Page 56 of No Place Like Home
“Cade.” She grabbed his arm.
His face flushed. “Rosalyn, you’re off-limits. That kiss never should have happened.”
“You still don’t get it.” She pulled him off the sidewalk, around a corner into a gated, paid parking lot. Surprisingly, he let her.
“I need to tell you what happened.” Rosalyn tried to ignore the angst in his eyes, focus on the words she owed him. Yet another person she’d hurt with her bad decisions. “About four months ago, my agent Blaine came to me with a huge opportunity—a spot on an international troupe.”
“Blaine.” Cade crossed his arms. “Is he the guy I saw you kiss that night after your show?”
“Yes, but we never dated. I was so relieved that night to be back in America, that my first show back was a success.” She waved her hands. “Wait. I’m getting ahead of myself.”
He raised his eyebrows, his silence somehow more intimidating than his interruption.
Rosalyn took a ragged breath, shifting her weight to let a group of tourists with fanny packs push past them. This wasn’t where she’d intended to have this conversation—not that she’d ever intended to have it. “The only catch with the troupe was I had to pay up front for my spot, but that’s how these things usually go. You earn the investment back and way more while you’re touring. Blaine promised me a fortune if I stuck out the tour.”
Cade squinted. “I take it that didn’t happen.”
She shook her head. “He got the loan for me, figured everything out. I signed the papers, and we were good to go. First performance was in Greece, then Turkey. Then our third show was in Saudi Arabia.” She tried to control the tremor the mere words sent into her hands but failed. “That’s when everything fell apart.” She swallowed. “I guessIfell apart.”
Cade kept listening, arms folded, face stoic. Waiting for the marriage part, she was sure, but he had to—had to—understand along the way.
“The stress of my first world tour caught up to me. I’d been sick right before we left, and not up to my usual stamina at our first show. But I couldn’t scale back for this troupe. I had to prove myself.”
She knew that part he’d get, at least. She hurried to get past the rest. “I pushed too hard and started having anxiety symptoms. My body wasn’t healed, and now my mind was in constant overdrive. I was surviving on not enough food and too much caffeine and, well, I had breakdown, I guess you’d say, right there in the outdoor arena.”
His eyes softened.
“I fell but caught myself at the last second. Sitting there on the ground under the fabric, stunned, all those people…it was too much. They whisked me away to the hospital, but I think it was mostly our troupe manager was embarrassed—he needed it to look like a physical issue and not a mental one. I guess it was both.”
She hadn’t said this to anyone yet, and recounting it made her taste sand all over again. Feel the desert heat on her arms. The roar of her heartbeat in her ears. “Blaine tried to cover for me, but he didn’t understand what was happening either. I couldn’t get control of my tears, my words, my racing heart. It was awful. And the hospital didn’t know what to do with me because I didn’t have any illness they could easily diagnose. So they transferred me to the mental ward.”
Cade briefly shut his eyes. “I’m sorry. That had to be…wow.”
“You have no idea.”
Her temples throbbed. “Scariest two days of my life. I wanted to go home—I knew I was fine, I needed a break. Rest. My bed. But I’d paid into this troupe and couldn’t stay. Now I was in debt. And the troupe manager wouldn’t speak up for me. I think he wanted me to stay out of the way. Blaine…” She swallowed. “He came to me, scared. Had to sneak in the ward, they wouldn’t let him in my room since I was a single woman. He said I had no rights there as a woman to release myself.” She hesitated. “Unless I was married.”
Cade grimaced. “I think I see where this is going.”
“Blaine said we could annul it, that it wouldn’t be a big deal and we needed to get me home. Lying in that hospital bed, with barred windows and no one speaking English…it felt like the only way.”
Tears burned Rosalyn’s throat. “I was desperate. So he made some calls and paid for some favors, and we legally got married. He handled everything and got me out of there. Got me home.”
“And now he’s your husband, but on a technicality.” Cade frowned. “Still? Didn’t you say all this was six months ago?”
“Apparently, it’s not easy to annul a marriage. He went to file it and learned we have to actually get a divorce. That’s the holdup now, wading through all that paperwork and waiting on the courts. It’s more complicated being international.”
A muscle jumped in Cade’s jaw. “I see.” He scrubbed his palm over his chin. “That’s a lot.”
“I know.” She hesitated. “It is for me too, trust me.”
His eyes locked on hers. “Do you care about him?”
“About Blaine?No. Never like that.” She adamantly shook her head.
Cade rocked back on his heels. She couldn’t tell if he believed her. “The crying earlier today on the phone though…that was about Blaine.”
She nodded. “But not in the way you think.”
