“It’s really no trouble, Ally. Think of it as making Lena look her best for the awards.” She went back to eating the dessert.
I sighed. I might be good at cooking and designing clothes but I sucked at writing. “Alright. I guess. But please promise me you won’t spend too much time on it?”
Suzie nodded, scraping the bottom of the glass for the last of the dessert. “Of course. Now, how are you at social media?”
“I know the basics.”
“Good enough. On the night of the awards you need to share as many pictures as you can to your social media accounts. Or if you like, one of our team can do it for you?”
“No, that’s fine,” I said quickly. “I should be able to manage that.” She’d already done too much for me as it was.
Suzie stood up. “Great. It’s been a pleasure to meet you, Ally. Thanks for the dessert.”
“No problems. Nice to meet you too.”
I watched as Suzie disappeared into the living area, toward the sounds of conversation and laughter. I stared at the door for a while after she was gone.
Good grief. Suzie O’Brien seemed nice enough, but couldn’t anybody be themselves in this town?
Chapter 13
“Wow, you’re such a party animal.”
An amused smile touched Lena’s lips. “Sorry to disappoint. Thanks for hanging out with me tonight.”
“No thanks required,” I replied firmly.
It was a couple of hours to midnight on New Year’s Eve and Lena and I were sitting out on her back patio with a bottle of wine. The truth was I was more than happy to have Lena to myself. Although filming on the movie with Jake had now wrapped up, the start of the awards season had meant lots of social and media engagements.
“I’m sure you turned down a lot of invitations,” I continued, “what with you being an award nominee and all.”
“Suzie wasn’t very pleased with me,” she admitted.
“Why?”
“She wanted the extra media coverage in the lead-up to the Golden Globes.”
I stared at her in disbelief. “Like you don’t already have enough publicity? Good grief.” Fame certainly came at a price. “Well, I’m glad you said no.”
“Me too.”
“Suzie seems like a hard worker,” I observed, remembering our conversation of a week ago.
“She is. She worked miracles when my separation from Duncan hit the news.”
I usually made it a habit to avoid the tabloids, but even more so when I found out about Lena’s marriage breakup. “How did she handle it?”
Lena blew out a long breath. “The story made the media but it was controlled. As much as it could be, anyway. The headlines could have screamed something about Duncan going back to his ex-wife, but they didn’t. They tried to, but Suzie stayed firm on it being a mutual decision to separate. So while his ex-wife was mentioned, it was only rumored. It was as good an outcome as I could have expected.”
“It wasn’t a mutual decision though, was it?” I asked gently.
Lena picked up her wine glass and studied it thoughtfully. “No. Not at first. Now I’ve had some time to think about it I feel like it’s for the best.”
“Really?” I didn’t bother to hide my surprise.
Lena set the glass down again and twisted to face me. “Really. Anyway, I thought you didn’t like Duncan.”
I opened my mouth but didn’t say anything. Tread carefully, Ally. I’d never told Lena my true feelings about Duncan. As honest as I was, there were some things best left unsaid. Unfortunately, Lena knew me so well my face gave me away whenever the subject of Duncan came up. An actress I was not.
“Ally,” Lena said, cutting through my guilt-ridden thoughts. “You can be honest, you know.”
“Because I wasn’t honest before?”
“No,” she corrected. “You were supportive. You put aside your opinion of Duncan because you wanted me to be happy.”
“And you were happy.”
“Yes, for a long time I was.”
I sighed. “It’s not that I didn’t like him, Lena. I just wasn’t sure he was the right person for you.”
“Because of the age gap?” she asked, referring to the twenty-five-year age difference between them.
“I got over that. I personally wouldn’t have gone for a man that much older than me, but you did and I was OK with that.”
“Then what was it?” When I didn’t reply, she reached over and touched my arm. “I’d really like to know.”
“Alright. The Ally brand of honesty coming right up. Are you sure you’re ready?”
Lena gave me a proper grin, the sort I remembered from when we were sixteen and giggling about the mean girls at school.
“Duncan always struck me as one hundred percent Hollywood. I’m not saying he’s fake, but he lives and breathes this life. He pulled you even further into it, which I’ve got to admit was a good thing for your career, but ultimately I’m not sure it suits you.”
“In what way?”
I waved a hand around. “This house for one. It’s stunningly beautiful, but it’s not you, Lena. It’s the movie-star Lena. It was like when you were with him you were always the movie star. You were never allowed to just be Lena.”
“Maybe I’ve changed? A lot’s happened in the last five years.” She stared across the landscaped gardens as if contemplating the past.
“Your life’s changed, Lena. You haven’t.”
She continued to take in the view and we sat in silence, listening to high-pitched chirping of the crickets. I waited patiently for her to speak. Unlike in my family, where everyone constantly spoke over each other, I’d learned the best way to get to the real Lena was to give her time and space.
“You’re right,” she said eventually. “It was only after he left I discovered I’d been playing a role. The part that hurts the most is that I know he was in love with me.” Her mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “But not the real me.”
“Oh, Lena.” I reached over and gripped her hand tightly and she squeezed it back.
