No Magic Moment (Secrets of Stone Book 4) (12 page)

A group of kids in tuxes and formal gowns passed by, filling in the answer. Must have been fall formal night for the high schools.

Suddenly, blending into a crowd of teenagers felt better than a late-night greeting—and grilling—from Mom.

Too bad I was premature about the
hallelujah
on that freedom.

As I settled into a small booth in the back of the dining room, my cell vibrated. The name in the window drilled my jaw with tension.

Killian Stone
.

For another two seconds, I wavered my thumb over the green button. Why I even considered the red one was a mystery.
Fruitless cause, man.
The man didn’t carve time out of his Saturday night, especially at this hour, to ring up a buddy to shoot the shit. Whether he called on his own or at Margaux’s request, I wasn’t going to get out of this.

The green button it was. Dammit.

“Mr. Stone.”

“Mr. Pearson.”

“To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Killian chuckled. “You serious about that?”

I lifted a smile at the waitress as she brought my coffee. Dropped it as soon as she left. “I was hoping to be.”

His heavy exhalation filled the line. “Claire and I
were
in bed. She was looking for a new book to read but a swarm of celeb gossip alerts blew up her feed. You know what they say about the vultures.”

“Yeah.” I’d learned the back end of that one during my first week in corporate PR clean-up. “Can’t dodge their shit if you don’t know where they’re circling.”

“And some nights they like to circle longer.”

I blew on my coffee, instantly recognizing the action as habit rather than practicality. No way would I be dumping the shit into the acid pond of my gut now. “So it’s the Michael Pearson feeding frenzy for San Diego’s rag sites tonight?”

“San Diego?” he countered. “Dude, your little fireworks show at the Del has already been picked up by the national feeds. I think TMZ’s leading with you tomorrow.”

I raked a hand through my hair. “Wonderful.”

“That’s one way of putting it.”

“As long as I’m prettier than Kanye, right?”

“Oh, you’re pretty, all right. Must be that combination of model perfection and animal rage. Last time I checked, a few thousand women were posting about how to get into your pants.”

“Access to my pants is controlled by one hell of a gate keeper, man.”

Killian’s pause was significant. “So Margaux’s still speaking to you?”

“Define ‘speaking.’” Sharing details beyond the initial drama in the ballroom with Dec seemed a bad decision right now.

“Damn. Claire was afraid of that. Honestly, so was I.”

“It’s fine,” I insisted. “We’re fine. We just need some space before we…talk some things through.” When he threw back nothing but a snicker, I growled, “What?”

“Space? In order to ‘talk things through,’ huh?”

I grimaced. “What the hell is wrong with that? You’ve never had anything to talk through with Claire?”

Another long pause. Too long.

Finally, Kil’s snort filled the line. “You’re not even at home, are you? Did you run off to a bar? Isn’t going to help, my friend.”

“Says the guy who ran off and played grunge Jesus for six months?”

“And almost lost the love of my life because of it,” he asserted. “Pearson, learn a valuable lesson from
my
mistake. Go home and do your penance on the couch for a few nights.
Then
she’ll be ready to talk to you. Drinking yourself into a stupor just puts off the inevitable.” He pushed out another telling breath. “By the way, Andre’s driving, right?”

“I’m not drinking, goddammit.” Not even the coffee, which smelled pretty fucking good. “I’m just—”

“Not at home. Which is where you should be.”

The waitress plunked down my bear claw. I stabbed a fork into the pastry and twisted hard, resigned to mutilating the thing instead of eating it. “There’s nothing wrong with giving this some space.”

As I spoke, rough rustlings crackled over the line. Only it wasn’t Killian I heard next.

“Are you out of your damn mind?”

Claire’s huffy bark would’ve made me laugh—except that she scared me in this state of rage. I held the phone back for a second, wondering when the raging bees would burst from it.

They didn’t. But maybe honey was a good idea, anyway. “Heeyy, Claire-Bear—”

“Do
not
with the ‘Claire-Bear’.” More scratches on the line. When she spoke again, her voice was louder. “Why the
hell
are you out carousing, when—”

“I’m not carousing!”

