LITMIR.BIZ

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not an exact science?”

      “Precisely. And it makes any kind of meaningful relationship impossible.” He stared at the horizon. “It does for me, at any rate.” He stood tall, dark and steadfast, sea spray flying in his face. Her heart lurched. She stumbled and grabbed tighter onto the handrail. Alex put a steadying arm around her. Their bodies swayed together with the heaving waves. “If you must know,” he said quietly. “There was someone. Rachel. She was a hand model. And a jewelry designer. And a cocktail waitress.”

      “I like the sound of Rachel.”

      “Yeah. You’d have liked Rachel. She was a bit like … Well, yeah.”

      “What happened?”

      “We were together for about a year. She moved in with me. Her picture started to appear in the tabloids. It freaked her out. She didn’t like it. The final straw came when I was on location in Europe filming a perfume ad. The press announced our engagement.” He choked out a sarcastic laugh. “It was news to both of us. She went nuts. Said the papers knowing more about her life than she did was intolerable.” Tension rippled through his shoulders. “By the time I got back to LA she’d moved out. She didn’t want to talk about it. She ended it by text.”“Just like that?”

      “Just like that.” Alex smiled. “It turned out the only part of her she wanted to share with the world was her hands. And who could blame her?”

      “You always did hate publicity. It must make things difficult.”

      “Not everyone hates it. There was the TV executive’s daughter. She let me wine and dine her until she found a bigger fish to fry. She loved the spotlight so much she kept a scrapbook. Go figure! And then there was the voiceover artist who begged me to get her a role in Mercy.”

      “Did you?”

      Alex nodded. “Uh-huh. She dumped me very loudly in her made-for-cartoons voice the day she walked on set…” He mimicked the actress squeakily as if he’d been messing about with helium. “And got several column inches to show for it.”

      Maggie clapped her hand to her mouth to stifle her giggles. “Oh Alex. I’m sorry.”

      “You’re smirking behind that hand. Admit it.”

      “Only because you made the voice-over girl sound so funny.”

      “It’s alright for you. You’ve never had your heart broken.” He laughed, and it rang hollow. There was silence from Maggie. She looked away, her mood cool. Alex reached out and touched her chin, gently turning her head to face him. “I’m an idiot,” he said, his eyes fixed on hers. “That’s what this is all about. This ‘having a baby by yourself’. Someone hurt you.” The dawning of her reality shadowed his face. “What happened?”

      “I met someone,” she confessed. “His name was Marcus. He took me over and organized the life out of me. He had a five-year plan. It was all mapped out. He had a spreadsheet.” Alex winced, but he didn’t say anything. “I know.” She nodded, acknowledging that it was kind of wrong, not her thing at all. “The thing is – I thought I was happy. We got engaged on schedule, we were going to get married, have kids. The whole package. It was going to be perfect. Note – going to be.” She’d been blind to the fact that it actually wasn’t. “One day I walked into our flat and found him in bed with someone. They had wine.” She pictured the scene in her mind as she spoke. “And candles, and there were torn-off clothes all over the floor.” She coughed. Her voice had gone hoarse because she was having difficulty getting the words out. “I was a twit. The first thing I did when I walked in the door was pick up a ripped-off button from the carpet, and I was thinking, “What’s going on?”” She paused, wondering why she was telling him this, and unable to stop now it was out there. “It was as if the floor fell away from beneath me.” Her world had disintegrated. Instead of swishing her hand through the air, she curled it into a fist so tight the nails dug into her palm. “Poof.” She uncurled her fingers. “My future vanished in a puff of smoke.”

      “Just. Like. That.” Alex appeared indignant on her behalf. “When did this happen?”

      “About three years ago. A month or so before my grandma died,” she said sadly. “The irony of it! She’d been happy for me. She thought I was going to break the Plumtree women’s run of bad luck with men with Marcus. I didn’t have the heart to tell her she’d been right all along.”

      “Oh, Maggie. I’m sorry.”

      She pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t tell anyone at the time. Not even Layla.”

      She’d kept it in – pretended everything was fine. When Marcus was a no-show at the funeral, she’d had to say something, so she’d crossed her fingers against the white lie and told everyone that they’d had a mutual parting of the ways.

      Alex steered her into the shelter of the cabin. They sat close together in silence, huddled on a wooden bench. On the way back to Boston, going into the wind, the boat thrashed against the waves. The real storm was in Maggie’s heart. If she’d kept her distance, she could have done the styling job and left. She’d been captivated by Alex. She’d reacted to him like they’d been apart ten days, not ten years. Now he’d rumbled her. She’d fessed up about Marcus and she felt certifiably stupid. Again. Just like the day she’d walked in on him and his lover.

      “I know you saw something in him you loved.” He spoke softly, his jaw hard set, every facial muscle tight. “You’ll have to forgive me, Maggie, but I think he was a tosser. He wasn’t right for you. He was the wrong one.” He stared at the grey sea. “The guy for you is still out there.”

      “If he is,” she laughed, “he’s keeping himself well hidden.” Concealed below the surface, like a whale. She smiled brightly up at him. What she’d liked most about Marcus was his sense of certainty, right down to the spreadsheet with their future on it. Only, as it happened, he wasn’t certain about the one thing that mattered – love. He’d pleaded for a second chance, called the affair a hiccup. For Maggie his hiccup was non-negotiable. She’d rather have no love than a watered-down, unfaithful version. “Anyway, I don’t need a man. He’d just get in the way. I’ve made plans.”

      If she played her cards right she could make the most of the opportunity that had landed in her lap when Alex had invited her to New York. It was high time she got noticed. She’d do her utmost to sparkle on the red carpet – in a little black dress, naturally. She loved being a behind-the-scenes person, but Alex gave her the confidence to believe that she could be more. She wasn’t a rejected child any longer. Or a cheated-on fiancée. She could dare to come out from the shadows where she’d learned to hide.

       Chapter Nine

      “Two people can’t get together after a decade and expect things to start over as if they’d pressed an invisible pause button.”

      Alex and Nick were jogging in Central Park. In shorts, tees, dark shades and baseball caps nobody paid them any attention. They were just two guys – running. Balmy September sunshine dappled the trees with light and shade. Only a few paint-box spatters of yellow and red amongst the green hinted at the fall colors to come. Nick was in an upbeat mood. He’d tied up his movie deal. Finally, he and Alex were on the same page. He’d conceded that Alex’s leaving Mercy had pulled the plug on the show at precisely the right time.

      “Correct me if I’m wrong. She’s based London. So are you. And you used to have the hots for each other.”

      “Promise me that if the movie roles dry up you won’t take up professional match-making.”

      “Why not?”

      “She’s having a donor-sperm baby.”

      Nick’s mouth gaped. “Man. What are the chances? Why’s she

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