My stomach roiled unpleasantly, but I took a deep breath. “That’s fine. I expected that. They’ll drop it soon enough when everyone realizes how boring I am.”
Sam hesitated. “I’m not sure about that. It wasn’t so bad at first, just a couple of guys out front, but the last few days . . . ”
I gripped the phone so tightly my fingers ached. “What do you mean?”
“They didn’t only find you, Mal.” Samantha sighed and raked back her wavy hair with a pale hand. She looked tired, I noted, shaky and a little drawn, the way she got when she didn’t sleep well and her anxieties flared up. “They found us too. Since there haven’t been new pics of you or Ian in a week, they’re out for whatever they can get. I guess the family of Ian’s new flame is better than nothing? I’ve got quite a collection of photographers staking out my block now. They’re camped out at the brownstone too. The last time Mom tried to leave the house, one of them tried to harass her into giving up some clue about where you were.”
Without even meaning to, I leapt to my feet. “Samantha! Holy crap, why didn’t any of you tell me?”
“Because Mom’s fine,” Samantha said firmly. “Nothing happened. She went back inside and they’re getting groceries and stuff delivered.”
“What about you?” I demanded, voice shaking.
“I can get groceries delivered too.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
She sighed. “I know. I’m fine too. This is . . . bizarre, and a little scary, but we can weather this, Mallory, if you’re really sure he’s the one.”
“I’m not sure of anything right now.” I hugged myself tight and wavered on my feet. What should I do about this? What could I do?
By the time Ian got back, freshly showered and wearing what I called his don’t-notice-me costume of dark jeans, black waxed canvas jacket and ball cap, I had worked myself into a frenzy. I had also gotten dressed in my own clothes, which felt strangely tight and restricting, and put on makeup.
The minute Ian walked in the door, I barreled into his arms. When they instantly encircled me, I breathed out a shaky sigh of relief at the sensation of things slotting into place. The rightness that permeated the very air I breathed when we were together. This was real.
But did that give me the right to mess with my parents’ lives? To send my sister into an anxiety spiral?
“Mallory, luv. What’s happened?”
Ian’s deep voice, so concerned and caring, made my throat burn with the onset of tears. “I want to go out. Right now. Let’s go out and sit down somewhere in a café and have a cup of coffee. In public.”
He stiffened against me, muscles locking down in rejection. “Not a good idea.”
I pulled away from him. I needed to get a good look at his face. “Why not?”
To his credit, he didn’t try to distract me or soft-pedal it. “Some photos got into the gossip rags, of us kissing, and there’s been a bit of a thing about it. Mystery woman, Ian’s loved up, blah blah blah.”
“Thank you for telling me now,” I said quietly, folding my arms around myself. “But I wish you had filled me in when it first started happening. I don’t need people protecting me from the choices I make.”
Ian’s jawline was as hard as granite. “Protecting you is not negotiable. And if we go out right now, I can’t guarantee there won’t be more photos. More attention.”
I lifted my chin defiantly, even though it felt like I’d suddenly swallowed a pound of gravel. “Good. Let them take my picture. Maybe then they’ll leave my family alone.”
He raised his brows and I answered his unspoken question, filling him in on my conversation with Samantha. When my trembling voice faded to silence, he clenched his fists at his sides. “I’m sorry, Mallory.”
“It’s not your fault.” I grabbed one of his tense fists and lifted it to my face for a fierce kiss. “Ian, look at me, it’s not your fault.”
“But it’s because of me,” he argued.
“It’s because of both of us,” I said firmly, feeling the truth of it down to my bones. “We are in this together now, and if I’m going to make this choice that affects so many people I love, I need to know what I’m choosing. I can’t hide in your house forever, and I can’t use my family as some kind of shield. I won’t do that to them. I need to face the press for myself, and start getting used to dealing with it. If this is going to be my life . . . our life.”
