Читать книгу If The Ring Fits...: Ballroom to Bride and Groom / A Bride for the Maverick Millionaire / Promoted: Secretary to Bride! - Kate Hardy - Страница 10

EVERYTHING was fine until Saturday.

Saturday.

The day Polly had been trying not to think about.

Liam was busy during the day, so they weren’t doing their training session until the evening. And she’d already refused offers to spend time with her friends—even her best friend—because she really didn’t want to spend the day brightly talking about anything else except the elephant in the room. Thankfully they’d accepted her excuse that she couldn’t make it because she was training. It was true; she’d simply been a little creative with the timing of her session.

She spent the day scrubbing her flat, to keep herself busy. With long rubber gloves that hid her wrists. She wasn’t going back there. Ever again. She was older and wiser, and she’d learned to focus on the positive side; even if there was one dusty droplet of water in her glass, as far as she was concerned it was still partly full instead of mostly empty. And she had a lot to be thankful for. She had a roof over her head, even if her flat was tiny; she had a job, even if it was a bit precarious; and she had friends who loved her as much as she loved them.

Three more hours until training. Liam had said they were going to start their foxtrot routine today and spend the rest of the week polishing it. Learning the routine would definitely take her mind off today. Even though he could lead her through it, she’d still have to remember all the sequences and count her way through until she was confident.

Somehow she managed to fill the time until she could head for Liam’s studio. He made no comment when she walked in, so either he didn’t know what today was or he’d decided to be kind and not mention it. And she managed to smile until he switched on the music and the first notes filled the air.

She recognised it instantly.

Oh, no. Of all the songs he could’ve picked, why did it have to be this one?

She steeled herself as the vocals began. It didn’t matter. She could do this. Think positive, she told herself; at least she knew the song, so that was one less unfamiliar thing to deal with. And she forced herself to listen to Liam, let him talk her through the routine before they started dancing together.

Liam looked at Polly through narrowed eyes. She was crying. Silently, but she was still crying, the tears brimming over her lashes and rolling unchecked down her face.

What was going on? He wasn’t asking her to do anything more difficult than she’d done in the last week.

‘OK. Four basics, then two promenades,’ he said. Once she’d started the routine, she’d realise it wasn’t going to be problematic and everything would be fine. She’d stop crying.

He hoped.

To his relief, she didn’t miss a single step.

‘Corner,’ he said, glancing swiftly at her. Then he realised that her tears hadn’t stopped. At all. She was still silently weeping, the tears running unchecked down her cheeks.

This time, she stumbled. ‘Sorry.’ Her voice was quavery.

And then she pulled her hands away from the ballroom hold so she could cover her face with them. Her shoulders were shaking, and Liam could hear that she was trying to gulp back the sobs.

He couldn’t ignore this any more and try to make her dance on, regardless. Even though he wanted to back away, because seeing such raw, painful emotion bursting through someone’s defences made him feel incredibly uncomfortable.

The Polly he’d come to know wasn’t a crier. Whatever had upset her had to be something major. She needed a shoulder to cry on—and right now he was the only person who could fill that role, whether he liked it or not. He had to make the effort.

‘Polly,’ he said softly.

She gulped. ‘Sorry, I forgot where I was. What’s the next step?’

‘Polly, you can’t cry and dance.’

‘I’m not crying. I’m fine.’

He reached out and brushed a tear away with the pad of his thumb. ‘No, you’re not. And I’m being a selfish jerk, trying to pretend this’ll all go away if I ignore it.’ He bit back a sigh. ‘What’s wrong?’

How could she tell him? Once Liam knew about Harry, she knew he’d treat her differently and she couldn’t bear that. She didn’t want his pity.

She shook her head, unable to put it into words.

‘We need a break. Go and put the kettle on,’ he said.

She knew Liam was giving her some space, and she was glad of the chance to scrub her face with a tissue and breathe hard enough to stop the tears.

When the kettle was just about to boil, he walked into the kitchen and handed her a bar of chocolate.

‘Where did you get this?’ she asked.

‘Amanda’s secret stash. I’ll replace it before she gets in on Monday, but right now I think your need is greater.’

His kindness made her want to cry all over again. She knew her tears had made him uncomfortable. The awkwardness had been written all over this face. She’d expected him to be caustic about her inability to concentrate—and now he’d done this. Camera Liam. Or was this Real Liam?

