by Nicole Helm
“That sounds pretty shitty.”
She shrugged. “You get used to it. It’s better some of those rumors than the truth.”
The conversation felt like they were both fishing for something, but neither was sure what. Was he trying to fish for some sign she was unhappy, that she wanted to leave her life?
But what was she trying to tell him with her comment? The truth would always stand between them because being here reminded her of her father, or just that it was that dangerous? Suddenly he had a headache, and not at all the inclination to smile.
“Milk? Orange juice?” He walked over to the fridge, wanting to find the way back to feeling homey and moderately normal.
“Milk,” she returned, standing by the stove. “Um. Out of curiosity, how does Vivvy work it?” She didn’t look at him; instead her eyes were glued to the little window on the oven door.
“Work what?”
“I mean, if she’s going to produce more than just one show with her company, how can she be here?” She fiddled with the dish towel that hung there, her mouth quirking from side to side as if she were trying to work out Vivvy’s work schedule.
He opened his mouth to answer her before a little niggling idea wormed its way through all the holes in his defenses. She was asking about Vivvy maybe not out of interest. At least not out of interest for Vivvy. Interest for herself.
How it might work.
He had a hard time taking his next breath. He never would have thought of himself as weak enough that the prospect that she might have the tiniest inkling of, even if not staying, at least starting up with him again, keeping it up—that idea would knock him for a loop.
A hopeful, desperate loop.
But he managed to breathe, to focus, to think. “What are you asking, Celia?”
…
Funny, she hadn’t expected him to call her out even if that was his normal protocol. She thought this was all part of the dance. Ask questions that aren’t the real questions you want to ask. That was the way her world worked, anyway. No one got paid well for straightforwardness.
An uncomfortable reminder that Ryan and his intolerance for lying and pretending could never be part of the world she’d made for herself. “I’m just asking how it works. Her and Nate.”
“But why?”
She frowned at the cinnamon rolls as they plumped up under the heat of the stove. “Why” was an excellent question, but, well, she didn’t have a good answer for it. “Curiosity?”
“Why can’t you come out and say it?”
She forced herself to look at him then, to prove she wasn’t a coward. She’d been a coward to him once upon a time and broken both their hearts. She wouldn’t make those same mistakes. She’d probably make a hell of a lot of mistakes, but at least it wouldn’t be the old ones.
On a deep breath, she met his gaze, and then her heart flipped because she could have sworn for a brief second she saw hope there. The same kind of hope she felt. Confused. Small. Stupid. So damn stupid.
But there. So there.
“I’m afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Screwing up my life.” She didn’t voice the rest of it, but it hung in the air as if she had. By coming back to you. By wanting to make it work. I’m afraid of screwing up my life and making you a part of it.
His sharp intake of breath reminded her of last night—the way she’d touched him, let him touch her. It was just sex, but somehow at the same time it was more. Like tying themselves together so that not trying to figure out something for them seemed worse than trying.
And that was huge.
“Are you sure that’s what you’re scared of? Your life? Or do you just mean your career?” He stood, stock still, the milk jug handle all but crushed under his clenching fist.
She could lie. She could pretend this had everything to do with her career. because the minute the words were in the air, she wouldn’t be able to take them back. Like an anvil in one of those old cartoons, she remembered what she wasn’t thinking of last night and this.
Any contact with Ryan would always be a risk for her entire past to come out. Even if they made it through the show, even if the payments to her mother were enough or they found a way to silence her for good, even if everything went right, having him in her life meant people would go digging.
And yet that little spark of hope didn’t die, it didn’t fizzle. In his kitchen, feeling like a woman instead of an image or a child, the hope had no chance of dying. “Not just my career.” It was the best thing about her, about her life right now. She wouldn’t give it up. “My whole life. Me. You. I can’t help thinking…” She took a deep breath. The only way it was possible was to be open. To tell him. To trust him not to bulldoze over the parts of her life she still needed and wanted.
God, could she really do that? She looked at him standing rigid and tense, eyes on hers, and she didn’t imagine the hope in his expression. She couldn’t be imagining that. “Maybe there’s a way,” she said on little more than a whisper.
“Any come to mind?”
She smiled a little at that. “Not a one.”
It was his turn to smile. “So we’re exactly where we started.”
She crossed his cold kitchen floor, took the milk jug from his hand, and set it on the counter. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed. “Not exactly.”
His arms came around her, strong and sure, as his mouth pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “No, I guess not.”
They stood there until the timer went off, forcing them to separate. He made up plates and they sat down at his tiny kitchen table to eat cinnamon rolls from a tube and stare at each other over morning coffee.
If she could lift this moment up and put it anywhere outside of Demo, it would be perfect. But Demo was the shadow that would always plague her.
“You said you came back because you didn’t really like being a divorce lawyer, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So it’s not like you came back because you love it here or anything. You just came back for Nate and the show.”
He looked down at his plate, drawing his fingers over his mouth. “I came back to be a part of Harrington. It’s where I was always meant to be.”
