Tears streaked her cheeks as she remembered how she’d felt, lying in her bed beside this virtual stranger who was suddenly more familiar to her than the man she thought she’d known inside and out. Josh—his name was Josh Bennett—was an okay guy. He was good to her, gentle, even sweet. But three weeks later his ex-girlfriend turned up crying on his doorstep, and he let her back in.
Amelia hadn’t even been upset, not really. She was numb from head to foot, oblivious to pain. Being with Josh, with anybody, felt like the final step she’d had to take to move past Noah. Not to get over him. Obviously she hadn’t done that—she still hadn’t done that. But to step out of the blackness, move on with her life.
She hadn’t slept with another man since Josh. She’d dated plenty—her friends were always trying to set her up with some “great guy” they knew. But after what she’d almost had with Noah—what he’d ripped away from her, along with her heart, her whole reason for being—she couldn’t bear the thought of ever again feeling the ice-cold emptiness she’d felt on that bed, on that night, with Josh’s warm arms wrapped around her.
She scooted her body deeper into the pillows, drawing up her legs and clutching her knees. Her shoulders heaved in rhythm with her sobs.
It wouldn’t be like that with Colin. She could feel that. With Colin, she could feel again, period. That alone was progress. And she wanted him. Wanted to be with him, to explore what life could be with him.
But what did he want from her?
She wasn’t numb anymore. She could feel everything now, and she knew she couldn’t handle being hurt again. It had been years since Noah had obliterated her heart, and all this time she’d clung to the fragments. But she still wasn’t whole. If she gave what was left to Colin, could he help put her back together?
Or would he finish her off?
Oh, God, I don’t know what to do.
If their conversations from the past few months were any kind of indicator, Colin was the real deal. The night they’d met she’d been sure he was a player, but he didn’t seem like he was playing her. But honestly, where could this go? Their lives were so different. They couldn’t even have a conversation without getting interrupted by the million things and people pulling at them, so how could they manage a relationship?
Amelia wasn’t even sure if Colin wanted a relationship. And she couldn’t handle a casual thing. Could she?
She looked down at her frumpy T-shirt and her old, plaid PJ pants. How could she even be thinking about having sex with Colin? The worlds they occupied might as well be separate planets. She’d been with one guy. How many women had he slept with? Fifteen? Fifty? And who were they? Starlets? Supermodels?
Was she the token author he could strike off his list?
Her shoulders shook again under the weight of her confusion and frustration. That wasn’t fair to Colin. He couldn’t help the fact that his job was glamorous—that didn’t automatically make him a jerk. But she wasn’t sure she was willing to test that theory.
She jumped as her phone began to buzz beside her on the nightstand. She reached for it and watched as Colin’s name flashed across the screen.
Her finger froze in place above “Accept Call,” but she didn’t click it. Instead she waited for the ringing to stop and then turned off the phone. She switched off the lamp above her head, curled up in the middle of the great big bed and closed her eyes, even though she knew it’d be a long time before she found solace in sleep.
* * *
When she arrived on set the next morning, she was startled to find that the first item on her itinerary was a meeting with Colin. It wasn’t in his trailer this time, but in the production team’s makeshift headquarters, set up in a hallway of classrooms in the cleared-out sports complex that had filled so many roles this week. She followed a female PA down a long corridor of the low brick building, their footsteps echoing off the drab cinder block walls. They passed the catering room. She could smell the coffee from the hallway, and when she glanced in she saw a couple of people lingering around trays of fruit and donuts. Otherwise the hall was quiet.
The girl stopped in front of a closed doorway and knocked three times before turning the handle.
“Mr. Marks? Mel Henry for you.”
She pushed the door wide and ushered Amelia into a smallish room with institutional white walls and speckled-blue industrial carpet. A long table at the center of the room was surrounded by molded plastic chairs in an array of faded citrus colors. In the middle of the table, several pages of script were arranged in a neat, fan-like pattern.
She had a feeling this PA didn’t have much in common with good ol’ Rob.
“Thank you,” Amelia said in a crisp, professional voice, her eyes on Colin. The assistant nodded and left, closing the door behind her.
Colin smiled. “I figured I’d better go through proper channels, block off some space on your calendar. You’re a busy woman.”
She smiled back, but her eyes were tight. “And you’re a busy man.”
He reached a hand forward, gestured for her to take the three steps that separated them. When she did, he pulled her close against his chest.
“Now this is what I call a meeting.”
She felt her body stiffen. She’d had too much time to think last night—never a good thing for her, especially when it came to relationships.
Colin noticed. He pulled back and tried to meet her eyes, but they were intent on examining the buttons on his shirt.
“Hey? What’s wrong? I’m sorry about last night. My manager needed to meet with me. He said it was urgent. It wasn’t, though. It was really frustrating.”
He tipped her chin up. “Are you upset with me?”
She smiled in spite of herself at his hurt-little-boy tone.
“No, Colin. Not at all. I just…this is just harder than I thought it was going to be. It seems like every step we take toward each other, we get split farther apart.”
She faltered, and the tell-tale flush of pink rose into her cheeks.
