Catch a Falling Star (Second Chances Book 3) (24 page)

She turned away from the thought and the itching guilt and uncertainty that came with it. She had been fair with him in New York, hadn’t she? As fair as you could be when you walked in and found the man you loved in someone else’s arms.

Across the hall, in the room that she and Ben had converted into her temporary workspace during filming, she found an entire stack of notebooks. She grabbed the top one and hugged it. Just because she didn’t have anything particularly interesting in her past didn’t mean she should instantly hold everything in Ben’s life before that day at the coffee shop against him. Or should she? There was a flood of water under that bridge.

It was too much to think about. She shook her head and marched out of the room, heading back toward the living room.

She stopped dead at the sight of Ben standing in the entryway to the front hall, Spence a few feet behind him. Their eyes met, and her heart exploded.

Chapter Nineteen

“I’m sorry,” he said. “And look, I’m not even drunk this time.”

Jo’s throat squeezed tight. Her lip quivered in spite of her effort to control it. He wore the same coat he’d worn that night, the same scarf. His face was pink with winter cold, but instead of staring, unfocused, in her direction, he met her eyes with simple, clear honesty.

She’d only been home for an hour, if that. Ben must have left the city, headed for Maine, minutes after she had. He’d chased after her, driving seven hours, to apologize. Like a hero in a novel.

“I could grovel a little more, if you’d like,” he went on. “Tell you I’m really,
really
sorry.”

Jo blinked. She hadn’t moved since she walked out into the hall and saw him. She still couldn’t believe he was there.

“Hey, is that Nick calling us in the other room?” Jenny said, cutting across the living room to scoop Daniel into her arms.

“I’m pretty sure it is,” Tasha said. She grabbed Spence’s sleeve and tugged him down the hall, into the dining room, and around the corner into the kitchen, Jenny and Daniel and Adelaide behind her.

Ben watched them go, then glanced back to Jo. He waited a beat, then headed down the hall to her, taking her hand and leading her into the library.

“Can you give me an idea just how angry you are with me?” he asked once they were in the room with the door shut. He let go of her hand when they reached the center of the room, then walked on to sit against the arm of one of the leather chairs. “Because I’m not sure how best to apologize unless I know the worst of it.”

Sense rushed back on Jo all at once. She snapped from holding her breath to breathing heavily. “What is the worst of it?” she asked, setting her pen and notebook aside, then moving to stand in front of him, arms crossed. “Am I dealing with a chronic cheater who is always going to sleep with people to get what he wants?”

“No.” His answer was quiet and steady, but he wasn’t congratulating himself for giving the right answer either. “I’ve never cheated on anyone because I’ve never been in a real relationship before.”

Jo frowned. “Never?”

“I’ve never wanted to.” He held her gaze, his posture open, his expression unmasked. “I want to now.”

Jo’s mouth went dry. Her heart thudded against her ribs, screaming
kiss him, kiss him
, but good sense kept her rooted to her spot. “You want to be in a relationship with me now?”

“Yes.” Again, total honestly. It fit him so well, better than any of the masks she’d seen him wear or the parts he’d tried to play. This wasn’t Benjamin Paul, the famous theater director, master of all he surveyed, or even the mysterious, suave, sexy stranger in the coffee shop. This was a whole new Ben. “I want to see if I can have something real with you,” he said.

She swallowed and shook her head. “But you don’t deal in reality. Neither do I, for that matter. Everything we do is made up. It’s just how we are.”

“Pretending is our job,” he corrected her. “But I want more than that.” He let out a breath, glancing down with the faintest hint of an ironic smile. “It took me far too long to figure this out, but do you know why we get along so well together? In and out of bed?”

The mention of bed shot suspicion through her. “Why?”

He glanced up, grinning, the crinkles around his eyes that she’d first noticed about him back. “Because you saw straight through the act to figure out who I really am right from the beginning. You figured it out, and I’d lost track of who that was.”

“I did? You had?” She could feel it already, something warm and trembling in the pit of her stomach. She did see who Ben was, and it wasn’t that loser she’d walked in on kissing some chick named Pamela.

“I mentioned I’m a terrible actor, right?” He stood and took a step closer to her.

She wasn’t ready to be that close to him yet and sidestepped him. “You might have said something.”

He stopped where he was, respecting the distance between them. “I’d forgotten how bad I was until I had the chance to stop acting for a while. You gave me this chance.”

He was so calm as he spoke, far from the way he’d poured his heart out in New York. It was almost as if he was too tired and beaten to be anything other than dead honest now. And that made him ridiculously handsome. Artless beauty and candid emotion. She should have seen it all along.

“I’m a writer, Ben,” she said, sorting her feelings into place as she spoke. “That’s all I know. I’ve never been the life of the party or everybody’s best friend. I never would have brought all these people that keep showing up at my house into my life if it were up to me.” She gestured to the door, a quick smile pulling at her lips. “I never, ever would have jumped your bones that day at the coffee shop unless….” She finished on a sigh. She still didn’t know why she’d accepted his wild offer, only that it felt right.

He stood where he was, studying her, his eyes alight with a thousand thoughts and emotions. Jo didn’t know what to do but stand there and watch him watching her. Dammit, but she was still head-over-heels in love with him. She had the feeling that she always would be, no matter what kind of crap he pulled on her. It was a major defeat to her pride as an independent woman…and it was a comfort to know that she wasn’t so closed off from the world that she couldn’t open her heart and let him have a second chance.

At length, he drew in a breath, then unbuttoned his coat. “I have something I want to show you.”

Her lips twitched to a teasing grin before she could stop them. “If it’s your killer body, I’ve already seen it.”

