He said he missed her, loved her, just needed to hear her voice. In his usual way, he drained the tension from her body in one fell swoop, and her heart swelled with gratitude and relief. She loved Colin. How could she not love Colin? The night before, she’d simply been lonely. And finishing the series had been an accomplishment, sure, but in a way also a letdown. The books had filled her heart and her mind for more than four years, and that was probably why she was freaked out about finishing them. Maybe she was even wrong about the draft—maybe it wasn’t that bad, after all.
Filled with a new resolve, she hung up the phone, zipped her laptop into its bag and stuffed the bag in her office closet. The draft wasn’t due for another two months. She had time. She’d get some distance from it before she looked at it again, and she was sure that when she did, she’d have a whole new perspective.
From that moment on, she decided, she would focus on the future, not the past.
Amelia shook herself out of her reverie. It wasn’t like she had a choice anyway. There wasn’t time left to worry or obsess—the future was here now, flitting up in its fleeting, unexpected way.
Her eyes moved across her living room, which looked bigger, colder, barely recognizable. When they’d arrived in town yesterday, Nina, Nick, and Nick’s assistant, Teddy, had turned her house into conference central. The four of them had dragged her varied assortment of slipcovered, overstuffed, and weathered furnishings to the edges of the living room and into her dining room. Replacing her furniture was a long table outfitted with computers and snaked with wires and various blinking devices Amelia didn’t have names for. Four lipstick-red office chairs she recognized from the Ikea catalog surrounded the table and gave the austere scene an unexpected punch. The chairs’ presence was foreboding. Any minute, she’d be sitting in one of them, undergoing cross-examination.
She breathed into her coffee mug and waited for the doorbell to ring.
She didn’t feel at all prepared for this—when she’d agreed to do the conference, she’d been Mel Henry, undercover author, ordinary person, but now…well, now she was one half of “Colinmel.” The press had latched onto her real name in recent weeks, too, so she didn’t even have her pseudonym to hide behind anymore.
She grasped at the hope that the conference would stick to its focus, but the dread that lay heavy in the pit of Amelia’s stomach told her otherwise. She hadn’t granted any interviews or made any comments to the press. She didn’t feel ready for that. And yet here she was, a sitting duck, about to face two solid days of questioning from fans about her relationship with Colin.
Nina had assured her that wouldn’t happen, but how could she stop it? How could anybody stop it? Besides, she had to face down the rumor mill someday, so it might as well be today. Better to face her readers, her supporters, than the impersonal, hostile face of the media. Trembling, she sucked back a big swig of coffee as if it could wash down the terror of the thought. But all it did was burn her throat.
She closed her eyes and thought about Nina. Her publicist didn’t understand how truly mortifying all of this was to her. From Nina’s point of view Amelia’s relationship with Colin was a windfall, a giant stroke of luck. It certainly had garnered the books and movie more press than either of them had dreamed. And Nina, to her credit, had no idea Amelia had been secretly wishing against publicity from the start—that there was someone out there she didn’t want the news to reach. She couldn’t have made a bigger mess of that if she’d tried.
No, Nina’s enthusiasm was pure, and Amelia tried to focus on that. She had a role to fill, and she’d fill it. The consequences were hers alone to deal with.
Besides, it wasn’t as if her role was that tough. Nina, Nick, and Teddy had planned the conference down to the tiniest detail. All she had to do was participate in chats with fans at scheduled times throughout the next two days. Each chat would center on a specific topic—fans had ranked topics of interest when they registered for slots in the forum. So many people had signed up that Nick had designed a lottery system to decide who got to participate. If this event went well, it’d be the first in a string of online conferences. Nina and Nick were falling all over themselves with excitement about it.
Amelia wished she could feel a fraction of their enthusiasm, but all she could muster up was a dull, throbbing fear.
