Games People Play (14 page)

Her words were choked when she finally broke away. “Pack your things and leave right away, before . . . before I . . .”

“Before you what?”

“Before I follow my usual path and fall. It can’t happen, Colm.”

While she stood there, watching in desperation, he pulled the door open and took a final glance at her over his shoulder. The sad smile he wore tugged at some place deep inside her, where bad things happened to people who didn’t deserve them, and the world tilted in favor of unfairness and confusion.

“Jesus, Syd,” he said softly, resting his cheek against the edge of the door. “I didn’t think it would be this hard to say good-bye.”

She couldn’t speak without crying, so she didn’t speak at all.

And then he was gone.

Chapter Fifteen

S
itting in motionless bumper-to-bumper traffic an hour later, Colm rubbed his bottom lip and stared at the minivan in front of him. A sticker of five cartoon stick figures in descending size graced the corner of the rear window: mother, father, two boys, and a girl. Lower down, a bumper sticker proclaimed,
My child is an honor student at St. Bernadette Academy
.

He felt like he’d just swept in on a UFO.

An hour ago, Sydney’s hands had been on him. Not too soft, but not abrading. Firm grasp and easy slide. He replayed it over and over, his entire body throbbing again as though he’d never known release at her hands. He wanted her.

He missed her.

Coldplay sang from the radio about trying to fix someone. It reminded him of Sydney. He snapped it off and sighed, watching the minivan with the stick-figure family change lanes and inch out of sight. As usual, he was in the slow lane. Damned Washington traffic.

At home, he found Amelia in the living room, watching talk shows.

“Hi!” Her big green eyes studied him as he set down his overnight bag and her smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

He sat on the closest chair, the weight of his mistakes curving his shoulders. “I lost the job a few days early.”

“Oh, Colm.”

“I still got paid, but it feels all wrong.”

“Hold my hand.” When he grasped her fingers, she said, “I’m so sorry. I know how much you love your work.”

He wanted to laugh; he wanted to cry even more. He couldn’t stand the lies any longer. He couldn’t think about what the truth would do to his sister, either. Out of his power, it clawed its way up his chest to his throat. “Amie. There’s something I need to tell you.”

Those long lashes blinked. “What is it?” His hesitation stretched on until she added, “Hello?”

He wobbled on the edge of destruction . . . so close . . . and then, miraculously, swallowed the truth. It curdled his stomach, but the sense of relief was greater than the pain. What good was confessing now? Hurting her now? Ah, God, why the hell had he agreed to swallow Max’s bait in the first place?

“I’m having a rough day. Tell me something that won’t make me feel like crap.”

She laughed. “Want me to say something nice to you?”

“Yeah.” He stroked her hand, the feel of her cool skin the only thing that grounded him. “Butter me up.”

“Something nice. Let me think.” Then, “I’m so proud of you.” Admiration shone in her eyes. His sister. His best friend. She loved him and was proud of him for deeds he’d accomplished a million years ago, deeds that had been erased by lies and prostitution. Maybe he’d started out wanting to help her, to take care of her, but now he was too far gone. He embodied the world he inhabited. He told women what they wanted to hear, touched them when he didn’t want them, whispered lies in their ears, took their money. He lived an untruth every single day.

When he didn’t respond, Amelia’s eyebrows drew down. “Want to tell me what happened?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I do know. I engaged in completely unprofessional behavior.”

“Ah.” She compressed her lips as if to hold back a smile. “You got fired for romancing someone.”

“In a matter of speaking.”

“Does this chick feel something for you, too?”

“Yeah.” The ache in his chest expanded, a mixture of exultation and agony. One week of knowing Sydney had totally turned his life inside out. What kind of fool was he, laying his entire existence—and Amelia’s—on the line with useless feelings for a woman he hardly knew?

“Well,” Amelia said. “You’re gorgeous and amazing. You do great things. She’s a fool to let you go.”

He forced himself to smile back and lifted her hand to kiss it. “Thanks, Amie. I feel like a new man.”

“You’re full of shit.”

Colm laughed and got to his feet. “I’ve got to run some errands, but I’ll be back tonight.”

“Late as usual?” she sighed.

“Not tonight. I’ll see you for dinner.”

* * *

A
zure was in her office when he reached Avalon.

“I’m done,” he told her, sinking into the brocade chair across from her desk. “Sydney Warren was a lost cause.” So, apparently, was his common sense, and worst of all, his heart. He had to pull it together, or Azure would see right through him.

