Catch a Falling Star (Second Chances Book 3) (9 page)

His phone buzzed. Feeling a thousand times better than he had five minutes ago, he reached for it.

There was a text, all right, but it wasn’t from Jo.

“
Hey, Ben. I’ve been hearing about your problems all over town today. What gives
?”

Ben’s smile dropped. The message was from Adam Rasner, a fellow director and sometimes friend.

“
It’s nothing
,” Ben typed back. “
They’ve got the story wrong, as usual
.”

A few seconds later, Adam replied, “
Why don’t you come over to my place tonight at around eight. We can talk about things
.”

Ben stared at his phone. Good news or bad news? He couldn’t tell. He’d never been particularly close with Adam. They’d been in competition for jobs back in the day. But Adam had never done anything against him.

“
Sure
,” he texted back. “
See you soon
.”

It couldn’t hurt.

Another text from Jo came through a second later.

“
Very cute. I’ve been thinking about you too
.”

The warm glow spread back through Ben’s chest. He reached for his scotch and took another sip to help it along.

“
That’s because I’m irresistible
,” he replied. He settled back against his sofa, letting out a breath and opening her book once more. Yep, there was no problem in the world that couldn’t be solved with sex.

Except the ones that had been caused by it.

He cleared his throat and was saved from thinking any more deeply about it by Jo’s reply.

“
That’s my problem. I’m supposed to be writing the next bestselling novel
.”

“
Why not use me as your hero
?” he typed back.

“
Drop-dead gorgeous billionaire theater director who is dynamite in bed
?”

If ever there was a moment when his ego needed stroking by a comment like that, it was now. Ben wished to God that Jo was with him, in his arms, in his bed, right then and there. He would never let her go.

The emotional undertow of that thought sent more tension through him than watching his reputation vanish around him. His smile evaporated and his pulse soared.

“
You’re too kind
,” he typed, hoping she heard sarcasm. In fact, she was. Too kind.

“
Any secret babies tucked away that I don’t know about
?”

He knew she was talking about novel tropes, but his stomach clenched all the same. “God, I hope not,” he said aloud while texting, “
Not unless you want to make some with me
.”

She replied with, “
Haha
.” Then, on the heels of that, “
I really need to try to get some work done now. You gonna be okay
?”

Was he? No idea.

“
Yeah, I’ll be fine. This Pamela stuff won’t last
.”

“
Okay. Be good
.”

“
You too
.”

That was that. He waited, hoping, maybe even praying, but she didn’t send him another message. And why should she? Jo had a life, way up there in Maine. She was probably tucked away in some cozy cabin, sipping a mug of hot chocolate, typing away on an old fashioned keyboard while snow fell outside. He rather liked the image.

Curiosity got the better of him, and as he finished up the last of his scotch, he did an online search for her, using his phone. It was surprising the kind of information you could look up with a few taps. Within five minutes, he was staring at an aerial view of her house in his maps application.

“Whoa.” His brow flew up at what looked like a mansion in the woods. “Good job, Great-Grandfather Burkhart.”

Bits and pieces of the conversation they’d had while wrapped around each other came back to him. Jo was worried about paying for her family home. There was a chance she could lose it if she didn’t sell a book or two. She was afraid, in spite of how confident and sultry she had seemed. Well, at least he wasn’t the only one in a precarious position.

He memorized the address of her house, wondering if there was anything he could do to help her, then turned off his phone, cracked open her book, and settled in to read.

Hours later, as the sun set and night spread across the city. He closed the book after the final chapter. The hero and heroine had sorted out their differences, defeated the forces that were trying to keep them apart, and lived happily ever after. That was the kind of action he needed right now.

As he got up to take a shower before heading to Adam’s house, he turned on his phone.

Five new voicemails.

Ben swallowed. He didn’t want to listen to them. Instead, he tapped to the screen where he could see who exactly had called as he headed up the spiral staircase to his bedroom.

Industry people, one and all. No, he definitely didn’t want to listen to those voicemails.

He showered, changed into something New York casual, then headed out, wrapped in his coat and scarf. Part of him was convinced that he should listen to every voicemail, read every email, and send proactive messages to everyone he knew in the business. The rest of him wanted to avoid it all. At least once he talked to Adam, he’d have a better sense of what was really going on around him.

