Getting It Right This Time (2 page)

Finally, Kate’s paralysis lifted as panic threatened to engulf her. She looked at Lucy. “God, I’m not ready for this. Do something.”

“What can I do? I…”

Nausea rose in Kate’s throat and her stomach clenched tightly around her fear like a closing fist.

“Kate?”

She turned, her feet as heavy as lead. The laughter shining in his eyes when he’d been talking a moment before had been replaced with shock and confusion.

Kate swallowed. “Hello, Mark.”

He squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again. “What are you doing here?” He pressed his thumb and finger to his forehead. “I mean…how did you…when did you…” He stopped. “Are you back?”

His voice shook with what sounded like anger. How dare he be angry with her? Drawing on every ounce of strength, she tilted her chin. “Yes, Mark, I’m back.”

He opened his mouth but then closed it again, glaring at her accusingly instead. Forcing herself to stay strong, Kate nonchalantly turned her back on him and picked up her glass with a trembling hand. She drained the last of her wine, almost choking on the angry words cutting and burning her tongue.

Rachel Brimble

5

She heard his muffled cough behind her. “I missed you,” he said, softly.

Those three words cut the first slit through her wavering composure like a sword through flesh. She struggled to find the words to respond--and found none. She concentrated her gaze on her watery reflection, faintly showing amongst the rivulets of rain zigzagging down the window in front of her.

The moment stretched.

“Where’s James?” The question was direct, painful and completely like Mark Johnston.

She stared straight ahead for another long moment, her reflection shining back at her in the glass. Her long red hair was pulled tightly back into a ponytail, and her green eyes glinted beneath the lights making her look downright deranged. The look was perfect.

She turned. “He’s dead.”

His clear, hazel eyes widened before he staggered back a step. “What?” He looked at Lucy.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Hey.” Kate grabbed his arm without thinking. “How is it Lucy’s fault you didn’t know your friend died over a year ago? If you would have kept in contact with him…or me…”

The way he stared at her abruptly cooled the rage on her lips. He looked shocked to his core, terrified. Her hand slipped from his arm as shame tiptoed over the surface of her skin. “Look, maybe I shouldn’t have just blurted it out. I’m...”

His gaze raked over every inch of her face, lingering for the longest time at her lips, before he turned and walked away.

“Go after him,” Lucy said.

“No.”

“Go after him. He looked so…”

“Scared,” murmured Kate. “Why would he look scared?”

“He looked shocked. Not scared.”

Kate vehemently shook her head. “He looked scared. I know scared when I see it, Luce.”

Brushing past her friend, Kate strode purposefully toward the bar and once there, lifted her hand to get the barman’s attention. “Two Chardonnays, please.”

Lucy came up beside her. “What are you doing? If you’re not going after him, shouldn’t we leave? What if he comes back?”

Kate looked at her. “Wasn’t it you who said I should face people? If Mark comes back, I’ll deal with whatever he has to say.”

Their drinks were placed on coasters in front of them. Kate quickly picked up hers and took a hefty mouthful to ease her arid throat. If she was honest, the knowledge Mark could reappear at any moment veered the jangling in her nerves to fever pitch.

Lucy touched her forearm. “Are you okay?”

Kate laughed. “Of course I am. It will take more than the likes of Mark Johnston to upset me.”

6

Getting It Right This Time

A request came over the loud speaker asking the audience to be seated in anticipation of the performance starting in ten minutes. Grateful for the escape, Kate picked up her drink and the two of them walked toward the exit.

Lucy’s tut beside her made Kate turn sharply. “Now what?”

Lucy smiled. “Nothing. I was just thinking it didn’t take long for you and Mark to get back to normal, that’s all.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know, whenever the two of you were together, I always pitied anyone unfortunate enough to be within six feet of you. It was always fireworks of sexual tension or a ridiculous battle of wills.”

Kate felt an inexplicable flare of burning hot heat at her center. “How can you say that? I was with James, remember?”

Lucy waved a dismissive hand. “I’m talking about before James. Come on, you can’t deny it. You and Mark were an absolutely riot to watch.”

