She’d done the audition as a lark. Hadn’t expected to win. And had offered, many times, to turn down the opportunity when she did win.
“You have nothing to feel awful about, Eliza,” he said now, his voice filled with command. “The fact that you put up with the nightmares at all makes you an angel. I won’t have them preventing you from enjoying the best life has to offer you...”
Or forcing her to be less than her potential would allow, he finished silently, remembering a long-ago night when his not-yet father-in-law had come to him. Issuing the warning to stay away from his daughter.
“You are the best life has to offer me.” Her voice had dropped, and if she’d been there, he’d have taken her in his arms.
God, he missed her.
“So, tell me about the rest of your day,” he said, when he should have told her how much he loved her.
His breathing steadied as she talked about the magnificent mountains, the desert landscaping and all of the pristine green surrounding Palm Desert and its Siamese twin, Palm Springs. As she described the huge beds of colorful flowers on every street corner, he tried to picture her there. And wished, for a moment, that he’d agreed to go with her.
He might have gone, except for one key point neither of them had acknowledged—she’d never asked him to. From the moment she’d won the audition, the only question had been whether or not Eliza would take part in the show. Not once had she ever asked him to go with her or given him an opportunity to offer to go.
Right from the beginning she’d assumed he couldn’t, citing his work schedule. And the limited time off they had. He hadn’t pressed the issue. Partly because the idea of flying to California and hanging around a television studio surrounded by strangers who’d expect him to be social had left him more than a little uncomfortable. And he didn’t want Eliza thinking she had to tend to him, or worry about him, while she was there.
And there’d been another risk he hadn’t been willing to take—the other reason he hadn’t introduced the possibility of him accompanying her to California—the chance that she might just tell him she didn’t want him there.
Lord knew he wasn’t an easy man to live with. Laughing didn’t come as readily to him as it did her. He didn’t always have a lot to say. And he was overprotective. He didn’t blame her if she needed time away to be carefree and enjoy herself.
“Pierce?”
“Yeah?”
“I was...talking to Mr. Beach Food Stand tonight. His name’s Jason...”
The hesitancy in her voice bothered him. More than a little. He waited to see what was coming. Picked up the TV remote and pushed On, watching as the smart television booted up.
“He was talking about his kids,” she continued. “He has two of them. Two boys. Seven and nine.”
With the sound muted, he scrolled through channels. Waited for mention of a wife. A mother to the boys. Wondered why beach bum Jason had caught her interest enough to talk to him about it.
“Listening to him talk...it just made me wonder...maybe it’s time we talked about our future.”
Was she trying to kill him here? She was a country away, getting ready to become a television star, and she wanted to talk about the future, too?
“What about it?”
“I just...we never talk about kids...”
“What’s there to talk about? I can’t have them. You knew that going in.”
“I know.”
She was going somewhere with all of this. Pierce settled on a sports station. A rerun of a boxing match. Thought about smashing heads. Or getting his smashed.
Figured it would be preferable to this conversation.
“We agreed, before we married, that we’d both be happy with it being just the two of us,” he reminded her. Because it was the basis of their union.
Not because he thought he could hold her to it.
“I know.”
Pierce threw a mental punch, felt the satisfaction of it connecting. Took a harder one. And went dizzy.
She wasn’t going to say any more. He knew that. Just as he knew that she needed him to do so. To ask what was going on. To need to know why she’d brought up an already closed subject.
“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” he asked, leaving the boxing ring and landing on a news station. He couldn’t hear what the announcers were saying. But headlines flashed up now and then. The stock market had taken a dip.
Something that didn’t matter to him directly. Or to Eliza. Their money was safely tied up. Together.
“A little,” she said, sounding subdued. “But not nearly as much as I would have been if I hadn’t already met so many of the others tonight. I’ve just never been on camera. I hope I don’t do anything embarrassing,” she said.
Relaxing back against the pillows, he scrolled through more channels, stopping when he found commercials. “You aren’t going to embarrass yourself,” he told her. A repeat of a conversation they’d had at least a half-dozen times since she’d won her spot on Family Secrets. Most recently on the way to the airport. And before that, the night before when he’d lain in the exact same spot and watched her pack.
“I could trip walking across the stage to my stool.”
“Which is why you packed your flat patent leather penny loafers.”
“What if I sneeze?”
“Say ‘excuse me.’”
“I might get tongue-tied and just stare.”
“Then they’ll cut that part out. This time isn’t live.”
“What if I get stage fright when it is live?”
“Everyone will get a chance to enjoy your beautiful face while you stare at the camera.”
“I might lose, Pierce.”
“Yeah.”
“I don’t want to let you down.”
His heart was racing again, but in a way that didn’t strangle him. “You couldn’t possibly do anything, anything, that would let me down, Eliza,” he said. “I love you more than life.”
The words weren’t clear, sticking in his throat. But he got them out. And felt guilty—like he was holding her to him when he had no right.
“I love you more than life, too. You know that, right?”
“I do.” She loved the man she thought he was. The man he’d been. Not the man he’d become, whom she knew nothing about.
“Can we talk in the morning?” she asked. “Before I go?”
“If you’d like.”
“I’ll call your cell?”
“Yeah.”
“Sleep tight, Pierce.”
“You, too.”
Waiting until he heard her disconnect, Pierce turned off his phone’s screen but didn’t put it back on the nightstand. He’d sleep with it in hand. Just like he did every other time he spent a night apart from his wife. While she was gone, that phone was their connection. And his comfort.
Not that anyone would ever, ever know that.
ELIZA DIDN’T