“Ever since we split I keep wondering if I’d shown him who I really was, would he still have fallen in love with me? Or maybe we weren’t destined to be together anyway.”
Her words brought back the kiss with Jake—a kiss I’d been trying extremely hard to forget. My body had other ideas. It kept recalling the touch of his fingers on my waist or the taste of his mouth as he savored me. The feel of his body pressed against—
“Ow.”
I blinked and realized I’d been squeezing Lena’s hand hard. I quickly let go. “Sorry.”
I watched as she flexed her fingers to return the blood supply, her polished red nails shining in the dim light. She shot me a questioning look.
“I kissed Jake,” I blurted, then immediately shut my mouth. Shut up, Ally. It had been years since I’d had a proper kiss—alright, I’d possibly never had a kiss that good—but I needed to let it go. As Lena had just said, some people weren’t destined to be together.
“You kissed Jake,” Lena said slowly as if she was trying out the words for the first time. “Why can’t I imagine that?”
“I was as shocked as you are,” I told her, my resolve to keep my mouth shut dissolving. “I mean, me? Ally Valenti. Sure, he loves my cooking, but so do most people, and my customers certainly don’t show their appreciation by sticking their tongues in my mouth. Not that him sticking his tongue in my mouth was a bad thing necessarily, it was actually very nice. But wait, it is bad. Really, really bad. I mean, what on earth was he thinking? Clearly I wasn’t thinking. There was not a lot of thinking going on, let me tell you—”
Lena tapped my leg with her palm to get my attention. “Ally.”
“Yeah?”
“You kissed Jake? You made the first move?”
I stared at her blankly until her words sunk in. “No. He kissed me first.”
She sat back in her seat with a satisfied smile on her face.
“What?”
I asked.
“I was right. He does like you.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far—”
“Oh for God’s sake, Allegra! He stuck his tongue into your mouth as you so eloquently put it, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, but—”
“But, nothing!”
I stared at Lena, not sure what to make of her reaction.
“When are you going to see that you’re a very desirable woman, Ally?” When I started to speak again she held up a hand. “And furthermore,” she continued, and I knew she was serious, because she didn’t use words like ‘furthermore’ unless she was worked up about something. “I thought you weren’t fooled by celebrity? Yet the minute a celebrity shows some interest you all you can think is ‘he’s a movie star, he can’t possibly be interested in me.’ He’s interested in you. How about you start acting like the normal person you say you are and deal with it?”
For once, I had very little to say. Instead, I picked up my glass of wine and took a long sip. She was right, of course. I was having a hard time separating Jake's celebrity from the rest of him.
“Do you like him?” she asked after a while. “The real Jake?”
“I think so.” The answer was a revelation to me. “I mean, we’ve seen each other a handful of times and I don’t really know him all that well.”
Lena shrugged. “So? Get to know him better.”
“He hasn’t exactly called me to ask me out on a date.”
“What happened after the kiss?” she asked.
I winced. “Chloe kind of walked in on us.”
Lena’s eyebrows rose. “And then what?”
“And then I kind of ran from the room,” I mumbled.
“You did what?”
“I ran from the room,” I repeated with a sigh.
“Oh, Ally.” Lena put her glass down on the table. “I’d say the next move is yours then.”
“What?” I gaped.
“Well, let’s consider the situation, shall we? You’ve made it pretty clear that you don’t like anything celebrity. That meant that when you got caught on camera at Runyon Canyon, Jake felt bad.”
“He never told me that,” I shot back.
Lena tilted her head at me. “Well, he told me. Plus, he’s a guy and what do guys do when something goes wrong? Pretend like everything’s normal. Secondly,” she continued, “you ran away after he kissed you and I’m guessing you’ve had no contact with him since then?”
“No. He probably goes around kissing people all the time, anyway,” I muttered, trying not to recall the easy way he touched Faith.
“Yeah, and I bet the other people he kisses don’t run away from him.”
“Shit.” I emptied my glass of wine in a big gulp. “Anyway, why are we even discussing this? It’s not like I’m going to have a relationship with him.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t belong here, Lena, that’s why!”
Lena shook her head at me. “Why?” she repeated.
“Because LA is only a short-term thing.” And Jake didn’t strike me as a long-term sort of guy, but I didn’t say that.
“So you’re just going to move back home in four months?” she asked.
“Well, yeah. I guess so.”
“What happens if your label takes off?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. The concept was still too unreal for me to grasp. “I don’t know.”
“Ally, I know you love your family, but when we were teenagers you used to talk about moving away and living your own life. Don’t you think it’s time to start doing that?”
“By kissing Jacob Swan?” I retorted incredulously.
“By believing in yourself.” Then she grinned at me, her blue eyes sparkling with a playfulness that had me smiling back. “If that involves kissing Jake, I don’t see how that’s a bad thing.”
My smile faded and I swallowed. Bad? Maybe not. Asking for trouble was more like it.
Chapter 14
It was like the school prom all over again.
OK, it was a hundred million times bigger than that.