“That’s not the point. You’re
out
, Michael Pearson. Do you know what that’s doing to my best friend—the woman you claim to love?”

“
Claim
to love?”
You mean the woman I just proposed marriage to—who, incidentally, turned me down
?

“Don’t piss defensive on me,” she snapped, “when you repeatedly threatened to knock Killian’s ass into the next century when he disappeared on me last year.”

“What?” Killian punched it out from the background. “He did?”

“This isn’t the same.”

“You think Margaux knows that? Margaux, who has deeper issues than I
ever
had about feeling accepted, acknowledged, loved? Margaux, who’s been treated like a disposable toy by
everyone
in her life—who thinks maybe, for the first time, she’s found a person who
won’t
throw her away, even when times get rough?” She punched out a girl growl. “What the hell are you doing with that trust now, Pearson? Moping in some dark corner somewhere about how ‘complicated’ your soul is, about how she ‘won’t get it’? Opening all that baggage again, whatever the hell it is, and crying over the dirty underwear inside?”

I took a gulp of the coffee. If it rained acid on my stomach lining, so be it. Maybe I deserved the agony. “I’m not—”

“Save it.” Both words were seething switchblades. “Stop sulking over your dirt and
clean it up,
Michael. Deal with it. You have a remarkable, beautiful, brave woman who wants to help you do just that. Get your ass back to her—and refuse to give up until you make it right!”

So. Silences really could be deafening. She’d gone so quiet, I wondered if the connection had been lost—until hearing Killian clear his throat in the background, communicating one clear message. Claire had just wowed the pants off her husband—if he was still wearing any. Better odds lay on him not—in which case, I guessed at how he craved to wow her in return.

“I’d better go,” I finally mumbled.

“Great idea,” Claire returned. “And hey…Michael?”

“Yeah?”

“I only get this pissed if the cause is worth fighting for.”

A smile started in my heart and brimmed on my lips. “I know, Claire-Bear. I know.”

She didn’t fight me on the nickname this time. Just like I didn’t say a word once I got home—and found bedding waiting for me on the couch. A red blanket, a white blanket, a down pillow: items yanked off the bed from the guest room, driving it in that if she found my ass in there come morning,
she
might cuff
me
to the damn school desk.

“Penance on the couch.” I echoed Killian’s words beneath my breath while stripping off my tux, then settling against the massive orange cushions of the designer monstrosity. Though the thing was bigger than a lot of beds, it didn’t relieve the clamps over my chest one damn inch—or make it easier to resist rushing upstairs, back to the place I belonged. Wrapped around Margaux Asher. Forever.

Tomorrow, man
.

I could start forever…tomorrow.

By taking out my laundry and finally getting it clean with her. For her.

I was ready.

I had to be.

*

Pound.

I flinched and moaned. Cracked open one eye, only to be stabbed by a glint of morning sun off the patio’s steel rail. My legs tangled in the blankets as I reached for the pillow and thumped it atop my head.

Pound. Pound. Pound
.

“No,” I mumbled. “No. Uh-uh. Don’t want any.”

Pound. Pound. Pound
.

“Dammit. No!”

Margaux’s whine made me lift the pillow. I looked up in time to watch her clear the last few stairs into the room. Our gazes snagged, wrestling in lingering anger and brand-new awkward, before I succumbed to the temptation of gawking at the rest of her. Fuck, she was cute, all bed-head and sleep-lined face. Was that a little pajama set beneath her satin robe? With cupcakes on it? Wait. The woman owned pajamas?

Maybe I’d woken up in another dimension.

In which case, it should be no problem to fulfill my fantasy of peeling those cupcakes off her body then launching a quest to taste her…frosting.

Reality thundered back in. More thumps shook the door.

Margaux glared at the locked panel then back at me. Scraped her hair from her eyes. “It’s Sunday, right?”

I nodded while yanking my tuxedo pants back on. Though the building didn’t have a doorman, the condo was on the penthouse floor, meaning we still had to buzz people up—

Unless they were entities who didn’t have to ask permission for that shit.

