by Nicole Helm
She could tell him. Everything. Her father’s death being at least somewhat due to her refusal to help. Mom’s demands for money to keep her quiet after he’d died. How being here was a risk toward an escalation Celia couldn’t keep up with, no matter how much money she made.
Maybe he’d let her go. Maybe… She met his determined gaze and remembered what he said. He needed this and he wasn’t backing down. He wasn’t sorry. She could lay her emotional appeal at his feet, but she knew what would happen.
She’d think they both were bending, accepting, easing some aching hurts from the past, but he would keep pushing. He would still get his way, and she’d sit there and take it.
“Good night, Ryan.” She turned and walked to the guest room, refusing to let herself look back and question herself.
Chapter Five
Celia stood on Ryan’s back porch, eyes never leaving the horizon as she sipped coffee. She didn’t know what she was looking for, she just kept getting drawn to this spot. In the hazy pink morning, looking at the little line of trees was almost…peaceful.
And she needed peace after the dream that had woken her up way earlier than she’d intended. A bunch of tabloid headlines about America’s Sweetheart’s descent into booze and partying and never making another movie. Pictures of her frazzled and destitute. Some weird dream version of her drunk and panhandling along Hollywood and Vine while more famous people pointed and laughed.
It was such a fiction it shouldn’t bother her. No matter what happened, she had no plans to drown her problems or the end of her career in alcohol. She might become a joke, but nothing would make her turn into her father.
Celia took a deep breath and glanced down at the phone she’d placed on the porch railing. It had been a day and she hadn’t heard anything from Aubrey. No word on her mother. No word from Brad on what monetary amount was being forwarded.
Nothing.
And sadly, after the threat to fire them both, she probably deserved that nothing. She needed to call and apologize. Smooth things over without letting panic win.
Did she have it in her? Well, she’d have to find a way. She dialed Aubrey’s number and held her breath as it rang.
“Aubrey Phillips.”
“Come on, Aub, you know it’s me.”
“Good morning, Ms. Grant. What can I do for you?”
Celia rapped her head against the back of her chair. Yeah, she deserved that, but it didn’t make Aubrey’s cool demeanor any easier to swallow. “Will you drop the Ms. Grant if I’m calling to apologize?”
“Apologize? Well, whatever for, Ms. Grant?”
“Okay, what about grovel?”
“Now you’re talking.”
Celia couldn’t help but smile. “I am sorry. I panicked. And I took that panic out on you.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“It was wrong and I am sorry. You know I’d never fire you. You’re…” She almost said “all I have,” but that felt too depressing and lonely to voice. “You’re the best publicist in the world, and I am a giant pain in your ass.”
“Damn straight you are.”
“But you love me and I love you, so can I be forgiven?”
Aubrey made a huffing sound. “Well, that wasn’t the worst grovel I’ve ever heard.” She was silent for a minute. “So, have you reconsidered about meeting with your mother?”
Celia took a deep breath and slowly let it out. Panic wasn’t going to ruin this conversation, too. She was going to be calm, cool, and collected. “I’m sorry, no. I can’t deal with her right now. I need some time to…build up my defenses, you know?” Celia had to swallow before she could get the next words out. “She gets to me. No matter how stupid it is, she gets to me.”
Aubrey let out a gusty sigh. “It’s not stupid.”
At least someone thought so. “We’ll pay her off this time and I’ll consider meeting her the next time. I just need to work up to it, okay?” Get Ryan taken care of and then maybe she could build up her defenses enough to face her mother.
“And what about telling everything? Letting me handle putting it all out there?”
“Sitting down with my mother and trying to keep her quiet once and for all is one thing, Aubrey, but I’m not ever going to let the world know the rest. I can’t survive that.”
“You could if you let me handle it.”
Celia tried to process that without the panic, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t let it happen. Everything would change and she’d have to live with everyone knowing every single time they looked at her. She couldn’t stand the barrage of questions about how she’d survived or if she was okay now or any of it.
“No, Aubrey, I can’t.” When Aubrey was silent, Celia pushed on, trying to explain. “This isn’t about not trusting your judgment or your abilities as the most awesome publicist in the world. It’s about what I can handle.”
“I think you can handle a whole lot more than you’re giving yourself credit for.”
It was…nice that someone could have that kind of faith in her. Comforting, really, even if it was misplaced. Especially since Aubrey didn’t know where she was or what she was doing. If Aubrey knew about Ryan, well, Celia wasn’t so sure she’d be saying such nice things.
“Have Brad give my mother the money. When I get back to LA next week, we’ll…start talking about the rest, okay?”
“Okay. Okay. Look, maybe… Why don’t I come down to where you are and we can have a real girls’ vacation. Sun, alcohol, cabana boys?”
“Thanks for the offer.” It really did mean something that she had at least one friend who knew, well, most of her secrets. “I just need to be alone for a few days. Get my head on straight.”
“All right. But if you need anything, you call me. No breakdowns without calling me, and I’m saying that as much as your friend as your publicist.”
“Thank you. Really. I’ll see you next week, okay?”
“All right. All right. Take care of yourself.”
