InHap*pily Ever After (Incidental Happenstance) (77 page)

            “Ya think?” he
said sarcastically. Then he added, “It’s one of your better qualities, Lex.”

            “Thanks, I
think,” she said, smiling thinly. “He finally stopped talking about it
constantly; stopped accusing me, but it was always there, hanging out in the
background, waiting to rear its ugly head. One night there was a rerun of some
late show on where Dylan was the guest, and he called me into the room to tell
me; in not so nice a tone; that my boyfriend was on TV. Then, when the second
Aid for Africa festival was televised, he asked if I wanted him to make me some
popcorn so I had something to do with my hands while Dylan was on the
screen—little jabs like that that he said in a joking manner, but the sarcasm
and accusation were always there. Of course I wanted to watch you guys! It
killed me that I couldn’t sit down and enjoy it live; that I couldn’t explain
to him what was really going on.” She paused and sighed. “I’ll have you know
that I stayed up until two that night to watch the recorded version of the
concert.

            “It certainly
wasn’t Tia’s fault—after seeing how the media descended on her after they went
public; I knew she’d made the right decision not to tell people about her and
Dyl. I knew it at the time, even though it was really hard to keep it all a
secret. I wanted to tell people my part, but I couldn’t do that without telling
hers.” She was quick to add, “And it wasn’t Dylan’s fault either. He can’t help
who he is, and anyone who knows him knows he never shoves it anyone’s face.
It’s just always there.”

            Bo nodded. He
understood completely. He wasn’t the ‘sexy front man,’ and didn’t make movies
so didn’t have the same amount of public exposure, but Dylan made damn sure
that they were a band, not a solo act, and Bo got his fair share of the same
treatment.  It had certainly created problems for him on more than one
occasion, and he was actually thankful that Dylan was willing to deal with most
of the attention, sparing him and the rest of the guys the bullshit that went
along with the constant glare of the spotlight. “But do you think that if you
had been able to tell him the truth, things would have been any different?”

“I
don’t know. He probably would’ve been even more jealous if he found out I’d
hung with you guys for almost two weeks—that I’d been in the front row for all
the shows, hanging out backstage…looking back now, it might have made things
worse.”

Bo
raised his eyebrows in question. “What do you mean?”

“Let’s
just say Ryan has a bit of an inferiority complex when it comes to Dylan,” she
said. “I would guess a lot of guys would, I mean, let’s face it, even if you
erased the entire celebrity thing—forgot the fact that women are constantly
falling at his feet—he’s still incredibly successful, wealthy, well-traveled,
kind…”

“Don’t
forget damn good-looking,” Bo teased.

“Well,
there is that,” Lexi said with a half-smile. “’Sexiest Man on Earth,’ and all
that.”

“Kind
of hard to ignore,” he smirked.

“When
Dylan came back—after the whole Penelope thing—he went with Tia to the country
club to meet her parents, and I was waiting for Ryan by the locker rooms so we
could have lunch. Dylan was hiding out in there so Tia and her parents could
have some time to debrief a little as a family—they’d just found out the truth
about who Dylan was, and he figured they needed a little time. When Dylan
walked out, I was shocked and surprised, and so glad to see him! Tia had left
me a message the night before to meet them there, but I’d lost my phone…whole
other long story that doesn’t affect the outcome…and when he told me that they
were back together, I threw my arms around him and gave him a huge hug—just as
Ryan walked out the door.”

“Oh,
boy,” Bo said.

“Yeah.
He nearly went ballistic seeing me in Dylan’s arms. He was sure that Dylan was
there for me, and his first reaction was
pissed off
. Of course, I
immediately explained that he was Tia’s Dylan, and he relaxed some—we even
joined them and Tia’s parents for lunch, and then for dinner, a few nights
later. He came with me to Paddy’s, where Dylan and Tia went the first night
they met, and to the engagement party, obviously, but he was pretty much a shit
at every single outing.”