Except that when he reached Adam’s apartment and was buzzed up, the full, bitter reality of the situation hit him upside the head.

Adam wasn’t alone. Ben hadn’t been invited over for a one-on-one strategy session on how to deal with the backlash of bad press. There were at least two dozen industry people crammed into his tiny apartment—actors, tech, front office. Smooth jazz played and everyone held a drink as they laughed and chatted, but the second Ben walked through the door, the talking stopped, the smiles grew pointed, and the proverbial knives came out. He’d been lured into an inquisition.

“Ben, so nice of you to come,” Adam greeted him, raising his voice so that everyone in the apartment could hear him. “So what’s new?” he asked, then laughed at his own joke.

Ben faked a laugh with him.
Hilarious
. “Oh, I think you know what’s new with me,” he replied aloud. His hand itched to pull out his phone and text Jo.

“Actually, I do.” Adam thumped a heavy hand on Ben’s shoulder and drew him into the seething, smiling apartment full of people Ben thought were his friends.

Then again, not one of him seemed truly happy to see him.

“It’s a shame about Pam, isn’t it,” Adam went on. “James, pour this man a drink.”

“I had nothing to do with it,” Ben said. Every inch deeper into the apartment that Adam took him felt like a mile further away from any hope of escape.

“And how about Ted Elder, huh? Did you have anything to do with him?”

Ben blinked, throat closing up as Adam thrust the drink James had poured into his hand. “Ted?” He shrugged, shook his head, and took a swig of whatever Adam had handed him. He frowned and stared at the glass. A screwdriver? What, were they in high school?

Then again, the drink might have been a message.

“Seems someone tipped him off that Brenda, has been screwing around on him,” Adam said. “You remember Brenda, don’t you?”

Yep. Definitely a message. Ben took another drink. “Vaguely.”

“Well, you know how Ted adores Brenda. Or at least how he used to adore her. I heard that his housekeeper found him on the floor of his bedroom, passed out after drinking a bottle of vodka. And here we were all so supportive of Ted getting sober. He voted for you to win that award, didn’t he?”

Ben’s hand tightened on his glass. Every eye in the apartment was watching him. “Votes are secret, and a smart man doesn’t attack the people who supported him and helped him to gain recognition for an award,” he said, loud enough to include all of the eavesdroppers.

“Maybe.” Adam drew the word out. “Or maybe he’s worried that they’ll come out and admit to being
persuaded
to vote the way they did, and that that man is trying to silence them before they speak up.”

Ben held his breath. His eyes flickered to take in the people staring at him. Every last one of them was as hostile as if he’d spit in their faces. These people were his friends, his colleagues. Why in God’s name would they all—every last one of them—be so quick to condemn him? Wouldn’t a single one of them come to his defense?

“I did not, nor have I ever divulged anything told to me in confidence to another living soul,” he stated, as confidently as he could while every part of him withered at the irrational power of a mob that had been swayed by gossip.

“Who’s next?” someone called from the back of the pack of guests. “Who else are you going to tear down to keep your sordid little secret from getting out?”

“I don’t have any secrets,” Ben insisted. “Sordid or otherwise.” He shifted his weight. “Where is this all coming from? I’ve worked with you people before. Have you ever known me to be unfair or vicious?”

No one answered. At least a few of the other guests had the good grace to look guilty or to turn away. It wasn’t the same as a vote of support. All the same, it smacked of a conspiracy. Someone had it in for him.

Three guesses who. No, strike that. Two guesses. Twin guesses.

He turned back to Adam. “Did you ask me here for any real reason or did you just want to crucify me?”

Adam wasn’t moved by his directness. “One more for the road?” he asked, nodding to James at the bar.

“No, thank you,” Ben replied. He drained the last of the screwdriver, then thrust the glass at Adam before turning and stomping out.

He made it down to the street before his phone buzzed. The momentary flash of relief he felt at Jo coming to his rescue turned to cold dread when the name “Pollard” showed up in his caller ID.

“Did you have something to do with this?” he barked, without greeting, as he accepted the call.

Ashton gasped on speakerphone at the other end of the line. Jett said, “We told you that if you didn’t work with us, you’d regret it.”

