| |
“YOU HAVE GOT to be kidding,” Izzy said, making the most appalled face Emma had ever seen. She couldn’t help but mentally pat herself on the back for a job well done. Best idea ever. “You’re kidding, right?”
Standing in the lineup back stage, all Emma had to do was glance at the couple tuning their voices with low to high octaves, or the six-year-old girl tap dancing for her mom and dad. Emma was dead serious.
Melissa chuckled. “Best moment of this trip right here,” she said.
Emma’s insides were laughing hysterically but she remained calm and serious. “Oh Melissa, I signed you up too.”
Melissa’s face dropped and an ice-cold stare fell on Emma.
Abby snorted.
“What are you laughing about?” Izzy demanded. “This is a talent show. A talent show.” She said it with so much disgust, a few nearby adults glared at her.
Best moment...ever.
Abby laughed harder. “It wouldn’t be your first.”
“High school talent shows do not count. Those are serious contests to see who is better than whom and since I am who I am, obviously I was the best.”
“We should sing,” Abby said. “I mean my brother is a worldwide superstar. If we start off with that the people will have to love us. Just like high school.”
“You’re actually considering this?” Izzy asked.
Abby shrugged. “I’m not a snoot like you. I know how to have fun.”
“I hate to interrupt,” Melissa said.
“I’m sure you don’t,” Izzy said.
“I’m not considering it and it would be my first time making a complete fool of myself in front of a crowd,” Melissa said.
Izzy rolled her eyes. “Well, let’s agree to disagree because that night at the bar was rather embarrassing on your behalf.”
Melissa sucked in a deep breath. “I’m not even interested in watching whether you two decide to actually perform or not.” Melissa glanced around and stopped at a couple dressed in white and black checkered pants with faces full of diamond matching makeup. “They should not advertise this in the brochure. I’m not even sure what we’re doing here. It’s like a pool of germs.”
“Now you’re just being mean,” Abby said. “I mean, you were sitting in a pool of vomit that didn’t belong to you two nights ago.”
Melissa snarled at her. “That’s disgusting.”
“That’s what I thought,” Abby agreed. “We tried to stand you up but arguing with Drunk Melissa is like arguing with Sober Melissa, there’s no winning, just a lot more ‘I love you’ and whining.”
“Break a leg.” Melissa shot Izzy a look. “Both of you.”
“Why am I getting the stink eye?” Izzy asked.
Melissa didn’t reply or say goodbye before disappearing around the groups of rehearsing talent.
“Next,” one of the coordinators called from behind the fold-up table. The white haired older lady sent the girls a friendly smile that touched her waiting eyes under thick black glasses.
Emma beamed. “That’s you two. Break a leg. I’m going to grab me a table up close. Front row if possible.”
The main stage was designed like an old fashioned, but ritzy, theater. Rows of plush deep red theater seats descended to the stage, which was closed off behind matching red velvet curtains.
There weren’t many people occupying seats since they’d arrived early for Izzy and Abby to settle out back.
Emma found the first row almost empty, so she took a seat, crossing her leg and smoothing the grey material of her knee-length dress.
The room was cool, and goose bumps rode over her bare arms, but felt nice after a long day outside under the sun.
Emma needed a smile, and some laughter. It was hard to wrap her mind around everything that had happened with Grayson in the last couple days.
Inwardly, she let out a chuckle at Melissa’s reaction to partaking in the talent show.
“Is this seat taken?”
Grayson’s voice sent instant warmth to her body, setting her goose bumps on fire. The sound of him was a reminder of how her hands felt pressed against his naked chest. How his kisses were so passionate, so hard, so hot.
Emma looked up at him and scolded herself for letting her eyes land on his luscious lips. They curved upwards and she bit her cheek knowing she was busted. If only he could see inside her dirty little thoughts, picturing him naked, with her nails digging into his thick, strong shoulders. She hadn’t even given her eyes time to notice how handsome he looked in his grey slacks and neutral colored shirt. No tie, and yet dashing as if he wore one.
He waited for her to answer, not simply claiming the seat and throwing his weight around like he could.
Emma shook her head, afraid her words wouldn’t come out properly.
“Do you mind if I sit here for the show?”
Spears and daggers made warning signs in her head, but she shook her head again, and he took the seat next to her.