“I
think he wanted a piece of me that night,” Bo said. “He certainly wasn’t happy
to meet me.”   

“That
was all on him—please don’t take it personally. It bugged the shit out of me
when he acted that way, always putting himself in the corner and refusing to
have fun and then giving me crap about it later; but I tried to put myself in
his shoes—what if he had spent ten days with Alexis Janice? Would I feel the
same way? The conclusion I always came to, though, was that I’d have to trust
him, and that I’d have to let it go. He couldn’t let it go.”

“I’m
really sorry, Lexi,” Bo said gently.

“You
know what Bo? I don’t know if I actually am sorry. I’m glad I found out who he
really was before I married him, and I was already wondering if I could spend
my life with someone who didn’t trust me. I’m sad that we couldn’t make it
work, but looking back, I don’t think we ever could have.”

“So
that’s what ended it then?”

“That
was the beginning of the end,” she said, looking off into the distance at
nothing in particular. “Once Tia and Dylan went public, he started getting
hassled at work. I’d been interviewed a couple of times, as you well know, and
people who knew Ryan and I were engaged started crawling out of the woodwork.”

“Isn’t
that the way it always happens?” he asked rhetorically.

“People
started offering him money for an invitation to our wedding—and offering pretty
big ‘bonuses’ if they could get a seat at Dylan’s table.”

“Oh
man,” he sighed, shaking his head. 

“Oh
yeah, the shit hit the fan, let me tell you. Some people went so far as to tell
him, point blank, that they’d crash the wedding if they weren’t invited. One of
his co-workers suggested that he hire a security firm to handle the reception,
and he about went off the deep end.”

“I
can imagine.”

“They
were hassling him for other things too; you know how it is; and it irked the
living crap out of him that he was always second fiddle to Dylan. It was
obvious when we were out with them too—Dylan always got so much attention and
Ryan was just kind of in the background. He wasn’t used to being invisible. It
pissed off his world that people who barely knew him would come up to the table
and act all happy to see him, then turn all their attention to Dylan as soon as
he’d made an introduction. Again, it wasn’t Dylan’s fault, but Ryan just
couldn’t handle it.”

“That
can be a tough situation to be in, you know.”

“I
do, and that’s why I tried to be understanding; tried to give him plenty of
attention so he wouldn’t feel inferior. But that’s exactly how he felt, and
there was nothing I could do or say to make him feel otherwise. He pretty much
told me that he’d never be able to give me the kind of life that Dylan was
giving Tia, and that he’d always wonder if I was comparing him to Dylan and
that he knew he’d never measure up.”

Bo
put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a gentle hug. “It wasn’t your
fault, either, Lexi. You have to know that.”

“I
do know now, but things weren’t quite so clear at the time,” she said
wistfully. “When he told me that we had to postpone our wedding because of a
“big project” he was working on for the firm—one that he told me could
guarantee a position of partner—I was the one who went ballistic. We fought
hard, and I stormed out and didn’t return his calls for over a week.

“Ironically,
it was Dylan who helped me put the whole mess into perspective. He pointed out
how tough it had to be for Ryan to deal with the fact that I’d been
internationally jet setting over the summer and that he’d just found it out. He
said it would take a while for him to realize that it hadn’t changed me. He
also apologized for planning his and Tia’s wedding so close to ours—of course
he didn’t have much of a choice, but he felt guilty anyway. He told me to try
and understand how it must make Ryan feel to suddenly have the celebrity shoved
into his life and to see Tia’s wedding being talked about on TV and in the
papers, while his own seemed to be on a back burner.

“Dylan
was right, of course, and I sucked it up, called Ryan, and told him I was OK
with the postponement; I tried to be a fucking cheerleader for his “big
project,” and was being completely understanding of his late hours, his sudden
inability to return my calls, his mysterious trips out of town...”

“And
that’s when you found out that he…”

“Yeah.
Apparently, she didn’t know about his connection to Dylan, and so when he was
with her, he didn’t feel covered by Dylan’s shadow, or some shit to that
effect. He could ‘feel like a man again,’ he said, as if I hadn’t been jumping
through fucking hoops to make him feel that way every day.”

