Chapter Eleven

 

 

 

It was not his finest moment, nor was it a well thought out decision. Lex wasn’t used to dealing with crowd control, since he tended to avoid them like the plague. But if he left the stage via the planned route, Kelly Blake could simply turn and leave by any number of other exits open to her. If she did that, then the whole evening, the long days and nights of angsting and planning, would have been for nothing. She would know the truth of his identity and still she could walk away and, fucking hell, he might be a lot of things, but he wasn’t a stalker. So he chose the direct route, took the steps down the front of the stage, feeling the connection between the two of them so powerfully that it was like they were reeling each other in, and to his delight, she was moving forward, moving toward him.

For a moment, he didn’t notice anything else. For a moment, everything seemed just fine, the plan was working. She would give him a chance to plead his case. For a moment, his eyes remained locked on hers. He had some vague awareness of Dillon and several of the bodyguards he’d hired scrambling to create a wedge in front of him and almost literally pushing people aside, then he lost sight of her, then a camera flashed in his face, a TV camera pressed in, and he was jostled by the shoving of several other people wielding cameras and microphones.

“What the hell are you doing?’” Dillon gasped, elbowing a large man with a Dictaphone out of the way. “I had a plan. You knew I had a plan. Get out of his way, give the man some room,” he barked at a woman wielding a large camera.

“Can you tell us what it’s like to be at such an exciting event after so long in seclusion?” It was a woman who spoke this time, and she thrust another Dictaphone under his nose. Damn it! She was close enough that her breath was hot on his face and, for a terrifying moment, he thought he’d pass out.

“Crowded,” he managed breathlessly. To the woman’s credit, she backed off, but the press was now shoving forward closer and closer to Lex. He felt a brush against the sleeve of his jacket and suddenly there was no air for him to breathe. His shirt clung to his body, now bathed in icy sweat, and his stomach threatened projectile vomiting if he didn’t get out of this place fast. Not that that had ever actually happened, but for a brief second, The Exorcist flashed through his head, and he would have laughed had he not been so terrified of what might happen if he actually did open his mouth.

More of the security guards had cued in on what was happening and began to push and elbow their way through the middle of the crowd from the left where the space was cleared, which meant that there was no place for people to go but to press back and right into Lex’s exit path. “Please let me pass,” he managed between barely parted lips. The guests yielded politely, the press and the paparazzi, not so much. The push and the shove of the bodyguards that had worked in Lex’s favor at the beginning now became detrimental, being forced back dangerously close to the man’s body.

Candice Holland’s voice boomed over the sound system. “Please back off, folks. Please give Mr. Valentine room. Give the man some air.” But the press ignored her pleas.

Where the hell was Kelly? The floor suddenly felt like the rocking of a ship, and he swallowed back bile. He stumbled and righted himself only a split second before ending up in the arms of a hefty woman in a dress that looked like a tapestry. Black spots danced before his vision, and he forced himself forward. He was not going to pass out. He was not! He couldn’t humiliate himself until he got to Kelly. How much farther could it be, if she was moving toward him and he was moving toward her, surely he was almost there. But what if she’d seen the mess he’d caused and decided to leave him to it? Kelly Blake wouldn’t do that, whatever she was, she understood his struggles. She wouldn’t leave him to his own devices without giving him the satisfaction of hearing him out. Black spots were now bouncing about with the rocking of the floor and the roiling of his stomach, and, just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, the horrid woman from Talk About Town Radio elbowed her way between two security guards and stopped progress in its tracks.

 

“Please let me through.”

Kelly heard the desperate plea in his voice.

But the press ignored it.

“Jesus Christ! What the hell are they doing? What the hell are they doing?” Myrna gasped. “Sonovabitch, isn’t that Gale Ann Spaulding from Talk About Town? Oh God, he so doesn’t need to deal with that bitch.”

Sure enough, Talk About Town radio’s diva, Gale Ann Spaulding, dressed in white like a vitriol-spewing angel, elbowed her way in close and shoved a Dictaphone in Alexander Valentine’s now chalk-white face. Abrasive didn’t begin to describe the woman, and even those who loathed her—pretty much anyone who occasionally used their brain for thinking—couldn’t avoid the woman’s influence as Talk About Town had billboards of her deceptively pretty face with its blinding, eat-your-heart-while-it’s-still-beating smile plastered all over the city. Talk About Town wasn’t known for its forward-thinking, intelligent journalism, and Gale Ann Spaulding fit right in. She had used her show as a platform to claw her way to the top of bad radio way more by sensationalism than journalism. She ignored his pleas to let him pass.

