The Magic Of Christmas (6 page)

Unfolding the note, Cecilia immediately recognized the slashing, harsh handwriting.  She smiled to herself.  Some things never changed, it seemed.

Celli...

In the back room.

I'm waiting.

I always have been.

L/D

Logan.  Drake.  One and the same.

She had a choice to make.  She could ignore the note if she chose.  Her gut told her that he would not seek her out and risk causing a scene, at least not any more of one than he already had back at the Orpheum.  He would wait for her to come to him.  If she chose.  He left the decision up to her, but she had known her decision from the moment she opened the note.  There had only ever been one choice she could make.

Picking up her drink and the old, ornate brass key, Cecilia slowly made her way through the longer part of the lounge that stretched down the main side street that linked the two primary town thoroughfares together and headed towards the very back of the building.

There, she knew what she would find - a private room that only the very wealthiest in town could afford to reserve for their private assignations.  Effectively hidden from the rest of the lounge by a heavily scarred oak door, only the key in her hand would unlock the door from this side.  The room offered complete privacy for those who required it, whatever their business.

When Cecilia had been a waitress in the dining room downstairs she had been one of the select few staff chosen to serve those who used the back room.  At the time, she had used the service stairs to ferry trays of food and drinks from the dining room to the private area with some frequency.  Even now, she suspected she was one of the few people who knew all of the odd, old passageways that connected this building to the others on the block in a large, labyrinthine maze of corridors and stairs that had developed over time as businesses expanded and changes were made to the buildings.

Most people, including many locals, assumed the only entrance to the back room, other than the serving entrance, was through the Chester Room and the old oak door.  Cecilia knew differently.  If Drake knew as well, that meant tonight was not his first night staying in the maze of businesses that made up the College Corner complex.  That type of closely guarded secret wasn't one the staff revealed to first time guests.

There was another door to the room, that one accessible only from The Old Hotel.  Since Cecilia hadn't seen Drake pass through the Chester Room, she knew he was staying in the adjacent hotel, probably in the fifth floor Presidential Suite that offered a sweeping view of the little college town they had once both called home.  The Presidential Suite also offered a back staircase that led to the secret room via an enclosed walkway just off the hotel's small lobby.  He could move around without being seen.  A man hiding in the shadows, just as he had always been.

For a moment, Cecilia contemplated the key in her hand.  She could walk away and he would never know.  He wouldn't seek her out, not again.  Her refusal to meet him tonight would be her answer to the unspoken questions that had been plaguing her since the moment she had seen his face on the playbill.  The ones she had seen written on his face each time he had looked at her that night.

Do you still want me?  Do you still desire me the way I desire you?

Well, she had questions of her own, probably more than he did.

Who are you?  Who is Drake Vale?  Are you still the boy I used to know?  What happened to Logan or is he gone forever?  Can you still make my toes curl with your kiss?

The last question was the easiest to answer.  Yes.  Yes, he could, especially since she had felt her panties grow damp with just one look from him.  As for the others?  She didn't know and she never would unless she walked through the door.

However, she also resolved to be strong.  The Logan she remembered had always been able to sweet-talk her into just about anything.  Including being with him in the truest sense of the word.  She would have if he would have asked, even at thirteen.  Or any of the years in between.  Not tonight.  Tonight she needed to revisit the past and then let it go.  Let him go.  He was Drake Vale.  He was not Logan any more.  And it was time for her to stop chasing after a ghost.  It was time for her to move on from the lost love that was Logan and find someone real who could love her and that she could love in return.

Maybe tonight was fate's way of helping her put her life to rights, to help her quell the restlessness that had been eating her up inside.  Maybe it all began with saying goodbye - finally - to Logan.

Taking a deep breath, she slid the key in the lock and turned it.  She knew he had heard the tumblers click into place.  He knew she had come.  There was no going back.

With firm resolution and more than a little trepidation, she twisted the heavy brass knob that matched the key and pushed on the door, feeling it swing open slightly.

When she had been younger she had envied the people who met in this room, the romantic in her making up all sorts to stories about their lives and what their meetings were about.  She had imagined lovers meeting here for clandestine trysts and spies exchanging secrets out of sight of prying eyes.  Wall Street power brokers hammering out billion dollar deals and secrets never meant to be seen by prying eyes exchanged in the room's notoriously dim lighting.

Never had she imagined that she would be the one meeting for a clandestine tryst.  For there was no doubt in her mind what would happen if Drake kissed her.  She would give in and allow him to take her to bed.  She had wanted it at thirteen and she wanted it just as badly now.

The ache inside of her where he had always been had never stopped.  She'd taken lovers, had boyfriends and even thought herself in love once.  But none of them had ever been him.  Logan.  Drake. Whatever his name was.  He had always been the man for her, an improbable romantic hero of a boy whose perfection only grew in her mind as the years passed.

There was no way he could possibly be the god she remembered.  He'd been a child.  So had she, really.  Yet her heart insisted otherwise.  Men like him didn't change, not when they had been forged by a harsh childhood filled with beatings and terror.  The boys of principle they were grew into men of strength and honor.  She knew that.  Or rather, her heart did.

And he was waiting for her on the other side of that door.

Chapter Five

"You came.  I wasn't certain that you would."  Drake's voice was rough and he didn't mean it to be.  He wanted this first true meeting between them to showcase the best of himself, not the worst.  And his unbridled attraction to Cecilia would probably be more than enough to scare her away.  Hell, it scared him.  It was that intense.

"You asked."  Her voice was the same pure alto that he remembered and it washed over him like it was cool water and he a man dying of thirst.  "How could I not?"

He rose and gave her a small shrug.  "Easily, I'd think.  I might not be the person you remembered."

