The Real Thing

by Lizzie Shane

  How long would they stay? What was he supposed to do if they were still there when Monday came and Sadie needed to go to school? Would they follow her there?

  He should have expected something like this to happen, sooner or later, but somehow he’d let himself forget what Maggie was. Let himself forget all the bullshit that came with her. He should have been thinking of Sadie, but instead he’d been thinking with his fucking dick.

  The doorbell rang and his irritation with himself swung toward the sound, eager to have another target. “Sadie, get upstairs,” he snapped, eager to face off against whatever ballsy paparazzo had dared ring his bell—but when he looked out the front window, it wasn’t a photographer standing beneath the eave on his front step, but the reason for all this drama.

  He jerked open the door. “Maggie.” The tone wasn’t welcoming, but he didn’t have much welcome in him at the moment.

  She held up a phone, the screen toward him, displaying the massive headline, The Alien Adulteress?

  “Hi, Ian. When were you planning to tell me you’re still married?”

  His gaze locked on the article on her phone. “What is that?”

  “Apparently one of the mothers at Sadie’s school decided to cash in on the story. Surprise—we’re engaged. And you’re still married.”’

  “Lower your voice,” he growled, stepping out onto the porch and closing the door so Sadie wouldn’t hear.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded. The rain drummed around them, nearly covering her words. Her hair was wet, as if she’d run through the rain between their houses without bothering to put the hood up on her coat.

  “I told you I was married and she vanished.”

  “But I didn’t think that meant you were still married to her! Do you have any idea how this looks?”

  “That’s what matters to you right now?” he demanded, incredulous. “There are photographers on the beach pointing telephoto lenses at my daughter’s bedroom! You promised that your fame wouldn’t negatively impact Sadie, but that wasn’t a promise you could keep, was it? I should never have gotten involved with you.”

  Hurt flashed in her eyes, but anger quickly swallowed it. “Don’t blame the paparazzi. You were pushing me away long before they got here. That’s probably why you didn’t mention the inconvenient little matter of your marital status—because this was never real to you.”

  “And it was to you?” he asked, doubt drenching the words. “You think this is what you want now, but what happens in a week or a month or a year when it isn’t anymore? When you miss the fame? You’ll go running back to your old life just like Bette Midler when she dumped that doctor.”

  “Oh my God. Did you just throw Beaches at me?”

  “Sure, you want to play house now, but how long will that last? You’ll leave us just like Scarlett did.”

  “I. Am. Not. Your. Ex!” Maggie shouted.

  “No. You’re The Great Maggie Tate. And at some point you’ll get tired of me and Sadie and this whole game and then where will we be?”

  She took a step back, shaking her head, the steady stream of water falling from the roof nearly touching her. “You never trusted me, did you? When I was falling in love with you, you’d already decided I wasn’t worth it. God, I don’t know why I’m surprised. You are so fucking scared of anything that might make you feel again, anything that might be real.”

  “Nothing is real with you,” he snapped. “Everything is a performance.” He waved a hand between them. “This was never real.”

  “Maybe not for you.” Angry tears glittered in her turquoise eyes as he forced himself to meet her gaze, clenching his jaw.

  “Maybe,” he agreed, the word simple and brutal.

  Her throat worked as she swallowed. Her chin lifted, dignity and ice in her posture. “We’ll be gone in an hour. With any luck the photographers and their telephoto lenses will come with us. Goodbye, Ian.”

  Something jerked in his chest, some flash of regret, some foolish urge to take it all back and beg her to stay, but he just inclined his head in a nod. “Goodbye, Maggie.”

  She started down the steps, instantly drenched in the rain, and he refused to watch her go, stepping inside the house and closing the door. He leaned against it, closing his eyes, feeling like eleven different kinds of asshole and trying to assure himself he’d done the right thing, when a soft voice had him opening his eyes.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sadie?” He stepped out of the entryway and saw Sadie slumped on the couch, her knees drawn up to her chest. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s my fault,” she whispered. “I said you guys were engaged. I told everyone at my school. I didn’t mean to ruin everything.”

