Method Acting: An opposites attract, found family romance (Center Stage Book 2) by Adele Buck (web based ebook reader txt) 📕

Alicia smirked. “Right. So, your old man is…a plumber.”

Colin barked a brief laugh. “More than you know. He’s a urologist. My brother went into practice with him.”

Alicia’s eyebrows went up. “And your sister?”

“Research scientist. Studying cancer treatments.”

“And you were the black sheep, being a lawyer.”

“A veritable reprobate. You have grasped part of the issue,” he said, winking and sipping his whiskey, appreciating the slight flush and lowering of her eyes in response.

“You being a lawyer is an issue?”

“Being a lawyer wasn’t a popular decision with my father. But specializing in criminal defense was unforgivable. And then, moving here… Let’s just say that was also not a decision my father understands.”

“Why don’t you go back?” she asked.

He paused, considering her face. “Why don’t you?”

Her jaw tightened. “I can guarantee you my reasons are nothing like yours.”

“Tell me?”

Her eyes locked on his in a flat, angry glare and if he hadn’t been sitting on a bar stool, he would have stepped back. “I wasn’t anything more than a walking uterus to my family. But luckily, I was…one among many. And a girl, so not really worth paying attention to. I flew under the radar a lot. And then…I just flew.” Her hand fluttered out, illustrating her flight.

Colin tried to sort out the implications of what she had said. “How many of you were there that you ‘flew under the radar’?”

“When I left? Ten.”

“Ten…children.” He blinked, trying to imagine a household with that many children.

“Well, eleven. I had ten siblings. I was number three. The oldest girl. But Mom was pregnant when I left. There are probably more now. Dad kept her that way. Pregnant. All the time.”

Colin passed a hand over his mouth, unable to fathom the scene she was describing. “But…why?”

“God, apparently.”

“What do you mean?”

Alicia’s shoulders shrugged up, and she inhaled deeply. “If my parents made enough babies that grew up to make more babies who all prayed in just the right way and believed the right things, then they would repopulate the world with people who thought just like they did.”

“That’s mathematically improbable, at best,” Colin said. He’d heard of this kind of religion, but never met someone who had been raised in it. She was right. Her reasons for leaving were nothing like his own. And despite not wanting to live in England, he did love his family.

“Yeah, well. I never said it made sense. And Mom was resigned to it. She saw it as her duty and that it would be mine. I disagreed.” Alicia tipped her glass back, emptying it. “Now, for some reason I’ve told you something I haven’t talked about in years. I should go home before I tell you all my deepest, darkest secrets.”

“Do you have a lot more?”

She looked at him in silence long enough that he fidgeted with his glass, uncomfortable. “A few,” she said at last.

Sliding off the bar stool, Alicia smiled tightly at Colin. “Thanks for the drink.”

Pulling some bills out of his wallet and tossing them on the bar, Colin touched her arm. “Let me get you a taxi.”

“No need,” Alicia waved a hand. “I only live a short way away.”

“Then let me walk you home?”

Alicia paused, her automatic “no” dying on her lips. If his words had come out as a command, she would have walked away and that would have been it.

But it wasn’t a command. It was a definite question. Considering it, she looked at his face. Large brown eyes, smooth, tanned skin stretched over high cheekbones. The slight dimple in his chin. Thick black hair that held just the hint of a wave.

Good grief, but he’s handsome. The thought came to her as if it were someone else’s. She almost looked around the bar to identify the speaker.

“Okay. If it isn’t out of your way.”

He blinked in evident surprise, and Alicia felt pleasure bloom in her chest. He had expected her to say no. But he had asked anyway.

That took some guts.

“I don’t live far from here either. Let’s go.”

Leaving the bar, he held the door for her again, and this time Alicia wasn’t surprised. And she didn’t wait for him to offer his elbow to curl her fingertips into the crook of his arm.

Colin nearly jumped with surprise when she slid her hand into his elbow. He would have offered as he had when they left the theater, but she seemed so jittery now, so nervous.

He stole a sideways glance at her profile. Her nose was straight and delicate and a touch too long for classical beauty, but he liked it. Her surprisingly dark eyes were fixed on the pavement ahead of them. Her fine blond hair had started to fall, collapsing out of the high, tough style that she had affected and seeking to drift across her eyes where it seemed to normally live.

They walked together in a companionable silence for several minutes. Finally, turning on to a narrow, darker street, Alicia stopped in front of a row house, stepping away and pulling her hand free of his arm. “This is me,” she said, waving at a pocket handkerchief front garden, a front door several steps down from the street.

“Basement flat?”

“Well, they call it a ‘garden apartment,’ but yeah. Sublet for the summer. Then probably back to New York.”

Colin shifted restlessly and swallowed, an insistent, nervous feeling starting in his stomach. She just looked at him, her eyes shadowed in the half light of the street.

“May I kiss you?” he asked.

“Yeah.” Her voice was husky and low.

Closing the small distance between them, he bent and brushed his lips softly across her cheek.

“Is that all you got?” she said, looking at him from underneath her lashes.

“Do you want more?” he asked, his heart starting to thump hard. Up until now, control had been—well, not easy, but well within his grasp. But standing this close to her, smelling the elusive fragrance of her hair or perfume, he was painfully