Chapter Twenty-Six

 

 

 

V had worked her magic with a sedate but stunning mauve jacket and skirt, minimal makeup and an unobtrusive pearl necklace with matching earrings. She had scooped Kelly’s hair into a sleek chignon with just a few tendrils of curls free around her face to make the look a bit more romantic. They were both admiring the finished product in front of the full-length mirror when there was a soft knock on the French doors between the two suites. Lex stepped inside, timidly at first, having not been in the suite since Kelly had taken up residence there. But when he saw her, his face brightened with approval.

“V does good work,” she said, warmth crawling up her cheeks.

“You made V’s work ridiculously easy, I’m sure,” he said. He nodded his thanks to his housekeeper and dismissed her with an unspoken message that he wanted Kelly to himself for a few minutes.

“You all right?” Kelly asked.

“Better now that you know.” He looked around the room and gave a helpless shrug. “Kelly, I wasn’t trying to hide anything from you. It’s just that, well, that part of my life I like to forget, and after my father died, I was given the chance to live another life, a different life, one that worked for me. I let Alden Vance die and, with Dillon’s help, and the help of his father, Alexander Valentine was born. That holding company that bought up all of Valentine’s assets, well, that was the Matthews family, and it was nothing but a transfer of assets for my protection and for my peace of mind. Alden Vance II was never who I was. I was always Alexander Valentine, even before I knew it.”

“It’s all right, Lex. You did what you had to, like we all do,” she said. “I know the man you’ve become. That’s enough for me.”

He smiled as though he were smiling to himself. “I wish I could kiss you for that. The man that I’ve become seldom gets the notice of a beautiful, intelligent woman.”

She laughed softly. “Flattery will not get you laid, Alexander Valentine.”

For a moment, they both stood smiling at each other like a couple of Cheshire cats, then he moved to the credenza near the mirror and set a velvet box down on top of it. “The press is nothing if not perceptive. Since you’re my fiancée, I thought it might be wise for there to be some concrete evidence.” He nodded to the box.

She opened it with trembling fingers, finding that it was a struggle to remind herself their engagement wasn’t real, none of it was real.

“My grandmother, Clarissa Valentine, loved sapphires,” he said in response to the catch of her breath. “She actually wasn’t much for baubles, as she called them, but she made an exception for sapphires, and this ring was one my grandfather gave her on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. I thought it would serve as an engagement ring that the press could ooh and ah over. If you’re okay with it, that is.”

“I think if I try real hard, I might be able to be okay with that,” she said, taking the sapphire from the box and slipping it onto the ring finger of her left hand. The sight of it there and what it represented made her a little unsteady on her feet and giddy all over.

“It fits,” he said. His smile had that possessive edge to it that she could easily imagine a groom might have for his future bride.

She liked it that he looked at her that way.

A knock on the door made them both jump. “It’s time,” Dillon said.

Dillon’s candy-apple-red Jeep with the top off was his version of the Pope Mobile, he joked. It would be better than addressing the press from inside the gate. “I’ve instructed everyone to step back. I’ve warned them again that the haphephobia is real and that while you’re happy to talk with them, you’d rather not throw up on them.”

“Jesus, you didn’t say that?” Lex said. “Tell me you didn’t say that.”

Dillon shot him a wicked little grin. “You may be the great Alexander Valentine, and they may all love you, but they still don’t want to be puked on.”

“I hate you so bad,” Lex growled.

“Don’t you just,” came the reply. “Don’t you just.”

The drive to the gate took a full ten minutes with Dillon taking his time, giving Lex a chance to prepare himself. Kelly sat at his side, wishing desperately she could hold his hand for reassurance. Instead, she smiled every time he shot her a glance, which was often, actually. She liked that. She liked that she could offer him at least that much.

As they approached the gate, Dillon spoke with authority. “Once the gates open and the press steps back, Lex will get out and move to stand in front of the Jeep, if you’re okay with that, bro. If not, speak from the Jeep. Believe me, the press won’t mind, and Kelly, I just need you to follow his lead. If he gets out, you get out. Stand by his side. There’ll be questions for you, you know?”

“I know,” Kelly said. “I’m okay with that.”

“I’ll try to direct as much of the interaction to Lex as I can. The fewer lies we have to tell, the better.”

