“She really took the drug?” Russell whispered in Colin’s ear.
Colin held a finger to his lips. Russell had seen Juliet open the bottle and drink the potion. How much did he need spelled out to him?
“But Romeo’s going to figure it out, right?” Russell’s whisper rasped.
Colin turned with wide eyes on his friend. “You’re serious?”
“Well, I thought maybe they changed it for this production. Like…a reboot or something.” Russell’s face looked truly anxious. Colin was aghast—then remembered his own belief that the production might spin in an entirely new direction based on Alicia’s performance. His skin prickled with anticipation.
A woman in the row in front of them turned and glared at them. Colin mouthed a silent Sorry, and she returned her eyes to the stage.
“Just be quiet and watch,” Colin commanded in the barest murmur, pointing at the stage.
Alicia bustled in, rebuked the sleeping girl, shook her, discovered the girl’s supposed death. Followed by the entrance of Juliet’s mother, the sorrow.
And then, there it was. The rage. The unshielded fury directed at Juliet’s father. It was plainly visible even from their back-row seats in the little theater. Colin found it both unnerving and riveting. Stealing a glance at Russell, he saw that his friend was also captivated.
The all-too-brief scene was over, and the play moved on. Colin found himself restless for the curtain call, the opportunity to see her after. She had grudgingly given him her e-mail address before they left the jazz club, and his message that they would be there that evening and would love to see her afterwards had received a brief reply:
Wait for me in the Great Hall after. I’ll come out when I’ve had a chance to clean up and change.
When the curtain call began, Russell leaped to his feet, pounding his hands together and cheering as Alicia took her bows with the actor who played the Friar. Clearly hearing his holler, she peered out into the house and pointed a finger at Russell, winking as she moved off for the next group to claim their share of the applause. Russell whooped in triumph.
“She saw me, did you see that? She saw me!” Russell smacked his hands together even harder.
“Russell, you’ve met the woman.” Colin watched as the cast took their final bows together. How did he ever not recognize her? In or out of the makeup that aged her and the costume that attempted to transform her into a lumpen, anonymous servant, he should have known her.
“I know, but it’s different now somehow,” Russell said as the applause died down and he gathered up his program.
“How?” Colin was amused, almost in spite of himself.
“I don’t know.” Russell waved his program at the stage. “I guess, just seeing what she can do…it’s kind of amazing. Even more than the singing. I…I don’t know how to explain it,” he trailed off as they shuffled out of their seats and into the aisle.
“Well, get ready to meet her again, Mr. Starstruck. And get ready to get gone.”
“I still think you should have been my wingman,” Russell said.
Alicia stopped, straightening her shoulders before rounding the corner to step into the Great Hall and smoothing one hand over her hair. She had worked product through it and combed the longer part into a sort of pompadour high off her forehead. No coquettish strands falling across her eyes this evening. She didn’t feel flirty. She wanted to feel in control, strong.
Stepping around the stone wall into the long room, she almost ran into Colin and Russell. For some reason, she had expected them to be at the other end near the lobby, but they were close to the stairs that led to the dressing rooms.
“Hi,” she said, reining in her startled reaction.
The two men smiled at her in unison, Russell’s mouth stretching joyfully, miming applause, his program flapping in one hand. “I don’t know what I was expecting,” he said, “but that was phenomenal.”
A reluctant grin spread across her face. “Thanks. It’s a great cast and a great director. Needless to say, it’s also a great play.”
“Well, I think you were especially fantastic,” Russell said.
Alicia chuckled. “I think it’s just that you already knew me. You were bound to be biased.”
“Actually, no,” Colin said. “I noticed your performance particularly the first time I saw the play. It was rather incredible.”
“Um, thanks,” Alicia said, examining the toes of her shoes, her pulse picking up. She wasn’t usually this awkward with compliments.
A swift motion at the periphery of her vision caught her attention and Russell coughed. “Um. So, I have a morning class tomorrow. Have to be up early to prepare. I just wanted to say how great you were. So. Um. Hope to see you again, Alicia; you were really, really great.”
Alicia smiled, surprised at his sudden awkwardness. “No, thanks for coming, Russell. It was nice to see you again.”
