Falling into Forever (Falling into You) (21 page)

I groan, loudly. Suddenly,
there’s a panicked voice coming from somewhere, from a fog, but I can’t hear it and I can’t make sense of it and I can’t make sense of anything, words or noises or sounds.

“Chris? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

There’s a loud crashing noise and then there’s a warm body next to mine in the bathroom and she’s wrapping my hand in a towel and whispering something softly.

T
hat’s it.

Blackness.

*
* *

Chicago

5 ½ Years Later

I still have the little half-moon scar, just above my thumb, where I gashed out a piece of my skin with the mirror, and I can still see Hallie’s face as I came around in the hospital bed, the fear in her eyes. The fear that I had put in her eyes.

No wonder she needed time to
think tonight.

The only thing I can’t figure out is why she would even
entertain the thought of giving me a second chance, after New York. After London.

I pick up one of the tiny glass bottles from the minibar and twist it around in my hand. That, at least, would be simple. There would be one drink and then another and then another, until the burning in my gut was nothing but a foggy memory.

I open it, lift it to my nose, and take a long breath in.

I hear voices, Hallie’s and Marcus’s and Dan’s,
from some foggy memory, screaming at me instead.

I set
it back down again and pick up my phone.

Marcus
starts yelling before I even say a word.

“Jensen! What the fuck, man? I
f you’re calling to tell me that you can’t make it to dinner, I really am going to kill you this time.”

“I can’t make it to dinner. I need to find a meeting.
”

The sharp anger switches
instantly to concern. “Chris? Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. Fine.”

“Hang on. I’ll be right up.”

“No, don’t. I’m going to call my sponsor and see if he can find out where the closest meeting is. I just can’t do dinner. Not rig
ht now. Make my apologies, okay”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Anything but the truth.”

“Chris…”

“I’ll be fine, Marcus. I promise.”

I grab my wallet and eye the little glass bottle that’s sitting on the table.

Unable to resist, I pick it up and place it in my pocket.

My fingers close around the cool glass as I twist it again and again, knowing that it, too, contains a kind of history.

HALLIE

I have bigger problems than finding something to wear for dinner. I could try to figure out whether I want to throw myself into the Chris Jensen abyss. Again. It might also be a good idea to consider how I’m going to tell my ex-boyfriend (and apparently, my current lover) that I have a four-year-old daughter.

Instead, I’m
thinking about whether I want to go for paisley innocence or candy apple red sex. I wonder if it’s too late to burn all of the clothes I own and take advantage of the Magnificent Mile? I glance at the glowing red numbers on the clock. 7:55. Yep. Definitely too late.

There’s a knock on the door
and I allow myself to hope for one second that it’s Chris. But light tapping isn’t his style, and there’s only one other option. I open the door, clad in nothing but my undergarments, and Eva takes a long look at me.

“
What was it that you said? No dog in this race, huh?”

The taunt of her voice causes me to make an immediate and executive decision not to tell her about the elevator.
Or the hallway. Or the hotel suite.

“I think what I said was that I didn’t have a horse in this race. Not a dog. And shut up.”

She picks up a green silk dress and runs it between her fingers, taking in my total state of disarray
with a bemused expression.

“
Touché. More importantly, you didn’t tell me the mopey period was accompanied by the purchase of some incredibly frumpy outfits.”

“Thanks. I’m g
lad you think I need more encouragement right now.”

S
he chooses to ignore my comment and focuses on the frumpy wardrobe instead. She arches her eyebrows before moving into full-on stylist mode, tossing aside my two best options without so much as a second look. She picks up a short black dress from the bed and eyes it with more interest.

“What about this one?”

I give the dress a long, cold stare. I’d thrown it into my bag at the last minute. Chris had insisted on buying it for me on one of our weekend trips to Paris. Of course, I had never been able to bring myself to wear it. Or return it, for that matter.

“Hallie, darling, this is gorgeous. It’s begging to be worn. Now, we just need to figure out what to do with your hair.”

She fusses behind me, coaxing my curls into some kind of harmony while I stare at the dress.

“Ok. That’s the five-minute special, but it will have to do.
”

She pulls back and inspects her handiwork.
Even I have to admit that I’m starting to look halfway human.

“Thanks, Eva.”

“It’s an agent’s job to be a master of all trades. Now, go be a good girl and put the dress on. I thought I was going to have to do some serious last-minute shopping, but at least you had the sense to buy one pretty thing for yourself.”

“I didn’t.”

“Well, Ben didn’t give two shits about clothes, so I know he didn’t…” The realization hits her and a sneaky little grin crosses her face. “No, it’s perfect. Wear it. He won’t remember anyways.”

I don’t really have any other options. I slide the dress over my head and
glance in the mirror. I look like a tart. An expensive tart.

“
I feel like Grace, playing dress up.” And I’m whining like her, too.

“You could use some of Grace’s fashion sense.” Eva grins at me. “Where’s my munchkin, by the way?
I forgot to ask you earlier. I know I said that I would make it up to the cabin, but…”

“But you were too busy
having sex with the asshole.” I finish her sentence, and we both laugh.

“Fair enough. I des
erved that one. But that doesn’t answer the question about Grace. I thought she might want to go to some of the museums.”

“My mother’s bringing her up
early tomorrow morning, after the meetings are all finished.”