She wandered to her entry hall and peeked out the shutters just as Nina’s rented SUV turned into her driveway. She worked to quell the flutters in her stomach as she opened her front door and stepped onto the porch. Nina, who wasn’t driving, had stepped onto the driveway and was trying to juggle an enormous Louis Vuitton bag and her phone with a heap of brown paper sacks emblazoned with a familiar dark-green logo.
“I come bearing gifts,” she said, seeing Amelia and holding up the bags.
Amelia grinned. Starbucks pastries were totally a guilty pleasure of hers, and Nina totally knew it.
“Here, let me help.” She rushed down the steps and took the bags from Nina’s hands.
Nick and Teddy beat them into the house and made a beeline for the row of computers. Before Amelia had downed half a blueberry scone, they had her set up on one of the interconnected laptops. In no time, the conference was off and rolling, and she found herself completely immersed in her own fictional world. She’d never occupied it with so many other people at once, and she’d had no idea what a thrill that would be. The forums’ participants kept her brain constantly working, drilling her with in-depth questions about characters, settings, things implied and things behind the scenes. They took the sessions so seriously that the line between fantasy and reality became fuzzier by the hour. Amelia was so engrossed in the discussions that she barely remembered her earlier worries.
Questions did surface throughout the day about Colin, but not nearly as often as she had feared. And to her surprise, almost every time it happened readers stepped up in her defense with comments like, “Leave the girl alone, hasn’t she had enough?” and “This is about her books, not her love life.”
Amelia was touched by the protectiveness of her fans. No author could possibly have better fans, she thought, and she told them so again and again. The whole day went far better than she’d expected. When things wound down that evening, she even found herself looking forward to doing it again the next day.
She was tired, though, and so was the rest of the crew. Once they’d finished the pizzas she’d ordered, Nina, Nick, and Teddy headed for the door. As soon as it closed behind them, Amelia dashed back to her room to grab her phone. She had a couple of missed calls from Colin, and she was dying to call him back and tell him about the conference.
He picked up on the first ring.
“Hey.” His voice was uncharacteristically subdued.
“Hey back. What’s the matter?”
“Nothing much. Just a long day.” He paused. “How was the conference?”
“It was awesome, seriously. I don’t know why I was dreading it so much. You wouldn’t believe how great everybody was, and the questions…man, they were so tough. I mean, the whole thing was maybe tougher in that sense than I expected, but that’s what made it so cool.”
“That’s great. I’m glad it went well.” He still sounded off, and she didn’t know what to make of it. Colin was the most perpetually sunny person she’d ever met.
“Seriously, what’s wrong? You sound…depressed.”
He was quiet for a few seconds. “So you haven’t seen any…news today? Well, not news, that’s not the right word for it. But you haven’t heard anything you want to talk to me about?”
Amelia hesitated. “Noooo. I haven’t had a second free today. Well, I mean, we had breaks and stuff, and lunch but…” Her voice trailed off, and her heart thudded in her chest. “Why, Colin? What’s going on?”
He sighed. “Nothing. That’s just it. Nothing’s going on. But…” He paused, sighed again. “Shit. I never pay any attention to this crap, but I was afraid you’d see it and be upset. There’s news out today a
bout me, and it’s not true. I know you’ve seen how it all works enough by this point that you know better than to believe it, but I’ve been scared all day that you’d see it or hear about it and that you would believe it. When I didn’t hear from you all day…well, I’ve been worried.”
Her brow furrowed as she absorbed his words, a fluttering, sinking sensation overtaking her stomach. “No, I haven’t heard anything. What is it? What are they saying?”
He paused for a beat. “That I’m cheating on you.” He exhaled loudly. “With Jessica.”
“Jessica.” Amelia repeated the name unwittingly, unsure for a second who he meant. “Oh, Jessica.” Jessica Mayer, Colin’s co-star and the lead actress in her movie. Ooh, no wonder that was getting press. If it was true, it’d be one hell of a juicy story.
She chuckled.