“Will do. Bye.” Celia clicked end, sucked in a deep breath, and let it out. She’d handled that pretty well if she did say so herself. Now, she’d focus on getting through the rest of the week, on Ryan’s securing the silent annulment, and then, only then, would she start thinking about how to handle her mother.
Determined, steadied, Celia turned around. But the feeling of accomplishment disappeared and she swore. Because Ryan was standing right there, arms crossed over his chest, mouth set in a firm line, green eyes that revealed nothing. It was the kind of look that told her she wouldn’t escape this conversation unscathed. Of course not. Life in Demo was always one step forward, two steps back.
…
Ryan was still trying to put together what he’d heard, what it meant, but he did his best to look as though he understood everything that was happening.
“Can I help you?” she asked, donning her best regal I’m-in-charge act. It was more sad than infuriating.
“I heard it.” Some of it. Pieces of it. Her mother. Paying her off. That didn’t make any sense at all.
“Heard what?”
“Don’t play dumb.”
“Don’t expect me to spill my guts just because you heard half a conversation you’ll never understand.”
“Your mother wants to see you.”
Her breath hitched, a visible thing, as visible as the way she tried to hide it. Fight it.
He had to look beyond her, out into the sky, because seeing that look hurt. Hurt the way it used to. Made him feel inconsequential the way it used to. Made him care, even if only an inkling of how he used to.
“Something like that. And thanks a lot.”
“How is that my fault?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? In her field of vision.”
“No one knows you’re here. There’s no way she knows you’re here.”
“An entire TV crew knows, and could tell anyone.”
“They signed paperwork to keep quiet. They’re professionals. No one even knows you’re fr
om here or that your mother lives nearby. You’ve somehow kept that hidden, remember?”
She tried to push past him, but he didn’t budge.
He wished he didn’t see it, but her panic or fear or whatever was bubbling under the surface was leaking out all the cracks he didn’t think she had. He was starting to see her vindictiveness for what it was: some kind of protective armor.
He took her by the shoulders to keep her from pushing past him, then some muscle memory, knee-jerk reaction took hold. His hands traveled up her neck, to cup her face.
The way he used to. When she was angry or upset or hurt. He’d hold her like this and remind her that she mattered. Her skin was soft, her eyes watery and vividly blue. Her mouth painted red, the sparkly gold around her eyes, the black on her eyelashes—he wanted to wipe it all off and see the woman underneath. To let his hands explore the rest of her.
As much as the movement was memory, the woman in front of him was not. And some part of him was endlessly fascinated by that woman.
He dropped his traitorous hands and stepped backward, shoving them into his pockets. “Tell me what’s going on.”
She squeezed her eyes shut before turning away from him. “Back off, Ryan. If you want me to do this, if you want me to do your stupid, stupid show and disappear at the end, just leave me the hell alone.”
Yes. He should do that, but “should” didn’t matter because her words kept repeating in his head: Money. Her mother. “Why on earth would you be paying your mother off after what she did to you? In what circumstance does that make an inch of sense?”
Even with her back to him, he could see her cradle her head in her hands, her shoulders sag, her whole body vibrate with what he hoped like hell weren’t tears.
He couldn’t do tears, or her hurt, or her desperate attempts to be something she wasn’t. He couldn’t step back and walk away from that, even with all the years between them. Apparently, no matter how much it was inconvenient and idiotic, he cared.
She was his wife. Maybe it was just a piece of paper now, but once upon a time it hadn’t been. Once upon a time she had been everything. And she still felt the same with his hands on her face and her eyes on his.
She straightened, though she didn’t turn to face him. “This is none of your business.”
“Maybe I can help.”
“Help? Help?” She whirled around, her hands flinging skyward. “Still think you can fix everything? Really, Ryan, grow up.”
“Tell me what’s making you pay her.”
“Go to hell.”
“You can’t just sit there and decide things that are going to affect me, or you being here, without explaining the situation to me. I need to know what’s going on.”
“Need to know what’s going on? Oh, of course.” She rolled her eyes. “Always about what you need, isn’t it?”
He should focus on the here and now, but she kept bringing up their past, kept acting as though he’d been some kind of mustache-twirling villain instead of a lovesick teenager. “You think I married you, that I made plans for us, just to control you? I wanted you to be happy. I loved you.”
It exploded out of his mouth even as he wondered why they were doing this. Why they kept doing this. Arguing and remembering. Why couldn’t she have just stayed in the hotel and left him the hell alone? “You don’t believe that. You can’t believe I did everything for me and nothing for you. Every plan I made was to make you happy, too.”
“You can’t choose what other people’s happy is.”
Those words eradicated any of his own. It hadn’t been the first time someone had told him that. How many times had he told Nate to find something more than Harrington only for Nate to tell him there was nothing more?
“Would you let me pass now?”
He should, but how could he back away from the misery written all over her face? No matter how smart it would be, walking away from someone obviously hurting was not in his makeup. Fixing the problem was. “Tell me what happened.”
Her eyes met his, that dark, pure blue he remembered. Probably forever etched onto his brain, no matter how far they would go apart from each other. What could twenty years make him forget that ten hadn’t?