“
She’ll love it. And I, for one, am filled with enthusiasm at the thought of seeing Claire again.”

Eva’s voice is fille
d with anything but enthusiasm. I wag my finger at her.

“
My mother is going to hop a flight back to Michigan just as soon as she drops Grace off, so you might just miss the pleasure of her company.” I sigh. “I didn’t want to drag Grace into all of this. I couldn’t take the chance of someone snapping her picture.”

It’s true. But w
hat I neglect to tell Eva is that the thought of keeping my daughter in the same hotel as Chris Jensen fills me with dread. As far as I know, he’s completely unaware that she exists. I’ve done everything that I could possibly think of to keep her out of the press, and while a few people with cameras managed to snap pictures of her with me in those awful days after Ben died, the paparazzi have been surprisingly well-behaved when it comes to her. Maybe even the vultures have hearts.

But that
just means that unless he did some serious digging, which I wouldn’t put past him, he doesn’t know about her. I had wanted to tell him, back in the suite, but something about the mixing of different worlds made me run instead. If I can’t even bear for them to be in the same hotel, what does that say about any possibility of a future for him and me? Was there even a future there to begin with?

“
Hello! Hallie, wake up. Where are you taking Grace when she gets here?”

“
Sorry. Sorry. I promised her a trip to Lincoln Park Zoo before we head back up to Lake Geneva. You should come with us.”

“Oh
, good. I brought the most darling little…”

“No. No more gifts. Sam already turned her into a monster last week by having all five members of 4Sure call her for her birthday.
They even wrote a song for her. ‘Grace of My Heart.’”

Eva looks appropriately horrified.
“Sam’s title, I suppose?”

“
I think it was all his idea. I promise, it’s even worse than it sounds. I’ll have to get the recording for you. Of course, Grace thinks that it’s the next masterpiece. She’s probably right. It has just the right mix of pop and rock. That’s what Sam said, anyways. And Marie send clothes that were ‘straight from the Paris runways.’ The saddest thing is that I think her favorite gift was this hideous trucker hat that my mother gave her last week.”

“
The kid is on trend. Trucker hats. Chic again. Who knew? Randomly, that’s the only late 90s trend that I did not want to come back. But that’s fashion.” She gives me her best runway pout. “Enough about Grace. We don’t have time to argue about my spoiling of my favorite preschooler. You know I’ll win anyways. Now, how do I look?”

She’s wearing her signature red and does a little twirl to show off the dress to its full effect.

“Marcus will die when he sees you in that.”

“As long as it’s a long, slow, painful death, I’m fine with that.” Eva touches my arm. “You look gorge
ous, Hal, and we both know it. Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.”

The dress keeps riding up on my thighs, and I yank it down at least five times in the elevator ride, trying desperately to make it cover more of my body. When we reach the maitre’d stand, I notice that a couple of the diners are staring blatantly at me. Of course. I look like a total slut. I’m too old to pull off something like this. Just as I’m about to run back up to change, I notice that a man has gotten up from his seat at the bar to approach us. He’s probably closer to my mother’s age than mine.

“May I say
that you look lovely tonight? May I buy either of you a drink?”

Eva’s inner mama bear takes over and she thrusts me behind her.
“Thank you for the compliment. However, we have a prior engagement.”

She grabs
my arm and hisses into my ear, “See, total strangers hitting on you? That’s a good sign. Now, stop fiddling with your dress and smile like you mean it.”

I give her a ridiculous jack-o-lantern
smile, and she slaps my arm.

“Behave.”
Still, she can’t hide her grin. I glance back, once more, to creepy grandpa, who winks at me. I see that his eyes are still following us as we’re ushered into a private room, set apart from the rest of the dining room by heavy black curtains.

I take a deep brea
th and straighten my shoulders. Eva’s right. If I really am going to look like a total slut, then I need to own the dress. Especially if I’m going to be face-to-face with Chris Jensen in about two seconds.

“Hallie Caldwell. Who
would have imagined us meeting like this?”

The booming voice d
efinitely did not come from the mouth of Chris Jensen. I give Marcus a wicked little grin that matches the one on his face.

“What exactly did you imagine
, Marcus?”

“
The way I see it, we move towards each other from across a crowded dance floor and then I sweep you into my arms. If I remember correctly, you had moves. But dance floor or not, it’s surprisingly good to see you.”

His
teasing words are filled with unvarnished warmth, and I’m stunned to realize that I’m actually happy to see him, too. I ignore the flabbergasted faces of the men in suits around the table and offer my hand to Marcus, who promptly kisses it.

“Hello, Marcus.”

“You look beautiful.”

“Thank you
.” I study him for a minute. “You look the same, I think. Older, but the same.”

That elicits some chuckles.

“How do you two know each other?”

The question
comes from a perky-looking blond girl, scribbling furiously with a stylus on a tablet in the corner of the private room. She quickly looks down in embarrassment when one of the men scolds her. For a moment, I feel sorry for her. Then I realize I’m going to have to answer the question.

Marcus steps in instead. “Hallie and I are old friends. Golfing buddies, you might say.
She used to humiliate me, and you all know that I don’t admit that easily, but it’s been a long time since she’s kicked my ass on the course. I’ve gotten much better since then.”

“It would be hard for you to get much worse.
If I remember correctly, you ended up throwing more than a few clubs into the ocean on our last jaunt to Pebble Beach.”