Second Chances (6 page)

David shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “Maybe, I can come back another time…” He stuffed his hands into his pants pockets like a schoolboy caught in a lie.

Kristin decided to go ahead and play his game. What could it hurt to find out his true intentions? “No, no, that’s not necessary. You’re here now, and you’re obviously seriously interested in acquiring art. So, what exactly are you interested in? Landscapes, portraits, abstracts?” She waved her hand toward the paintings on the left wall.

David’s face lost some of its color and his shoulders reached for his ears as they shrugged. “I’m not…really sure.”

Kristin enjoyed watching him squirm, though she was thrilled he had taken the time to seek her out. That meant he had to have been thinking about her since the gala.

She gestured around the gallery. “Our main focus here at Haven Gallery is showing the work of our local artists from all kinds of backgrounds and styles. What kind of imagery is it that you like?”

“Em…well, how about something blue? I like blue…” his words trailed off as he walked toward the main room of the gallery while Kristin followed. She pretended to cough into her hand, hiding her laughter. He obviously hadn’t thought this little charade through at all.

David intently examined the first piece he came to. “Tell me about this one.”

Surprised again at this unpredictable man, she smiled. “Well, this piece is from a woman who has recently started experimenting with complementary color schemes.”

Kristin pointed to the swirls of blue and orange embedded in the large canvas on the wall. “These colors are opposite each other on the color wheel. When the hues are placed in such close proximity to each other, the illusion of movement can sometimes be seen.” Her finger traced along a large swoop of bright orange. “Vibrating boundaries, it’s called.”

As she spoke, David’s feet fidgeted and his brow pinched tight together in what seemed to be confusion. Kristin stifled a grin at his discomfort. So, she decided to be kind and finally let him off the hook.

David exhaled loudly, and his shoulders slumped forward in what she assumed was relief at her directness. That wonderful dimple showed up when he finally smiled and gave him way too much charm.

“None whatsoever.” He ran his hands through his hair. A mannerism that made him vulnerable.

“So why did you really come here then?” Kristin searched his eyes for the answer she so desperately wanted, yet didn’t want to hear.

“I wanted to see you again.” His soft voice and dark brown eyes drew her in.

Kristin’s heart skipped a beat. His quick answer disoriented her. Why had he admitted that to her so easily? All pretense of her playing it cool, aloof even, stopped. He had laid it all out on the table for her and nothing prepared her to hear him actually admit he had wanted to see her again.

“Why?” she managed to ask him.

David cleared his throat as he contemplated some interesting spot in the ceiling all of a sudden. Why did he appear hesitant about his reply? “Could we maybe go somewhere for a drink?”

Kristin studied him for a moment. He gave a direct answer about wanting to see her, but now he wasn’t making it easy for her to get any straight answers. “All right, just give me a minute.” She stopped and looked at him directly. “Oh wait, is Sophie coming with us?”

“Em…no, it’s just us.” He blinked rapidly.

Again he wasn’t telling her everything. Something was up. After grabbing her bag and making sure Celia was okay with closing the gallery for the night, Kristin and David started off down the street to a nearby pub. Neither of them spoke to each other as they passed countless others along the street.

The sound of the traffic hummed in the background as cars and buses sped toward their destinations. His presence and their steps echoing on the cobbled sidewalk in unison gave her a warm glow. Such a simple event, but a deepening awareness that she needed to stop, somehow. David kept his hands in his pockets as he walked with his head down. Apparently, the sidewalk was extremely intriguing right now.

Kristin loved the little boy look of his hands in his pockets.

She stole sidelong glances at him as covertly as she could. She wondered if he would tell her why he sought her out and couldn’t believe she was actually going to be alone with him.

“Do you care where we sit?” David stood just inside the doorway.

“How about that table over there, in the corner.” Following behind him gave her the advantage of watching his muscular backside.

