The Misconception (38 page)

He’d come to love the pageantry, the gallantry and the artistry of pro wrestling. He loved the cheers of the crowd, the challenge of staying in top shape and the adrenaline rush of pulling off a particularly demanding stunt.

Despite that, choosing between the woman and the wrestling amounted to no choice at all. He loved Marietta far more than he’d ever loved anything, including wrestling.

In moments, his clothing felt heavy against his skin. He looked down at himself, recognizing the reason. He wasn’t dressed in the fine suits and designer shirts he favored, but the gray sweatpants and shirt he’d pulled on after Smashing Headhunter had unmasked him. The sweats sopped up water like a kitchen sponge.

He raised his eyes to the dripping sky. The wet breeze, which smelled of the nearby Potomac River, washed over him. That he had gotten on a plane looking like this meant he was further gone over Marietta than he’d thought.

He rang the doorbell and waited, wincing as lightning rent the sky. Marietta pulled open the door, and he smiled despite the turmoil inside and all around him. The green of her soft, flowing nightgown reflected in her eyes, causing them to look jewel-like and ethereal. Her hair was down around her shoulders, softening the angles of her face. Looking at her had always packed a sexual punch, but he hadn’t realized, until that minute, how truly beautiful she was.

“Hi.” He stepped forward, intending to come through the inner door and take her into his arms. He froze. Her arms were crossed in front of her chest and her lips were unsmiling.

“Well, well, well.” She drew out the words, speaking loudly enough to be heard above the battering rain. “If it isn’t Jax Jackson, traveling salesman of stocks and bonds.”

Jax narrowed his eyes, trying to read her expression through the rainwater that dampened his face. Did Marietta already know what he’d come to tell her? Her eyes were shuttered, concealing the answer. Jax hesitated, unsure of how to proceed. “I came back early, because there’s something I need to talk to you about.”

“One o’clock in the morning is a little late to talk.”

“You’re still awake.”

“Only because you’re standing here on my doorstep preventing me from getting to sleep.”

Thunder boomed along with his heart. Less than twenty-four hours earlier when she’d dropped him off at the airport, she’d clung to him. Now her voice was colder than he’d ever heard it, filling him with a chilling certainty. He wasn’t sure how she’d found out, but she knew he was the Secret Stud.

This wasn’t the way he’s wanted the evening to progress, but he didn’t believe the problem was insurmountable. He’d explain how he’d come to be the Secret Stud, then he’d tell her he was giving it all up. For her.

“Can I come in?” he asked. She didn’t budge from her spot in the doorway. He cocked his head and tried a smile. “Please? I’m getting drenched here.”

For a moment, she stood as frozen as an ice statue at a winter carnival. Then abruptly she moved away from the door, giving him a clear path to her sanctuary. He stamped off the water the best he could and entered the townhouse.

She disappeared into the bowels of the house and returned holding a towel, which she tossed at him. He caught it, wiped the excess water off his face and clothes and followed her into the living room. She didn’t sit down, but stood in the center of the room, between the brocade sofa and barren fireplace, with her arms still crossed over her chest.

“You came here to talk,” she said, her stare unfriendly, “so talk.”

He gazed down at the carpet, back up at her. “I have a feeling you already know what I’m going to say.”

“What? That you dress in red spandex and strut into a wrestling ring to the cries of ‘Studmuffin’?”

He winced, disliking her rendition of his act even as he admired her for not pretending to misunderstand his question.

“How did you find out?”

“You made the evening news.” Her voice was tight. “It seems the wrestling community has been speculating for a long while on what you looked like under that mask.”

He took a step toward her, but stopped when the air around her seemed cold enough to form a wall of ice. “If it makes it any easier, I want you to know I never set out to be a pro wrestler. My mother had such a hard time of it that I wanted to make enough money to help her out. I thought I could do it through football, but I wasn’t good enough to make the pros.”

She continued to stare at him, offering no encouragement. He couldn’t let that dissuade him from telling her what he should have told her months ago.

“I took a job as a phys. ed. teacher at an elementary school, but it paid next to nothing. Then one day, an old teammate of mine who’d been playing the Secret Stud got hurt and I had a chance to take over his act. It was an opportunity too good to pass up. I intended to get another act as time went by, but the Stud became so popular that I couldn’t get out of it.”

“So you’re saying you didn’t want to masquerade as a woman’s sexual fantasy come to life?” She looked and sounded skeptical.

“Exactly,” he answered.

“How about a pro wrestler who tells the woman he says he loves that he sells stocks and bonds? Who lies about where he got his bruises, dislocated shoulder and plump lip?” Her voice rose. “Are you going to tell me you did that against your will, too?”

“No, I did that deliberately,” he said softly, feeling ashamed. “I didn’t keep it just from you, Marietta. My mother and brothers don’t know I’m a pro wrestler, either.”

“Why not?” She bit off the words.

“I was afraid of what they’d think. Then, even more, I was afraid of losing you.” He’d gotten to the crux of what he’d come here tonight to tell her. He took a deep breath. “That’s why I’m going to give it up. For you.”

Marietta shook her head in apparent disgust, the way she’d done the first time they met, which wasn’t the reaction he’d been aiming for.

“That’s why you think I’m so angry?” She cut the air with her hand. “Because you’re a pro wrestler?”