The sense of celebration, the endless hours of preparation to get ready—and that was just Lena. In the spirit of the event, I’d donned a dress I was considering including in my new ready-to-wear collection. Cute, black, and stopping just above the knees, the cocktail dress flared out at the waist, supported by layers of tulle. I’d gone for a strapless sweetheart neckline and then overlaid the entire dress with intricate black lace. I felt a bit like a grown-up princess and I loved it. What had Jake called it? Sophisticated innocence.
“I’m ready.”
I looked upward toward the sound of Lena’s voice at the top of the stairs and gasped.
If I was the princess, Lena was undoubtedly the queen.
I watched as she glided down the Gone With The Wind stairs effortlessly, while I continued to stare at her in awe. Of course, I already knew what the dress looked like. Dress-fitting after dress-fitting ensured that. But there was something about seeing the outfit in its entirety.
Lilac had been a bold choice but it had paid off. The layers of chiffon wrapped around her tall figure like a second skin, the excess fabric flowing behind and surrounding her in an ethereal purple cloud. The color complemented her pale complexion and the glimpse of an impossibly long, smooth leg as she walked confirmed my decision to go with a daring slit in the skirt.
Her make-up was done to perfection thanks to Lena’s trusted make-up artist, while her hairdresser had twisted half of Lena’s platinum hair up, letting the rest fall behind her like the dress. Lena wore matching strappy lilac heels, which her stylist had spent weeks sourcing, as well as a stunning thick diamond band around her wrist. There’d been some arguing with her stylist—who wasn’t used to being questioned by a nobody designer—about the rest of the accessories, but we’d finally settled on no necklace and a pair of dangling diamond earrings.
The result? Lena looked like some sort of pale Greek goddess crossed with a Scandinavian ice queen.
“You look amazing,” I said when she arrived in front of me.
As if to prove my point she gave me her best movie-star smile. “Thanks to you.”
I wasn’t so sure about that. Lena could wear the simplest of dresses and still look gorgeous. The fact that she had chosen to wear my dress was getting me all choked up. “Thank you,” I whispered.
“It’s an honor.” She reached over and touched my shoulder. “Really. You look lovely, too.”
I stepped back and did a twirl in my new dress for her and we both laughed. There was something about the ostentatious foyer of her house that made you feel like you could do things like that.
“I’m slightly overdressed for a night in front of the television, but I felt the occasion demanded it,” I said.
“I agree. And besides, you won’t be in front of the television all night. You’ll be joining me at the after party.”
I hid a grimace. “Maybe.”
“Oh come on, Ally. Live a little, remember?”
We’d had this conversation numerous times already. Lena had originally wanted me to come as her plus one for the evening and I’d declined. It was one thing to put my designs out there, but to stand next to her while I did it was another thing entirely. So then she’d started in on me joining her at the after party. “I’m just not sure I’ll fit in.”
“Sure you will. You look gorgeous.”
We turned when we heard footsteps coming our way.
“Your carriage awaits, My Lady.”
I blinked at Tim’s formal address. He said so little that it was a surprise he had a sense of humor.
“Great.” Lena gave me an air kiss so she didn’t ruin her make-up. “Be ready for later on, OK? I’m not going to take no for an answer.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
She stuck her tongue out at me, which was so at odds with her outfit it made me laugh again.
“That’s more like it. I’ll see you
later, Allegra.”
She winked and, before I could comment on her usage of my full name, wafted out the front door in a haze of purple.
*
“I still can’t believe she’s wearing your dress,” announced Arabella from the other end of the phone. “This is just so cool. All my friends think I’m full of shit but they’ll be sucking up to me in the morning, just wait.”
I smiled into the handset. “Glad I could help improve your social standing at school.”
“They didn’t believe me at first. When I told them it was you they were like, ‘Ally? The boring one?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, can you believe it?’ ”
I reached for my glass of champagne. I had a feeling I’d need another one depending on how long this phone call went on for.
“Oh, look,” breathed Bella. “There’s Chloe Kemp. I just love Chloe. How gorgeous is she?”
I directed my attention to the flat screen. She was indeed gorgeous. She wore a full-length, deep-green halter neck gown that made her auburn hair appear like it was alight.
“Beautiful,” I agreed. “I wonder who she’s wearing?”
We both shut up and listened while the reporter spoke to Chloe.
“Oooh, Tom Ford,” said Bella after a moment. “That’s so cool! Your dress is going to be on the red carpet with Tom Ford’s and all the other famous designers!”
I took another sip, feeling slightly nauseous—and I knew it wasn’t from the alcohol.
“Oh my God, there she is!” cried Bella.
I almost dropped the phone when Lena appeared on-screen. In my dress. Like it was a big shock or something.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered. This was it. This was really happening.
I was finding it hard to breathe. I watched, transfixed, while Lena stood on the red carpet and what seemed like a thousand flashes of light went off all around her. Photographers taking photos of Lena. Wearing my dress.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I said.
“Chill,” Bella said. “This is great. Photos will be all over the internet soon. Then we can start sharing them.”
At that moment, I was secretly glad Bella was on the other end of the phone because I had the feeling my hands would be shaking too much to operate a computer.
Heartthrob (Hollywood Hearts, #1) Page 10