by Louise Bay
“I want to be there,” he said.
“Seeing you would be a good incentive to visit the city again,” I said.
“More so than a jewelry line at Barneys?”
I laughed. “Maybe the same.” The business opportunity seemed too good to be true. Just a few years ago it would have been more than my wildest dreams. I’d thought I’d been forced to leave the dream behind, but it had been reignited in me.
“Okay, I’ll talk to Brian about it and see if I can make it happen. I miss you. I don’t want to go more than two weeks without seeing you.”
“Is that a rule now?” I asked.
“Not a rule, just—if this is going to work, then we need to minimize our time apart.”
There hadn’t been a day since he’d left Maine that we hadn’t spoken to each other, but neither of us had mentioned the idea of going public again. He’d promised not to push me and he’d been true to his word. In fact, he’d said that while he was in Europe he was going to meet with Kristin Cooper, an actress Sinclair thought might make a good girlfriend.
His split with Audrey was over a month old. I guess he had to make a decision. Was he waiting for me to bring it up? I could talk to him about it again in New York. See how his meeting had gone.
“Okay. Were there a lot of Audrey questions today?”
“Yeah, at least one in each interview. But it must be so dull listening to us. We have our script down on this one. ‘We’re still such great friends, distance and work schedules, blah, blah, blah.’”
“Distance and schedules, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s like a resigning politician saying he wants to spend more time with his family.”
Distance and work schedules. They were so plausible that it made sense that they were well-worn excuses. “If you can’t make it to New York, I can always fly from there to LA.” I didn’t want distance to be the thing that proved to be our undoing.
“You don’t need to do that. I’ll make New York work.”
I sighed. “You will?”
“I will, I promise. I can’t expect you to always fit around my schedule. Your work is important, too.” He had all the right words, all the time.
“Are you sure you’re not a figment of my imagination?” I asked, taking a seat on the bench.
“Maybe I am. But just go with it,” he said, and I laughed. “So what are you doing tonight?”
“I’m just going to sit out here on the porch and wait for the storm to roll in.” It would be a good way to relax.
“I wish I were there. We could watch it side by side, then get naked and fuck all night.” He growled into the phone.
Even though we’d spent more nights apart than together since he left Maine, I still missed his body every morning when I woke up. “You’ll have to save it until New York.”
“I’m not sure I can wait that long,” he said.
“Keep telling yourself how I’m worth it. You’ll start to believe it’s true.”
The man a million women wanted only wanted me.
Twenty-One
Lana
“You don’t think it’s weird to be drinking in a place this dark?” I asked. The lighting was so dim in the uber-cool cocktail bar buried deep in the East Village that I could barely see Ruby, even though she was close enough I could reach out and touch her.
“Not everything is ocean air and clapboard siding, Lana. You’ve been in Maine too long. New Yorkers like the dark.” There was some dim, amber lighting at the bar and a tea light on each table, but nothing else. It looked like the owners were trying to save on their energy bill.
“You remember you grew up in Worthington, right?” I asked her. I’d known Ruby for a long time, so even in the dark I could sense her eye roll and shrug. At least the music wasn’t too loud and we could actually talk.
“I can’t believe you’re here. How does it feel?”
I’d gone straight from the airport to the hotel last night and hadn’t stepped foot outside until the meeting with Barneys this afternoon. “Better than I thought. It helps not being near the campus, obviously.”
“There’s no way anyone would remember anything, you know. It was ages ago in college time.”
“I know.” Someone remembering wasn’t the problem. It was how tarnished the city had become for me. When I’d arrived for college, New York had been a symbol of my future, of my dreams and aspirations, but it had morphed into a representation of bad decisions and poor judgement. As much as I hated my ex for posting those photos, I should never have let him take them. I’d never make that mistake again.
“Tell me about the meeting.” Ruby took a sip of her cocktail.
I blew out a puff of air. “I just don’t know what to say. They want to stock the Bastet collection. I told them how expensive it will be, and that it will all be made to order, but apparently they don’t care.” The meeting had gone far better than I had expected. They had opened with a very generous offer, which I’d have been happy to accept, but after talking to them about the quality of the materials and time it took, they’d increased their offer and made it impossible for me to say no.
“Will you still be able to keep the shop?” she asked.
I released the black straw I’d been toying with and swallowed. “Yeah. Although, I’ll have to get additional help and spend more time actually making stuff if there are orders.”
“Of course there will be orders.”
“I don’t know. The pieces are really expensive.”
“But they’re beautiful. People pay a lot more for a lot less.”
I wasn’t sure if it would matter if I didn’t sell any at all. Just the experience of being stocked at one of the most exclusive stores in Manhattan was recognition of what I’d been working toward.
“Let’s toast to you being in Barneys,” Ruby said, raising her glass. “I can’t believe it.” She laughed. “That’s not true. I can totally believe it. You deserve it.”
We clinked glasses and I drained the rest of my drink.
“You think you’ll end up moving back here? I’d so love to have you back in the city like we’d always planned. We could get a place together.”