  “Oh, baby, no. You didn’t. You couldn’t.” He sank down onto the couch beside her, pulling her into his arms. “It was never going to happen between Maggie and me. You didn’t ruin anything.”

  “I like Maggie. I wanted her to stay.”

  “I know.” He rested his cheek on the top of her head, both arms wrapped around her. “I know, baby. And I know you want a mom. I know there are things you don’t have because it’s just me, but we’re a team, right? We’re okay?”

  Sadie sniffled, but she nodded.

  “We’re okay,” he repeated, willing the words to be true. They didn’t need a movie star to be whole. They didn’t.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Maggie’s Hidden Valley mansion was exactly as she’d left it. Massive. Luxurious. And empty.

  “Here we are. Home, sweet home.”

  Maggie rewarded Mel’s excessive good cheer with a half-hearted smile. Mel had been in uber-cheerleader mode pretty much the entire journey back to LA, which was somewhat unusual for her, but Maggie had been silent most of the trip and Maggie did not have a reputation for silence. It was obviously unnerving her manager.

  She’d gotten out of the habit of playing the part.

  Maggie glanced around the foyer her designer had painstakingly decorated. It was gorgeous—and something about the marble and wainscoting made her want to cry, though she still hadn’t shed a tear. Maybe she should work up a good fake cry just to make sure her tear ducts weren’t busted, but she couldn’t generate enough energy for that.

  “You didn’t eat a thing on the plane. You must be famished,” Melanie declared, marching toward the kitchen like a woman on a mission. There had always been something vaguely martial about Melanie. She preferred the masculine nickname Mel, but Maggie had always taken stubborn pleasure in calling her Melanie—the one way she had of reminding Melanie that even if she ran Maggie’s life Maggie was still the boss. Though she didn’t feel like the boss now.

  She’d apologized for accusing Mel of tipping off the reporters as soon as she got back to Lolly’s house, drenched to the skin and shivering. Mel had forgiven her instantly—but Maggie had been doing everything Mel wanted ever since and it was probably easy to forgive someone who became instantly obedient.

  She’d wondered, as Mel drove her to the airport—promising to send someone back to collect the flamingo car later—if she was making the right call in running back to LA. She’d wondered again on the plane, and now again as she wandered aimlessly through the rooms of her house, each more flawless than the last, Cecil sniffing the corners of each room to make sure nothing had changed.

  The photos of her with Ian had hit the internet. The two of them holding hands, walking out of the movie theatre, her looking up at him, him smiling slightly down at her. It would have been a sweet moment if it hadn’t been slapped with headlines screaming about their torrid adulterous affair.

  She’d wondered, for a fraction of a second on the plane, if he’d had something to do with the pictures, staged them somehow—he had taken her hand immediately before they stepped out of the theatre, and he had been acting strangely all morning. But if he wanted to get rid of her there were much easier ways than calling in the paparazzi to start a fight.
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  No, it had just been bad timing.

  Or maybe it had been inevitable.

  She never really felt like she deserved the good things. When Demarco had dumped her, there had been a sort of justice to it. It had felt right, like she deserved it—and not just because she’d been caught on camera kissing Alec with Demarco’s engagement ring on her finger. Their entire relationship a part of her had been waiting for the other shoe to fall.

  Perhaps she sabotaged her relationships because she was afraid she didn’t deserve them, because she needed there to be a reason they left her, something other than the fact that she just wasn’t good enough, even if that was what it felt like underneath.

  But she hadn’t sabotaged with Ian. She’d tried. Which made it even worse when it went down in flames.

  With Demarco she’d wanted the picture perfect wedding—she’d needed the perfect photos to prove to herself how happy she was. That her life was perfect. Sometimes she would look at the pictures of her life and it felt like she was looking at someone else. Like she was totally lost inside the shell of perfection.