“There’s more,” he guessed. He waited a couple of seconds. “Tell me what’s on your mind.”
She looked straight into his eyes, aware of the desperation, the frustration that was laid bare in hers. He stared back, his eyes filled with nothing but patience and concern.
“This is going to sound crazy, considering, but I’m worried we’re moving too fast. I want to spend time with you.” She paused and inhaled sharply. “And I’m afraid that’s never going to happen. I’m scared this isn’t going to work. Our lives are so complicated. I think…I think maybe we’re making a mistake.”
She bit her bottom lip and dropped her eyes from his. She’d thought this all the way through, and she knew what her words meant. Colin could have anybody he wanted, any time. If she made things complicated, she had no doubt he’d cut and run. Why wouldn’t he? She braced herself for his concession speech.
To her surprise, instead of stepping away, he tightened his arms around her.
“It’s not always going to be like this,” he murmured. “We will find time to make it work. And we don’t have to be in any rush, either. If you want to slow down, we’ll slow down.”
He stroked her hair.
She blew out the breath she’d been holding and looked up at him. How does he do that? He’d managed to dispel in fifteen seconds the misgivings that for the past nine hours had seemed absolute. He wasn’t anything like the intimidating figure she’d turned him into in her head last night—not Colin Marks, Actor. Just Colin. Just the guy she’d been getting to know all these weeks. The guy she’d started to care about.
She looked up at him with the first tinge of hope she’d felt in hours.
“Really?”
“Really.” He gazed at her with steady eyes. “I’ll get to work on it. As for right now, though.” He paused, unsure. “Well, we do have another twenty minutes before anybody’s going to be looking for us…”
She stared back at him, the tension that had knotted her stomach
all morning dissipating, being replaced by a completely different sensation. She felt so light she was almost dizzy.
She stretched up, and when she spoke again, it was against his lips.
“Let’s not waste any more time talking, then.”
* * *
Somehow, Colin’s prediction was right—this day was more laid back than the three that preceded it. After her “meeting” with him she had a few more scattered commitments, but she was able to spend much of the day as a bystander, watching the action transfer from the set to a series of eight-inch screens set up behind the scenes. It was a complicated, beautifully orchestrated process, and it was hard to believe she was here, at the center of it.
It was also fascinating to watch Colin work. She tried not to think, as she watched him deliver lines that had been pulled verbatim from the book, about the shoes he was filling, the role he was playing.
It was a little weird—she had to admit.
But he was so good at it that, even in her head, she was able to detach him from the writing—he became the character. That made it somewhat easier to watch him perform the one scene she wished she didn’t have an up-close view to, the only love scene she’d had a chance to witness in action. It would be easier still if they weren’t having to do so many takes…
She wasn’t such a big fan of Jessica Mayer, his co-star, anymore.
It reminded her of one of the weekends she’d spent without him, back in Memphis, about three weeks ago. They hadn’t had many chances to talk that week, and she missed him. She’d been trying to write, but was in a rut, and since she couldn’t sleep she turned on the TV and watched an hours-long marathon of Colin’s show on DVR. She finished it the next day, and then she watched everything else she could get her hands on that he’d been in—including a box office flop romantic comedy that featured him in repeated love scenes with an adorable, blonde British actress. It was a wonder her TV set made it through the night—she’d wanted to throw something at it.
Lost in thought, she didn’t notice when the scene finally wrapped. Her phone chiming in her hand broke the spell, and when she glanced up, she saw that Colin had stepped off the outdoor set and was hanging out under a bank of trees with a couple of other actors. She lifted her phone to check the text, which was from him.
She read it, did a double-take, and read it again.
“Remember I love u, not her.”
When she jerked her head up to look at him, he was staring at her from the same spot, about fifteen yards away. She watched as he lifted his phone and began tapping at the screen. A few seconds later, one of the other actors said something to him, and the two of them headed off toward the trailers. Amelia raised her phone again when the text came in.
“Meet me in dressing rm @7. Got surprise for u.”
That was an understatement. A tremor of shock rocked through her, and she texted back, “OK.”
She wasn’t sure which message it was meant to answer.
* * *
The afternoon passed so quickly Amelia almost didn’t have time to be nervous. Not long after Colin sent his texts, she was called into a meeting with the screenwriter and director, who wanted a power session with her before she packed up and headed out the next morning. Before long, Nina would be calling her to do the same thing. If she and Colin were going to get any time together at all before she left, it had to be now.
She glanced at her watch—it was already a few minutes past seven—and rushed in the direction of his trailer.
When she reached his dressing room door, her stomach fluttered and her heart pounded in her ears. For hours, “Remember I love u” had been playing on a repeat track in her brain. What did that mean? Was he telling her he was in love with her? Was it a figure of speech?
She took a deep breath and knocked on the door. Three short raps, the way she’d seen others do it—it almost seemed like a code. He opened the door within seconds, and the sight of him took her breath away. He must have just showered because a few water droplets clung to his hair, and his striped shirt was unbuttoned.
“Have you been out here long?”
“No, I just walked up.”
“Good. I was a little late getting over here. Here, come on up.”
