“It would be exactly like that. I’d owe you and Zach.”

“But you’d have this.” He raised his hands as if to present the theater.

She sat there silent for a moment longer. “I’m cold. I think I’d like to go home.”

John let out a deep breath and headed back home. He’d really taken a chance on her needs, and he’d failed miserably. That was it. He was bad with women, and this one was no different. He’d thought he’d known what his wife had wanted too, but obviously he hadn’t delivered.

He was surprised she wasn’t allergic to the flowers he’d brought her. That would have been the frosting on the cake.

Just as they pulled up behind her house, her phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and silenced it.

“Same caller?” he asked.

“I’d assume so.”

He turned off the engine and turned to look at her. “Is there something I should know?”

“Such as?”

“Why did you move home?”

“My family is here.”

“Why now?”

“I missed everyone. Isn’t that enough? And with Spencer and Avery now, I think this is where I belong.”

He didn’t doubt that was some of the truth. “But you were on Broadway, and amazing I might add.”

She chuckled. “You are one loyal employee to have come to New York with Zach and Regan to see me perform.”

John let out a grunt and climbed out of the truck. By the time he’d skirted the hood, she was out of the truck and slamming her door.

“Is that why you think I went to New York? Because Zach asked me to?”

Her eyes opened wide as his voice rose.

“Did it ever occur to you that I came because I was interested? I wanted to see you?”

Now her mouth had opened, but she seemed to have a lack of words, so he continued.

“I want that theater for you because I thought you wanted it—to write and teach and perform, not because I need a pet project and not because Zach needs another investment.” He stepped up closer to her, and his breath carried in the cold air. “This is a commitment, or at least as close as I can get to one. Don’t you see that? The reason I went to Carlos’s weddings with you was because, when you showed up to help with Tyler Benson’s funeral four years ago, you turned my head. I went to New York because you interested me. I was your date because you fascinated me. Now I have the honor of holding you at night, and I’m beside myself. Hiding and holding back isn’t helping the situation. You’re keeping secrets from me and that makes me leery of my feelings for you. If you can’t tell me who the caller is, how can I trust that you’ll keep your promise to me to be exclusively mine?”

She gasped at that.

John wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her, but he was mad. “Don’t be so strong-willed that you won’t let the man who loves you take care of you or do something for you. You never know when they will grow tired of trying.”

And with that he walked away because he’d said more than he’d meant to.

Cold air closed in around Arianna as she watched John walk down the outside steps to his apartment. When the door slammed, she knew she’d acted childish.

But how was she supposed to react? It was dark, and he was showing her buildings with grand plans for her to make something big of it. That scared the hell out of her, but not nearly as much as him saying something about loving her.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket again. She pulled it out, but this time it was a text message. You’ll fail!

As she read it, a picture came through as well. It was her and John in his truck outside the Rockwell Theater.

Arianna swallowed hard. He was following her.

She looked around the alley and her yard. He could be anywhere. She wasn’t safe standing in her own backyard with John only feet away. And if she wasn’t safe, neither was Regan.

It was time to come clean. She had to tell John about Alexander Hamilton. Something had to be done.

Arianna ran to the house and up the back stairs. She shook as she pushed her key into the lock and turned it. But when she heard the inside door to John’s apartment close and the deadbolt from his side lock, she knew he wasn’t going to listen now.

She bolted the back door, ran up to her bedroom, and locked the door. Tomorrow she would tell Carlos. She didn’t want to worry Regan or Curtis with it yet. Maybe they could head him off.

Chapter Nine

It had been one of the longest nights in Arianna’s life. She’d heard the shower at four that morning, and John drove away by five. Obviously he was still mad.

She’d make it up to him. She didn’t want him to hate her. They did have a commitment. He was right. There was no reason to ruin it over her reaction to something so thoughtful.

Sunshine had finally made it through the drapes. It was time to face the day and her feelings.

After her shower she brewed a pot of coffee, but it went cold before she’d poured the first cup. Her mind wasn’t on the normal activity of the day. It was on that stupid building John wanted to buy.

But it wasn’t stupid.

Arianna sat at the kitchen table and held her head in her hands. It was a wonderful building. She’d seen Annie there when she was five. That was what had given her the acting bug. There was a history with her and that theater, so why had she freaked out?

Perhaps her community theater group could do Annie there. Clara would make an amazing Annie.

Her mind was brewing now, so she started another pot of coffee and searched through a box she’d thrown in the hall closet for a notebook and a pen.

By noon she’d had two pots of coffee, no food, and had the notebook nearly full of ideas. There were voice lessons to be had and method acting classes to teach. She had a list of four different productions that would be great to get the kids in the community involved in. Maybe one night they’d have an open mic night, and with the number of music industry leaders in the community, perhaps someone would get their break on her stage.

The ideas just kept coming.

By two in the afternoon, she finally changed out of her robe, tied her hair in a tail on the top of her head, and headed into town to look at the building herself.

The view in broad daylight wasn’t much different than the view she’d had the night before. It was worn down and unloved.

Arianna stepped out of her car and looked around the street. People bustled around, and she didn’t feel as though she was being watched.