I shook my head and reached for the cocktail menu in front of me. I used my cell phone light to read it. “I doubt it. There’s no need for me to move.” If I thought too far into the future, then I’d have to think about Matt, and what was going to happen between us. And all that was in a box marked complicated that I wasn’t about to open.
“But if you’re going to be in Barneys you’ll visit more often, right? I can’t believe you wouldn’t stay with me, even if you are being put up in some fancy hotel.”
“I’m sorry. It was closer to the store and I was getting in so late.”
“When do you fly back?”
“Sunday night.” Her eyes lit up and I cringed with guilt. I knew I wouldn’t get to hang out with her. “Matt is flying in tomorrow. We’re going to spend the weekend.”
Her face went blank, but I knew a thousand questions were gathering in her head. “So, it’s serious between you two?”
I angled the flashlight on my camera onto the menu. “I like him.”
“You ever worry that a relationship with him would be all one way? All about him and his dreams and aspirations?”
It’d never felt that way. Matt never acted like a star with me. “I don’t think so. That’s not really who he is. He was so excited about my meeting today. And he’s flying in to New York especially to see me.”
She smiled. “I’m glad. I really am. I heard he broke up with Audrey.”
“You know that was a fake relationship, right?”
She leaned forward. “Yes. But does that mean you two are going to be together officially?”
A sharp tug in my stomach drew my attention from the menu. “He wants us to be. But I don’t want my picture flashed across the tabloids.” There was no way I could handle the scrutiny.
“But it’s not like you’re just sleeping t
ogether—you’ve been dating a while now. And you’re not going to be naked. Isn’t he worth it?”
“It isn’t a question of him not being worth it.” My feelings for Matt grew every time we spoke and exploded every time we were together. I was getting dangerously close to loving him. And I didn’t want to lose myself and make another bad decision. “I just don’t want the scrutiny.”
“So don’t be the couple who calls the paparazzi every time you go out for coffee. You don’t even have to be the couple that does the red-carpet thing together.”
“Maybe it’s best if he does another contract with another girl,” I said, settling on my next cocktail and placing the menu down. “He’s having talks with an actress at the moment.” Matt hadn’t mentioned how his meeting with his potential new official girlfriend had gone. And I hadn’t asked. It would take the pressure off me if he was publicly with someone else.
“Wait, you want him to pretend to date someone while he’s really dating you?”
“He had this sort of arrangement with Audrey, and it worked.”
“But that was before you came along. Do you really want to see pictures of him gazing at another woman on the red carpet when it should be you?”
I folded my black cocktail napkin in half. Of course I didn’t want that. But I understood that Matt couldn’t be publicly single for too long. “It’s no big deal. And it means I can keep my privacy.”
“You don’t think he’ll start to believe you don’t care enough to commit to him?”
I’d never considered the possibility that he’d view my desire for privacy as a reflection of my feelings for him. “He knows how I feel.” Right? I’d flown out to LA and London. That showed him that I cared, surely?
“So, what? He just dates someone else fake until what? You two break up? It’s not like he’s going to suddenly stop being famous.”
I winced. “Who said anything about breaking up?” I’d never felt this way about anyone before Matt. I certainly didn’t want things to end between us.
“Well, if you can’t be seen in public together, surely the stopwatch is running down on your relationship. I’m not judging.” She shrugged and took a sip of her drink. “If you want to keep things casual between the two of you, then good for you. Do that. But if you want something more, you might have to give something up.”
“I didn’t say things were casual.” Was I kidding myself? Were we just treading water before things ended between us?
“But you’re not prepared to go out in public with him?”
“Are you saying you’d be okay with having your face in every hair salon in America?”
“Absolutely.”
“Are you serious? You don’t care about people knowing your business? About giving up all of your privacy?”
“I grew up in Worthington, Maine, just like you did. How much privacy do you really have? Everyone knows everyone else’s business.”
“Yeah, but at least you know theirs, too. The people in Worthington care about each other. They’re just not flicking through the pages of US Weekly looking for salacious details of the last celebrity breakup.”
“But who cares what strangers think? As long as you know who you are and you know who Matt is, why do you give a shit about anyone else?”
I stirred the ice cubes left in my drink with my black cocktail straw. Ruby made it sound so straightforward. Like there was a button I could press with white writing on it that said, “I don’t care what people think.” But there was no button, and I didn’t know how to just stop caring.
“I’m just trying to say you need to decide how much you like Matt. If he’s worth making some sacrifices for.”
I could compromise on a lot of things. I could travel to LA or wherever he was in the world. I could spend less time in the shop. But inviting the press into my life, giving up the anonymity I’d worked so hard to establish was such a huge sacrifice. Was that what was required?
“I get that what happened in college really fucked you over, I really do. But are you going to let your asshole ex stop you from doing what you want, with who you want, your whole life? Doesn’t that give him way more power than he deserves? Why not live your life and ignore the things that don’t matter?”