Dread fisted my chest. I forced one word past it, anyway. “Fuck.”

“Huh?” Margaux sputtered. I hated the fear that crept into her eyes. “Michael? What—”

“Michael Pearson! Open up! This is the San Diego Police Department.”

“—the hell?” She jerked her robe shut, switching to self-preservation mode without even knowing it. That was good. Very good.

“Stand back, sugar.” I paced past her, toward the door. “
Way
back. This probably won’t be pretty.”

“Screw that.”

So much for the reassurance she’d protect herself. She raced in front of me, twisted the deadbolt free, and
whoosh
ed open the door. Sure enough, a pair of San Diego’s finest filled the portal. They both examined her from head to toe before dutifully riveting their gazes back to her face.
That’s good, fellas. Keep them there if you want to keep your gonads intact.

“Officers.” She braced a hand on the door frame and another on her hip. “Good morning. What can I do for you?”

Both cops were dark-haired and baby-faced though one’s face was etched by the subtle lines of experience. He was also the one who stepped forward and dipped his head. “Ma’am. Good morning. Can I ask you to step aside? We’re here for Mr. Pearson.”

Margaux clucked her tongue and tossed back her head. In her little lavender robe, hair tumbling down her back, she was one pair of stilettos shy of being a
Maxim
centerfold. I had to hand it to the guys in blue, who didn’t waver their stares. They either had the fortitude of oxen or were secretly robots. I didn’t care which. “Boys, you know I can’t do that for you without a warrant.”

The lead cop pulled out a piece of paper that looked all too official. “Well, good thing we brought one.”

My gut surrendered to full-fledged dread. And disgust. And rage. Margaux reached for me. Again, her hands were icy—and trembling. Instinctively, I clamped them tighter. I hated this bullshit—but most of all, I despised how it affected her.

“I don’t…understand.” She barely kept it above a choke.

“I do.” My statement was the polar opposite, entirely too certain of itself—just like my desire to spit on the fucking warrant. “Let me guess. Mr. Pearson’s ‘come to his senses’ about the events of last night, right? Turns out I was the one who fucked him up after all, and now he’s pressing charges?”

Margaux’s fingers slipped from mine. The emptiness she left behind was as bleak as her mutter. “What?”

I nodded respectfully to the cops. “Can you give me just a minute?” I requested. As soon as they assented, I pivoted back to Margaux, pulling her toward the kitchen with both hands on her shoulders. “Princess—”

“
Don’t
.” She pushed at my grip but didn’t step totally free. “Not now. Don’t you dare, Michael.”

“Fine. But know that I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
This is a mess now, and—”

Her teary huff cut me short. “A mess. Gee, you think?”

“There’s a lot I haven’t told you. That I need to tell you.”

“Thanks for that update. I’d alert the press but now I’m wondering how to keep their noses out of
this
fun tidbit.”

“Dammit.” I pushed my fingers in a little harder. “I didn’t do it.
Look at me
. Tell me you still believe me.”

She raised her head. “Does it matter if I do?”

“It matters to me.”

She swallowed hard. Raised on tiptoe to press her lips to mine. “I still believe you.”

I didn’t let her go far. As I kissed her again, I let every drop of gratitude in my heart pour into our connection—hoping that she could feel what her faith meant, what it
would
mean in the ordeal to come.

One of the cops cleared his throat. “Sorry, Mr. Pearson. We need to hustle this.”

Margaux had a comeback for that. I watched it spark in her eyes and fight for release from her lips. She clenched it back, letting her frustration brim over in her eyes. It was a thick sheen right now, on the brink of tears—as if my soul knew the fucking difference.

I fought flinging a few shit biscuits of my own. No way in hell could I let any more anger taint this moment. It was too important to cram my brain with all the beauty, instead. The proud set of her head. The morning sun rimming her hair. The blush in her lips from my kiss. I sucked it all into my mind, savoring the splendor before turning to face a lot of ugliness. Corporate lawyer or not, I held no illusions about the day ahead of me.