Charging on down the street, regardless of the people walking around him, Ben snapped, “I
do
have friends in this town, you know. You can’t turn everyone on Broadway against me.”

“Can’t we?” Jett said. “Money talks, Ben. So do people. Theater is a cutthroat business. Sure, it’s all pretty costumes, lights, and make-up onstage, but there’s not enough room at the top for a fraction of the people who want to be there.”

“What are you saying?” Ben demanded.

“That you should have agreed to help with our book.”

Before Ben could reply, Jett ended the call.

“This is not happening,” Ben said, lowering his phone and shoving it in his pocket. None of this was real. It was like an episode of
Second Chances
gone bad. At what point could he have gone back and changed what he’d done to win a better outcome? Even Jo’s romance novels did not turn as dizzyingly as this.

And yet there he was, reputation in ruins, career in jeopardy, no one to turn to.

He knocked shoulders with a man coming the opposite way. The blow tipped both of them sideways, but being New Yorkers, neither gave it a second thought. The short jerk did serve to turn Ben to face the entrance to a bustling Irish pub. Exactly what he needed.

Phone in one hand, wallet in the other, he marched inside, fully intending to face the nightmare he’d stepped into by getting as drunk as possible.

Chapter Seven

If Jo had installed a grandfather clock in her bedroom, its ticking wouldn’t have resounded as thunderously in her head as her own thoughts. She’d sipped a mug of chamomile tea before bed, played soothing music, even spritzed a little of the lavender essential oil one of her writer friends had sent her for Christmas, but nothing could stop the flood of thoughts that seized her brain and held it hostage.

She huffed out a breath, squeezed her eyes tight to stop herself from peeking at the digital clock on her bedside table, and tossed to her right side, facing the window.
Come on
, she bullied herself.
Sleep already
.

It would have been easy if her worries were all about the book she was writing.
Trying
to write was more like it. Nothing was working. Every idea she’d come up with fell flat, the characters she’d tried to conjure were weird and disjoined, and none of them wanted to talk to each other. And while every bit of logic she possessed screamed that writer’s block was an ordinary reaction to being told “write or die,” knowing that didn’t help at all. She
had
to come up with a sizzling hot book, and soon.

Everything from Jo’s neck to her ankles was corded with tension. She squirmed, then flipped to her back. That wasn’t going to work either. She rolled to her left side, punched her pillow a few times, then finally let herself look at the clock. 3:46am.

With an irritated sigh, she flopped to her back and raised a hand to rub her eyes. This whole sleep thing wasn’t going to happen until she admitted what was really eating at her. She winced at the thought.

Ben’s last few texts were disturbing. No, the texts had been fine. It was the articles she had read that had lodged like burrs in her brain. The entertainment industry had its sordid side—everyone knew that—but it was a whole other kettle of fish when you knew someone who was involved in mud-slinging and name-calling.

Of course, did she really
know
Ben?

Jo growled and shifted to her right side once more. For the sake of argument, yes. Yes, she did know Ben. Not well, not for a long time, but she would be a fool if she ignored the moments of genuine vulnerability they’d shared. The ones between borderline ridiculous role-play in bed. And maybe she was an old fashioned ninny in the end, but you didn’t sleep with someone without getting at least a little sense of who they were under their clothes.

So what about all the nasty allegations that Ben had kissed and now was telling? He didn’t seem to think it was a big deal. And yet, even over the phone, Jo had been able to tell he was far more anxious than he let on. So was he guilty?

She clenched her jaw and squirmed her way around to her other side, staring at her clock. 3:51am. This night was going to kill her. Because when it got down to brass tacks, whether Ben was a skanky gossip or a wronged victim, she had spent the best night of her life in his bed. Her heart rate soared every time he texted her. The sound of his voice—even in memory—made her shiver.

Was she really the kind of girl who wanted the bad boy? Ugh.

Her descent into self-loathing at the cliché was cut short by a flash of light and the glowing outline of pine trees cast against her wall from the window. She frowned, blinked, and a few seconds later, the low purr of a car pulling up the driveway and onto the icy gravel in front of the house penetrated the closed window.

Jo sat up, squinting from the headlights out the window to her clock. 3:55am. Nick had gone to bed before her. What the hell?