“I didn’t want to miss Izzy and Abby’s performance.”
Emma hadn’t stopped watching him and him her. Even sitting next to her, he’d shifted his body for easy access to talk.
What would they talk about?
He looked at the stage. “I’ve done my fair share of talent shows on these cruises.”
Emma watched the way his freshly shaven jaw moved as he spoke, showing his white teeth with a smile of the memory. Why did everything about this man strum something deep inside her?
“When my mom was alive, she encouraged me to get up there and make a crowd smile.” He glanced at her. “I think that’s why my dad insisted I help you out at your mom’s gala.” Grayson’s smiled faltered and it saddened her that she could see his pain. “I think he wanted to see me on stage again. We kind of separated after my mom died. I was sent to boarding school and he skipped out on work, leaving it all to Tom while he traveled with his fair share of company.”
Emma turned away from Grayson and his first real moment of giving her something from his past. Why now? Why today? And did she want to know more about him?
Emma looked back at him to find him intensely watching her.
The room was filling up now. An older couple had taken the empty seats beside Emma and the gentleman was making it a point to elbow her every two seconds. Meanwhile a younger couple with two kids was beside Grayson and the five-year-old boy was standing on the seat, buzzing a plane in the air, humming a course. It was turning into a mad house and all Emma saw, and all she heard, was Grayson opening up to her.
Grayson leaned in. “Sweet and kind, with a melting smile, and when you laughed, it sucked me into the possibility of a new world with you.”
“Grayson−”
“I want you to know, that I have never met a woman like you. You know who I am. My life is out there for people to see and still somehow you thought there was good in me that no one has ever seen.”
There is good in you. She wanted to tell him, but wanted to listen more.
When his hand moved to rest on the back of the seat, she wasn’t sure about letting him back in...then his thumb touched the side of her face.
“I married Samantha in Vegas on a spur of the moment. That about sums up my decision right there, however, we did stay married for a few days, spent at her house. And, at the end of those days, my dad came to visit. I went out for a run and when I got back, the two of them were in her bed...together.”
Emma’s mouth fell open. Her heart exploded into a hundred broken pieces for him and suddenly everything made sense. Everything.
His trust in her was about his father. It really was about Brock and Samantha. Their deception damaged him. It infuriated Emma right away. There were no words to express how sorry she was. The sentences she formed in her head were unsuitable.
How could a person give that kind of betrayal to a person they loved? Family even? She thought of her dad briefly and all the pain he'd inflicted upon her. He had been selfish. But Brock was different. Wasn't he? She was trying to make him a better man in her head. She tried hard, but she couldn't because the man she loved was hurt...broken.
“My past mixed up my thoughts about you. Overtook them, in fact. If I were normal, that assumption with my father wouldn’t have even popped into my head. But I’m not normal, and it did pop into my head, and the end result is that you suffered. You will always suffer with me. Whether it’s because you think I don’t trust you or you don’t trust me. I can’t erase my past. People know my past and I’m labeled for life. If you stood by my side, it would always stir up trouble for you, for us.”
Emma had been around the taunts and teases of such accusations. She’d watched for weeks from afar as her older sister Violet had begun dating a bonafide player. She saw the looks from others, she heard the whispers, but neither Violet nor her boyfriend Ryder, had paid any attention. They had lived, still live, in their own world...could she have that with Grayson?
“You’re better off without me, but I’m not better off without you. Since this might be the last time we spend this much time together, I selfishly want to hear your laughter before I let you go.”
He leaned in and kissed her cheek, cupping the back of her head. This time she didn’t see or feel his bare chest. It was only his words playing emotional havoc on her heart.
Seaweed scum...he was so far from it.
“You look beautiful. Don’t let my mistrust keep you from letting someone else in. You deserve that white picket fence little girls dream about.”
Emma inhaled deeply. She only wanted him.
As he pulled away the old man next to her dug his elbow into her back again so hard that she winced.
Grayson glanced over. “Trade seats?”
“Yes.” She laughed and they swapped seats.
Nothing more was said and soon the show began, the lights dimmed, the curtains pulled back and the host took the stage with a comedic side that left the crowd in laughter and tears.
A silly mass of talented, and maybe not so talented, but all in good nature, people performed.