She tried to smile, to feel happy for him that he had a place to belong, that meant something. And even as she’d asked the question, she knew how much Harrington meant to him. She’d grown up watching his grandfather’s love and attention showered on the Harrington twins, and knew they both had disappeared from filming almost every day to visit Millard in the nursing home.
Belonging. Love. These were things she’d never have.
“You know, you could have started divorce proceedings. Taken half of what I have. You could have built Harrington up with that.” At the time she’d been so angry he would bring her here, make her face her past, she hadn’t really given much credence to the fact he was also giving her a chance to have what she wanted. To keep their marriage a secret.
Did that mean something? He scowled at her. “I never wanted your money to make my life. I’ll make it myself.”
“With my help.” She wanted to smile at the thought. He wouldn’t take her money, but the Ryan Harrington she’d known who wouldn’t take an ounce of help from anyone…he’d contacted her after ten years to get her help.
“Something like that,” he grumbled, turning his attention back to his cinnamon rolls. “Look. It…doesn’t have to be all or nothing, you know. Vivvy doesn’t spend all her time here.”
She was afraid her heart would burst from the pain of all this hope and feeling and… God, was this really happening? “Oh.”
He didn’t look at her, but he kept talking. “It’s just. You know. You may not like being here, but you could visit. I do have access to planes and airports in California.”
“I suppose you do.”
“So…” He glanced at her and she managed a smile, because that all sounded…hopeful.
“So, when I leave
maybe it wouldn’t be so…permanent this time?”
He stood to his full height, turning fully toward her now. “Yes. That is what I’m saying.”
She swallowed. “That would be…good.”
When her phone chimed, she was happy for the interruption. Whatever news Brad or Aubrey had was better than figuring out what the future held aside from leaving. Visiting. Something more than good-bye.
It clogged her lungs, but not with fear. Okay, maybe some fear. But it wasn’t fear of doing it. It was fear she might reach out for what she wanted and be told she couldn’t have it.
But Ryan was suggesting it. Ryan. Practical, realistic Ryan was saying…maybe.
She wanted to cry, in a good way. A relieved, happy, hopeful way, but she brought up the text message and all that happiness sank into her gut like a heavy, devastating weight.
YOU’RE IN KANSAS???
Brad must have spilled the beans to Aubrey.Then the phone chimed again.
Bright Lights and People have contacted me. Your mom is talking about doing exclusives for them.
And then the happiness didn’t just drop, it broke into a million pieces.
I just landed in Topeka. Be in Demo by noon. And your ass is grass.
“Bad news?”
Celia swallowed, forced her head to move away from the words that she’d been doing everything she could to make not happen. “Mom’s talking.”
“What?”
“She… She’s started contacting the tabloids. Not even just the tabloids.” Celia stood so fast the chair clattered to the ground sideways.
“Where are you going? What are you doing?”
She clutched her cell and tried to breathe through the panic, the visions of everything blowing up in her face.
He stood and crossed to her, taking her hands, but she didn’t feel it. She didn’t feel anything. “Celia, talk to me.”
She pulled her hands away, refused to watch the expression on his face change. “I need to make some calls.” And without letting him say anything else, she walked away. Down the hall, to the little guest room she hadn’t slept in last night.
Inside, she closed and locked the door and leaned against it. This was exactly the kind of thing she got for hoping.
Chapter Fourteen
“Do you think she’ll leave?” Vivvy’s worried voice across the phone line did nothing to soothe Ryan’s frustration. In fact, it amplified it.
Ryan stood outside the door to Celia’s room, phone clutched in hand, fighting every urge to break the door down. An urge he’d been fighting for hours now. Hours upon fucking hours.
“I don’t know. She’s been on the phone all morning. I don’t know a damn thing.”
Vivvy’s pause seemed to speak of the same restrained frustration he was working through. Or maybe he was just projecting. Projecting that everyone would be as completely furious as him.
“We figured out we’d only need a few more scenes from her to make the episode really have a beginning, middle, and end. Just a day worth of filling in all the gaps.”
“I don’t know if we’re going to have that option.”
“Is this because of Jed?”
“I… I don’t know, Vivvy. Okay?” He leaned his head against the wall, resisted the urge to bang against it. With his fist. The phone. With his face. All three.
“All right. Well, keep me updated. We’ll do some filming with Nate and, well, you don’t care about that.”
“No.” What he cared about was on the other side of that door.
“Okay. Well, like I said—”
He clicked the phone off before she could say “updated” one more damn time. Not that standing here staring at the door was any more productive than Vivvy’s checkup calls. Or Nate’s.
He held the phone out, so tempted to throw it that when a thump sounded somewhere behind him he thought he might have without realizing it.
But the phone was still in his hand and the thump repeated, again and again, an insistent, loud knocking from outside the house.
He moved toward it, but Celia emerged, stopping him in his tracks.
“It’s Aubrey,” she said, avoiding eye contact.
She brushed past him and opened his front door to a short woman on towering heels that rivaled Vivvy’s.