‘Thank you.’ She bit into the confectionery. The rush from the sugar and the cocoa felt good.

He took over making the coffee. ‘Better?’ he asked, handing her a mug of coffee.

‘Yes,’ she lied.

‘So are you going to tell me?’

She dragged into a breath. ‘I know you’ve been working really hard on the choreography, and I’m being ungrateful, but I …’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t dance to that song.’

‘It brings back bad memories for you?’ he guessed.

‘Not bad memories, exactly.’ She grimaced. ‘It’s something that never happened.’

He frowned. ‘I’m not with you.’

She lifted her chin. ‘If I tell you, I don’t want you to treat me any differently. No pity, no condescension, no cotton wool. OK?’

Liam knew exactly where she was coming from. After the accident, pity was all he’d faced. He’d been at screaming point. And then, when Bianca left him, there had been more and more of the same. People seemed to stop seeing him for himself; it was as if he’d had the word ‘victim’ tattooed across his forehead.

‘OK. It’s a deal,’ he promised, knowing already what she was going to tell him. That she’d been dumped. And somehow he’d have to find some words to bolster her.

‘Today’s my wedding day.’

Her wedding day? Now that he hadn’t expected. The gossip rag hadn’t said that her engagement had ended only a few days before she was supposed to get married—just that Harry had broken up with her and gone off with someone else.

Liam stared at her in shock. He’d had no idea that she’d been coping with this much of a mess.

‘Well, it was going to be my wedding day,’ she amended, ‘until last week.’

Liam still didn’t have a clue what to say. And that only added to the guilt he felt about not comforting her earlier.

‘And this—’ she lifted her chin and treated him to her brightest smile, which he knew now was a sure sign that her heart was breaking ‘—this was going to be the song for the first dance.’

‘I’m sorry. If I’d known, I would’ve picked something different.’

‘I should’ve said something. Except it wasn’t on the list of songs you sent me, so I assumed it wasn’t one you were thinking about using.’ She lifted one shoulder. ‘I didn’t want to tell you before because—well, I didn’t want you to start pitying me. I don’t want to be this pathetic, needy creature.’

‘I know where you’re coming from. And you’re not pathetic.’ Needy, yes. But who was he to judge? ‘I saw the stuff in the paper. But I had no idea he’d called it off this close to the wedding. That’s rough on you.’

‘It could have been worse. He could have just not turned up at the church today. At least he told me himself and he didn’t leave it up to his best man or what have you to do the deed.’

Though Harry hadn’t spared her those terrible photographs in the gossip rags, Liam thought. The photographs of Polly with empty eyes, looking as if her world had ended.

‘Or, worse still, he could have married me today and then realised it was a mistake, so we would’ve had a legal mess to sort out as well as an emotional one.’

Yeah. Liam knew all about that one. Been there, done that, got the rights to the merchandising.

And she must really, really love the guy if she could come up with all these excuses for his behaviour when he’d clearly hurt her so badly.

‘There’s an awful lot to sort out if you cancel something at the last minute,’ Liam said. ‘I hope he was the one who had to ring up and cancel everything.’

She shook her head. ‘No, that was my job.’

Liam whistled. The guy had called it off, but he’d still made Polly pick up all the pieces? ‘What a selfish …’ The curse slipped out before he could stop it.

‘It’s not like that. Harry’s a creative.’

‘He’s a what?’ This was like no excuse Liam had ever heard before.

‘He produces TV programmes. He’s great at putting things together and seeing where the real story is behind things, but he’s really not very good at organising things outside a TV studio. So if I sort it out, at least I know it’s done and nothing’s been forgotten.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, I was the one who organised the wedding, so I had all the contacts. It was much easier for me to be the one to cancel things.’

She was underplaying it, Liam knew. Because Harry had left her to make all the explanations as well as cancel all the arrangements.

‘It’s still unfair that he left it to you to sort everything out. And to tell everyone.’

‘If I’d left it to him, Liam, he wouldn’t have done it. Someone else would’ve had to do it,’ she said quietly.

The penny dropped: Harry would’ve talked his new girl into sorting things out for him. Cancelling the wedding to her predecessor. Liam winced. ‘Oh, Pol.’

‘No pity. You promised,’ she reminded him.

‘No. But I don’t get why he’d do that to you.’

She sighed. ‘He couldn’t help falling in love with someone else. He hated himself for breaking up with me. But he couldn’t live a lie. We would both have ended up being miserable.’