“Right. Great.” Russell leaned forward, and to her surprise, gave her a brief peck on the cheek. “Have a good night.”
Alicia watched as he hurried across the Great Hall and down the short set of stairs to the lobby. “That was…weird.”
Colin’s expression as he watched his friend leave was grim. “Well, that’s Russell for you.” He took a deep breath and looked at her. “I don’t suppose you have time for a drink?”
Blinking, Alicia took a deep breath. Ah. Russell’s sudden exit now made a lot more sense. “Are you sure?”
“Why wouldn’t I be sure?”
“I don’t know, you tell me. You seem to think actresses are inherently untrustworthy. Aren’t you worried about consorting with such a dangerous type as me?”
“Are you going to hold that against me forever?”
“Depends.”
“On what?” Colin asked.
“On how honest you are yourself.”
Colin just looked at her for a moment, stunned. “Of course I’m honest,” he said.
She returned his look with the same intensity. “Okay,” she said at last. “Where do you want to go for a drink?”
Nonplussed, he blinked. “That’s it?”
“What, you want me not to trust you?” She cocked her head at him, one hand on her hip. Her appearance this evening was different. Her hair was swept back off her forehead, and her clothes were simple to the point of severity. High heels and slim black jeans topped by a clinging black tank top were sexy, but also intimidatingly tough. She looked like a biker chick on her evening off.
“Um. Not at all.” A small smirk played about Alicia’s lips as he fumbled. “I mean, it’s just that…” His words ran down to nothing as he searched for something articulate to say and came up empty.
“Yeah. I know what you mean,” she said, starting to walk toward the lobby, not looking back to see if he was following. The high heels made her hips sway as she moved. His eyes fixed on her ass, round and tight in her jeans, and he almost groaned. Oh yes, he was following. She turned at that moment and caught him ogling her body, smirking as his eyes snapped up, his face burning.
“You coming?” she asked, her face suddenly a mask of innocence.
“Yes.” Colin cleared his throat, realizing that she had done it again. She had thrown him off balance with nothing more than words and looks. The difference was, this time he didn’t care.
In fact, he was slightly worried that he might start to like it.
Alicia breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that guilty look on Colin’s face. Fancy education or no, he was still just a man. He hurried to catch up with her, and she slid her eyes sideways at him, gratified at the slight flush she could see on his cheekbones. When they reached the lobby door, he held it open for her, and she could feel her eyebrows rise in surprise. They nearly reached her hairline when he paused at the top of the stone steps to the sidewalk and offered his elbow.
“Very…courtly of you,” she said.
“Blame it on my very British mother. She was a stickler for etiquette,” he said, holding the elbow steady, his dark eyes fixed on hers.
Unsettled, Alicia slid her fingertips into the angle of his arm, trying to ignore the heat radiating from his body. He was so…hard. And warm. His arm settled back against his side and she could feel the rise and fall of his ribcage against the back of her hand as they walked.
Turning down the street, the illuminated Capitol Dome rose against the darkened sky. Alicia’s breath almost caught in her throat. It was astonishingly lovely and ethereal, despite the stone solidity of the structure.
“What’s the matter?” Colin asked.
“Nothing.” She felt a nervous smile slide across her face, which annoyed her.
His gaze swiveled to face front, and he smiled slightly. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”
“I haven’t gotten used to it yet,” she admitted. “It’s so different from New York.”
“Yes,” he said. “One of the reasons why it feels like home. It’s a bit more like London than a lot of other American cities.”
“It’s nothing like Minneapolis, that’s for sure.” Alicia’s jaw clamped down.
What was wrong with her?
Colin didn’t miss the sudden tension in Alicia’s hand just after she mentioned Minneapolis. They turned the corner and started to walk past the Supreme Court building, wide stairs and stern statues directing the way up toward the imposing columns of the highest court in the country. Colin admired how the capitol buildings’ white stone façades made for beautiful, if ghostly, pictures against the summer night sky.
“So, you come from the American Midwest,” he said.
The barest pressure of her hand against his arm informed Colin that he had struck a nerve. He was about to say something inconsequential to defuse the moment when Alicia spoke.