The place was calmer than normal, which Kristin found to be a blessing. There were times when she had met Ingrid here for a drink and the atmosphere was loud and lively with football fans watching the game, their boisterous cheering making it difficult to relax.

The lights were low and shadows danced along the dark paneled walls, which made everything cozy and romantic. She nibbled on her lower lip and waited for him to come back from the bar.

A few people sat at the long wooden bar and nursed drinks quietly. The bartender stared at a barely audible television behind the counter. His tired expression betrayed his boredom with the serene atmosphere.

David brought back a glass of white wine and a beer and sat across from her. He took a large swallow of his drink and ran his other hand through his hair. It seemed like he was trying to figure out how to start.

The intense silence stretched her nerves to the limit. Finally, she couldn’t stand it. “So if you don’t want to buy any art, then why, exactly, did you come to see me?” Her heartbeat doubled as she waited for him to answer.

David set his drink down. “I’m not totally sure, to be honest.”

He shifted nervously in his seat and his eyes darted back and forth, scanning the room, apparently unable to meet hers. “In my line of work, things can get fairly complicated, having to deal with the public’s perception of you. One wrong move can have an unfortunate impact on your career, or others around you.” She didn’t interrupt him as her finger rubbed the edge of her glass.

He finally met her gaze head on. “I meet a lot of people who claim they want to be my friend. Unfortunately, they usually end up having ulterior motives.”

Kristin waited as he paused to sip his beer, seeming to carefully consider what to say next.

“You, on the other hand, do not strike me as that kind of person, which is refreshing to a jaded Scotsman like myself. So, I thought it might be nice if we got to know each other.” His hand fiddled anxiously with the neck of the beer bottle.

Kristin’s excitement at seeing David again diminished as her heart dropped to sit in her stomach, a hard lump of disappointment. He wanted them to be friends?

Her eyebrows pulled together. To be honest, she didn’t have many friends besides Ingrid and Celia. Her loneliness after relocating to London, weighed heavier after James’s death. It would be nice to hear a masculine opinion one in awhile, but was he really being honest with her?

“And how do you think Sophie would feel about us ‘getting to know each other?’” Wine tended to make her bold at times, but after the exchange with Sophie outside the Royal Festival Hall, Kristin discerned that some justification should be in order.

David’s face turned a sickly shade of white. “She doesn’t have anything to do with this.”

Kristin huffed indignantly and folded her arms across her chest. “How can she not have anything to do with you getting to know another woman behind her back?” She shook her head, bewildered by his denial. “No wonder she’s so jealous.”

His face now colored with a just a hint of crimson, and he sat back in his seat. Mirroring her, he folded his arms across his chest. “What makes you think she’s jealous?” His voice grew subdued.

Kristin leaned forward and jabbed her finger in the air between them. “Because after you went back to the party that night, she told me very clearly to stay away from you, even though I tried to tell her we had just been talking.”

His hand raked through his dark hair as David shook his head slowly back and forth. “Everything is such a blooming mess.”

This whole scenario left her confused. Kristin reached across the table and took one of his hands in hers. “David, help me understand, and maybe I can help you. It’s just, well…I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me.”

His other hand covered hers, sandwiching it between his own and he leaned forward, like he was about to reveal a secret. “You’re right. I haven’t been entirely honest with you about my situation.”

Kristin’s chest tightened in triumph. She knew he’d been hiding something. The way he’d been acting around her and his fiancé hadn’t made any sense. But now that he’d admitted that fact, uncertainty plagued her. Did she really want to know?

“Sophie and I aren’t exactly together like everyone thinks we are.” David’s words hung in the air like a low-lying storm cloud.

Slowly she pulled her hand out from between his and laid it in her lap. “What does that mean? Either you are together and engaged, or you aren’t.”

David stared intently at his lap. “It’s not that simple.”

What was he trying to tell her? “So explain it to me.”

He ran his fingers through his hair again, and her heart did a somersault. Why did she have feelings for him when she just found out he hadn’t been entirely honest with her?