She found it jarring, the reference to lies. Christ, how could it be that she could so completely allow herself to fit into the fabrication they were creating? And yet she did. It felt good to be by Lex’s side. It felt good to wear his grandmother’s ring, to think of it as her engagement ring, but it wasn’t, was it? It was all just a part of the ruse she’d allowed herself to be dragged into. Without warning, a vision of Lex standing naked in the sculpture garden in the throes of passion, passion that belonged to her, the feel of his heat against her breasts, flashed through her head and she caught her breath in a little gasp. She thought it was a little gasp, at least, but it was enough to cause Lex to turn to her, a look of concern on his face, and then he saw, or he must have somehow intuited, where her mind had gone. He glanced down at her breasts then at her lap and his lips curled in a lazy smile. “Can’t keep your mind off sex for five minutes, can you, Ms. Blake?”

Thoughts of lies or deception or past secrets vanished in the warmth of that smile as he leaned just close enough to be almost in the danger zone and said between barely parted lips. “If you give me a hard-on before I have to speak in front of a gazillion rabid reporters, I’ll make you pay for it.”

“Ooh, I’m shivering in my Louis Vuittons,” she whispered back.

“What? Is everything all right?” Dillon said from the front with a quick glance over the seat.

“Fine,” Lex said, his gaze still locked on Kelly. “Everything is just fine.”

Then they were at the gates, which opened as if by magic, and reporters parted like the Red Sea as the Jeep moved through and came to a halt. “You good to get out?” Dillon asked, but Lex already had his door open.

Kelly followed his lead. As he moved to stand in front of the Jeep in a flurry of snapping shutters and words mumbled into Dictaphones, everyone stepped back politely and gave him space.

When they were all settled and he had given them a fair amount of time to take photos and get microphone levels for those who were there with television, he spoke with an ease Kelly could have never imagined under the circumstances.

“As you all know by now, thanks to the intrepid reporting of Gale Ann Spaulding, I was born Alden Vance II. You also know the details of my past, thanks to Ms. Spaulding, and if you’ve done your research, which I figure you all have, then you no doubt now know a lot more than what Ms. Spaulding was able to fit into a thirty-minute broadcast. The facts are all on the Internet. There’s neither been an effort to hide them nor to get rid of them. If any of you had asked me about my past, I’d not have lied to you. And, as you all saw from Saturday night’s unexpected drama, I have very good reasons for keeping to myself. Alden Vance II was a tragic character. He was a victim of circumstances beyond his control. There’s nothing new or unique in that. It’s an old story. None of us come through tragedy without being changed. Sometimes those changes are good, sometimes not so much.

“In my case those changes were good, very good.” To this statement, the crowd erupted in surprised murmurs. “I was destined from my birth to take over Valentine Industries, to run my mother’s company, to be my father’s legacy. No one on this planet was less suited or had less desire to do that than Alden Vance II.” He shrugged. “But what do ten-year-old boys know of the world and what they’ll be facing, of what it means to take on a role they weren’t made for and never wanted? When I was ten, I never doubted my future. When I woke up in that hospital to discover my mother dead, my body scarred and myself incapable of touching another person or allowing another person to touch me, I doubted everything. Everything.”

A deathly silence fell over the press and they leaned forward, their faces filled with empathy.

“What I didn’t doubt was that in art I found comfort, healing. What I didn’t doubt was that the creative process, the channeling of all that was inside me, all that I didn’t understand into my art, would keep me sane. What I also didn’t doubt was that no matter what transpired after I woke up from the coma, Alden Vance II died in that car crash along with his mother. It was Alexander Valentine who arose from the hospital bed and walked away,” he offered a twitch of a smile. “Of course, it took me a few years to understand that.

“Ms. Spaulding called me mentally unstable. Perhaps that’s true. We artists have a reputation for mental instability, but I would like it to be known that I was most definitely in my right mind when I agreed to support the funding for the Cascadia Womens and Children’s Hospital with the work of my hands, that I was most definitely in my right mind when I chose to attend the gallery auction Saturday night and move for the first time since Alexander Valentine was born, into the public eye, and I was beyond a doubt in my right mind when I chose to ask my lovely lady, Kelly Blake, to be my wife.”

To Kelly’s surprise, she found her throat tightening with emotion and she blinked back tears. Without thinking, she laid her left hand against her chest, and there was an instant wave of shutter snapping before she realized she had inadvertently flashed the ring, which made Dillon smile like the cat that got the cream as the crowd broke into an impromptu round of applause.