“Yeah. A Swedish blonde named Johnson. There’s only about a zillion of us.”
“Are there?” he said.
“Yeah. Minnesota, Wisconsin…Scandinavians are apparently attracted to a place that’s just as frigid as the places they came from.”
He chuckled. “Have you been to Sweden?”
“No. Never traveled abroad at all.”
“Are you serious?” He stopped and turned to her.
“As a heart attack. Don’t even have a passport.” Her eyes were clear and without guile.
“Oh.” She shot him a sardonic look as they began to walk again, and he felt like a heel. She had told him that she wasn’t educated. But she was a Shakespearean actress. How was he to know where her sophistication began or ended?
Then he remembered Russell’s ingenuous questions about Romeo and Juliet. His friend’s education was top notch. And yet, Russell claimed not to “get” Shakespeare.
“What made you leave England? I’m guessing England isn’t much like D.C., so you’re not like my ancestors.”
He coughed, wondering how much to tell her. “Again, my mother. When she died, I didn’t want to be in England anymore. I needed a fresh start. America is the land of fresh starts. So here I am.”
Entering the bar, Alicia found that she was feeling an emotion she couldn’t have predicted.
Sympathy.
Colin seemed so confident. Cultured. Smart. Powerful, even. But he had confessed to something painful. Alicia wondered if he had done it on purpose for some strategic reason. Sliding onto a bar stool, she cut her eyes sideways to look at him. He was raising a confident hand. This was more what she had expected. Someone like him always knew they could get the attention of a bartender. She waited for him to order a gin and tonic, her drink at the club. That’s what guys like this did. They noted the first thing you ordered and would order it for you forever, without ever asking if it was what you really wanted. It was like they wanted to fix you in place so you couldn’t move, couldn’t change, couldn’t be a real person.
“What would you like?” His large, dark eyes filled her vision, and she was confused for a moment.
Okay. So, scratch that notion, then.
“Um. White wine. Thank you,” she said, choosing at random.
He placed the order, and their drinks came almost immediately, the bartender moving efficiently down the bar to take the next order. Colin tipped his glass to clink against hers. A noisy party of people pushed to the bar beside him and he moved his stool closer, his knee brushing against hers.
“To our resuscitation of a cultural illiterate. Dear old Russell may never be the same.” The ghost of a mischievous smile hovered at the corners of his lips.
“Hear, hear,” she replied, sipping her wine. “How is it that someone like him, with that much education, has never seen a Shakespeare play, anyway?”
Colin tipped his head, considering. “I think you’re confusing culture with education. Russell was always driven to excel in his field. He specialized. His education was intensive and good, but not broad.” He took a sip of his whiskey and set it back down on the bar.
“And what about you?”
“What about me?”
“What was your education like?” Alicia felt like she was walking a tightrope. This was a conversation that could never be anything more than one-sided. But she was curious.
Colin shrugged. “A decent boarding school, A-levels, Oxford to read law.”
Alicia bit her lip, decided to be the dummy. “What do you mean, ‘read’ law?” She braced herself for derision.
Colin grimaced. “Sorry. I studied law. ‘Majored in it,’ as you would say about your college experiences here. Not a terribly exciting or novel tale.”
“And then?”
“Then I was a barrister in London. Then my mother died and I…needed to make a change. I came here to get an L.L.M.—an advanced degree in American law for lawyers from other countries—and never left. What about you?”
“What about me?” Alicia asked, sipping her wine and fixing her gaze past his ear. “You already know all I have is a high school equivalency.”
Colin waved a hand, seeming to dismiss education as irrelevant. Or something he took for granted. “But what’s the rest of your story? Your family?”
Colin wondered what about his seemingly innocuous question made Alicia freeze up. She looked like a cornered rabbit, her brown eyes wide, her mouth a flat line. Slowly, and with what appeared to be an effort, a more relaxed expression softened her features. Colin regarded her, wondering how she managed that kind of control, if it cost her anything.
“I don’t…I’m not in touch with my family. At all,” she said finally, placing her wine glass with careful precision on the bar, as if it would fall and shatter if she did not position it just so.