“Six weeks ago, I decided that it was no longer working between Sophie and I, and we came to the decision to call off the engagement. She had just started filming her first major movie role, and was terrified of how the breakup would play in the press.” He took another drink of his beer, while the fingers of his free hand drummed anxiously on the table.

Kristin crinkled her nose. “Why would she be so afraid of the press?” The way Sophie acted, it didn’t sound to her that it was a press concern. The woman was way too possessive for it to be merely that. In that maniac’s mind, David was hers forever.

David took a deep breath and clasped his hands together in front of him before he spoke. “Sophie has had a very established career, being in the public eye since she was a child. She developed a very specific public persona, becoming one of England’s sweethearts.”

Kristin almost snorted in disbelief. Sophie was anything but a sweetheart. She turned her attention back to David as he continued. “This image is very important to her, so she begged me to pretend we were still engaged. It’s only until she’s through filming her movie. Then we can decide how we want to go public with the announcement.”

The thoughts in Kristin’s head spun with all this information. She didn’t think it was going to be that easy with Sophie, but surely David could handle the woman. “So everyone thinks you two are still engaged when you aren’t? And, you’re going your separate ways?”

“Aye, and it’s put my life in a bit of a shambles.” He stopped his fidgeting and finished off his beer.

She picked up her wine glass and swirled the liquid around inside. “So why bother keeping up the charade?”

David signaled the bartender for another beer before answering. “I’m not sure. I don’t want all the hard work I’ve put into my own career to be for naught. But, maybe it’s out of respect for a fellow actor’s career, or because I feel obligated, or maybe because I loved her once, and don’t want to do anything to deliberately hurt her.”

Kristin shook her head. “If this is all a charade, then why was Sophie so angry at me last week for just talking to you?”

David shrugged. “I can only guess she was looking out for anything that could lead to a story of us parting ways before we were ready to go public. She can be a little intense when dealing with things not entirely within her control.”

Intense was an understatement. Kristin couldn’t imagine having to pretend to be with someone you weren’t in love with anymore. It didn’t seem fair that something like that could affect someone’s career, but she had seen how brutal the British tabloids could be. Yes, that’s why Sophie acted out of control. That had to be it.

“And no one knows any of this?” The corners of her mouth lifted in a grin, she couldn’t stop.

The bartender brought David another beer, set it down on the table in front of them, and then returned to his post behind the bar.

“No one, except you.” He took a swig of the beer and played with the label.

Kristin stared into her wineglass for a moment, letting everything she’d been told sink in. What did she want? Could she start a new life? Could she be friends with David?

Her heart fluttered with a mixture of fear and excitement. Maybe friendship could be that small step toward being able to share something more with someone.

When she looked up again, David stared at her expectantly.

“So why tell me?” Her wine barely touched, she finally took a sip.

David’s eyes shifted to the label on the beer bottle in front of him. “I can’t explain it, but lying to you about it felt wrong, somehow.” He glanced at her once more. “I hadn’t anticipated meeting someone during all of this.”

Kristin took another sip of wine as she weighed their conversations over the last couple of weeks. A large part of her was overjoyed at his admission that he was actually not engaged to Sophie Miller. But that fear of trusting others still held her in its grasp.

What did David expect her to say? What was she supposed to do with this information? Did he think she would be willing to play along with this absurd game? She had barely decided to move on with her life and didn’t need to deliberately make it more complicated.

But with the deliberate way he tilted the beer bottle to his sensual lips, Kristin thought complicated might be just what she needed. “David—” he held up a hand.

“I’m not being presumptuous enough to ask for anything besides a chance for us to be friends. The situation is too shambolic for anything more.”

Kristin crinkled her nose. “What’s shambolic?” Asking something mundane seemed easier than to feel anything.

“It’s slang for chaos, Kristin.”

He dropped his hand and his shoulders slumped, the action diminishing his tall frame. “I’m just so tired of lying to my friends. I thought it would be nice to have someone I could be completely honest with.”