When the press quieted again, Lex continued. “I don’t remember what happened the night my mother died. I remember her picking me up after my lesson. I remember her telling me we were going to the house in Bend for the weekend. I remember that the weather was bad when we ascended the pass.” He shook his head. “And then I woke up in the hospital. That’s all. When my father died unexpectedly, my guardian had the sense and the compassion to listen when I told him what I wanted, what I needed. What I needed was not to be Alden Vance II. What I needed was to be left alone to heal and to try and figure out who it was that survived that wreckage. Two years later, I sold my first sculpture and Alexander Valentine was born.

“I never meant to deceive. I never meant to cause drama. For me, the two are separate lives. For me, healing has come from looking forward, looking to the future and not dwelling on the past, over which I had no power. I hope you can forgive me for any unintended subterfuge and that you’ll allow me, along with my fiancée, the peace and privacy we need to continue that journey forward. Now then, if you have questions, I’ll do my best to answer them.”

“Mr. Valentine,” came the response from the reporter for one of the cable television stations, “since you’re engaged and looking forward to the future, is it fair for us to assume that you are…finding some effective treatment for your phobia?”

Lex shot Kelly a mischievous smile. “If you’re asking if the love of a good woman is the cure for what ails me, then I have to say absolutely. However,” he added, raising his voice above the resulting cheers, “healing takes time and patience, and I’m looking forward to a very long, very happy convalescence.” This time he made no effort to stop the cheering. He just gave Kelly a look that was at least as physical as any embrace she’d ever had, physical enough to leave her breathless and giddy like the future bride she was pretending to be.

“Carl Freeman, Talk About Town Radio,” the man introduced himself. Clearly, he was lower in the pecking order than Spaulding and had been sent here to hold down the fort just in case. Spaulding would be truly pissed when she discovered that the man got an interview, Kelly thought. “What about you, Ms. Blake?” the reporter asked. “How are you finding a relationship in which intimacy is impossible?”

She bit her tongue to keep from commenting on the man’s ignorance, then saw out of the corner of her eye, Lex was quietly laughing. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from doing the same. “I can assure you whole-heartedly, Mr. Freeman, there are lots of other wonderful ways to be intimate that don’t involve physical touch.”

The press caught the ribald undertones and there were a few wolf-whistles and good-natured cat-calls. Lex just smiled and shot her a steamy glance.

“Will the public be seeing more of you in the future?” The reporter from The Oregonian asked.

“That depends on how willing the public is to back off and give me breathing room so I won’t throw up on their shoes,” Lex replied, to which the crowd laughed.

“As you said, Mr. Valentine, we’ve all done our research after Ms. Spaulding’s story broke,” a short reporter in the front row with a Cleopatra hair cut began, “and I would like to address the so-called conspiracy theories concerning your mother’s accident. It became clear to me, as I read through the files, that it’s quite possible there was foul play involved. If I’m aware of it, I’m sure you are too. Have you followed up on any of these leads?”

The tension rose in Lex’s shoulders, and Kelly was close enough to hear the sharp intake of breath, but he didn’t stumble, nor did he allow any emotion into his voice. In fact, he seemed quite distant when he answered the reporter. “I was ten at the time, and fairly precocious, so once I recovered enough to understand what had happened to my mother, of course, I heard the rumors. My father tried to keep the investigation from me, but he couldn’t. I had allies, friends who didn’t treat me like an ignorant child, but took my concerns seriously.” Kelly didn’t miss the brief glance at Dillon. “But by the time I was healed enough to question and seek out answers, I had other problems to deal with, as Ms. Spaulding so helpfully informed you. And also by that time, nearly six months had passed since the accident.

“Later, Alexander Valentine investigated the theories, in fact, I still have an investigator trying to discover if there’s any truth in those theories, but as you can imagine, after this much time, it’s a cold case if there even is a case. Nevertheless, I owe it to my mother to make sure the truth is found out if things happened differently than what the police reports say.”

“Were you the reason your father broke up with Josephine Beasley?” someone asked.