I blushed as I said it, but I stood tall and kept my head up. And I wasn’t surprised when Ian’s eyes flashed with heat and he curled his other hand behind the nape of my neck to haul me close. “I want that. I want you.”
Against his lips, I said, “Then take me out and let’s show the world we’re together, and we’re not afraid.”
A muscle clenched in Ian’s cheek as he turned his face away for a moment. I could tell he didn’t want to do this, that he’d rather be doing anything else, but he said, “Let’s go.”
It wasn’t until much later that I was able to read the emotion that flashed across his handsome face as he turned to open the door. Something like sadness mixed with resignation and dread, but something more as well. I puzzled over it as I shrugged into my coat and wound a light scarf around my neck, but then he gave me a smile and took my hand, and I forgot about it.
Only afterward, when I looked back on that moment, did I understand.
Ian was afraid.
Chapter Ten
Hearing about the hordes of paparazzi outside my sister’s apartment in Clinton Hill and my parents’ brownstone, I half expected to have to shield my eyes from the flash of cameras the instant I set foot outside Ian’s house.
But of course there was no one there. The location of Ian’s London home was a secret I was beginning to appreciate. It must have taken quite a bit of maneuvering to keep gossip journalists from digging it up or following him home.
We held hands and walked down the street, as if we were any other couple out for a stroll. But I knew my palm was clammy with nerves, and my chest felt tight. Although maybe that was just the effect of wearing a bra with an underwire for the first time in seven days.
As we turned onto Regent’s Park Road, traffic rushed past us in a steady stream of cars, black cabs, and red double-decker buses. There was more foot traffic too, Londoners bustling home from work and tourists wandering over from the park to take pictures of the canal that ran behind Ian’s street. No one seemed to pay us any attention, and my shoulders started to drop from their defensive position up by my ears.
“Maybe it’s all blown over,” I suggested, hope flickering to life beneath my breastbone.
He didn’t reply, just led me down a wooded path that followed the canal. It took us past a gorgeous old stone church and out to the noise and commotion of Prince Albert Road.
“Where are we going?” I asked as our sidewalk turned into a pedestrian footbridge over the thoroughfare. It looked as if we were headed in the direction of Primrose Hill, but that couldn’t be right since we’d left the dogs at home, lounging in the back garden. Come to think of it, Primrose Hill would be a terrible place to find paparazzi since Ian apparently went there all the time and they hadn’t mobbed the place yet. “How do paparazzi find celebrities?”
He shrugged, a sneer pulling at his mouth. “They’re vultures. They mostly hang about outside the hot clubs and restaurants, or they pay staff to tip them off. If they know where you live, they’ll camp outside and hound you down the road.”
Chilled, I jammed my hands into my pockets as Ian draped one muscled arm over my shoulders like a weighted security blanket. “Now I understand why you work so hard to keep your address a secret.”
“That’s for the fans too.” Ian tilted his head. “Most of them are lovely, don’t get me wrong. They just want an autograph or a photo with me to show their friends, and most of the time, that’s fine. Part of the gig. But a few years ago, when I lived in Islington, I had a woman show up at my flat and refuse to leave. It was a right mess. I g
ot more careful after that.”
“Yikes,” I said, snugging in close to him as we started down the stairs on the other side of the footbridge. “That sounds scary.”
“Fame will do your head in if you let it,” Ian said, all matter-of-fact. “People who see you in movies and interviews start to think they know you, or they’re entitled to something from you. Boundaries become important.”
I wanted to apologize for asking him to push the edges of his boundaries, but instead I pressed my lips together. We were going to have to figure out new boundaries together for this to work. “So are we going to one of those restaurants where the celebrity photographers hang out?”
Ian shook his head, and pointed to a sign at the corner ahead where our path merged with something called the Broad Walk. My memory pinged with something I’d read while eagerly researching the area of London I’d found a flat in. The Broad Walk ran north to south through the entirety of Regent’s Park, linking the English gardens in the lower part of the park to . . .
“The London Zoo!”