“Of course that’s why you’re angry.” He dragged a hand over the rough stubble on his chin, reminding him that he hadn’t shaved prior to getting on the airplane, something else he never forgot to do before going out in public. He was more confused than ever. “Isn’t it?”

“Do you really think I’d dump you because of what you do for a living?”

Jax screwed up his forehead. “You wouldn’t be afraid of what people would say?”

“Do you really think I’m that shallow?” she retorted.

The news was so staggering that Jax couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. Before joy could course through him that he’d be able to keep both pro wrestling and Marietta, he noticed that she was still fuming. Her ears were in danger of turning into smokestacks.

“If my being a pro wrestler doesn’t bother you,” he asked, “why are you so angry?”

“Because you lied to me.” Her lips quivered before straightening into an unforgiving line. She paced from one end of the room and back again. “All these months, you let me believe you were a businessman. Oh, how you must have been laughing at me. So dazzled by your symmetry I couldn’t see through your lies. I bet you were even sleeping with one of those Studettes on the side.”

“You know I’d never laugh at you or cheat on you,” he refuted. “And I’m sick and tired of hearing about how one side of my face is the same as the other. It’s not my symmetry that’s dazzling you, Marietta. It’s me. You’re in love with me.”

“Oh, no,” she said forcefully, running her hands through her hair. “Don’t you dare say that to me.”

“Why not?” he asked, advancing toward her. “It’s true.”

Marietta tried to glare at him, but she could feel her chin trembling. She would not cry, damn it. She would not cry because she’d been stupid enough to let this man into her life.

“It is not true. I don’t love you.”

“If you don’t love me,” he said, his eyes glittering with purpose, “then prove it.”

Inch by inch, he came closer to her, but the moisture gathering in her eyes prevented her from seeing his features clearly. She could smell him, though, an intoxicating blend of soap, man and rain that did uproarious things to her insides. Even though his clothing was wet, she could feel the heat of him as he drove his fingers through her hair and held her so she couldn’t move.

“If you don’t love me, tell me you don’t want me to touch you,” he whispered, coming closer until his mouth was a scant inch from hers. “Tell me you don’t want me to kiss you.”

The heat started somewhere near her heart, pooled between her thighs and spread all the way to her toes. She couldn’t tell him anything, because it seared her voice box shut. With a groan, he captured her lips, kissing her with wild abandon. His tongue thrust hotly into her mouth. His hands left her hair and seemed to be everywhere at once, on her breasts, cupping her bottom, holding her to him.

She returned the kiss, straining to get nearer, heedless of his wet clothes. She rubbed the aching part of her against his erection, unable to deny, for even a moment, that she didn’t want him.

Finally, he broke off the kiss. She moaned, trying to pull him back, but he wouldn’t let her. He held her at arm’s length, looking more determined than victorious. “That proves it. That proves you love me.”

She stared back at him as his words blew away some of the sexual haze that enveloped her. She forced herself to think of his lies.

“All it proves,” she said slowly, “is that you have all the characteristics that, through time, have attracted woman to man.”

“Damn it, Marietta,” he bit out, releasing her so abruptly she almost fell. “Are you really so stubborn you can’t admit you’re in love with me?”

“Love?” She laughed mirthlessly. “Love is for fools stupid enough to give somebody else the power to hurt them with their lies.”

He peered at her so intently she had to look away. “This isn’t about you and me, is it?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” she replied, still not looking at him. The sound of the rain pounding furiously on the rooftop echoed inside the chambers of her heart.

“Sure, you do. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before now. This is about your parents. This is about how your father hurt your mother with his lies.”

She gritted her teeth as pain sliced through her at the old hurts. She tried sarcasm to deflect it. “So now am I supposed to believe that they give psychology degrees in pro wrestling school?”

“Don’t be flip, Marietta. You think I’ll hurt you the same way your father hurt your mother. That’s why you accused me of sleeping with a Studette. Because your father cheated on your mother.”

“What if it is?” There was no use denying it, so Marietta took the offensive. “In my experience, males have quite a bit of trouble with monogamy.”

“What about coyotes?”

“Coyotes?”

“Yeah, the ones you talked about on
Morning Glory, Live
. They’re monogamous. You said they bonded for life.”

“You’re not a coyote, Jax,” she said tiredly. “You’re a liar. How do I know you’re not lying when you say you love me? When you say you’ll be faithful to me?”

“If you looked inside your heart, you’d know,” he said quietly. “I’m not your father, and you’re not your mother. The only thing I ever lied to you about was being a pro wrestler, and I did that because I didn’t want to hurt our chances of making a life together.”

“We’re not going to have a life together, Jax.”

He shook his head. “You’re pregnant with my child. You can’t expect me to walk away from that. You can’t expect me to walk away from you.”

She blinked rapidly so the tears gathering in her eyes wouldn’t fall. “I’ll sign legal papers giving you visitation rights, but only on the condition that I don’t have to have anything else to do with you.”

“You can’t mean that.” His voice broke, but she didn’t let it sway her from what she had to do to protect herself. She angrily brushed away the tears that had seeped out of her eyes.

“Oh, but I do, Jax. This thing between us was all a big mistake. A misconception. It never should have started. Now I’m going to do what I should have a long time ago and end it.”

Before he could reply, she turned and walked out of the room and up the stairs to her bedroom. A long while later, she thought she heard the front door open and close, but she couldn’t be sure because her ears were filled with the stormy sounds of her own weeping.