Megan’s eyes squeezed shut as genuine pain coursed through her at the final refrain of the song. She loved Christian. She hated to think of him ever being in so much misery, so alone. She knew without a doubt that Christian had written the mournful ballad for his dead wife.
Cecilia.
Was Christian still in love with her? If the song was any indication of the degree of love that Christian had felt at one time, Megan doubted there was any way that he couldn’t be. She felt guilty about it, but she couldn’t help but feel jealous of the woman who had inspired such a poignant love song from Christian.
She felt drained as the music ended, sick and heart sore.
Maybe Hilary was right. What did she really know about Christian? She didn’t believe any of the sleazy insinuations Hilary had made. It wasn’t that. But he was so complex, and he shared so little of himself with her. How many times would she discover a totally new, surprising dimension to his character? She found the prospect intimidating.
She watched him up on the stage as he brushed back his hair and leaned over to speak to Seth. He abruptly turned his head to the left. Megan watched in puzzlement as both Seth and Christian stared at what looked like a shirt being swung around over the crowd’s head.
“Chris!” Megan heard a woman yell over the clamor of the crowd.
She couldn’t hear the rest of the words, but she recognized the shouter. It was the pretty drunk girl who had been dancing nearby a while ago. She must have made her way closer to the stage. Megan looked on in confusion as the audience recognized that something was drawing the band members’ attention. She saw the shirt that the girl was flinging around fly toward the stage, miss, and slither to the ground.
“Well, thank you, ma’am,” Christian drawled with dubious amusement into the microphone.
The crowd roared with laughter and whistled. Two Chicago cops bustled up to take the arms of the half-naked, resisting girl.
At first, Christian cued the band to begin their next song despite the minor tussle that was taking place close to the stage. After a few seconds, though, he made a slashing motion with his hand. He placed the microphone in the stand and whipped his T-shirt over his head in one fluid motion. A host of women screamed and whistled their at the revelation of his naked torso. He balled up the T-shirt and sauntered over to the cops who were taking away the restrained, topless girl.
“Hey!” Megan heard Christian yell. “Give this to her.”
The crowd roared and clapped when the cop let the girl put on the sweaty T-shirt. When the cops brought her right past Megan, the young woman was handcuffed, but grinning from ear to ear.
Her breath caught when she saw Christian’s amused gaze follow the cops and the girl’s progress, brush over Megan, then return to her with focus. The sight of him caused her already frothing emotions to boil. He was lean and sinewy. Every muscle was clearly delineated beneath smooth, tanned skin. His obvious insouciance about performing half-naked in front of a multitude only seemed to highlight their differences from one another.
They technically weren’t that far apart. She was standing relatively alone and unhindered by the ch
aos of the crowd. For a split second, their gazes held, then an urgent chord on Seth’s guitar called Christian back to the microphone and his performance.
She had seen enough. She fought her way through the sweaty, rowdy crowd with Christian’s voice haunting her from behind, still seducing her even in her disoriented, muddled flight from it.
Chapter 11
A hard fist crashed repeatedly on the door.
“Damn it, Megan, I know you’re in there. Open this door!”
Anxiety and longing warred with defiance inside her breast. She left her bedroom and stood in the living room, wishing Christian would just go away and leave her to her confusion. The racket he made rattled her nerves.
She was so surprised when she heard the key sliding smoothly in the lock she didn’t have time to move an inch. Given the tumultuous events that had happened, Megan had completely forgotten that Christian had a key to her loft.
She had enough presence of mind not to back away when she saw him, but only just. He entered the room like a storm that was about to break.
“Why weren’t you answering?” Christian asked abruptly when he saw her standing in the living room. Her arms crossed under her breasts, unintentionally plumping them beneath the fitted fabric of the red dress. He closed the door without taking his eyes off of her. Peter had told him that Megan had been crying and upset when she came in earlier. She didn’t look particularly fragile right now, though. She looked haughty and feisty, and…beautiful. Still, his voice became unintentionally demanding in his concern for her.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
“You’re what’s wrong.”
He closed his eyes, trying to calm himself as regret, anger and worry warred inside him all at once. “If you mean because I didn’t tell you about the St. Cat’s block party, I can explain about that. I didn’t think you would be there.”
“Oh, so it’s okay, as long as I don’t know about things? The St. Cat’s block party isn’t the point, Christian, and you know it.”
He tried to exhale some of the frustration and tension that had gathered in him. Two seconds after he’d caught sight of her at the concert, he’d glanced back only to see her huffy exit and elegant, tempting bare back. Christian couldn’t say precisely what had her so worked up, but he knew whatever it was, she was blaming him for it.
“Why don’t you tell me what the point is exactly, Megan?”