A smile lit Ian’s eyes without doing more than twitch at his lips. “Yeah. You been?”
“No,” I breathed, excitement speeding my pulse. “I keep meaning to take a weekend and go, but I was so caught up in research. And, you know. Moping at home with my dog, feeling dejected.”
I laughed a little, hardly able to remember that person now. What had she been so upset about? Offloading Tony the Tool, who made her feel like crap? Good riddance.
“It’s great,” Ian said. “But I always get recognized, so I don’t go often.”
The Olympus movies had been a big hit with kids as well as adults, I remembered. Then I frowned as a thought occurred to me. “But there won’t be paparazzi.”
Ian looked grim. “Hopefully not.”
I sighed. “Ian, come on. I’m trying to work out how I feel about this.”
That stubborn, hard-jawed look was back. “So we start with fans. Dip a toe. It’s all part of it, Mallory—no reason you have to jump in and immediately start swimming with the sharks.”
The urge to argue rose up hard enough to nearly choke me, but I throttled it back and tried to look at things from his perspective. He was already doing something that went against the grain, deliberately exposing himself to being spotted and besieged by fans. More than that, he was exposing me to it. And I knew that was hard for him.
“Okay,” I said, giving him a tremulous smile. “We’ll start in the shallow end.”
He smiled back, that slow, small, sunrise-on-the-horizon smile that made everything inside me melt because it felt like it was for me alone.
We crossed over Regent’s Canal where it widened and turned to follow the northern edge of the park. Other walkers swirled around us, many of them tourists and families leaving the zoo, carrying plastic bags of souvenirs and looking tired and happy. So far no one had paid much attention to us, everyone more interested in getting home or back to their hotels than taking note of strangers walking near them.
Before long, a low building with a stucco roof and slim white columns spread in front of us. It was late enough in the day and close enough to closing time that we were the only people at the entrance to buy tickets. The bored teenager who sold them never looked away from his phone as he mechanically took Ian’s money and passed back the tickets. I started to understand how Ian was able to pass through the world unobserved so much of the time. People were largely much too involved in their own lives to notice the celebrity in their midst.
“Oh,” the ticket agent said, finally glancing up. “Park’s about to close, you’ve only an hour or so.”
“Got it, thanks,” I smiled back, and in the instant before I turned around, I saw the kid’s eyes widen and dart to the man at my side. I held my breath—but nothing happened. We kept walking, and the kid kept quiet, and it was fine.
It did ratchet up my tension, however. Wandering down the path hand in hand, I found myself scanning the faces of the other zoogoers, nervously anticipating the moment one of them would look over and recognize Ian Hale, star of Hollywood’s biggest blockbuster series in history.
True to form, nerves transmuted to words spilling out of my mouth. “Did you know that during World War I, the zoo let the army train their seals to detect submarines? But by the time they were trained and ready to be deployed in the Channel and the North Sea, someone had invented the hydrophone and the seals were obsolete, so they got to come home to the zoo.”
“Fascinating,” Ian said gravely, although I could see a muscle tick in his cheek as he tried to suppress a grin.
In retaliation, I was just about to launch into a lecture about how the first zoo in London had actually started as a collection of gifts made to the monarch of live animals from around the globe, and was housed in the Tower of London for six hundred years before this Regent’s Park zoo opened. But before I could get to the really interesting details about how several of the animals protested their cramped enclosures by mauling zookeepers and visitors, I heard someone cough politely behind us.
I cast a swift, sideways glance at Ian, who had donned his public mask of blandly charming smile and easy, unthreatening grace, before looking around to find a deeply tanned middle-aged woman with her hand on the shoulder of a skinny boy.
The boy looked up at Ian and squeaked, nearly vibrating with excitement. “Mum, it’s him! It's really him!”
“I see that, Oliver.” The mother grimaced a faint smile and waggled her phone diffidently. “We’re so sorry to trouble you, Mr. Hale. But would you mind posing for a picture with my son? In the Time of the Sun is his favorite movie.”