“Not directly, though I’m sure my situation was a strain on their relationship. It was unlikely that my father would have ever married Josephine Beasley or anyone else, for that matter. My mother had made sure the family fortune would pass to her children. I discovered much later that my father had several illegitimate children. I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but Alden Vance was a philanderer and anyone who knew him will tell you that. His son knew it almost before he knew how to read.” There was a loud mumbling among the crowd, and Lex waited until they quieted. “My father had no access to the fortune. He apparently didn’t know this until after my mother’s death. I’m told that he was to be allowed to live on the properties, to have a substantial stipend and to keep his share of interest from the stocks my mother had given to him as a wedding present. The truth was, other than those bequeathals, he had nothing to offer any woman who didn’t marry him for love.

“I never meant to keep secrets,” Lex said, looking out over the crowd. “My father kept me secluded when my haphephobia was diagnosed, for my own safety and protection. After the accident, I could no longer be the son he wanted me to be, so it was better that way, for him and for me. I’m not a mystery at all. I’m just a man who’s better off in the privacy of his own home. I encourage you to keep researching the subject of my mother’s death, if you want to delve deeper. The more eyes on the case, the better the chances of the truth being uncovered, even if it’s nothing more than what the police report says. But I ask that you go home to your lives and leave my fiancée and me to ours. In the future, I’ll do my best to keep the public in the loop as necessary, but I would really like to have my space back to myself, if you don’t mind.”

There was a murmur among the reporters and a few nods of agreement. Kelly figured they’d be glad to get home as well.

“Just one more question,” Dillon intervened. “Then I hope you’ll all find that the mystery of Alexander Valentine is well enough solved so that you can go home to your families.”

“Mr. Valentine,” a reporter from the back began, “have you and Ms. Blake set a date for the wedding yet?”

“We haven’t, but it can’t be soon enough for me.” Lex offered Kelly such a bright smile that once again she found herself forgetting there would be no wedding and that as soon as everything settled, there would be only a staged break-up and they would both go their separate ways. That made her feel much sadder than it should have. But then Alexander Valentine totally took her mind off the break-up by doing the unthinkable and taking her hand. The crowd gasped, Dillon nearly had a heart attack, and she whispered between her teeth. “What the hell are you doing?”

“I’m holding my fiancée’s hand, what the hell does it look like I’m doing?” He stumbled only slightly and reached for the side of the Jeep to support himself. But Kelly could hear his efforts to breathe and see the sweat breaking on his forehead as the color left his face.

“Jesus! Jesus H. Christ!” Kelly whispered. “Don’t you dare pass out on me. Don’t you dare!”

Dillon had the door open and ready for them, and still Lex wouldn’t release Kelly’s hand, nodding her in ahead of him then all but falling onto the seat.

“You’re gonna regret this,” Dillon said as he all but spun gravel turning the Jeep around and heading back through the open gate.

“No, I’m not,” Lex managed between clenched teeth. He swallowed hard and screwed his eyes shut. Fortunately, the road back to Mountain View was well paved, but it didn’t matter.

“Lex, let go! Lex let go of my hand, damn it.” But he didn’t. He held tight, damn near tight enough to crush bone. By the time they rounded the corner into the stand of evergreen that made Mountain View invisible from the road, his face was gray and covered with sweat. Kelly was assaulting him with a fine mix of pleading and cursing when Dillon stopped the Jeep and sat quietly while Lex managed his exit with way more dignity than Kelly would have thought possible, before he stumbled into the rhododendron thicket, dropped onto his knees and vomited.

“Jesus Christ, why the hell did he do that?” Kelly reached for the door to go to him.

“Stay put,” Dillon ordered. “He doesn’t need your help to puke, and if you can’t understand why he did what he did, then you’re not nearly as bright as I gave you credit for.”

Suddenly Kelly found herself close to tears. She did understand. She understood exactly why he did it. Some things were just worth the cost. She looked down at her clenched fist, still tingling from his suicide grip on it. Lex Valentine had touched her and she had been so fucking concerned that she had missed the moment, a moment he’d wanted to share with her.

“It’s all right,” Dillon said, as though he completely understood what she felt. “He’s all right. In fact, I wager he’s more than all right, or will be as soon as he’s finished puking.” He handed her a bottle of water. “For him. He’ll need it when he’s ready.”

It seemed like an eternity before he stood, wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and made his way on shaky legs back to the Jeep. He took the bottle of water, rinsed his mouth and settled himself in the seat next to Kelly.

“All right now?” she asked, still fighting the urge to sob for him.

He offered her a broad smile. “Never better.” Then he closed his eyes and laid his head back against the seat for the rest of the trip home.