‘Are you telling me you’re still friends?’ Liam couldn’t keep the note of disbelief from his voice.

‘Not right now, no. But one day, we will be. We were friends before we got engaged. Good friends. We liked each other.’ She swallowed hard. ‘I thought that would make the difference and would mean that our marriage would last, because we had more than just some kind of fleeting passion. Except …’ She shrugged. ‘That wasn’t what he wanted in the end. He wanted the kaboom.’

He didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. ‘What’s the kaboom?’

‘Harry says it’s like fireworks going off in your head when you meet the right one.’

‘Hmm.’ Liam couldn’t remember now if he’d had fireworks in his head with Bianca. Everything that came afterwards had kind of wiped that out. ‘So is that why you’re not working on Monday Mash-up any more?’

She nodded. ‘I resigned. I couldn’t face it.’

‘Seeing him every day, you mean?’

‘No.’ She coughed. ‘Seeing the producer’s new assistant.’

Liam made the connection instantly. ‘Surely she should’ve been the one to go, not you?’

‘It was easier for everyone this way. It was my choice to leave.’

‘Constructive dismissal, my brother would say—he’s a lawyer,’ Liam added. He remembered she’d said something about a new flat. Clearly she’d been living with Harry, before. ‘So you were forced out of your engagement, your home and your job, all at the same time.’ Pretty much how he’d been. Except he’d lost his marriage, his flat and his career because of a road accident, not someone else’s selfishness.

She shrugged. ‘It’s character-building. Don’t they say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?’

Yeah. He knew all about that.

She pinned a huge smile to her face. ‘Anyway, I’m fine now. Thanks for the break. And for—well, for being kind. I didn’t expect that.’

‘I’m not a total jerk, Polly.’

‘I didn’t mean that. But—well, you keep yourself separate.’

‘Yes.’ Because it was safe.

And he knew she was letting him off explaining when she said brightly, ‘Let’s go back and practise those steps.’

‘Pol—’

‘No pity, remember?’ she cut in.

‘No pity,’ Liam agreed. ‘I know what it feels like when you can see it in people’s eyes when they look at you, and you know they’re desperately glad it’s not them in your shoes.’ He held her gaze. ‘I assume you know about my accident.’

‘That you were badly injured and you recovered, yes. But it’s none of my business.’ She bit her lip. ‘Except I worry that I’m going to trip and it’ll jar your back and do some damage.’

He resisted the urge to touch her cheek to comfort. Just. Which in itself was worrying. He hadn’t wanted contact like this for more than a year, not since Bianca. Why now? Why Polly? ‘Thank you for thinking of me, but you really don’t have to worry. You’re not going to hurt my back, even if you do trip over me.’

‘I take it that’s how you know about pity?’

‘That, and when Bianca dumped me for her new dancing partner. We didn’t know if I’d recover enough to dance again at all, let alone in world-class competitions, and it would have been stupid to let the accident wipe out her career as well as mine. I was happy for her to dance with someone else. It made sense.’ He gave an awkward shrug. ‘I just wasn’t expecting her to fall in love with the guy. Especially so fast. And then she left me for him.’ And crushed what was left of his heart. Something he kept a thick barrier round now.

Except Polly’s tears had unexpectedly put a crack in that barrier. He needed to put that right, the second she left his studio. But her eyes were still wet and he couldn’t bring himself to suggest that she went home. He’d been that lonely and miserable, once. And, even though his head told him not to get involved, this was just too much for him to resist.

Polly hadn’t expected Liam to open up to her like this; but she guessed this was his way of telling her that he understood exactly how she was feeling right now. ‘You’ve already been here.’

‘It’s not the best feeling in the world.’

‘But moping about it doesn’t make it better.’ She’d been there before. Crying didn’t help.

‘I’ll tell you what does make it better,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘As they said in the old Fred Astaire movie, let’s face the music and dance. We’ll forget my routine for now—I’ll work up another one with a different song and we’ll do that tomorrow.’

She grimaced. ‘I feel guilty that you’ve wasted all that work.’

‘I’ll use it somewhere else. Anyway, I like choreographing.’ He gave her another of those rare smiles, and it made her feel warm inside. As if the sun had just come out. Which was ridiculous—they were indoors and it was evening. And they barely knew each other. And today she’d been supposed to be getting married to someone else. This was all so wrong.

