CHAPTER FOUR
To Carrie’s shock, Max had asked her to have dinner and go to a movie with him. She hadn’t expected to hear from her favorite pompous actor but here she was knocking on the door to his hotel suite. They were meeting here to decide where they were going to eat. She was hoping for Italian but he’d mentioned steak.
The door swung open and a scowling Max beckoned her in. “I just need to put on my shoes.”
“No hurry.”
She stepped into the hotel room but stayed by the door as he searched in the closet, tossing a few random things out as he went. So far, Max had rejected a pair of tennis shoes and brown boots. Organization must not be a thing for him and she found herself itching to get ahold of his clothes and possessions to bring order to chaos.
Shifting restlessly on her feet, she tried to make conversation. “So I was surprised to hear from you.”
He took so long to reply she didn’t think he was going to but he finally did, his voice muffled by the closet. “I talked to Paige and Nate. Apparently she’s worried about you. You’re not doing a very good job of acting like nothing’s wrong. They asked me to take you out and show you how great London is.”
Loser. I’m a fucking loser.
The breath whooshed out of Carrie’s body and she had to grab hold of the doorjamb to keep her knees from giving out. Her best friend was so concerned about her she’d asked Max to take Carrie out. It was deja vu all over again. Just like Greg had thought she was too pathetic to find herself another man, Paige thought Carrie was too pitiful to find friends.
To add insult to injury, Max didn’t look or sound like he was relishing this task. He had the job of taking the plain girl to dinner. Someone give the man a medal for altruism.
He crawled out of the closet holding a pair of ugly black shoes that were only slightly better than the awful gray ones Nate used to wear before Paige threw them away. What was it with these two and their godawful shoes?
She didn’t intend to stick around and find out. She was no one’s pity date.
“I had no idea she was worried. You know, you don’t really need to do this. I’m fine and I’ll make sure she knows that next time I talk to her.”
Looking up from tying his shoes, Max shot her an irritated look. “You’re here so we might as well go. Are you hungry?”
“Of course I’m hungry. I’m always hungry, but I’m sure you have better things to do than squire me around. We both know why I’ve been down and an evening out isn’t going to cure this.”
Max stood and shoved his hands in the pockets of his black trousers. “If you’d seen your way to accept my business proposal, Paige wouldn’t be worried about you at all.”
Really? He was going to whine about that again? He didn’t know when to let things go.
“Possibly, but then she’d be worried about me spending the rest of my life in jail.”
“Jail?” he asked, frowning as he picked up his keys and cell phone.
Carrie smiled brightly. “For murdering you, probably in your sleep, although I’m not sure a jury of my peers would find me guilty.”
Those icy blue eyes settled on her, making her inwardly shiver. “Funny. Now are you ready to go? I promised Nate and Paige I would take you out.”
Shaking her head, she edged toward the door. “I’m no one’s mercy date but thank you anyway. I’d rather eat a Lean Cuisine for one in front of bad reality television than have you take me to dinner and remind me every five minutes why you had to be pushed into this evening. And thank you for that, by the way—a real gentleman would never have let me know that this wasn’t his idea. But not you. Not the famous Maxwell Hayes. You made sure I knew right off the bat. I wasn’t even here two minutes before you ensured that I knew how pathetic and sad I was. Classy move.”
For a moment, she almost thought she saw regret flicker across his features but if it did it was quickly hidden beneath that frosty, patrician demeanor. He’d missed his calling. He should have been the headmaster at a snotty boarding school.
“I do apologize. I didn’t realize you were sensitive about the subject. As I said, if you had accepted–”
“For the love of all that’s good and holy,” Carrie broke in, not letting him finish again. “Let it go. You don’t take the word ‘no’ very well, but then I guess you don’t hear it much. As for dinner, I’d rather starve.”
How could Maxwell Hayes look that good and be so unpleasant? Paige had said he was a difficult man to get to know but this was ridiculous. Truly the only thing that kept Carrie from losing her cool with him was that he was a friend of Paige’s. There had to be more to him than what she was seeing if her boss liked him so much.
Hidden depths. Way down. Buried like Atlantis, more like it.
He shoved his keys and phone into his pocket. “Stop acting like a child. Paige and Nate want us to spend time together so that’s what we’ll do. We’ll have dinner and then I’ll call her and tell her you’re doing wonderfully. You love London and everything about it. You’ve made lots of friends and barely think about Florida at all. Then we never have to see one another again except to make polite conversation at social engagements.”
“I am not a child,” Carrie said through gritted teeth. “Just tell her we went to dinner. She’ll never know whether we did or not.”
That impeccable eyebrow quirked up. “Do you lie to your employer regularly? Perhaps this is something I should let Paige know about.”
Letting her mouth drop open, she widened her eyes in mock surprise. “Please don’t tell her I’ve absconded with the family silver. Little Tommy needs an operation.”
He almost smiled. Almost. “Your secret is safe with me. If you go to dinner. We’ll call them from the table and they’ll be thrilled that we’re out together.”
They could have eaten already in the time it took to argue about it.
“Fine, but do you mind if I freshen up in your bathroom before we go? I’m still getting used to this wet weather.”
Giving her a small bow, his arm swept toward the back of the suite. “Please be my guest.”
