Admit One (4 page)

“You know, I’d love to stay and chat with you,” he lied “but I’m afraid I’m not up to date on my shots.”

“Maybe you should take care of that, Willis.” Her eyes flashed as she leaned over her cart, a perfect package job with absolutely no substance. “I bite.”

Will replaced the apples, no longer interested in anything tart. “You certainly do, Victoria. Far more than you know.”

ALLIE
fanned herself with a leftover program while she watched the action on the stage. Capricious as always, Mother Nature had followed up last night’s nasty calling card with abundant sunshine and cheerful blue skies. Despite the fact that they’d left the side doors propped open, the theater had stored up the day’s heat like a solar oven, making it stuffy inside.

When Tommy Culpepper attempted, despite two bruised ribs, to stow a suitcase in an overhead compartment aboard their version of the Orient Express, Allie winced. 

“Look at his face,” she whispered to Hercule Poirot – AKA her brother, Branson Hawbaker – who occupied the seat beside her. “He looks like he’s going to pass out at any moment.”

Bran frowned, stroking his fake mustache. “I told him to sit this rehearsal out, but he swore he was feeling up to it.”

“He’d swear that if he was spurting blood from a pulmonary artery. Rainey’s playing the governess, right?”

“Yeah, well, you know how it is, Al. He’s trying to save face. Getting the crap beat out of you in front of the person you want most to impress is a real ball shriveler, believe me.”

“Thank you so much for that beautiful image.”

“You know what I mean,” he murmured, his normally languorous voice tight. “It’s a manhood thing. And his has already been called into question.”

Allie knew that Bran felt at least partially responsible for that. It was ridiculous, of course, but having lived her whole life in Sweetwater, she was all too aware that small towns often harbored small minds. She reached out and squeezed his hand. “You did a great job disguising his black eyes, but with his nose swollen like that, he sounds… muffled. Stuffy. And he’s obviously in pain. I don’t see how he’ll be ready to perform by opening night.”

“You want to tell him that? And maybe step in and replace him? Because we have no understudy for this part.”

“I’ll do it.”

Allie stiffened at the sound of the unmistakable voice. In the intervening hours between tiptoeing out of Sarah’s cottage and showing up to watch dress rehearsal, she’d almost managed to put Mason Armitage out of her mind.

Of course, she hadn’t been able to think about anything
but
him while lying sleepless in the loft, listening to the mellifluous sound of his breathing arising from the sofa beneath her. The man even respired dramatically. Annoyed by the fact that he’d seemed to have no trouble drifting back off after Will’s appearance, while she’d lain there, curious and fretful and, well,
turned on,
damn it, she’d finally abandoned hope of getting any sleep and crept out the door just as dawn began to paint a rosy wash across the sky. Thank heavens the Dust Jacket was closed today, otherwise she’d never have been able to avoid him.

Although considering the fact that he was currently sitting behind her, she guessed she hadn’t managed to avoid him after all.

“Mason Armitage!” her brother exclaimed, the handsome planes of his face transforming into a mask of delight. “I didn’t think we were expecting you for several months yet.”

While the two men clasped hands and exchanged pleasantries and expressed general giddiness at the other’s presence in the universe, Allie slumped down in her seat.

It wasn’t that she resented Bran for liking Mason – after all, they had so much in common, both being actors and too handsome for their own good. And it wasn’t even that she resented Mason. She’d had plenty of time to forgive him for his deception when they’d first met.  Pretending to be a down-on-his-luck friend of Tucker’s rather than broadcasting his identity as a semi-famous British thespian was understandable. Lord knew the man got enough attention due to his looks alone, without throwing celebrity into the mix. All of that adoration from fawning women just
had
to get old. 

Allie snorted.

“Did you say something, Al?”

Allie waved a hand toward Branson. “Don’t mind me.”

She could feel Mason’s stare like a weight pressing against the back of her neck, but she kept her eyes focused on the stage. After all, the director was too busy yakking with visiting industry dignitaries to pay attention to his little production.

But when Mason repeated his offer to take over for Tommy, she couldn’t resist interjecting.

“Surely there are a few too many
offs
between Sweetwater and Broadway,” she said “to warrant your interest.”

When Mason’s gaze locked on hers, she realized that she shouldn’t have turned around. His eyes were still shadowed with jetlag, and one of them
did
look slightly bruised, but the amber depths were as intoxicating as whisky. His hair, the deep, dark burnished gold of ancient coins, waved past his collar – even longer than hers – a remnant of the period piece he’d recently wrapped. Allie wondered if he’d worn a wig for the role, but having seen him up close and very personal the night before, she knew that glorious mane was all his. 

Mason had always had a sort of Gatsby-esque elegance, but with the longer hair and his unshaven cheeks he looked both cultured and just slightly disreputable.

And more attractive than any man had a right. 

“To paraphrase Milan Kundera,” he murmured “there are no minor roles, only minor actors.”

And he was no minor actor. He was, in fact, a veritable star. On the verge of breakout success when she’d first met him, his latest role had catapulted him into the limelight, as well as numerous “most eligible” lists and the gossip columns of tabloids. Pictures of him – some in character, some not – were plastered all over social media sites, despite the fact that the movie hadn’t even been released. His love life had become the subject of rampant speculation.

Not that she’d been internet stalking him, or anything.

When Bran cleared his throat, Allie realized that she was still staring. 

“Something wrong?” Tommy called down from the stage, and she took the opportunity to turn back around.

“Why don’t we take five?” Bran suggested.

“Excuse me,” Allie murmured during the general milling about that followed. The heat seemed suddenly unbearable, and she needed air.