He reached down and took her hand again as she climbed the steps. After a quick glance around outside, he shut the door behind her.
She set her bag on the long desk, her cheeks flaming as her mind went straight to its use the day before. She turned around to find him rubbing a towel over his hair.
“So you’ve got a surprise for me?”
Her tone was casual, but her heart raced as he tossed the towel onto the rolling chair and grinned at her. He crossed the room and slid his arms around her waist.
“I do.”
She stared at him, her mind sifting through the possibilities and coming up empty. “Well, you’re kind of killing me here. What is it?”
He bent down and kissed the tip of her nose. She felt it all the way to her toes. Oh God oh God oh God oh God. Whatever this surprise was, she was sure she wanted it and sure she wasn’t ready for it. She felt torn between wanting to run out the door and wanting to push him back onto the desk behind her.
“I’m coming to see you.”
Her eyes widened. That was a possibility she hadn’t considered.
“You’re coming to see me? Like in Memphis? When?”
He smiled again. “In three weeks.”
“But…how? Won’t you still be filming?”
“I worked out a break. They don’t need me every day on set. I told Scott I had something personal I had to deal with. My manager’s a little freaked, but he’ll get over it.”
He paused for a few seconds, dipped his head again, and pressed his face into her hair.
“I decided you were right. If we’re going to be together, to make this work, we have to make some time for each other. And since you so stubbornly refuse to let me do this…” He nuzzled her ear with his lips, “out there…” He gestured with his head toward the door, “I had to figure out a way to make that happen.”
She stared at him, at a loss for words. He grabbed both her hands in his.
“I don’t know if I can explain this right, and I don’t want to scare you off, but I’ve never felt this way before about anybody. I won’t lose you, not for this…” He motioned again toward the set. “Not for anything. I love you.”
“You…love me?” Her voice was a whisper. Even after her hours of pondering, wondering, the words didn’t make sense.
His eyes were soft on hers, like melted ice. “Yes, Amelia. I love you. I don’t want to pressure you, and if you don’t feel the same way…right now, that’s fine. You don’t have to say anything. But I thought you should know how I feel.”
She opened her mouth and then closed it again. She still didn’t know what to say, so she leaned toward him and pressed her lips to his. He kissed her back eagerly.
Meanwhile, her mind raced. He was coming to see her in Memphis. In three weeks. Just her and Colin, no interruptions, no cramped dressing rooms, no prying eyes. Her and him and time. Time to figure out where this was going, what she wanted.
What she wanted. What did she want?
She didn’t know. Stop thinking. Just…stop.
She didn’t have to know right now. All she knew was that her life was moving forward again, and she wasn’t going to stop it. Because soon enough, inevitably, the phone did that work for her. First Colin’s, then hers.
When she answered, Nina’s voice was as frantic as she’d expected.
“Where are you?”
“I’m on my way.”
She met Colin’s eyes over the phone as she ended the call.
“I have to go.”
“I know,” he said. “But three weeks.”
“Three weeks.” She drew the words out, a thrill of excitement stirring from the center of her stomach and spreading through her body. “I can’t wait to show you my city.”
; He grabbed her around the waist again, looked into her eyes. “I can’t wait to see it. I can’t wait to learn everything there is to know about you.”
He kissed her one more time and let her go.
She grabbed her bag and moved toward the door. He moved with her and opened it, following her down the steps that led from the small structure into the open air of the late summer Texas evening. The sky was still bright as twilight began to just take hold.
The set was almost completely quiet now. Amelia’s eyes were on Colin’s as she prepared to leave it, to leave him in Texas and fly back home. She didn’t think to make her usual sweep of the place to see who might be watching.
So as Colin leaned down to stroke her cheek and then touch a kiss to her waiting lips, she didn’t notice the quick, quiet round of clicks that issued from the high-powered camera lens trained on them through the makeshift fence, about fifty yards away on the still, quiet campus.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Righting Wrongs
Noah, September
Noah glanced up from his work and eyed the clock beside his desk with trepidation. His mouth dropped open, and his fingers flew over the keyboard as he dashed off an email to his project foreman.
It was just as he’d thought. He was late.
Really late. He clicked “Send” before closing out the programs on his Mac and snapping off the task lamp on his paper-strewn desktop. He’d been working long hours for weeks, the last details of the hotel plan finally coming together after the inevitable round of delays and setbacks that plagued the end stages of every major project.
It was already almost nine. Erin was probably seated by now at the restaurant where they’d planned to meet at 8:30.
Guilt propelled him through the corridor and into the gray lobby of his firm’s office suite. The beeps and whoosh of an after-hours fax produced an eerie echo behind the reception desk, which had been empty for hours. He moved behind it to flip off the light, which had been left on for him. As he turned, his elbow knocked into a mug that had been left on a corner of the desk. He righted it before it spilled, but not before a few drops sloshed onto the inky quartz surface. Impatiently, he mopped them up with a tissue and then rushed toward the double glass doors, turning his key in the lock and jogging toward the stairs at the end of the hall. When he pushed through the door to the stairwell, Jim, the building’s head of security, let out a surprised grunt.
Now a Major Motion Picture Page 18