It felt as if Ruby was handing me one good reason after another for going public with Matt. And my arguments for keeping our relationship a secret were collapsing under the strain.
“I don’t want you to lose something amazing because you’re too scared to try again,” she said.
“Losing? Why do you keep talking about losing Matt?”
“I’m just saying that wanting to stay hidden makes things complicated. It adds a layer of pressure. On both of you and the relationship. And it seems temporary. To me and, I imagine, to him also.”
I’d just been living moment to moment with Matt. I tried not to think beyond the next time we’d see each other. But the thought that our weekend in New York could be the last time we had together, that his patience might be wearing thin, made my palms sweaty.
“It’s not temporary. Not for me. And I don’t want to lose him.” I tipped back my empty glass, swallowing the last few drops of bitterness that came from the mint stalk. I needed to talk to Matt. I couldn’t lose him. The realization that it might be a real possibility came crashing down around me.
Only one question really mattered. Was losing Matt worse than losing my privacy? And the answer was yes. Much worse.
I wanted him more than I wanted to hide. And I needed to tell him.
Twenty-Two
Matt
“The wallpaper looks like it’s spun gold,” Lana said, glancing around the hotel room. “And the number of chairs, even in the bedroom? We could invite most of Worthington over and they’d all have a place to sit.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, let’s not do that.”
“If you’re used to the Presidential Suite at the Mandarin Oriental, what were you thinking booking my little cottage in Maine?” she asked. “You could fit both cottages in this place.”
I was learning that wherever Lana was, I felt at home. Even if it was Friday at just past six and we were naked, in a hotel bed, overlooking Central Park. I pulled her closer. “Hey, I love your place. This suite is ludicrous. They upgraded me. I would never book something this huge. I don’t need two bedrooms.”
“But now that we’re here, we have to take a bath in that tub. That view is just—”
“There’s no better view than looking at you.”
“Who writes these lines for you?” she asked, lifting her head from where it rested on my chest.
“It’s all my original work. And I mean it. If you’re in the bath, I don’t give a crap about the view. Your boobs are awesome.”
She giggled. “That’s the best compliment I’ve ever heard.”
“Like you said, I have all the words.”
She dipped down and kissed my torso. My dick twitched.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand and I groaned.
“Sinclair,” I said.
“Take it. Otherwise he’ll keep calling.”
I slid my finger across the screen. “Hi, Sinclair.”
“We’re stuck in traffic. We’ll be twenty minutes,” he said.
“You’ll be where in twenty minutes?”
“Kristin and I will be with you. We agreed to this last week.”
I’d told Sinclair that I wouldn’t sign the contract with Kristin Cooper until Lana had met her. “But we said tomorrow night.” I’d not had a chance to get Lana up to speed. Talking about your next girlfriend wasn’t the kind of conversation you had over the phone with your current girlfriend.
“No, we said Friday night. Christ, are you not in the hotel?”
I glanced at Lana. “Yeah, we’re here.”
“Good, we’ll see you in twenty minutes.” He hung up.
Lana frowned. “He’s coming here?”
“I said we’d see him tomorrow. He swears we agreed tonight. But he’s brin
ging Kristin. I wanted you to meet her before we sign contracts.”
“Sign contracts?” Lana’s whole body stiffened. “I didn’t realize that deal was done.”
“You knew I was talking to her.” I’d deliberately not mentioned it a lot because I didn’t want Lana to think I was pressuring her into going public. But I definitely had told her that things were progressing.
“And she’s coming here tonight to sign?”
“And to meet you. In twenty minutes.”
She shook her head and bounced out of bed. “I’m getting first shower,” she said as she ran into the bathroom.
It wasn’t anything I was looking forward to. I didn’t want to live this lie. But at least we’d get this over with. Hopefully Lana would be comfortable with her and everyone would be happy.
Lana
Staring into the mirror on the dressing table, I applied a thin layer of blush. Kristin Cooper was beautiful. Blonde. Not much more than a hundred pounds. She probably had her hair professionally blown out and her makeup done by a glam squad. And here I was, my trusty L’Oréal cream blush smeared on the back of my hand, hoping to make myself look healthy, rather than like I was trying out for a circus. The thought of coming face-to-face with Matt’s next girlfriend, even if she was fake, filled me with complete and utter dread.
My conversation with Ruby had brought everything into focus. I didn’t know what the future held for Matt and me, but I knew that I couldn’t lose him. I’d been waiting for a moment to tell him, in between kisses, that I wanted to be with him and that I’d put up with the scrutiny, the lack of privacy, and that I just wanted us to have a proper shot at being together. If that meant we didn’t hide, then so be it.
Sinclair’s call might have come at the exact wrong time. But perhaps it was fate. Wasn’t it better this way? Didn’t I get the best of both worlds—Matt and my privacy?
In the bar with Ruby, as soon as I’d decided that I’d go public with him, a weight had lifted off my shoulders. I’d been happy with my decision and I couldn’t wait to tell Matt.