Method Acting: An opposites attract, found family romance (Center Stage Book 2) Adele Buck (e novels to read .TXT) 📖

“Is there anything I can say to make you change your mind?” His mouth was dry, and his voice was a ragged croak.

Alicia worried her lower lip with her teeth, increasing his desire to touch her, to wipe the sadness from her eyes or let her bury her face in his chest and cry. But he remained motionless. He feared he would spook her entirely if he so much as lifted a finger.

Finally, she shook her head. “I…I can’t. Can’t see my way through it, or around it. I…don’t do this. Relationships. I need to be strong, take care of myself. But you got in so fast, so completely. I can’t cope.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re going to wake up one morning and see that the girl who took her clothes off for money, who wears tacky red shoes and likes pop art, just doesn’t fit here.” She waved her hand at the room, but Colin kept his eyes on her face.

“That’s not true. We have our differences, but I don’t see that they matter.” Was that really how she saw herself? What about the tenacious, self-taught mind she had? What about her incisive creativity and her incredible dedication to her work?

“They might not now. But they will. Your fancy friends with their equally fancy backgrounds and degrees will eventually start judging me. They’ll start questioning why you’re with me. And then you’ll start to wonder yourself. Then I’m going to end up out on my ass.”

Colin’s chest was constricted, and breathing seemed nearly impossible. “Which of my friends struck you as ‘fancy’? I thought you seemed to get on well with Russell, with Brandon and Mari.”

Alicia’s face flushed. “No. They were all really nice. But what about that bitchy old lady at the gala?”

Of all the people…why did Alicia have to bring her up now? “Mrs. Lloyd-Hudson? What does that miserable old hag have to do with anything?” Colin said.

“Isn’t she someone important? Someone who belongs in your world?”

Colin shifted, unease roiling in his gut. “All this talk of different worlds makes me think you’re becoming an astronaut or something. No, she’s not particularly important, at least not to me. She’s unpleasant. I generally steer clear of her. You don’t have people like that in your life?”

“Of course I do.” She gave him a frustrated look.

“Well, why are the ones in my life a problem?”

“The ones who are in my life wouldn’t ever object to you. Even if their opinion mattered at all.”

“Well, if…if someone objected to you, that would automatically mean their opinion didn’t matter.”

Why doesn’t he see this? It’s so obvious.

Alicia’s hands clenched. Colin appeared so bewildered and hurt that her chest felt like it was being crushed. The pressure of tears behind her eyes had become nearly unbearable. He hadn’t moved from his position in the doorway since he had come upstairs, but his dark eyes bored into her with heavy intensity. He seemed to be coming to a decision of some kind. She braced herself. It would almost be a relief if he said, “Fine. Go.”

And it would also be the worst kind of pain.

His expression shifted, became resigned. “Can I tell you a story?” he asked.

Alicia blinked at him, bewildered. “Um. Yeah.”

“I was with someone who you would have said was ‘from my world.’ I didn’t enter into a relationship with her because she fit any sort of résumé criteria, but yes, she came from a wealthy family, had a good education, all the things you cite as reasons we can’t be together.” He paused, fingers rubbing his lips. “She is also the daughter of the Lloyd-Hudsons.”

“What?” She couldn’t have heard what she thought she heard. “The woman…at the gala. The woman you said isn’t ‘particularly important.’ You dated her daughter?”

Colin nodded, not saying anything.

Barking out a bleak laugh, Alicia said, “You have a hell of a definition of ‘not important.’ How long did you date her?”

“Two years.”

“Two years? Jesus, it sounds like this woman practically became your mother-in-law.”

He blinked, his gaze shifting away.

“You nearly did marry her, didn’t you?” He didn’t answer, and Alicia’s breath caught as rage flooded through her, bright and hot. “You have a lot of damn nerve not telling me that before now and getting on your high horse about me not telling you about something I have to do for my job.”

“Because I knew you’d…”

“I’d what?”

“I knew you’d feel intimidated, okay? I wanted to spare you that. Her bloody mother has oiled up to me at every social function since we split, trying to see if I might possibly take her back. That’s undoubtedly what she was about to do when you met her. But what was I supposed to say? ‘Oh, by the way, the Lloyd-Hudsons are my ex-girlfriend’s parents’? Mrs. L-H had already been so awful to you I was afraid knowing that about me would scare you off.”

The accuracy of the statement stung. Alicia’s jaw clenched, her stomach souring. “So, if you two were such a perfect match, what happened?”

“She slept with someone else.” His hand flipped up in a dismissive gesture, but his eyes never left hers. “Would you do that to me?”

Swallowing, Alicia shook her head. “No. Never.” Anger and sympathy swirled inside her, a confused wash of emotion.

Colin nodded and finally lifted the gaze that had been pinning her in place, his eyes focused somewhere over her head. “That’s what I thought. So why is this other distinction so important to you?”

Alicia’s throat felt thick. “I don’t know. I just know I’m going to get hurt.”

“So, you run. And that hurts me.” Colin’s eyes lowered back to her, making her want to weep.

“Does it?” Her voice flaked with rust.

His gaze bored into her. “Yes. Does it hurt you?”

“Of course. But better now than later. When it will hurt worse.”

“You’re treating that as an inevitability,” he said with a maddening calm.

“Well, isn’t it inevitable?”

“No. I’m the product of a man and woman whose families both