“Do you remember Liz Langley?”
Ryan shook his head trying to keep up with this conversation. “What? The actress? On that show… I don’t remember the name.”
“Yes. California Halls. She was going to be the next big thing. America’s Sweetheart. She did a movie that was a big hit, and then you know what happened?”
“I don’t really give a shit about celebrities.” He said it because he knew it would piss her off. The only time he’d ever let himself care about a celebrity was when she’d first started, and then he’d made himself forget he’d ever known her. Mostly. Except for owning all her movies. Yeah, he really needed to do something about that.
“It came out that she’d been arrested for pot possession. Pot, Ryan. The things male comedians get laughed at for doing and musicians get an easy pass, but when you’re trying to be squeaky-clean anything and I mean anything can derail who you are. After that, she’s only ever done movies where she gets brutally murdered in the first fifteen minutes, or where she’s dancing naked on a stage.”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“I won’t be her. And I have a lot more to hide.”
“An abusive father? Hollywood has really warped you if you view that as some kind of blight against your image.”
“You have no idea why I don’t want to tell people about that,” she seethed. “And it isn’t about image.”
“So what the hell is this all about? I’m not leaving this porch until I have an answer. Until any of this makes sense. Paying off your mother. Christ. Tell me what the hell is going on and stop running us around in circles.”
She took a deep breath, squared those shoulders. Another assault of memory. Don’t go to the police, Ryan. It doesn’t matter. It never does. I’ll survive, and when we get married, I’ll escape.
He hadn’t known at the time that she’d escape him too. What had changed? He shook his head. It didn’t matter anymore.
She shook her hair back, preparing for battle. She’d put on that Celia Grant skin so she looked nothing like CeeCee McAvoy. But that move when delivering painful information was so CeeCee it hurt. “My father died,” she said, her voice as flat as it had been that night her father had left a bruise the side of a basketball on her back.
Time did nothing to dissipate the raw disgust, the vivid image of that dark mark on her pale skin. He had to clench his fists just to remember that was a long, long, long time ago. And Curtis McAvoy was dead. “Yeah, I heard that. A few years ago. So?”
“Kidney failure. I…could have donated a kidney and I didn’t.”
“Why the hell would you?”
She blinked at him. The emotionless confession unraveled into slumped posture and drawn-together eyebrows and more tears shimmering in her eyes, unshed.
“He beat you. There’s not a sensible person on this planet who would blame you for that.” How could she ever think… Hollywood had warped her. The old desire to hold her and tell her she didn’t deserve this coursed through his veins, and fighting it felt like burning himself alive.
He couldn’t hold her. He couldn’t touch her. It wasn’t his job to make her feel better or tell her she was wrong. She was making perfectly clear she didn’t want those things from him, and for his basic self-preservation he shouldn’t want that either.
But he did. So bad it was painful to keep his arms at his sides. To keep his mouth shut.
Her throat moved and she squeezed the hem of her shirt in her hands. “No one knows he beat me.”
He stepped forward, barely keeping his arms away. “So tell them.” Was that his voice? Choked and pained.
The glare she gave him was nothing he ever remembered seeing on her. Anger. Hatred. A kind of power CeeCee hadn’t had. “Never,” she spat.
; “Cee—” This time he did lift a hand to touch her, but she stepped out of the way. Thank Christ for that. One touch would lead to another, and who knew where the next would lead. Nowhere good. Nowhere acceptable.
“Are you listening to a word I’m saying? Do you know how hard I’ve worked to become this person? To become Celia Grant. A woman who gets scripts about smart, sophisticated women who fall in love, or sweet girls who accidentally solve mysteries. I don’t get offered roles for dark and gritty. I don’t get questions about how I survived. I don’t get requests to tell people they can survive too. I don’t have to relive or remember. I have built the life I dreamed about when I was being beaten, and I won’t give that up. Not for anything.”
He didn’t know what to say to that, what to do with that. One thing he’d never been able to argue against was what she deserved. He might have disagreed with her leaving him. He might disagree with the way she’d handled her mother, but he couldn’t argue with a little girl, abused by the people supposed to love her the most, dreaming of something completely removed from that.
“Aren’t you going to tell me I’m wrong and I should do things your way?”
He stepped away from her, away from everything that didn’t make sense, which, at this moment, seemed like just about everything. He ran a hand through his hair. “No,” he said quietly, feeling…well, feeling so much it hurt. “No, I’m not.”
She laughed, bitterly. “Why not?”
He looked at her then, because then she might have some inkling that this was the truth. That with all that lay between them now, he understood that dream of hers. “Because that girl deserves whatever she wanted.”
Chapter Six
Today as Ryan watched Celia work, he still didn’t catch a crack in her movie star facade, but it had certainly dulled. And she’d stayed the hell away from him, at least as much as could be done when they were filming a show together.
He’d had to force himself to stop watching her. He didn’t know what to do with the information Celia had revealed. She’d made a choice not to help an abusive asshole, but refused to disclose the one thing that would absolve her in just about anyone’s eyes.