“Mr. Valentine, could you please tell us just exactly what procedures will be performed at this women and children’s hospital your work is helping to build?”

“Oh, she did not just say that,” Myrna growled. “She fucking did not just say that!”

“I’m an artist, not a doctor, but if you were listening earlier, Dr. Forsythe addressed that subject,” he replied in a voice that was visibly shaking. “Now, please let me pass.”

“Take that, you bitch!” Myrna said, one hand clenched in a tight fist while the other was in danger of snapping the stem of the champagne flute she held.

Several cameras flashed, and Alexander Valentine blinked and stumbled, and the woman pressed forward. “Do you mean to tell me you’re willing to offer work you’ve clearly spent thousands of man hours on to a cause you don’t fully understand?”

“Get out of my way, Ms. Spaulding,” he said between gritted teeth and stumbled again to a visible gasp of the other guests, several of whom, not clearly understanding the situation, were pressing forward to offer the distressed man a hand. All the while, Candice Holland kept pleading over the mic for everyone to back off and let Mr. Valentine pass. But the reporters, in particular Gale Ann Spaulding, clearly didn’t think that plea applied to them.

“He’s not going to make it. He’s doing to pass out,” Myrna gasped.

“The hell he is,” Kelly grabbed two glasses of champagne from the tray of a waiter who watched the commotion with wide eyes, then thought better of it and traded them in for two glasses of red wine, which were larger. “Help me,” she said to Myrna. The woman was nothing if not perceptive and took one of the glasses from her, then grabbed the arm of her equally perceptive ex. Following the lead of the two women, he grabbed a half-empty magnum of champagne away from a server.

 

While Lex swayed on his feet, the tenacious Gale Ann Spaulding went into rant mode about taxpayers’ money used for unnecessary procedures, the Dictaphone now in her face, since it really was all about her and she didn’t want her adoring audience to miss a single golden word she uttered. She was just about to lay a hand on Lex’s lapel in an effort to stop his progress when it was shower time. It took Lex a moment to figure out what happened, as he felt a couple of droplets against his face like it had just started to rain in the gallery. Then the horrible woman let out a high-pitched squeal and stepped back, but not in time to prevent a serious drenching in red wine. It was surreal, really. If he hadn’t been afraid he’d pass out or throw up, Lex might have enjoyed it as the woman let out a barrage of expletives in a total Carrie moment—minus the pig’s blood and the bad things happening to good people and burning the place down.

But then things turned decidedly Aliens when Kelly and her secretary pushed their way front and center, empty glasses clenched in their fists, and Lex could have sworn Kelly said something along the lines of ‘Get away from him, you bitch.’ Then Dillon caught on to what was happening, as everyone pressing in close to Lex’s person got showered in expensive champagne, complements of a man who seemed to be in cahoots with Kelly’s secretary.

“Get him out of here,” Dillon yelled to Kelly. “There’s a limo waiting out front.”

Lex just barely heard the exchange over the ringing in his ears.

Kelly’s secretary, and the man with her, elbowed and shoved. Several of the other guests had gotten the idea and showered the paparazzi in a veritable downpour of expensive alcoholic beverages with special attention paid to Gale Ann Spaulding, who was still ranting something about tax payers’ money, then she spotted Kelly, but somehow that didn’t matter, because Kelly’s full attention was on Lex. That was all that mattered to him as she motioned him toward the exit. He was vaguely aware of Dillon leaping onto the stage, introducing himself loudly as Lex’s PA and saying he would happily answer any questions. Then there was another shower of champagne and Lex and Kelly had the break they needed.

It was all like instant replay when Lex was able to actually think about what had happened in those few minutes. When it was happening, when he was in the midst of it, sure he was going to die, even as he knew he wouldn’t, even as he knew it was just the phobia, all he could manage was to stay on his feet and not throw up. He kept his eyes on the woman in the heart’s blood dress, focusing on her only, following her like a beacon as she cajoled and encouraged him breathlessly toward the front exit, toward the waiting limo, toward relief. All this she did without ever once touching him. Out front, the driver was at the ready. He hurried them both inside, slammed the door and sped away. Only then did she start yelling at Lex.