrap her in diamonds and a minute or two of residual fame, then a party would be just the thing.

But Lucas wanted a woman who wouldn’t jump at his every desire. He wanted someone who disagreed with him for sport as much as to defend a viewpoint. He wanted a woman who laughed when he passed gas in bed, or punched him in the shoulder when he did it more than once.

He wanted a woman who treated him as though he were an ordinary man, all while making him feel as though he were the only man in the world. He wanted the one woman Fate had ever given him who wasn’t like any other woman.