She threw off her blankets and slipped her feet into the sheepskin slippers by the side of her bed. The cold night air had her shivering for a minute as she reached for her wool robe. She threw it on as she dashed into the hall. Nick’s bedroom door was closed at the other end of the hall, so whoever was in the driveway, it wasn’t him. She headed downstairs, careful not to wake him. Although if she was smart, she would get him to deal with whatever surprise waited behind the front door.

A shuffling thump came from the other side of the door as she reached the bottom of the stairs and sidestepped to the hall light switch. She flicked on the light. At the same time, there was a fuzzy knock.

Jo shuffled across the foyer and unlocked the door. It would have been nice if the old oak thing had one of those peepholes in it. She’d have to make do with opening it to figure out—

She swung the oak door inward, revealing Ben pressed against the double-paned glass of the storm door. Her brows shot so far up her face that she was surprised they didn’t fly right off. “Ben?”

Ben blinked, squinting at the sudden light of the foyer. He reeled back a step, lifting his hand to shield his eyes. The man who Jo had been more than happy to act out her deepest sexual fantasies with only two days before—a man who had looked like sex in a pair of black jeans, groomed to perfection and grinning with mischief—was disheveled and sagging. Dark shadows ringed his bloodshot eyes, and he needed a shave. He could barely stand up straight.

He was also shivering violently.

Jo threw open the storm door, a move that forced him to stumble back a few paces.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, concern warring with…well, irritation wasn’t exactly fair when the man obviously needed help.

“I’m so sorry,” he slurred, swaying to the side. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“What happened?” She reached for his coat and tried to tug him inside where it was warm.

Ben pulled back, but only to gesture clumsily over his shoulder. “Let me pay….”

He didn’t finish. Instead, his knees buckled. Jo yelped and reached out to catch him. He fought for balance, threatening to drag her down, and between the two of them, they managed to pivot Ben so that he could collapse into the wooden bench against the front of the house.

That was when Jo noticed the cabbie standing beside a yellow, New York City cab.

“He said this address.” The cabbie marched up to the porch and thrust an empty scotch bottle into her hands. Jo’s brow flew up. The cabbie’s face and shoulders tensed in defense. “This address and only this address. He said he had nowhere left in the city. So I brought him here.”

How did Ben get her address? Then again, anyone could find that sort of thing online these days.

“It’s fine,” she sighed, holding her free hand up to the cabbie. “Let me get my credit card.” She glanced to Ben. His eyes were closed and he slumped against the back of the bench. Jo sighed. “I’ll leave him here as collateral for now.”

The cabbie nodded. Jo dashed back into the house, set the empty scotch bottle aside, and headed to the stair banister where her purse lived. She fished out her wallet and credit card.
Ben had better pay me back for this one
, she grumbled as she headed back to the front porch.

The cabbie accepted the card, ran it through his machine, then gave her a receipt. Jo nearly choked when she looked at it. Well, if the man could afford a penthouse apartment on Central Park, he could pay her back a thousand plus dollars.

As soon as the cab turned around and left, the frigid darkness and silence of the Maine winter closed in again. Jo rubbed her arms, tucked her credit card and the receipt in her robe pocket, then went over to check Ben.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated when she touched his face. Between her touch and the cold air, he revived, lurching to his feet. “I couldn’t think where else to go. After I left the party, I couldn’t come up with a single name of anyone who would help. There was this bar, and…I shouldn’t have drunk that much, that fast. Scotch…bad idea. But it’s all over.” He waved a limp hand through the air in a vague gesture.

“Ben, calm down.” She should have been furious. Nick would be beside himself. But the whole thing was so incredibly ludicrous—an award-winning Broadway and television director who she had had a one night stand with only three days ago showing up on her porch at four in the morning, dead drunk and nearly weeping with maudlin apology—that all she could do was laugh and help him inside.

“Come on,” she grunted, half-dragging his weight into the foyer, then letting him go so she could shut and lock the door behind him. “Let’s get you into bed.”

For a split second, a leering grin—a fractured version of the seductive smile he’d flashed in the coffee shop to win her over—split his face. Then it vanished, dropping to a grimace. He turned green.