“You’re in such deep shit.” The Aubrey woman didn’t even dispense with greetings, just shot right into his living room, only a cartoon version of herself away from having steam coming out of her ears. “I need the rundown of everything. And I mean everything and who the hell is that?” Aubrey pointed at Ryan as though he was an alien, as if his existence in his own house was completely incomprehensible.
“That’s…Ryan,” Celia said lamely.
“Why are you staying with him and what does he mean to you?”
Ryan opened his mouth, but Celia interrupted. “He’s an old friend.”
Aubrey let out a huff of breath. “Of course. An old friend. Jesus. What are you trying to do to me, Celia? Kill me? Kill me dead right here?” Aubrey’s sharp brown eyes moved from Celia to Ryan. Her face was completely unreadable as she studied him. “He’s not married, is he?”
Ryan pressed his fingers to his eyes. Christ. She was some kind of whirlwind that swept away all of the words he was going to say. Explanations. Demands. Rebuttals to this woman’s accusations.
Except, well, he was married.
“Oh my God! He’s married!”
Celia stood between them now. “It’s not what you think.”
“Don’t tell me you’re this stupid, Celia. Please God, don’t tell me you’re this stupid.”
And as he had with Celia’s mother, he stepped in front of Celia. Even as furious as he was with her for walking away from him when they should have been figuring this out together, this woman didn’t get to come in and rail against his wife. And if that was a fucked-up way of looking at it, he was too pissed to care. “Yeah, I’m married. To her. And if you want to keep standing on my property, you’ll stop berating her.”
Aubrey’s mouth went slack, then she shook her head, chin-length black hair flying. She looked right around him, as if he weren’t even there. “Are you shitting me right now? This is some kind of elaborate joke, right? Right?”
“Look, lady, I don’t know who you think you are—”
Celia stepped between them once again. “Maybe we can calm down and deal with the situation at hand.”
“The situation that you’re married. Married. To this guy. In your hometown. I think we’re dealing with your mom spinning your father’s situation to Bright Lights and you’re getting married.” She stomped around his living room like miniature Godzilla on heels.
“Aub, take a breath. I’ll explain everything. Just, sit down, let me explain.”
Aubrey arched a brow at Celia. “You don’t get to scold me right now. You are on the top of a very big, very scary shit list. You, sit down and shut up.”
Ryan moved in front of Aubrey’s path of pacing. “You’re in my house.” He crossed his arms over his chest, glaring down at her. “So you’ll do the sitting down and shutting up. And the calming down while you’re at it.”
She merely walked around him as if he were nothing. “Keep dreaming, buddy.”
He didn’t think he’d been able to get any angrier, but Celia’s publicist was doing a hell of job. And then Celia touched his arm.
“Maybe you should go to Harrington. Give us some privacy. Tell Vivvy what’s going on.”
“I already told Vivvy what’s going on.” Maybe it was the exhaustion, maybe it was the fact that he’d thought they were in the middle of such a good moment and this came along and crashed it. Maybe he was just scared that that moment of agreement, of possibility, was gone for good, but whatever it was, he couldn’t walk away. “Don’t shut me out. Let me help you.”
She slumped, glanced warily at Aubrey, who had her arms crossed over her chest and quite the glare going on. “Please. Please go.”
“You said
you weren’t disappearing this time. You told me that. Not a permanent good-bye.” And he felt like an idiot for pointing it out, but amid all this anger was a panic. A panic he wouldn’t get the chance to make it right, just like last time. Another failure.
“I won’t,” she whispered, touching his wrist, just the briefest moments of connection. “I won’t. Aubrey and I just need to come up with a game plan.”
“And I’m not part of that.”
She looked away, shook her head, and that really did tell him all he needed to know. So he might as well leave his own damn house. Might as well give her what she wanted, because she wasn’t going to choose him. Again.
And since he didn’t know what to do with the weight in his gut, he didn’t say a word. Just got his keys, did what she’d asked, and headed to Harrington.
It was where he’d always belonged. Even if today that belonging felt hollow.
…
Celia had to force herself to look away from the door and Ryan’s retreating back. Force herself to look at Aubrey’s scowling face.
But Aubrey’s expression had softened, just a bit. “I’m…sorry. I came in here guns blazing. It was a bit over the top.”
“That’s what I love about you.”
Aubrey went back to scowling. “Do not suck up to me right now. Walk me through this. I didn’t even know where to start. It’s all tangled up.”
“My mother’s talking.”
“Yes.” Aubrey took a deep breath and sank into Ryan’s couch. It was so weird to be doing this here, but Aubrey pulled out her tablet and started going through the details. “No information has emerged other than that she’s contacting different magazines to see how much they’ll give her for the story. Is he part of that story?”
She gestured to where Ryan had gone and Celia rubbed at the stinging pain in her chest. “Not that story. I… I’m not sure what she knows there. I mean, she knew Ryan and I were married at one time. I don’t think she knows we’re still married.”
“And how exactly do you have a marriage I’ve never heard about? Everything you’ve told me and you leave out that detail? Hell, you lied to me about being here. That is so beyond acceptable I don’t even know what to say to you right now. Your publicist. Your friend. Coming here without telling me. What the hell were you thinking?”