Kate glared at her. “Really? Well, there’s no need to worry about the sexual tension part anytime soon. He clearly can’t handle being in the same room as me, and that, my friend, is perfectly fine with me. I was married to one egomaniac, I don’t need another in my life.”

“Mark is not an egomaniac, Kate.”

“No? Then why is his name splashed across every paper in the country?”

Lucy smiled. “You’ve been reading up on him, huh?”

Heat scorched Kate’s cheeks. “Stop smiling at me like that. It’s pretty hard to ignore it when it’s shoved down your throat.”

“Sure it is.”

Glaring at her, Kate led the way as they searched for their seats in silence. They had just sat down and the lights lowered. Kate smiled with relief as it brought an end to further conversation.

The truth was Mark’s notoriety was clearly paparazzi propaganda judging by the lack of frontal shots they’d managed to capture. Often it was only his profile or back the press published--whereas James’s coverage had always been strategic and more often than not, provoked.

The ruby red curtain rose, and Kate turned her attention to the stage. She was there to enjoy herself, and that’s exactly what she would do.

“Prepare to be blown away,” Lucy whispered excitedly.

Kate rolled her eyes. “You’d think Liza Minnelli was about to walk on stage the way you’re carrying on.”

And then she caught her first sight of the woman she knew made a serious contribution to Mark’s excessively wealthy status. Marcia Langton bore the effortless poise of a runway model.

She looked like a living, breathing goddess in the sleek, silver dress falling to her ankles in folds of soft silk and four-inch strappy black sandals. Kate self-consciously touched her hair when she saw the way Marcia’s thick, ebony waves cascaded down her bare back, to her waist.

Rachel Brimble

7

“Amazing, huh?” whispered Lucy.

“She’s beautiful,” Kate murmured, unable to pull her gaze from the stage.

“Wait until you see how well the woman can act.”

An unwelcome lurch shifted in Kate’s stomach. “I suppose I can safely assume Miss Sex-On-Legs shares Mark’s bed as well as his representation?”

Lucy shook her head, her eyes fixed straight ahead. “Nope. If they were an item, it would be all over the gossip magazines. Sort of makes you wonder who Mark Johnston’s waiting for, doesn’t it?”

* * * *

And she looked even more spectacular than he remembered.

Her huge, green eyes didn’t look at him in the same delighted, carefree way they had a few years before, but then again why would they after he cut her and James off the way he did? Now her gaze seemed wiser…and infinitely more guarded. Yet, their mesmerizing beauty, their way of drawing him in until he couldn’t look anywhere else hadn’t altered at all--even if he’d desperately wanted to when he’d been standing in front of her stammering and stuttering his way through their first conversation in five years.

Opening his eyes, he groaned into the silence of the backstage room. James dead? Kate’s delivery of the bombshell had been acute and sharp and without a doubt, purposely cutting.

“I am so sorry, James,” he whispered, as a knot wound itself tight in his stomach until he felt his lungs would explode. “So bloody sorry.”

Visions of the two of them as friends, the laughter and tomfoolery, drunken antics and late-night games formed a kaleidoscope of color and nostalgia in his mind. Years of laughter, tears and confessions at school and university. Even when Mark moved to Foxton and James stayed in Devon, they met up every few weeks or so.

And all the while Mark’s feelings for Kate grew. The months passed, the years passed, with Mark thinking he had all the time in the world to make her his--but then James followed him to Foxton and the day he’d set eyes on Kate, James refused to run such a stupid risk as Mark. Wooing her with gifts and flowers, time and attention, James proposed within eighteen months of Mark introducing them--and Kate accepted.

Wincing against the sudden rush of blood in his head, Mark reached into his inside pocket and pulled out his wallet. From behind the credit cards, he extracted a photograph so old a crease of age marred its center. Kate laughed into the camera with her hair tied back into its habitual ponytail, revealing her long, tapered neck. The thin strap of her dress fell enticingly from her shoulder as she provocatively peeped out from beneath lowered lashes. Mark loved her then, and he loved her now.