When Abby and Izzy waltzed their confident selves onto the stage, they left no room for errors. As always, they were a riot, introducing themselves as not the sister of superstar, Avery McAdams, but instead his biggest fans. Once they began singing one of the bands top hit singles, replacing the lyrics with their own comical verses, the crowd went wild. With encouragement from their two bubbly hosts, the silly duo sang their hearts out. Applause followed, but Emma’s side hurt too much from laughing to move her hands, so she whistled and cheered with the crowd.
Shortly after, the buzzing of the boy’s airplane beside her got louder until finally it hit the side of her head. It didn’t hurt as much as it surprised her, and she even let out a giggle remembering when her niece and nephew were that age. It was when the little sport pulled the airplane away, and found it entangled in her hair that she let out a whimper.
The kid pulled again.
Emma moved with him, reaching her hands blindly behind her to untangle it. The boy cried out for his mom.
Emma was about to turn and reassure the family everything was okay, or would be as soon as the airplane was out of her hair. Then she felt Grayson’s hands moved behind her head, his fingers through her mass of her curls, and Emma froze.
“Relax,” he whispered through the darkness. His warm breath heated the side of her face and his designer cologne filled her nostrils.
The woman soothed her son and tried to figure out what the commotion was about while Grayson’s arms wrapped around Emma, radiating his heat and strength to her. Without moving her head, she looked up at him through her eyelashes.
His fingers played with her hair, caressing her scalp, and fogging her mind, but his eyes watched her, unable to see around the back of her head.
His smile melted her heart and his wink took her breath away. She couldn’t look away from him and he held her gaze, untangling the small toy out of her hair. His lips were only a tiny movement away from her easily leaning in and meeting them. Her eyes trailed down to the soft hills she craved to caress. She sucked in her own lips, when his smirk widened, catching her.
This was crazy. Her words said stay away, but her body told him to make a move.
“There,” he breathed and she felt his hands leave her hair.
He leaned even further over and she heard the mother say thank you. His arms didn’t retract right away and she was grateful for the comforting embrace they gave her. One arm rested around her shoulder while the other moved some hair behind her ear.
The show carried on without them. Laughter exploded and cheering deafened the room, but they didn’t move. His thumb rubbed her temple in a motion that warmed her.
“How did I mess this up so much between us?” he finally said. “If I had just been up front with you, maybe asked instead of accused...”
His blame saddened her.
“I steer clear of drama, just like my dad,” Grayson said. “If you ignore it, then it won’t hurt so much. But here I am, trying to let you go, but I can’t stop looking at you, touching you and wondering if I am making the biggest mistake of my life...because this hurts like hell.”
He kissed her forehead, lingering for a moment and she heard his deep inhale before he leaned away from her and looked up at the stage. Poof. Gone just like that.
The next few acts gave her a chance to breathe steady again and relax the muscles clenched in her stomach.
When the announcer appeared dressed as a magician, complete with cape, top hat and wand in hand, he announced, “We have a special show today from, Grayson Cohen.”
Spotlights lit the front row, highlighting Emma’s surprised look.
Grayson winked at her before standing and hopping onto the stage in front of them, giving the audience, herself included, a nice show of his hard posterior.
What was he doing?
The crowd applauded, likely half of them wondering if he was in any relation to the cruise line. No doubt, the cell phones were using their overly expensive data looking up his name online.
“Thank you, Howie.” Grayson took the cape, gracefully whipping it through the air to land on his shoulders. If anything, Emma would rather undress him than add layers. The top hat landed on his head with a spin and he waved the wand around as he addressed the crowd.
A few failed tricks later, the rusty Grayson was making a fool of himself, but he was laughing along with the crowd.
“I feel like I’m out of practice,” he finally admitted and the audience went wild with laughter. “Maybe if I had a pretty lady up here to assist me I might be able to pull off one of these.”
The room cheered.
Grayson’s eyes fell on Emma along with the spotlight.
“Emma, come up here and lend a helping hand.”
What? No?
Grayson laughed. “She’s a little shy. How about applause to get her up here?”
The room thundered claps and whistles of encouragement. One of the coordinators she recognized from out back met her at her seat with an extended arm to escort her to the stage.
There was so much more to Grayson then he let himself believe and she wasn’t so sure she was ready to let him go just yet.