Slowly, she undid the toggles holding her tan wool cape closed and pushed the garment from her shoulders, an act so sensual and deliberate that Drake found himself hard for her already.  "As I said," she replied, choosing her words as carefully now as she had back in the theater, "I would know you anywhere.  The moment I saw that playbill, I knew.  You can hide from the others, but never from me."

He gave a dry chuckle and she noticed the way he clutched the back of the chair he'd been sitting in when she arrived, his knuckles white from the strength of his grip.  "I never could.  You always looked at me and knew exactly who I was.  Even when I was trying to hide."

She took another step into the room and he let his hungry gaze roam her body.  She had filled out in the years since he had seen her last, yet her face had lost its baby fat, giving her a leaner, more womanly look.  Yet her body was just as curvy as it had ever been and clad in that black dress, she looked like a holiday treat he wanted to unwrap and savor.  For hours.

"So who are you now?  Because I'm not certain I know any longer," she asked as she took another step towards him.  "Are you Logan?  Or are you Drake?"

For a moment he looked down at his clenched hands, deciding best how to answer her.  He didn't think she would be open to a kiss just yet.  "A little of both.  Professionally and legally, I am Drake Vale."  Slowly he released his grip, his hematite ring cutting into his finger a bit painfully.  "Once I left College Heights and moved to New Jersey with my Aunt Agatha, I felt the need to start over and she agreed with me.  Drake was my middle name and it seemed to suit me, especially after I decided to become an illusionist.  Shortened my last name, dyed my hair and Drake Vale was born."  He looked up to see her regarding him thoughtfully.  "Disappointed?"

Cecilia shook her head.  She knew his past, knew how much he longed for a fresh start when he'd been younger.  "How could I be?  It was your choice.  Your life."  Then she bit her upper lip as if uncertain how he would receive her next words.  "And you did keep a part of Logan."  She gestured to his left hand.  "You kept his ring."

"You gave it to me the day I left.  There was no way I would part with it."  He studied the thick black band around his finger.  "I've had it made bigger over the years, but at heart, it's still the same ring."

"And the other?"  She gestured to his right hand and the silver band he wore there.  She had an inkling of where the center stone had come from but she wanted to hear him say the words, to prove to her that a part of Logan still existed and that Drake hadn't erased him completely.

He slid it off his finger and offered it to her.  "Blue Goldstone.  From the ring we found at the flea market outside of town that last summer.  When I hit it big, the first thing I did was take the stone to a jeweler and had him make the ring for me.  It's not a diamond or a sapphire, but it means more."

She remembered vividly the day they had found the broken ring in a box of junk jewelry at a local flea market.  The man-made gem had sparkled in the blinding sunlight, a mix of the deep, fathomless blue of a sapphire combined with the twinkling glitter of diamonds.  They hadn't known what the stone was, but Logan had been entranced and for a quarter, Cecilia had considered it worth the money, if only to see him smile.

With tentative, shaking fingers, she took the ring.  The flashing metal was still warm from the heat of his body and for a fleeting moment, she wondered if he could warm up the cold places inside of her too.  The ring was well made, the silver band complimenting the sparkling stone.  "It suits you.  The Drake part of you, too."  Then she held up the ring so he could take it back, blushing a little when their fingers brushed as he did so.

"You can call me Logan if you want.  I won't mind."  Well, he did, but for Cecilia, he would endure even a name he had come to loathe.

Now it was her turn to study him.  He still wore the same clothes he had on stage, the black leather pants and black silk shirt.  The contact lenses were gone, however, making his eyes appear the utterly seductive golden brown she loved once more.  He was still Logan, and yet...not.  Not entirely.  The Logan she had known and carried a torch for these many years was gone.  Drake existed now.  And somehow, it seemed right.

Logan had been a boy.  A child.  But Drake?  He was all man and his very presence left no room for doubt.

Finally, she shook her head, aware that every movement between them seemed heightened, as if she was living in some kind of dream world where movies became reality.  Because this was like a scene from a movie.  It wasn't real life.  Not her life anyway.  "No.  Like the ring, Drake suits you now."  Then she looked around the room they were in.  In the past, it had seemed enormous.  Tonight it seemed far too small for comfort.  "Just like this place.  Closed.  Secret.  Hidden."

Drake took a step out from behind the chair he'd been using as a barrier between them.  "I don't mean to be.  But people like the illusion.  The lies.  Do you think any of those people at the Orpheum tonight would have come to see Logan Valliente, the kid from the trailer park?"

"No."  Cecilia knew he was right about that.  Even though the town had grown over the years, those who were still in power had been around for a very long time and they had very good memories.  They had all thought Logan to be trash, someone unworthy of time and attention, let alone any attempt to save.

He smiled but it didn't reach his eyes.  "But they'll come to see Drake Vale, master illusionist and playboy.  Man of the word.  Sex god."  He waved a hand in the air.  "But none of it's real."

She scoffed at that.  "You mean to tell me the women and the cars and all of that aren't real?  That you just made them up?  Conjured them out of thin air?  You expect me to believe that?  You know me better than that, Drake."

This time when he smiled, it did reach his eyes.  "Okay.  So not an illusion, but part of the act.  Part of making people believe that I'm something that I'm not."

When his eyes twinkled, Cecilia saw a flash of Logan and her resolve to be strong and say goodbye began to crumble.  Actually, it had started the moment she walked through the door and saw him sitting in that damn chair, looking all sinful and sexy, just the way she always imagined he would.  She hadn't helped matters by removing her cape and allowing him to look at her, to let his hot gaze rake over her body.

He knew what she looked like.  They had been together on that stage, under those harsh, unforgiving lights.  He didn't need to see her again.