8

Getting It Right This Time

What was the use in denying it? Kate was “The One.”

And she would’ve have been his, if he’d been the person he was today, five years before. But what chance did Mark, the hesitant thinker, have against the charismatic risk-taker James, who’d burst into their lives like a grand matador amid a Spanish bullring? He’d completely swept Kate off her feet.

“Yet he never would have…” Mark paused as he felt the rare sting of tears. “He never would’ve taken her if he’d known I loved her. Never.”

Stuffing the photograph into his wallet, Mark put it back in his pocket and stood up.

“And now he’s dead and Kate’s downstairs.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes. And she was no doubt angry, confused and downright resentful that James’s best friend was oblivious to all the pain she’d been through over the last twelve months.

He tugged at the cuffs of his jacket, guilt stabbing at his chest. This was his chance to put things right. To look after the woman both he and James had fallen in love with. She wouldn’t be alone through her grief anymore. Mark would make her understand he was there for her from now on as he should have been from the start.

Striding purposefully from the room, he pulled the door firmly closed behind him. But just as he reached the bottom of the staircase, muted applause came from behind the auditorium doors.

The curtain was being dropped for the intermission.

“Damn it.”

He always made sure he was there when his clients came backstage to their dressing rooms.

Made himself as available as he could whenever possible. And Marcia would most certainly need him now--on the debut night of the most anticipated performance of her career. Cursing again, Mark knew he couldn’t abandon her--even if he desperately longed to look into Kate’s eyes again.

Heat flared in his face and more intimate places. He had to get a grip. She was a widow for crying out loud. The widow of his best friend.

He forced his focus onto Marcia and retraced his steps back to the dressing rooms. He walked into her room and double-checked that the bouquets of flowers he’d ordered were on display, and the champagne chilling on ice. Everything was as it should be. Shifting impatiently from one foot to the other, Mark looked at his watch. He really wanted to speak to Kate before the second half.

What if he missed her after the show? He couldn’t let her leave the theatre without at least offering his condolences, and finding out how James had died--although she likely already had him down as a cold, heartless bastard and likely wouldn’t tell him a damn thing.

The door swung open, and Marcia marched in. Mark pulled back his shoulders and forced the biggest grin he could muster onto his face. He threw open his arms.

“Here she is. You were fantastic.”

Marcia’s dark blue eyes locked with his and her mouth drew into such a thin line, her lips completely disappeared.

Rachel Brimble

9

He glanced over her shoulder toward the door. His entire body hummed with the need to get out of the room. To find Kate. To see her, speak to her. His smile wavered as he propelled himself forward and enclosed Marcia in an embrace.

“What’s the matter?” he asked with a laugh. “Can’t you hear them out there? You’re bringing the house down.”

She shot from his arms, her eyes burning with anger. “Who was the woman at the bar, Mark?”

“What?”

“The woman you were so busy with you didn’t have time to come and see me before I went onstage.”

“Marcia, I was in the bar promoting you. I can’t be everywhere at once.” Mark’s heart picked up speed. It took all of his self-control not to push past her and literally sprint out the door. And it didn’t go beyond his realization this was the first time he’d worried about someone else more than one of his clients.

She glared at him, but Mark kept his gaze steady. She looked away. “I assume she’s the absent Kate Marshall returned from the wilderness?” she huffed.

He tightened his jaw. “What makes you say that?”

She snapped her head up. “Because Mark, she’s the only woman anyone in Foxton can ever remember you spending any amount of time with. Plus the fact you practically panted her name over the microphone like an awe-struck groupie when you saw her.”

Guilty heat seared his cheeks. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’ve been told what happened. And then, after a few shared words, you fled backstage looking like she’d up and smacked you in the face.”

“I did not
flee
anywhere, Marcia,” he said, struggling to curb his growing temper. “And I don’t see what Kate has to do with your career and my job in managing it. She has nothing to do with your part in this play, the audience or critics reactions. So if I were you, I’d be more concerned with that.”