other man gestured his willingness for Maggi and Adam to continue. ‘He doesn’t seem to mind,’ Adam told Maggi with satisfaction.
‘But—’
“‘Passing Years”, Magdalena,’ Adam insisted challengingly.
Only Adam had ever called her by the name chosen by her Spanish mother; most people, her English father and even her mother, preferred to call her by the shortened version of Maggi. His use of her full name was enough to evoke even stronger memories of Adam and herself.
As was his suggestion that they sing ‘their song’...
She could feel her face pale even at the thought. She had sung it last night because it had been expected of her. But then she had sung it alone. She never wanted to perform that particular song with Adam again. It was too—She just couldn’t sing it with him!
‘You can, Magdalena,’ Adam bit out harshly, and Maggi realised she must have unwittingly spoken her protest out loud. ‘You can do anything you damn well want to!’ he added grimly.
She looked at him sharply, at the accusation in his cold grey eyes. ‘I don’t want to do this,’ she told him furiously.
‘Stop acting like a spoilt child, Magdalena.’ The coldness of his tone was like a slap in the face. ‘You chose to come back, to put yourself in the public eye again, and now you have to give them what they want!’
It was obvious, from the shouted encouragement of the audience, that what they wanted was for Adam and Maggi to continue—all night if possible. It was also obvious that Adam was quite happy to do that.
It had always been like this with Adam; everyone else’s feelings had always meant more to him than hers. He hadn’t changed, would never change.
‘All right, Adam, we’ll do this one last song,’ she finally conceded flatly, swinging her guitar strap back over her head onto her slender shoulder. ‘And then I’m leaving the stage. After that I don’t ever want to see you again.’ Her voice was strong and unyielding, but the words sounded childish in their intensity. But it was the truth; once she left this stage this evening she didn’t want Adam anywhere near her.
‘The first you may be able to do,’ he murmured softly, before turning back to the waiting audience. ‘The second you may not have any choice about,’ he added grimly.
Maggi looked at him sharply; exactly what did he mean by that last remark?
CHAPTER FOUR
‘I CAN’T believe he did that!’ Mark strode angrily up and down in their hotel suite. ‘I just couldn’t believe it was actually him up on the stage with you when I came back from the dressing-room with your guitar. Arrogant bastard!’ He shook his head, as if he still couldn’t quite take in what he had seen.
Maggi could easily understand his anger and disbelief; she was sure a lot of other people who had been in that hall tonight were still stunned at having seen Adam Carmichael.
As she was!
It all seemed like a dream now that they were back at their hotel, Maggi having escaped from the stage at the end of ‘their song’, glancing back only once, to see that Adam wasn’t having the same success in leaving, the audience calling for more, refusing to let him go. And with good reason; Adam was, and always had been, a phenomenon in his own right. He had gone on in the last three years to be an entertainer much in demand all over the world. The audience tonight had been more than aware of just how privileged they were to hear him sing so unexpectedly.
But Maggi could well have done without it, and was still shaken by the way he had joined her on stage in that autocratic way. But then, he always had been the most arrogant man she’d ever met in her life; he didn’t believe any of the rules were meant for him, living his life by his own set of codes—and they were like no one else’s. When Maggi had first met him she had believed his arrogance to be self-confidence, had felt protected by it—it had only been later that she had learnt, to her cost, just how wrong she was...!
‘He ruined your comeback, damn him!’ Mark continued furiously. ‘You were going to do this on your own, and now he’s—’
‘What’s done is done, Mark.’ She sat in one of the armchairs, exhausted, mainly by all the emotional trauma of the evening. ‘There’s nothing we can do to change that,’ she added wearily, knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that the music festival had turned into a fiasco as far as the return of her music career went.
It had all been planned so carefully, the whole thing to be taken slowly: the music festival this weekend, a couple of other low-key gigs lined up for next month—nothing too exacting, just a slow introduction back into the world she loved best. But if the Press got to hear of the performance with Adam this evening...!
‘I can’t do the third evening tomorrow, Mark,’ she told him.
Mark stopped his pacing and looked across at her. ‘You have to, Maggi.’ He frowned. ‘You’re billed to appear and people will be expecting to hear you.’ Mark was another person who believed that the public must be given what they wanted.
She shook her head, a rueful smile on her lips. ‘They will be expecting to hear Adam too now,’ she pointed out with a heavy sigh. ‘And they will be disappointed,’ she added determinedly; there was no way she was going to perform tomorrow evening and have Adam do to her again what he had done tonight. ‘I—’ She broke off as a knock sounded firmly on the door of their hotel suite, her eyes wide as she gave a startled look in its direction.
She didn’t need two guesses as to who was standing on the other side of it; Adam had obviously managed to find her at last. She didn’t want to see him just now. If ever!
‘It’s Adam,’ she told Mark with certainty, standing up abruptly. ‘I don’t want to see him, Mark.’ She gave a shake of her head.
Mark’s mouth was set angrily, blue eyes blazing as he too turned towards the door. ‘But I do!’ he grated. ‘I—’
‘Then you see him,’ she dismissed agitatedly as that knock sounded firmly again. ‘I’m going to my room.’ She turned quickly on her heel.
‘This had to happen some time, Maggi,’ Mark called after her softly. ‘Isn’t it better to get it over with now?’
Speak to Adam? Be close to him once again? Know the full force of his personality? Know she had once loved him to distraction? Until he had destroyed that love as callously as he might have swatted a fly, when it no longer suited him to have her love. To look at him again and know all that?
‘No!’ she told Mark with a shudder of revulsion. ‘It isn’t better to “get it over with now”. I was over Adam a long time ago, said everything that needed to be said then; I have no reason to ever see him again!’ She strode determinedly from the room, unwilling to listen to any more arguments for reason from Mark, closed her bedroom door behind her and sat down heavily on the bed, because her legs were shaking too much to support her, reaction having set in with a vengeance.
She had sung on a stage with Adam this evening—something she had been sure would never happen again. Something she had sworn would never happen again!
Even now she still had trouble believing it had happened. It had been just like old times, their voices
