Wreck the Halls

No. No, she couldn’t be his reason for turning down the chance at a million dollars. It had to be about the media attention, the lack of privacy. Right?

Regardless of his reasons for saying no to Danielle, if he’d come this far, he must really need the money. Badly. Could she let herself be one of the reasons he turned it down?

She might not know this man well, but she knew him enough to be positive that he hadn’t made the decision to take this meeting, to consider this offer, lightly.

Was Beat Dawkins in trouble financially? How?

It wasn’t her place to ask.

She couldn’t simply turn her back and walk away, either. Not on this man.

“What if you said yes? Just . . . hypothetically.”

He was already shaking his head. “Mel. No way.”

“Hear me out.” Visions of cameras chasing them, snapping photographs, calling out uncomfortable questions about her developing body, made Mel squirm in her seat. Still, she didn’t let it deter her. “Let’s say you agreed to do the show. Agreed to reunite our mothers while the world watches . . .” She let out a breath. “You’d never pull off a reunion.”

He started to say something, but she cut him off first.

“Not without me, at least.”

Beat did a double take. “Excuse me?”

“Even with me tagging along, the chances of a reunion are less than one percent. But if we were giving it a real, honest-to-God shot . . .” Here she was, considering an idea she’d long thought was impossible, absurd, so she couldn’t help but laugh. “My mother wouldn’t even let a Dawkins through the front door of her house. Which, by the way, is a commune of no-account called the Free Loving Adventure Club, according to her most recent update. In the by-God wilderness. Imagine trying to reason with a rebellious rocker turned nudist turned possible cult leader who shuns civilization. On a live stream. I mean, you seriously need backup.”

Beat’s hand shot across the table and grasped her wrist, cutting off her amusement. “Melody. I’m not putting you back in front of a camera. You know how shitty they treated you.”

“You made it bearable. You . . . knowing you were out there on my side made it bearable.” She’d waited years to tell him that and it was like releasing a boulder from her chest. “What you said that day changed things. Or it got the ball rolling. And anyway, I’m megahot now,” she deadpanned. “It’s different.”

He didn’t seem to grasp the joke, his forehead only wrinkling in confusion. “I’m sorry I brought you here. It was a bad idea. I’ll get the money . . .” He trailed off with a curse, slowly releasing his hold on her wrist. “I’ll get it another way.”

“Wait. I’m not done.” This time, she closed her fingers around his wrist and pressed down tight—and something unexpected flared in his light blue eyes. Was it . . . was that lust? Not attraction or interest. Lust. A flaming hot flare of it shooting across the sky of his face.

Whatever it was, the effect was so potent, Mel needed a moment to catch her breath.

“Um . . .”

Unsure where the impulse came from, she dug her nails into his wrist ever so slightly.

Beat expelled a harsh exhale.

The unexpected quickening in her belly made her let go of his wrist like it was on fire.

He closed his hand around the spot, twisted, and dropped both hands into his lap, his breathing a little shallower than before. Or was she imagining that?

“What were you going to say?” he prompted after several heavy moments.

Melody did her best to focus. “My mother. I was going to tell you . . .” Her throat started to tighten up, making her voice sound slightly unnatural. “Growing up, she was always traveling. A free spirit to the bone. Now, I see her even less. Only once a year. She comes to New York on my birthday and takes me to her favorite old thrift shop on St. Mark’s Place and the venues on Bleeker where she got her start. She decries how the rich have ruined New York City, we have dinner at a bar that’s too loud for conversation—and then she’s gone. It’s a whirlwind and I barely get in a word edgewise with her, but . . .”

She blinked back the moisture that tried to coat her vision.

Beat didn’t appear to be breathing.

“I always think, this is the time I’m going to impress her. Or she’s going to finally be interested in my life. She’s finally going to see me. And every year, I’m wrong.” This was the first time Melody had ever said these words out loud and they sunk in her stomach like great big stones. One year, in her early twenties, she’d even taken guitar lessons to try and impress Trina, but when her mother actually arrived, Melody didn’t even tell her about the biweekly classes she’d been taking. She was too afraid to find out that even learning to play “Rattle the Cage” on her acoustic Gibson was underwhelming. “She goes back to her nudist colonies or her adventurous friends and I just . . . wait for next year.”

“Mel . . .”

“Sorry, just let me get this out.” She waited for him to nod. “I’ve been working on myself for a long time. Independently. I’ve been going to therapy. Lately, I’ve started venturing outside of my comfort zone and I think it’s time. Finally time to stop the visits in February. They just make me feel terrible. Inadequate.” She took in a breath and released it slowly. “I have nothing to lose here, Beat. My relationship with Trina either needs to change or . . . be paused for a while. Moneywise, too. In which case, a million dollars would go a long way to achieving some independence. Finally.” Thinking about that made Melody feel a little light-headed. She’d been living with Trina’s wealth for so long. “Maybe The Parents’ Trap is the only way to shake up my relationship with Trina enough to elicit a change. And if it doesn’t work, at least I’ve done something new and scary. I’ve pushed myself. I tried.”

Something brushed her kneecap beneath the table and when she realized it was his fingertips, she almost swallowed her tongue. “You shouldn’t have to pull a stunt to make her see you.”

“It’s easy to say that when fate gave you the elegant philanthropist mother.” Melody shrugged and attempted a smile, tamping down the urge to fan herself. “Fate gave me the wild child. She requires explosions.”

He remained still. “Do you really want to do this or are you inventing a reason to say yes?”

Melody appreciated him asking, because whoa, this was moving very quickly. When she woke up this morning, she did not expect to be agreeing to a live reality show before lunchtime. But truthfully, she’d been stuck lately. Stuck between this world of solitude she’d built after years of being raked over the coals by the press and the need for something more.

There was more out there for her.

If not a solid, healthy relationship with her mother, then a better sense of who she was supposed to be, instead of a side character who had been shoved into a claustrophobic box by the media. And underneath it all, there was Beat. A chance to spend time with Beat. He’d become a fairy-tale figure in her head, but he was a real human being.