“I’m so sorry, but I think I’m going to—”

“This way.”

She grabbed his wrist and yanked him to the side, throwing open the door to the half-bath off of the foyer. She only stayed long enough to flick on the light and to see that the seat was up before Ben lurched over. At the grotesque sound of him being sick, she whirled out of the room and shut the door behind her. The retching sounds continued.

Jo hurried away from the bathroom, crossing through the hall and the dining room to the kitchen. Ben would need water and maybe coffee when he was done, but right now, she was pretty sure he needed privacy.

As she reached the kitchen counter, she burst into laughter. She gripped the counter’s polished wooden edge and shook with the humor of it all. Benjamin Paul was in her front bathroom, blind drunk and worshiping the porcelain goddess. Things like this didn’t happen to normal people.

She stopped her laughter abruptly, slapping a hand to her mouth. No, something was wrong. She couldn’t pretend she knew everything there was to know about Ben, but instinct told her he wasn’t the kind of man to drown his troubles—and take a cab seven hours north to Maine to someone he barely knew—unless they were beyond serious. He was here because he needed her help.

That thought send a blossom of bittersweet warmth through her chest. He needed help, and of all the people in the entire world who he knew—including a bunch of famous people—he’d come to her. No one ever asked her for anything. More likely than not, she was the one who was going to need to go hunting for people to rescue her in the next year. And whatever Ben’s problems, however brief and odd their relationship was, she considered him a friend. Friends helped each other.

By the time Ben dragged himself into the kitchen—pale, drawn, and looking like the wrong end of a zombie apocalypse—Jo had coffee brewing and a chair at the table pulled out.

“I’m so sorry,” Ben repeated, voice hoarse and shallow this time. “Your bathroom—”

“Can be cleaned,” she finished, walking to meet him and taking his arm. She led him to the table and made him sit. “Any danger of a repeat performance on my kitchen floor?”

He shook his head, then winced. “Nothing left to splatter with.”

“Ahh.” Eew. So much for the glamor of a fling with a billionaire.

Jo sat in the seat across the corner from him and pushed the mug of coffee against his limp hand. Ben took it, lifted it to his nose, then forced himself to sip. There was a tense moment when she thought she’d have to grab a bucket from the mud room, but with a little pacing, he managed to swallow a few more gulps.

“I’m s—”

“Sorry, I know,” she stopped him. “It’s all right. I’m glad you ended up here instead of dead in some ally in Manhattan.”

He smirked, the first human expression he’d managed since arriving. “The city isn’t that bad, you know. Although it’s cold tonight.”

“That’s because you’re in Maine now and not New York.”

“Oh, is that what all those blurry lights flashing past me for the last few hours were?” Humor. There were signs of life from him after all. It was encouraging.

Jo rested her hand on top of his free one. “This is about those articles, isn’t it?”

He shifted his hand to hold hers. His grip was weak with exhaustion—and probably still alcohol—but it felt good. He nodded.

“There was a party?”

He nodded, but only barely before wincing.

“Did you have a good time?” She tried a joke.

He shook his head, his wince spreading to a grimace. More than that, he looked like he might cry.

“Are you still drunk?” she asked, the way she’d ask a three-year-old if he needed a nap.

Ben nodded.

Jo let out a breath and squeezed his hand. Then she stood and took the coffee mug away from him. “This house has twelve bedrooms. Three are furnished but empty at the moment. Lucky for you, at least one of them has sheets on the bed.”

She tugged his hand to get him to stand, then had to lean in and help him to his feet. That burst of momentum helped. Ben walked, but was silent the whole way as Jo led him through the mostly dark house and up the stairs. The closest made up guest room was two doors down from the top of the stairs. She steered him that way, then marched into the room ahead of him to turn on the light and pull back the blankets on the bed to check that it was, in fact, made up.

“Here you go.” She sighed, crossing back to him.

Ben was trying to shrug out of his huge wool coat, but the alcohol made him clumsy. He finally gave up with a sigh of, “I’m sorry, this is pathetic,” and let Jo remove his coat for him. She pushed him toward the bed.

“Do you want me to take your clothes off too?” she asked.

Ben snorted. Probably meant to be a laugh. “Any other day, I would say yes.”