He paused halfway through his buttons and blinked. Then he laughed. The joy of it changed his whole appearance from stoic to every bit as sexy as he was when making love to her. “No, not that.” He finished with his buttons and shrugged off his coat, taking a roll of paper from the inside pocket. “Although if that would help the situation along at all, I’d be happy to strip naked.”

Jo held up her hands, laughter welling through her, even though she tried not to smile. “We’ll hold off on that until everything else gets figured out.”

“You realize, it could take a lifetime for the two of us to figure everything out,” he said.

A lifetime with Ben. Her heart caught in her chest at the idea. He wasn’t suggesting that, was he?

He held the roll of paper out to her. “Here. In the interest of full disclosure, I want you to take a look at that.”

Jo’s giddiness vanished when his did. She took the papers from him, unrolling them and reading. “It’s a contract.” She blinked, scanning more lines. “It’s the contract from the Pollard brothers about turning one of my plays into a musical. Diane kept insisting that you had this.”

“Read it,” Ben said, nodding at the papers.

Jo scanned the first page. The feeling of being a mouse up against a dinosaur that legal documents always gave her pressed down. Lots of legalese, expectations, rights, agendas. “What am I looking for?”

“Page three,” he said.

She flipped to page three. Jo might not have been a rocket scientist, but as the scanned the lines, even she could see what was going on. The Pollards had planned to pay Ben a staggering amount, and for no apparent reason. Beyond that, there was a little too much text about fiscal liability and write-offs in case the production was a failure. She’d need to see what a standard operating contract for anything in the theater world looked like, but from what she knew of literary contracts and things she’d signed for publishers, the deal the Pollards had offered was bad news on every level.

“They brought this that day when they showed up here, didn’t they?” She settled the papers back in order and handed them to Ben.

“Yep.”

“That was only a couple of days after you floated the idea to me.”

“Right again.”

“So, this was their idea, not yours.”

“I would never dream of putting you in a position like the one they wanted to,” he said, honest as a priest…which was about the only way Ben could be compared to a priest. “They found out we were connected, and since they’ve been trying to use me to both make a fortune and get back at their enemies, they thought they could use you as leverage.”

Jo frowned. “But you didn’t give me the contract.”

“I wanted to protect you.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Did you tell those creepy twins no?”

“I haven’t told them anything,” he admitted. This time when he stepped closer to her, Jo didn’t back away. “They’ve been trying to call me all day, but I have no interest in talking to them.”

Jo frowned. “But these are the guys who destroyed your reputation in New York. Aren’t you worried they’ll do more damage?”

He shrugged, reaching for her. She let herself be drawn into his arms, relaxed into the familiar feeling of circling her arms around his sides, holding him close.

“They can spread whatever rumors they want,” he said. “I’m not going to be there to hear them.”

Her heart flipped in her chest. “Where will you be?”

He leaned closer to her, so close she had to tilt her chin up to look into his eyes. “I’ll be right where I belong, in the place where I can be myself and be happy.”

“But what about the other play? The new one that what’s-her-name was trying to get you to do?”

He brought his lips closer to hers, nearly brushing them as he said, “I think I’m going to take a break from theater for a while. I’ve got this television show to film, you see, and far more important things I want to put my time and effort into right now.”

The trembling warmth in Jo’s gut spread through her, sending her heart spinning and her core pulsing. “Won’t that hurt everything you’ve tried to make of your life?”

“I’m beginning to see that what I’ve made of my life is overrated,” he said, holding her closer. “I was hoping to work on learning to be something else.”

“What?” His lips were so close to hers that the word came out as little more than a whisper.

“I’ve decided that I want to learn how to be a romance novel hero,” he said, smiling. “Do you know of anyone who could teach me?”

Sunlight and fireworks burst in her chest together. “I think I might know someone.”

“Good.”

He kissed her, and at last she was able to let go and kiss him back. Their bodies fit so perfectly together, their mouths melded as though they were made for one another. Jo didn’t hold back. She poured every last bit of her crazy, irrational, love for him into their kiss, knowing that he was every bit as out of his depth as she was. It was a whole new world for both of them.

“I’m sorry,” he said again as his lips hovered inches above hers.

“What for this time?” she asked, squeezing him close. Whatever it was, her gut told her he wasn’t going to hurt her. He’d been protecting her in his own misguided way this whole time.

“For the fact that I have no idea how to be in a relationship,” he answered. “For all future screw ups I’m sure I’ll make.”

“It can’t be any worse than puking in my bathroom.” She laughed, the sensation filling her with light.

“Maybe not, but there is that whole ruined reputation thing to consider.”

Jo shook her head. “Yvonne thinks that will pass. Adelaide just came to your defense big time right before you showed up.”

“She did?” Ben’s brow lifted in genuine surprise. His eyes lit with appreciation.

Jo nodded. “And that cute barista at the coffee store told me she was glad she didn’t shoo me out of your spot that day, because the two of us looked like we were having a good time.”

“We were having a good time,” Ben hummed, then leaned in and kissed her again, as passionate as he’d been that day. His tongue slid along the line of her lips, curling against hers. When at last he let Jo come up for air, he said, “Why don’t we go upstairs and recreate the day we met?”

Jo laughed, “Because my brother and a bunch of our friends are in the kitchen.”

“Good point.” He held her close, laughing and planting soft kissed on her lips.

Just as Jo was ready to change her mind and drag him upstairs to her bed where she could jump him, Ben loosened his hold on her.

“I love you,” he said, sudden intensity in his eyes. “Like I never thought I could love anyone. And I mean it when I say I want you to teach me to be the hero you’ve been writing about all these years.”

“As long as you help me to be the heroine that I’ve been trying to be all this time.” She pressed up to her tip-toes. “Maybe now that I have you, I’ll actually get the chance to find that happily ever after I’ve only ever written about.”

He smiled, touching his nose to hers. “I’ll make sure of it.”