“Allison.”

She pretended not to hear him. Feeling a flush suffuse her face, she hustled toward the open side door.

“Allison, wait.” 

That was
so
not going to happen. She’d thought herself prepared to see him again – she was going to be coolly polite, utterly urbane and nonchalant – but she’d counted on at least two more months until D-Day. Instead, she’d found herself naked and half-hysterical in his bed, and not in a good way.

“Allison.”

There was a stand of trees behind the theater. If Allie could just make it to the path before he caught up to her, she might be able to lose him in their sheltering darkness.

His legs being much longer than hers, she could hear him closing in on her.

Abandoning pretense, she ran.

The spring air rushed past her, cooling her burning cheeks even as her heart pumped and her muscles heated. She felt perfectly ridiculous, but she couldn’t seem to stop. The urge to step out of her skin and run – anywhere – had been so much a part of her life over the past year and a half that it seemed somehow right to be putting it into action.  Her sandals slipped on her feet, so she kicked them aside and kept going.  She barely felt the small sticks and leaves beneath her soles.  The sense of embarrassment, of vulnerability faded, and she felt… liberated. Powerful. Free.

She tripped over a tree root.

As she went sprawling, face-first, into a clump of saw palmettoes, Mason came up behind her.

For the space of several heartbeats there was no sound apart from her labored breathing. Mason, damn him, didn’t appear to be winded at all.

Since she couldn’t lie here all night, pretending he hadn’t seen her, she sighed and rolled over. It was dark here in the trees – which had been the general idea – but a shaft of moonlight speared through the canopy, illuminating him like a spotlight.  Even nature recognized him for what he was: a natural-born star.

A natural-born star who was currently biting the inside of his cheek.

“If you laugh, I will kill you and feed you to an alligator.”

His aborted grin fell away and he scanned the ground, suspicious. “Alligator?”

“Big reptile, sharp teeth?”

“Yes, I’m familiar with the description, thank you.” He hesitated, then moved a step closer, stretching out a hand. “Perhaps we should select an alternate venue in which to converse.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She batted a palm frond out of her face. “This seems fitting.”

When he scowled at her, she glared back, then finally relented.  His hand was warm, his grip firm but gentle as he pulled her up.

She dropped it like a hot potato, brushing some dirt and leaves from the front of her shirt.  

“Well,” she finally said after several mortifying moments. “Exciting as this has been, I’m afraid I have a pressing engagement to repeatedly bang my thumb with a hammer. If you’ll excuse me?”

She turned then, deeper into the woods, with no idea where she was heading. Hopefully into a deep hole that would deposit her in China. As she walked, the frantic croak of tree frogs provided the laugh-track to this farce. 

Mason followed her. Of course he did. Probably in hopes of some more entertainment. 

“Allison –”

“Although to be fair,” she talked right over both him and the frogs that had grown louder as they got closer to the water. “This is not the
most
humiliated I’ve ever been. Did you know that I gave my high school boyfriend the down payment for his first car, expecting he’d use it to take me to prom? Instead he took the head cheerleader, and managed to get her pregnant in the back seat.”

“That’s… you’re joking. No, no, I can see that you’re not. But Allison –”

“And then there’s the time I believed it when this guy said
I love you,
when what he really meant was
I love the fact that you can fund the political campaign I’m thinking of launching after you introduce me to your father’s connections
. And when the money was gone and my father came down with Alzheimers, he broke it off with me. Two months before the wedding.” 

She could smell the river from here. It smelled like fish stink and her own lack of judgment.

“Allison –”   

“So really, when I put things in perspective, falling on my face after literally running away from you is maybe a five on the Allison Hawbaker Humiliation Scale.”

“Allison
–
”
 

“Although honestly, I can’t quite figure out
why
you came after me. I mean, you’ve already written a very eloquent letter of apology for our previous misunderstanding. I’m over it. I’m not going to make a scene at Sarah and Tucker’s wedding, if that’s what you’re worried about. And if you’re looking for an easy conquest, there are literally
thousands
of women who would lay right down for you, no questions asked. And they wouldn’t even have to trip to do so.”

“For bleeding Christ’s sake, will you just
shut up!”

Mason’s hands when he grabbed her were no longer gentle. They clutched her hips, yanking her close against him, thigh to thigh, chest to heart-pounding chest. She had only a moment to note that his eyelid twitched when he was angry, then his mouth was on hers in the dark, and the chorus of tree frogs faded. Allie brought up a hand as if to say
back off, buster,
but he wrapped it with his, linking their fingers in a grip that suggested he wasn’t prepared to back off in the least. His other hand held her head still as his mouth plundered, the night air wrapping around them, cool and just a little damp, while his unshaven chin scraped hers. 

His tongue was hot and unforgiving, his lips ruthless in their demand. The part of her brain that was still functional suggested that maybe this wasn’t the best way to convey nonchalance and urbane sophistication, but her libido kicked that part into a dusty corner. Mason was hard and male and forceful and not attempting to charm her in the least.

She was pretty sure he wasn’t acting.

“This,” he pulled his mouth far enough away to whisper “is what I was trying to gain.
You,
Allison. Just you.”

And okay, that sounded like a line. But he certainly delivered it beautifully. Then his mouth was back on hers and she couldn’t make herself stop.

He kissed her, and kissed her, and
kissed
her, one hand sliding down along her neck while the other clutched her hip, grip near to bruising. Allie’s own hands wound into the thickness of his hair, using it as a point of reference as her world tilted on its axis. Her emotions were too tumultuous to pin one down, so she let her body take control. Her breath came in short gasps even as Mason’s breathing went choppy.