  But in that photo with Ian, the one they’d caught of them exiting the theatre, she’d been really happy. That had been her, not a part she was playing.

  And it had all blown up in her face.

  What was she supposed to learn from that?

  The takeaways from her other relationship disasters had been easy. Don’t date assholes that make you feel like crap—Alec. Don’t date men who care more about their careers than they do about you—Franklin. Don’t cheat on your fiancé—Demarco. But what was she supposed to learn from Ian? Don’t be yourself and fall hopelessly in love with an emotionally unavailable man because he will never want you back?

  The press would forgive her the adultery stuff. She knew that. It would only take an interview or two. A simple explanation. Even if they didn’t believe her, they would forgive her. She always seemed to get a free pass. She certainly had after the Demarco debacle. She was beloved, and that made up for a lot.

  Beloved, and hunted. It was a strange combination. Living in a world where the press couldn’t seem to decide whether they wanted to worship her or destroy her on any given day. The Great Maggie Tate. At the top of her game. Adored by one and all. Making insane money. Spending insane money.

  And none of it mattered a damn bit.

  She would never be famous enough to feel good about herself. There was no such thing as enough. Sometimes it seemed like the desire for love was this vast, ravenous hole inside her and nothing would ever be big enough to fill it. Not even Ian and Sadie. Nothing.

  Part of her wanted to curl up in bed for days at a time, to yield to the ache inside her and the feeling that she deserved the pain. But Mrs. Summer’s comment about depression stuck in her head. She didn’t want to slide back into that. What she needed were esteem-able acts. And to keep moving. It had gotten entirely too easy to imagine herself as one of those stars who took a few too many sleeping pills one night.

  She wouldn’t become her mother. So she needed to start finding her worth in ways that actually made her feel worthy.

  Starting now.

  She looked around the perfect house. The one she’d always wanted. The celebrity. The wealth. The influence. She had what she’d always wanted, so now what was she going to do with it?

  Maggie turned and started toward the kitchen. “Mel? I need your help with something.”

  * * * * *

  “You made it!”

  “Of course I made it. I wouldn’t miss this.” Maggie squeezed Bree as the artist flung herself against her.

  They didn’t look as identical as they once had—Bree had cut her blonde hair and streaked it pink. She was a couple inches shorter than Maggie since she was wearing sparkly ballet slippers as she bounced around the Hwang Gallery greeting the guests at her opening—but the resemblance was still strong enough to make several of the other guests do double takes.

  Maggie had left Cecil B. Demille at home, but an exact replica that Maggie had given Bree darted around the gallery—or rather a slightly pudgier replica, since Cecil Two had a tendency to con Bree and Cross out of a second dinner by getting them both to feed him.

  “How’s life with Captain America?” she asked, jerking her chin at the intense man organizing security for the evening—he’d always seemed like an odd match for the free-spirited artist, but somehow the two of them made it work.

  “He’s good. I think he’s glad the show is finally here so I’ll stop being so manic about it.”

  A flicker of worry sparked in Maggie’s gut. Bree’s art was her purpose. Her driving force. If Cross expected Bree to suddenly become domestic… “He doesn’t really think you’ll slow down, does he? I think from the success of this show, you’re only going to be busier.”

  “From your lips to God’s ear.” Bree giggled. “I don’t think I’ve ever said that phrase out loud before. It’s so my mom. But yeah, don’t worry about Cross. He knows what he’s getting with me—but we did make a pact that we were both going to try for more work-life balance. We’ll see how long that lasts.” She grinned. “Come on. I want you to see yours.”

  Bree latched onto her arm, tugging her through the crowd. Maggie hadn’t been exaggerating—there was something, a buzz in the room, that told her Bree was going to be very busy. Her work was half-collage, half painting. She took photographs—staged moments full of illusion—and combined them into larger pieces that somehow revealed the truth of the subject. The pure emotion of it.