She stared at him with those cold blue eyes, her fists propped beneath her chin. “It doesn’t really matter, I suppose,” she said finally. “The pay is the same whether you win or lose. Most companions wouldn’t have been paid for services unrendered. You do know how lucky you are?”

Dread tweaked the back of his neck. She was just winding up; he could feel it coming. His gaze wandered to the painting behind her desk while he waited in the thundering silence, an Impressionist church landscape whose artist he didn’t recognize.
God, just get this over with.

Never one to disappoint, Azure said, “What I want to know is why you failed to seduce her. That should always be in your power.”

“I told you from the beginning. She’s completely devoted to Beaudoin.”

Azure sat back and sighed. “You’re lying.”

He glanced at the painting again. The church’s spires rose against a rosy setting sun, beckoning.
Come all ye sinners . . .

“There’s a look in your eyes I’ve never seen before, Colm. Do you have feelings for her?”

He gave a humorless laugh. “After a week?”

“You fell in love.”

“I don’t even know what that is.”

“Convince me.”

He forced his hands to relax on the armrests and searched for the safest admission. “Let’s say I liked her.”

Azure’s gaze never wavered from his face. “And did you want her?”

“Every day.”

She leaned forward again. “Fool. I thought I could trust you.”

“I thought you could, too.” He got to his feet, maintaining a cool demeanor even though his heart was hammering. He couldn’t play games about this. Not about Sydney, and not about his job. “Am I fired, Azure?”

She thought for a long moment, steepling her fingers against her lips. “Is it over with her?”

“It’s over.”

“Are you going to get back to the old Colm who could handle three women a night?”

How could he? Everything was different now.

Just
lie.

“I can’t wait,” he said, meeting the challenge of her gaze with a stoic one of his own.

“Then you still have a place here.” She rose, glided around her desk, and caught his face in her hands. “Colm.”

Jesus, what more did she want? He was back in her grip, ready to work. What else would she demand of him?

His jaw tightened as her fingers traced his eyebrows, his nose, his mouth. Then she said, “Lovely. Tell Maria to write you a new schedule. And one last thing.”

His eyes dropped to her full, red-painted lips. She wasn’t smiling anymore. “What’s that?”

“Don’t ever try to bullshit a bullshitter. One chance is all you get, darling. Don’t lie to me again.”

* * *

D
arkness had just fallen, bringing with it a colder wind than Sydney had felt all year, when the lights of Max’s limousine flashed across the front of the house. She was sitting on the brick steps in a leather jacket and gloves, a scarf looped around her neck. Inside the foyer closet, her packed luggage was stashed to give her a chance to talk to Max first. After finding an apartment in the city, she would arrange a moving company to get what little furniture she’d acquired over the past few years.

The limousine’s black finish shone like glass as the car pulled around to the entry. The chauffeur promptly climbed out, retrieved Max’s chair from the trunk, and brought it around to transfer him into it. Max refused a specially equipped van for such purposes. He liked things the old-fashioned way. He liked his employees to work for their money.

“What are you doing out here in the cold?” Max gave her a curious smile as he wheeled himself toward the ramp, the wind catching at his cashmere scarf. She’d bought it for him last Christmas. It matched the deep gray of his eyes.

She rose and waited for him at the top of the ramp. “Just needing some fresh air.”

“You look like you’re going somewhere.” He reached her and took her hand as she bent to brush her lips against his cheek. As he rolled behind her into the house, he added, “Are you going somewhere, Sydney?”

She wouldn’t lie to him. “Yes, Max.”

Halting in the black-and-white tiled foyer, he drew a breath and said, “Are you leaving me?”

Tears burned her eyes. He looked so small and twisted in his wheelchair, suddenly. “Yes, Max.”

Hans appeared through the dining room and met the chauffeur at the front door for Max’s luggage. “Welcome home, Mr. Beaudoin.”

“Thank you, Hans.” Max cast him an unreadable smile. “Did you know, Hans, that Sydney is leaving us?”

The valet’s expression never changed. “I did not, sir. I’m sorry to hear it.” He glanced at Sydney but said nothing more, just hoisted the leather carry-on and garment bag and headed upstairs.

When he was out of earshot, Sydney said, “Why don’t we go into the library and talk?”