Everything was a drama with this guy. “I’ll only be a moment.”
Hurriedly she ran a comb through her long hair, damp from the London rain, pulling it back into a ponytail. She swiped a fresh coat of lipstick on her mouth and made a face into the mirror. This was as good as she was going to get. She was a businesswoman, not a model or actress shot up with collagen and Botox.
Slinging her purse over her shoulder, Carrie headed out to the main area of the suite but she paused outside the bathroom as she heard two voices. Unhappy voices. Max had company and since he’d planned to go out with her, they were probably a surprise to the handsome thespian.
“Max, we need to talk. It’s important,” a husky, feminine voice said.
She knew that voice, had heard it in a few movies. Alana Crenshaw had tracked Max down and was now standing out there hoping to speak with him about heaven knows what.
“For fuck’s sake, the divorce will be final soon. Anything you have to say can go through our representatives.”
Carrie’s first instinct was to hurry to his side, a show of solidarity in the face of the enemy, but that little voice in her ear gave her pause. They’d just had a nasty exchange and there was no love lost between them. There wasn’t even a mutual respect. He disliked her and she wasn’t all that enamored of him at the moment, although she knew there was something redeemable inside of him. Paige was rarely wrong when it came to people.
“This is personal,” Alana said in her upper-crust British accent. “I need to speak with you right away.”
Carrie could only see the back of Max but his shoulders had stiffened immediately. He was not amused by Alana’s sudden appearance at the hotel.
“It’s not a good idea.” Max’s words were clipped and colder than usual. Even chillier than when he spoke to Carrie. But she could hear the underlying panic in his tone. He hadn’t been prepared for this especially after just fighting with her moments before. “You should go.”
“I’m not leaving until you listen to me.”
Carrie had seen divorce before. She’d had friends who had split up and it was an ugly, hurtful thing, especially if the two parties were at odds with one another. That there was more vitriol than normal between these two was clear after what Carrie had witnessed at Max’s home. Alana was a destroyer.
Carrie had seen the type quite well during her college days. When something didn’t go their way, they made sure that no one else was happy either. As much as Max got on Carrie’s nerves, she felt for him in this situation. Living with Alana had to have been a nightmare.
“Alana, go home. We have nothing to say to one another.”
Carrie thought she heard the woman snarl. “I can make your life a living hell, Max. You’ll wish you were never born.”
“I already do.”
There was no good reason for it. Later Carrie would probably question why she was doing it but dammit, she hated to see someone who was hurting so badly be emotionally wrung out like a sponge. Gliding to his side, she wrapped an arm around his lean waist and gazed adoringly – or as close as she could get to that – up into his face. Whether he would play along was the question of the day. After the words they’d flung at each other there was a good chance he’d openly question what the hell she was doing.
But he didn’t. He placed his arm around her shoulders and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “Darling, I thought you were on the phone.”
“All done.” She looked from Alana to Max and then back again. His ex was a few years older than herself but she had a brittle, hard look to her that aged her even more in Carrie’s opinion. Innocent ingénue roles were out of the question. She wasn’t going to play someone’s best friend either. Alana was perfectly suited to the bad bitch roles, right down to her icy blue eyes and her sharp but elegant features. She was certainly a beautiful woman but she didn’t radiate any warmth or caring.
Put another way…if Alana was walking down a busy London street no tourist was going to stop her and ask for directions.
But I might be biased.
Alana scowled at Carrie. “Who is this?”
Nah, I’m right.
Max pulled her closer to his large frame and Carrie could feel the heat from his body alongside hers. Not unpleasant. “Not that it’s any of your business but this is Carrie, my new girlfriend. Now I think you should leave. If you have any message for me, send it through my attorney.”
His ex’s eyes turned to slits and her lips pursed, her total attention back to Max. She’d effectively dismissed Carrie as too insignificant to worry about. Lovely. “I want to talk to you. We need to discuss the money situation. I can’t live like this.”
“Like this,” Max repeated slowly. “I’m not sure what you mean. You took everything that wasn’t nailed down in our home so I would imagine you are living quite well. As for the money, the prenup was very clear. You get a lump sum at settlement.”
“You owe me,” she hissed, two red flags appearing on her cheeks. “Don’t think I won’t play dirty.”
“I have no doubt that you will try. Now please leave. How did you find me in the first place?”
She smiled, checking her manicure. “I have my sources. Now write me a check,” she demanded. “Or I’ll go to the press and tell them that you were cheating on me with this little vanilla miss when we were married.”
“You’ll do nothing,” Max replied, his tone hard and cold. “And do you know why? You’ve already damaged what little career you have left. If you get into a tabloid war with me, you won’t be able to get a job taking tickets at the local theatre. You’re difficult to work with, Alana, and you’ve pissed off a lot of people that would love to get their revenge. Don’t make it easy for them.”
Whirling on her stiletto heel, Alana marched down the hallway. “This isn’t over, Max.”
Carrie didn’t say anything as his ex disappeared into the elevator. They simply stood there for a moment not speaking, not even looking at each other. Just standing as if trying to absorb what just happened.
“I think I need a drink,” Max finally said. “Fancy a whiskey?”
“Make it a double, Hamlet, and you’ve got a deal.”