Curiosity shot through Colin, but he restrained his impulse to interrogate her like a witness. Instead, he nodded. “Hm. Sometimes I wish I could be estranged from my family. Well, my father. But not even an ocean can do that. He calls at least weekly asking when I’m moving back to England.”
She relaxed another fraction. “How long has it been?”
“Five years.”
“And are you going back?”
“No.”
She bit her lip, her eyes scanning his face. “Brothers and sisters?”
“One of each. Both older. Both went into the family trade, of a sort.”
Alicia smirked. “Right. So, your old man is…a plumber.”
Colin barked a brief laugh. “More than you know. He’s a urologist. My brother went into practice with him.”
Alicia’s eyebrows went up. “And your sister?”
“Research scientist. Studying cancer treatments.”
“And you were the black sheep, being a lawyer.”
“A veritable reprobate. You have grasped the issue,” he said, winking and sipping his whiskey, appreciating the slight flush and lowering of her eyes in response.
“You being a lawyer is an issue?”
He paused, considering how much he wanted to say. “Being a lawyer wasn’t a popular decision with my father. But specializing in criminal defense was unforgivable. And then, moving here… Let’s just say that was also not a decision my father understands.” A pang went through him. “My parents had been deeply in love, but that didn’t stop my mother from supporting me in my career choices. And then she was gone. And I couldn’t bear it.”
“Why don’t you go back after all this time, though?” she asked.
“Why don’t you?”
Her jaw tightened. “I can guarantee you my reasons are nothing like yours.”
“Tell me?”
Her eyes locked on his in a flat, angry glare and if he hadn’t been sitting on a bar stool, he would have stepped back. “I wasn’t anything more than a walking uterus to my family. But luckily, I was…one among many. And a girl, so not really worth paying attention to. I flew under the radar a lot. And then…I just flew.” Her hand fluttered out, illustrating her flight.
Colin tried to sort out the implications of what she had said. “How many of you were there that you ‘flew under the radar’?”
“When I left? Ten.”
“Ten…children?” He blinked, trying to imagine a household with that many children.
“Well, eleven. I had ten siblings. I was number three. The oldest girl. But Mom was pregnant when I left. There are probably more now. Dad kept her that way. Pregnant. All the time.”
Colin passed a hand over his mouth, unable to fathom the scene she was describing. “But…why?”
“According to them? God.”
“What do you mean?”
Alicia’s shoulders shrugged up, and she inhaled deeply. “If my parents made enough babies that grew up to make more babies who all prayed in just the right way and believed the right things, then they would repopulate the world with people who thought just like they did.”
“That’s mathematically improbable, at best,” Colin said. He’d heard of this kind of religion, but never met someone who had been raised in it. She was right. Her reasons for leaving were nothing like his own. And despite not wanting to live in England, he did love his family.
“Yeah, well. I never said it made sense. And Mom was resigned to it. She saw it as her duty and that it would be mine. I disagreed.” Alicia tipped her glass back, emptying it. “Now, for some reason I’ve told you something I haven’t talked about in years. I should go home before I spill all my deepest, darkest secrets.”
“Do you have a lot more?”
She looked at him in silence long enough that he fidgeted with his glass, uncomfortable. “A few,” she said at last.
Sliding off the bar stool, Alicia smiled tightly at Colin. “Thanks for the drink.”
Pulling some bills out of his wallet and tossing them on the bar, Colin touched her arm. “Let me get you a taxi.”
“No need,” Alicia waved a hand. “I only live a short way away.”
“Then let me walk you home?”
Alicia paused, her automatic “no” dying on her lips. If his words had come out as a command, she would have walked away and that would have been it.
But it wasn’t a command. It was a definite question. Considering it, she looked at his face. Large brown eyes, smooth, tanned skin stretched over high cheekbones. The slight dimple in his chin. Thick black hair that held just the hint of a wave.
Good grief, but he’s handsome. The thought came to her as if it were someone else’s. She almost looked around the bar to identify the speaker.
“Okay. If it isn’t out of your way.”
He blinked in evident surprise, and Alicia felt pleasure bloom in her chest. He had expected her to say no. But he had asked anyway.