“Well, geez, Colin, no. I’d never have believed that.” Colin didn’t know everything about her past—for instance, he wasn’t aware he was playing a character inspired by it—but he knew enough. Enough to know how destroyed she’d be if he cheated on her. No wonder he’d been worried.
But she knew Colin wouldn’t cheat on her. Definitely not.
Surely not.
He wouldn’t, would he?
No! She really didn’t think he would. It was annoying that people were saying he was, though. A new wave of disgust for the tabloid media pulsed through her. Hadn’t they done enough damage to the two of them already? Why did they have to make all of this so much more complicated than it already was?
As these thoughts twisted around in her mind, she realized Colin wasn’t saying anything.
“Don’t worry. Seriously. I trust you.”
He blew out a long breath.
“I know. Good.” He paused again, and when he spoke, his voice was rough. “Because I love you. And I don’t want to hurt you.”
Her breath caught in her throat. Every time he said those words, it took her by surprise and made her feel slightly off-balance. She took a deep breath. “I love you, too.”
She could almost feel him relax on the other end of the phone line. Neither of them brought up the news-slash-rumors up again, and she resisted the urge to grab her iPad to check them out for herself. Instead, she held the phone to her ear as she walked through the house flipping off lights and then back to her room to change into PJs. She kept it to her ear as she went through her entire bedtime routine, setting it on the bathroom counter just long enough to brush her teeth, wash her face, and smooth moisturizer into her skin. She padded to her bed and slid between the sheets, the phone still tight against her ear.
She was afraid to hang up, because she knew when she wasn’t talking to him anymore, she’d start to think. About the rumors. About Colin and Jessica. And thinking wasn’t good for her.
She wished he was there with her, because things between them were always better—more certain, more clear—when they were together. As their quiet conversation lulled her into a dreamlike state, she pretended he was there beside her.
But of course, he wasn’t. It was only a phone.
And it was hard to snuggle up against a phone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
OMG!!!
The next day passed much as the one before it, with two major differences.
One, she was forced to deal with more Colin questions today, thanks to the rumors that had surfaced and streaked across the Internet the night before. She did her best to ignore the comments and steer the conversation back to the books, and for the most part it worked.
Two, the day ended earlier. The conference wrapped at six, which meant that even after Nick and Teddy had broken down the conference setup and she’d helped them reconstruct her living room, there was time for the four of them to go out to dinner to celebrate.
It was a Saturday night, so finding a good spot to compare notes wouldn’t be easy. Amelia directed the group to Felicia Suzanne’s, a chic, relatively quiet downtown restaurant, and she called ahead to request a table. Once they were seated in a secluded corner, Nina spread her notes out over the white tablecloth, and she and Nick hunched over them as the foursome began discussing the high and low points of the event.
They paused long enough to order, and then again when the food arrived, all of them attacking their plates—they hadn’t taken much time today for food breaks. By the time they finished, the restaurant floor had mostly cleared from the dinner rush, the din moving away from them toward the violet light of the bar. Nina took the lead in ordering dessert and drinks, and they settled in for a new round of discussion.
“Here, Amelia, do you want to look through these?” Nina handed her a thick stack of papers she’d pulled from a folder.
“What is it?” Amelia asked, taking hold of the stack and glancing over the top page.
“Teddy printed out the comments fans posted after the sessions. There’ll probably be suggestions in there we can use, and you can find out what people liked or didn’t like.”
She flipped through the papers, intrigued. She’d had a better time than she’d expected in the past two days. She hoped her readers felt the same way.
While Amelia read, she tuned out Nick and Teddy, who were discussing the technical aspects of the forums—what glitches had arisen, what they needed to change for future conferences. Because Nina and Nick had already decided there would be future conferences.
The comments were largely positive. Amelia flushed with embarrassment and pleasure as she read:
1523HeatherB: OMG this was sooooo cool. Learned a lot and luv’d the 1 on 1 contact. Ur awesome, mel!