Max inclined his head and wheeled in front of her, throwing open the double doors when they reached the massive room. The interior was chilled and dark. He turned on a single reading lamp and then pivoted his chair so he could meet her eyes. The glimpse of a broken man was gone. His posture had straightened, his gaze glittering in a way that reminded Sydney of shards of granite.

“Are you having an affair?” he demanded.

She didn’t answer right away. She thought about the last week, the days and nights of mixed sweetness and agony. Through all of it, Max had never been further from her life. Whatever she’d been through with Colm belonged in the sacred, female part of her mind and couldn’t be retrieved except on those long, lonely nights that no doubt lay ahead. Whatever had been between them, it was her history, her truth, for her only.

“This is about you and me, Max,” she said. “I’m sure you must have seen this moment coming.”

“Not at all.” He wheeled toward the butler’s cart and the Baccarat crystal decanters sparkling in the dim light. “Will you have a drink?”

“No, thank you.”

“Then do you mind if I do?”

Sydney shook her head and crossed her arms over her breasts, lingering near the door. She didn’t want to drag this out, but he appeared to be settling in for a long winter’s nap.

“How about we ask Hans to light a fire for us while we talk?” he said.

“No.” She backed up until her spine hit the door. “Max, I can’t stay.”

“You want me to ask why you’re leaving.”

“I feel I owe you an explanation if you haven’t figured it out for yourself.”

“Then by all means . . .” He gestured with his snifter of brandy, sloshing some of it on the Persian rug.

Her arms tightened as she hugged herself. “You stopped loving me awhile ago.”

“Not true.”

“Then you stopped showing me you did. Whatever happened, something integral changed between us, something I needed and missed.”

He sighed. “Go on.”

“In this time I realized a couple of things. One is that our relationship no longer made me happy. The other is that I don’t want to do erotic art anymore, but portraiture.”

“You’ll never make it,” he snapped so quickly her eyes widened.

Then ire crawled through her. “Oh, really.”

He smiled a little. “I’m not being unkind, Sydney. Take this as professional advice. Your talent lies in erotic art. You’ve made yourself a wealthy woman in that genre. Don’t mess with it if it ain’t broke.”

The crass saying splashed like acid across her nerves. “My life is ‘broke,’ Max, and has been for a while. I plan to fix it. And while I’m so very grateful to you for your knowledge and direction in the past few years, you, too, have benefited from my success. We were a good team for a while. Now it’s time for me to move on, and you to do the same.”

He rolled back to the butler’s cart and poured himself another brandy. When he pivoted to face her, he said, “So you’re leaving because I wasn’t demonstrative enough and you want to do a different kind of art. Kind of silly, don’t you think?”

“Don’t patronize me.” She gritted her teeth and forced herself to drop her arms, to straighten, to meet his thundercloud eyes. For all his outward coolness, the expression in his gaze roiled with outrage. “I’m done talking about this. I’m going into the city to a hotel room, but I’ll be back in the next few days to get my things.”

“Are we parting as friends?”

“That’s up to you.” She opened the door and stopped at the threshold. “We’ve been through a lot together, Max. I’d hate to part as anything else.”

Although the right half of his face was lost in shadow, she could see his pleasant expression fade. His mouth tightened, his chin nudging upward. “Is it the wheelchair, then? The handicap? The fact that I don’t—I won’t—”

He knew right where to stab. “No, Max. It never has been. I would have loved you forever if you would have loved me the same.”

“I did. I do.”

“Please.” She rubbed the aching place between her brows. “I’m packed and ready to leave. It’s over. My mind is made up.”

“Who will agent your career?”

“Right now? Me.”

She started to pull the door up behind her, but he blurted, “One last thing.”

She waited, her heart pounding.

“Are you seeing Hennessy?”

“No.” The truth came easily. Colm had opened the symbolic door for her, but she wouldn’t be running through it and into his arms. The realization was agony, but it was her reality, the one she wanted to embrace. “Is that all?” she asked.

“Come and kiss me good-bye, then.”

Reluctance slowing her approach, she crossed to where he sat and leaned down to kiss his cheek.

“My mouth,” he whispered. “Sydney. Kiss my mouth. One last time.”

Swallowing a surge of reticence, she did as he asked, and his lips caught hers, avid, hungry, his hand sliding up to cup the back of her neck.

Sydney pulled back, her pulse surging with anger and regret. “It’s too late.”

She didn’t say good-bye, nor did he. She rushed out of the library and found Hans waiting for her in the foyer to help load her luggage into her sedan.