As I watched, Ian’s fake public smile turned more genuine when he crouched to address the boy face-to-face. “That was a fun one to make. Thanks for watching, Oliver.”
He turned to smile up into the woman’s phone camera while Oliver grinned so hard it looked like his cheeks might crack. “Thank you,” the boy said, before running back to the rope encircling the lion enclosure with his mother. She gave Ian a nod, and me a curious look, before following her son.
I breathed out. “Well, that wasn’t too bad!”
Getting to his feet, I could see that Ian still hadn’t lost the stilted, out-in-public expression. “Not so fast, sweet. Here they come.”
He was right. The phone pic with Oliver was only the beginning. It seemed to have opened the floodgates, giving other bystanders and fans and curious zoogoers the permission to throng around us in a big, jostling group. Within seconds, we’d been surrounded. People shoved bits of paper and pencils at me, begging me to get Ian’s attention. He kept that damn smile in place and signed as many as he could, using his height and long reach to great effect, while always keeping me sheltered securely against his side.
It was overwhelming, a din of voices and laughter and excitement, but I didn’t sense anything truly frightening from this bunch of fans. No one got out of hand. They were thrilled to see their idol out and about, enjoying the zoo the same way they were, and once they’d gotten their autograph or photo with Ian and had been acknowledged by him in some way, they mostly drifted off to exclaim with one another about the incident or call their friends to share the story.
I didn’t think anyone was paying too much attention to me until a young Black woman with a nose piercing asked for my autograph too. “You’re his girlfriend, right? You must be famous too.”
“Oh, I’m not,” I hurried to assure her, pushing away the pen she offered me. “Really, I’m no one.”
“That’s not what it looks like,” she said skeptically, brandishing the pen again.
Feeling extremely foolish, I took the pen and scrawled my name on the corner of her zoo map. She thanked me and faded away, to be replaced by a few more people who wanted a picture or an autograph, and it was fine. Weird, but fine.
At last, we seemed to have spoken with everyone who was still at the zoo and cared about movies. People gave us space, throwing us the occasional smile and w
atching us either overtly or out of the corners of their eyes as we stepped closer to the lion enclosure and stood side by side in pensive silence.
Ian was holding himself so still, he could’ve been carved from the golden sandstone that formed the lion’s den in the elaborate habitat before us.
I took a deep breath. “We survived.”
His shoulders relaxed almost imperceptibly. “You were brilliant.”
That made me laugh and run a self-conscious hand over my curls. “I was awkward, but that’s okay. I’ll get better at it.”
Between us, his hand reached for mine and tangled our fingers together. “So. Not a deal breaker, then.”
Relief bloomed in my chest as I realized. “No. No, it really isn’t.”
I turned to him with a huge smile, and was a little startled to see the set expression creasing his brow. Catching my eyes, he immediately smiled back and squeezed my hand, but I could tell he was worried.
Well, nothing but time would cure that, I reasoned silently. This thing between us was still fragile, as brittle and delicate as a finely preserved piece of ancient parchment. We weren’t sure of each other yet. How could we be, after a week?
“We’re going to be fine,” I told him. “I can handle this.”
“Don’t make any promises yet.” His gaze turned distant. “You haven’t seen the worst of it.”
Still riding the high of surviving my first fan encounter, I easily shrugged off his doom and gloom attitude. “Quit worrying! Come on, I want to see the penguins before they close. And I want a cotton candy. I mean candy floss. Whatever you call it, the pink spun sugar on a stick. Let’s go!”
I pulled Ian along in my wake, and he seemed to perk up as we made a quick loop around the Penguin Pond before heading back toward the front of the zoo. By the time we got back, the zoo had cleared out quite a bit. Even so, Ian reached into his back jeans pocket and pulled out his folded-up ball cap, and put it on. I didn’t object. We’d done enough for one day.
Naughty Brits: An Anthology Page 34