‘Trust me, it gets easier with time,’ he said. ‘Like dancing, you just have to work at it a bit.’

To Polly’s surprise, she really did feel better when they’d spent the next hour dancing, practising the steps he’d taught her during the week; he kept to upbeat, happy music, and she loved it when they did the whirling turns all the way down one side of the room and then the other. She could imagine how this would feel in a posh frock, with the skirt spinning out as they danced. Glitzy, ritzy, shiny and happy. Like a princess in her perfect world.

‘Thanks—you’re right, dancing does help to make it better,’ she said when the last song had ended. She went to change her shoes. ‘I’d better get out of your hair now and let you have at least some of your Saturday evening.’

Which was his cue to let her go. Except he wasn’t quite ready to do that. After what she’d just told him, he couldn’t help feeling protective towards her. Wanting to look after her a little bit. Which was dangerous for his peace of mind; if he had any sense, he’d just make some anodyne remark and let her go.

But his mouth had other ideas. ‘I wasn’t doing anything in particular, tonight.’ He paused. ‘I assume you’re going back to an empty flat?’

She nodded. ‘I spent today scrubbing it. Not that I’ve lived there long enough to make much mess, and Fliss—my best friend—helped me move my stuff and clean it, the day I got the flat.’ She shrugged. ‘Still. It’s a new start. And I have a new job to keep me busy—at least, for as long as I can try not to get us chucked out of the competition.’

‘No chance. We’re in this all the way to the final.’

‘You betcha.’ Though her words sounded hollow.

‘Did you eat before you came here?’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘I wasn’t hungry.’

He frowned. ‘Polly, you have to eat.’

‘I know. I’m not going to starve myself to make other people feel guilty. That’s not who I am.’ She shrugged. ‘I’m just not feeling that hungry today.’

‘There are two sorts of people: those whose appetite goes when they’re stressed, and those who eat everything in sight. I have to admit, I stuffed my face with cake when Bianca left.’ He gave her a rueful look. ‘I put on ten pounds in a month.’

She winced. ‘Ouch.’

‘The actual ouch bit was having to work it all off again with muscles that I hadn’t been able to use for months—believe me, they really didn’t want to play ball.’

‘It must’ve been really hard for you.’

‘About the same as it is for you, right now,’ he said. ‘I’d lost my career, I’d lost my marriage—and, yes, I lost my home as well, because obviously we had to split our assets in the divorce and it was easiest to sell the flat. Right at that point, I felt that there was nothing left. But I learned something, Polly. I did have something left.’ He paused. ‘I still had me. The one person in my life I can rely on.’

He’d been exactly where she was. Except in an even worse place, really, because he’d thought he’d never be able to do what he loved again. She could still do what she loved—well, she could when she found another job. Or maybe she could come up with a concept for a new show and pitch it to one of Harry’s competitors.

And Liam was right. She still had herself. She could definitely rely on herself. Though she had good friends she could rely on, too. Had it not been like that for him? On impulse, Polly reached out and squeezed his hand. ‘Thank you, Liam.’

He returned the pressure, making little shivers run up her spine. ‘No worries. Been there, done that, come out the other side.’

‘And so will I.’

‘Good.’ He paused. ‘Do you like Chinese food?’

‘Yes.’

‘I was planning on a takeaway dinner tonight. You could join me, if you like,’ he suggested. ‘There’s not far to go, either—my flat’s on the top floor of the building.’

Go home alone to an empty flat. Or take a risk. Get to know Liam a little better.

‘Just so you know,’ he said softly, ‘I’m not coming on to you.’

Which was a relief. And, weirdly, it was a disappointment, too. Which again felt wrong. She hadn’t expected Liam to stir these kinds of emotions in her. Why couldn’t life be simple?

She pulled herself together. ‘And it’ll be OK with your, um, partner if I join you?’

‘Just me. I’ve been single since Bianca left, and that’s the way I’m keeping it. I’m concentrating on getting my career back,’ Liam said. ‘And I guess it’s the same for you, after Harry. So we’re colleagues.’ He paused. ‘We could be friends. Come and have some Chinese food with me.’

Put like that, how could she refuse? ‘Thanks. I’d like that. Provided we go halves on the bill.’ She wasn’t giving up her independence.

‘Deal,’ he said.

And Polly knew that tonight wasn’t going to be the second most miserable night of her life, after all.