UrNo1Fan: Didn’t think I could get more obsessed with your books than I already am…but I have! Thx for answering all my questions. I can’t wait for the next book—and the movie!!
ReaderGrl26: Loved every second. I heart Mel Henry!!!!! And I’m so so so so so sorry Colin did u wrong. U deserve better than him!
Okay, she could do without that one.
She continued flipping. A few of the comments were longer, containing more of the insight and story knowledge that had impressed her so much in the last two days. She focused on these as she skimmed through the stack. She was about halfway through it when her eyes landed on an entry that made her heart leap into her throat—it jumped out at her because the reader had used her real name, not Mel Henry. One hand flew to her lips, and she found it suddenly impossible to catch her breath as she began to read…
ashley_howell: hi amelia. guess u didn’t expect to hear from me again, huh? hoped is probably more like it…i love your books. i’m glad to see ur happy and doing well. i’m here because i just wanted to say i’m sorry. i know it’s way late, but i’ve wished i could do it 4 yrs and now i guess i get my chance…if u ever even see this. i want u 2 know if u don’t already that nothing happened that night with noah. i couldn’t go thru with it. i assumed he figured out what i did based on how messed up he was—he was so out of it. drinking couldn’t have messed him up that bad. i tried to tell him but he slammed the door on me, can’t say i blamed him. i figured u’d stay with him once u knew—i’m sorry it didn’t work out 4 u 2, but colin marks, wow. anyway, i know there’s no excuse 4 what i did and i’m so sorry. i was so messed up back then…so immature and jealous. i hope u can forgive me.
Amelia read the words once, twice, three times in a horrified daze. Her eyes glazed over, stuck on four words in the center of the block of text. Nothing. Happened. That. Night. She ran them over and over in her head until they didn’t make any sense. They didn’t make sense anyway. Impossible. I know what I saw.
But what hadn’t she seen? She’d caught them red-handed, caught them in the act. Hadn’t she? No. OMG. No, she hadn’t. She’d just assumed.
Her thoughts were spinning now in a whirlwind of panic. She still hadn’t found the ability to inhale.
My life. Noah’s life. Our life.
For the briefest instant, Amelia was aware of Nina’s voice calling her name from somewhere on the other side of the table. Bu
t she couldn’t process it. She couldn’t make sense of the spark of alarm in her publicist’s eyes. All she could think about was the fact that she was definitely, indisputably, uncontrollably going to be sick.
She slid from the tufted red velvet seat of the booth and darted toward the ladies’ room, one hand pressed tight against her lips.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Obsessed
Noah, still September (also two weeks later)
Noah stared glumly across the broad, breathtaking expanse of Atlantic Ocean gleaming up at him from his perch seventeen stories above it, his chair angled perfectly to drink up the view of the multicolored sky as it poured out a flawless sunset on the other side of the balcony.
The beauty of the scene mocked him, its tranquility in direct contrast with his storm-battered thoughts. His eyes moved with the never-ending ebb and flow of the tide as it advanced with fury, then slowly receded again and again, each swell a painful reminder of the way time moved forward, washing over what came before and pushing it further out of reach.
As if he needed a reminder.
That was the problem—he’d had way too many reminders lately of what had come before. His view of the future was obstructed by the overwhelming presence of his past.
It was a problem that was only getting worse.
His thoughts traveled to Erin. He hadn’t seen much of her since their fight, if only because he’d been traveling nonstop. Twice he’d landed back in Dallas, gone in for a long day at the office, then scarcely dented his pillow before he was back on a plane. They’d met for dinner both times he was in town, and on the surface things seemed pretty much the same as before. But she hadn’t stayed over at his place—she hadn’t even asked—and on closer inspection it was clear that nothing was the same as it had been.
And that was bad, very bad, because Erin, right now, was the one thing holding him together. If he didn’t have her, he didn’t know how he could deal with these pictures, this evidence of Amelia’s happy life without him that was suddenly everywhere.
Now a Major Motion Picture Page 24