“Dyl
told me about that. I’m really sorry. I can see why you don’t Dylan and Tia to
know the whole story.”

“Exactly!
I don’t want them to feel guilty or responsible—it isn’t their fault at all,
it’s just the way it all worked out. Ryan couldn’t deal with it, and that’s his
own fucking problem. But knowing Tia and Dylan the way I do, they’d feel at
least partly responsible, and I would never do that to them.

“So
that’s my story,” she sighed. “He’d broken every shred of trust I had in him
based on his own delusion that I’d done the same thing to him. Or it just
wasn’t meant to be in the first place. Either way, I realized that all the
nights he’d been “working late” were just excuses to not see me. Or to see her.
Probably a combination of both.”

They
sat in silence for a while and Bo tried to process it all in his mind. He could
understand every side of the story—except for the cheating part—and poor Lexi
came out the loser from every angle. She was carrying a heavy burden in order
to protect the ones she loved, and he respected her tremendously for it. But
damn it, she shouldn’t have had to suffer, not for a minute. He took a few deep
breaths to try and calm the fury that bubbled up inside him that she’d had to
bear that burden alone for all this time. Finally, he burst. “He’s a complete
ass who didn’t even come close to deserving you,” he snarled, the anger evident
in his voice. “I mean, to make you feel guilty for something you didn’t even
do—for not trusting you—for hurting you like that…” He’d been keeping his own feelings
in check, but he lost control of his emotions and the words tumbled out before
he could reign them in. “I mean damn—if you were my girl, I’d be looking for
excuses to come home early. Every day.”

            “Thanks for
that,” she said softly, staring off at the dark sea, the breeze lifting her
blonde hair and sending it tumbling around her face. She reached for him
without averting her gaze and he took her hand, holding it tight. “Maybe I
should be your girl then, Bo.”

            “Yeah, Lexi,
maybe you should,” he said, the words low and gravelly.

            She was struck
by the timbre of his voice but when she turned, she still expected to see the
usual humor on his face, the smirk he often wore when they flirted. What she
saw was completely the opposite—a look she’d never seen before.  His lips held
not even the hint of a smile, and his eyes were intensely focused on hers. She
felt the heat rush up to her face in the intensity of his gaze and a flutter
rose in her stomach. There was no doubt about the seriousness in his eyes, and
at that moment, she felt she could simply fall into them and stay forever,
cocooned in the warmth and safety she saw there.

            “I really
think I could do that,” she whispered on breath as light as the ocean breeze.

            He held her
gaze a moment longer, waiting to see if she would break into a grin, laugh it
off like it was one of their usual jokes. He would have gone along with it,
laughed with her, because he wouldn’t ever want her to feel uncomfortable
around him knowing he felt something she didn’t. But she didn’t look away,
didn’t laugh, and he could read it in her eyes—she wanted this, too.

            He brought his
hands up to cup her face, and slowly lowered his mouth to hers, hearing the
soft sigh slide through her lips just before they touched his.

            His soft, full
lips closed over hers, and one of his hands slipped behind her neck, pulling
her in closer. She fell into the kiss, fireworks exploding in her mind and her
stomach flipping over and over and she slid her own hands around his strong
frame and scooched closer until their legs were touching and leaned into him.
His beard tickled her cheeks and chin and she sighed again as his tongue
requested entry and she immediately granted it. This felt so warm, so
comfortable, so right, and she couldn’t believe that they hadn’t done it
sooner. Couldn’t believe she hadn’t admitted to herself before now that what
she felt for Bo Collins was not just an innocent flirtation but something
more—something deeper.

            When the kiss
ended and he backed away, she could only look at him for a moment through eyes
lidded with desire, her breath quick and shallow. “Wow,” she finally managed to
whisper, a slow smile lighting her face. “Mad skills indeed.”