  Maggie had seen Bree’s self-portrait, as well as a half a dozen others, and she’d known Bree was making one of her, but she hadn’t been sure she wanted to see it. She hadn’t been sure she was ready to know what this woman who had become her friend saw when she looked at her.

  It was in a separate room, a place of honor in the back gallery, the lighting carefully controlled to display Bree’s two largest pieces side-by-side. Bree’s self-portrait. And her portrait of Maggie.

  The two pieces were drastically different, even though their faces were so similar. Maggie wasn’t an artist. She couldn’t have said what Bree did to achieve the effect—all she knew was how she felt when she looked at them. Bree’s made her feel hopeful, like she was looking at a woman on the verge of breaking out of the illusion that had trapped her, a woman who was ready to shine.

  But when she looked at her own portrait… Maggie couldn’t look away from the sad Rita Hayworth eyes, her throat closing. Loneliness. Longing. That’s what she saw. Bree had always seen straight through to the truth of things.

  In the two weeks she’d been back in LA, Maggie had been trying to turn over a new leaf, trying to figure out what impact she could have on the world that would make her feel like she was doing something meaningful. Something she could be proud of.

  After a long talk with Mel—during which she had actually felt like her manager was discussing options with her rather than trying to steer her—she’d agreed that Mel had a point about one thing. The blockbusters gave her the influence she had, so if she wanted to be able to use that influence for good she needed to keep it.

  She’d signed the Alien Adventuress contract—but also gone on a search for scripts outside the mainstream that might need some star power attached in order to get funding. She was going to use her fame to make a difference. And if cynical critics thought she was only going for more meaningful indie films in some kind of bid for an Oscar, let them think it. She would know who she was, and why she was doing it.

  She’d also started researching some charities she wanted to be more involved with, to use her fame as a bullhorn for good causes.

  But the hardest part of her New Maggie Plan—she’d gone to see Demarco to make amends. It hadn’t been great. He didn’t like her very much and she couldn’t blame him, but they’d talked, she’d apologized, and maybe someday soon she wouldn’t feel quite so guilty anymore.

  She’d seen Alec too. He’d
reached out to her and in the spirit of turning over a new leaf she’d agreed to meet him for coffee. Later, she’d realized he’d only done it so he could stoke tabloid rumors that they were getting back together, but even knowing that she was glad she’d met him, if only because it had confirmed something for her. She didn’t need him to like her anymore. She wasn’t so hungry for approval that she needed even Alec to adore her.

  She was better than that. Even if she didn’t always feel like she was good enough yet, that was a step.

  “You never told me how things turned out with the guy,” Bree said softly, scooping Cecil Two up and shifting his bulk in her arms.

  Maggie pulled her eyes off the portrait, meeting her double’s naturally hazel eyes. “The way they always turn out. I think I’m swearing off men. Again.”

  “You’ll find your person,” Bree assured her, her gaze flicking past Maggie to where Cross moved in the other room.

  She was so happy. So incredibly happy.

  A flicker of worry whispered through Maggie again. That kind of happiness. Could it last?

  “Will he be okay with it?” she murmured, studying Cross. “If you’re suddenly hugely famous and richer than he is?”

  Bree cocked her head over Cecil Two’s. “Is that what happened with you and the guy? He couldn’t handle it?”

  Maggie shrugged. “A lot happened.”

  “Bree!” One of Elite Protection’s most badass bodyguards, a five-foot-nothing blonde pixie with a wicked sense of humor, rushed into the room, dragging her husband with her. Candy and the man everyone called Pretty Boy—and really, who could blame them, the man was that good looking—had been Maggie’s security detail when she ran away to Fiji in her aborted attempt to elope with Demarco. “Hey Maggie.” Candy flashed a smile before turning her attention back to Bree. “Pretty Boy has decided he simply must have the portrait you made of me. Do we talk to you about nabbing it before someone else does?”

  “I’m afraid you can’t afford it,” Bree said with such exaggerated regret that it was obvious she was joking, but Pretty Boy merely shrugged.