Glitter Baby (Wynette, Texas #3)(13)

He slid wordlessly into the banquette, bringing with him the expensive scent of his cologne. His expression was unfathomable, and a small shiver slid down her spine.

“Chateau Haut-Brion, 1952,” he said to the waiter. He gestured toward her half-finished martini. “Take that away. Mademoiselle will have wine with me.”

As the waiter disappeared, Alexi lifted her hand to his lips and gently kissed it. She tried not to think about the last time they were together when his kiss hadn’t been gentle at all.

“You seem nervous, ma chère.”

The small collection of cells relentlessly multiplying inside her made doubts impossible, and she lifted her shoulders in a casual shrug. “It’s been a long time. I—I missed you.” Her sense of injustice sprang to the surface. “How could you go off like that? Without calling me or anything.”

He looked amused. “You needed time to think, chérie. To see how you liked being alone.”

“I didn’t like it at all,” she retorted.

“I didn’t think you would.” He studied her as if she’d been mounted between glass slides and pushed under a microscope. “Tell me what you learned during your time of introspection.”

“I learned that I’ve grown to depend on you,” she replied carefully. “Everything fell apart after you left, and you weren’t around to help me put it back together. I guess I’m not as independent as I thought.”

The waiter appeared with the wine. Alexi took a sip, gave a distracted nod, and waited until they were alone before returning his attention to her. She told him what had taken place in the past month: her failure to capture the interest of a single producer, the fact that her parents would no longer support her. She told him all her miseries except the most important one.

“I see,” he said. “So much to have happened in such a short time. Are there any more disasters you need to lay at my feet?”

She swallowed hard. “No, nothing else. But I’m out of money, and I need you to help me make some decisions.”

“Why don’t you go to your former lover? Surely he’ll help you. I’m certain he’ll rush to your side on his white charger, sword flashing, slaying your villains. Why don’t you go to Flynn, Belinda?”

She bit down on the inside of her cheek to keep her tongue in check. Alexi didn’t understand Flynn—he never had—but she couldn’t say that. Somehow she needed to ease his bitterness, even if it meant lying. “Those days at the Garden…They were like nothing that had ever happened to me. I mixed the two of you together in my mind. I made myself believe all my feelings were coming from Flynn, but after you left, I realized they were coming from you.” She’d rehearsed exactly what she needed to say. “I need help, and I don’t know where else to turn.”

“I see.”

But he didn’t see, not at all. She began pleating her napkin to avoid looking at him. “I—I’m out of money, and I can’t go back to Indianapolis. I—I’d like you to give me a loan—just for a year or so until I get the studios to notice me.” She took a sip of the wine she didn’t want. With Alexi’s money, she could go away, find someplace where no one knew her, and have her baby.

He didn’t say anything, and her nervousness grew. “I don’t know where else to turn. I’ll die if I have to go back to Indianapolis. I know I will.”

“Death before Indianapolis.” His voice carried a note of amusement. “How childishly poetic, and how like you, my sweet Belinda. But if I loan you this money, what would I receive in return?”

The page brushed by their table, brass buttons glinting. “Call for Mis-tuh Peck. Call for Mis-tuh Peck.”

“Whatever you want,” Belinda said.

The moment she spoke, she knew she’d made a horrible mistake.

“I see.” The words were a hiss. “You’re selling yourself again. Tell me, Belinda, what sets you apart from those overdressed young women the ma?tre d’ is turning away at the door? What sets you apart from the whores?”

Her eyes clouded at the injustice of his attack. He wasn’t going to help her. What had made her think he would? She stood and snatched up her purse so she could get away before she humiliated herself by committing the unpardonable sin of crying in the public glare of the Polo Lounge. But before she could move, Alexi caught her arm and pulled her gently back into her seat. “I’m sorry, chérie. Once again I have hurt you. But if you keep throwing these knives at me, sooner or later you must expect me to bleed.”

She bent her head to hide the tears spilling down her cheeks. One of them made a dark smear on the skirt of her butterscotch suit. “Maybe you can take from someone without giving anything in return, but I can’t.” She fumbled with the clasp of her purse, trying to open it to get a handkerchief. “If that makes me a whore in your eyes, then I wish I’d never come to you for help.”

“Don’t cry, chérie. You make me feel like a monster.” A handkerchief, folded into a precise rectangle, dropped in front of her.

She closed her hand around it, lowered her head, and dabbed at her eyes. She made the motion as inconspicuous as possible, terrified that Van Heflin might be watching her, or the tiny blonde with him, or Veronique Peck. But when she raised her head, no one seemed to have noticed her at all.