That took some guts.
“I don’t live far from here either. Let’s go.”
Leaving the bar, he held the door for her again, and this time Alicia wasn’t surprised. And she didn’t wait for him to offer his elbow to curl her fingertips into the crook of his arm.
Colin nearly jumped with surprise when she slid her hand into his elbow. He would have offered as he had when they left the theater, but she seemed so jittery now, so nervous.
He stole a sideways glance at her profile. Her nose was straight and delicate and a touch too long for classical beauty, but he liked it. Her surprisingly dark eyes were fixed on the pavement ahead of them. Her fine blond hair had started to fall, collapsing out of the high, tough style that she had affected and seeking to drift across her eyes where it seemed to normally live.
They walked together in a companionable silence for several minutes. Finally, turning on to a narrow, darker street, Alicia stopped in front of a row house, stepping away and pulling her hand free of his arm. “This is me,” she said, waving at a pocket handkerchief front garden, a front door several steps down from the street.
“Basement flat?”
“Well, they call it a ‘garden apartment,’ but yeah. Sublet for the summer. Then probably back to New York.”
Colin shifted restlessly and swallowed, an insistent, nervous feeling starting in his stomach. She just looked at him, her eyes shadowed in the half light of the street.
“May I kiss you?” he asked.
“Yeah.” Her voice was husky and low.
Closing the small distance between them, he bent and brushed his lips softly across her cheek.
“Is that all you got?” she said, looking at him from underneath her lashes.
“Do you want more?” he asked, his heart starting to thump hard. Up until now, control had been—well, not easy, but well within his grasp. But standing this close to her, smelling the elusive fragrance of her hair or perfume, he was painfully tempted to throw caution and control to the wind.
“Yeah, more would be…nice,” she murmured, her lips curving in a provocative half-smile.
He took her face in his hands and lowered his head, gently brushing his lips across hers. A jolt of desire ran through him, and he almost groaned. Her hands lifted, spread across his chest. For a moment, he thought she had changed her mind, would push him away.
Her fingers tightened, gripped his shirt and pulled him closer. This time, he did moan as their lips touched, then pressed together firmly. His fingers brushed the soft, slightly bristly texture of the short hair behind her ear, but some sane part of him told him that gripping the back of her head would cause her to flee.
Instead, he slid his hands away from her face, replacing them gently at the small of her back, pressing but not insisting. Her lips parted, mouth welcoming his, as her hips swayed toward him.
Every nerve ending in Alicia buzzed. Colin held her as gently as if she were an egg, and the lightest touches trailed electrical charges crackling through her skin. His tongue swept softly into her mouth, and she met it with her own. He tasted of whiskey and…him. His body was large and solid. She liked that he smelled faintly of soap and starch, no cologne invading her nose and overpowering her senses.
She felt safe, treasured.
It was terrifying. And exhilarating.
The heels that she wore put her just a couple of inches below his height, and Alicia leaned into him, her breasts pressing against the solid mass of his chest. Registering his sharp intake of breath, she smiled against his mouth and felt him chuckle in response. She slid her hands behind his neck as he pressed kisses up one cheekbone to her ear.
“Miss Johnson, you are a very wicked woman,” he whispered. His lips and breath tickled her ear, and a shiver started at the base of her spine, working its way up to her neck.
“Yes?” She let the question hang in the warm night air.
He leaned back, his eyes scanning her face.
“Yes.” His touch ran delicious shivers up her back, then along her arms. Disengaging her hands from behind his neck, he tucked her fingers into the corner of his arm again and unlatched the garden gate, walking her to her front door.
“Key?” he asked.
Well this is going somewhere fast. She produced it from her pocket almost as if he were Prospero and she were his spirit servant, Ariel. He took the key from her fingers, inserted it into the lock, and opened the door.
“I would like to see you again, Alicia,” he said, his eyes large and solemn in the dimness.
“I’d like that too,” she said, not caring about the absurd, breathy way her voice came out.
“Good. Goodnight.” Brushing her lips once more with his own, he turned and walked to the sidewalk, leaving Alicia half appreciative of his restraint, half frustrated with desire.