by Amity Cross
“I was sitting in that theater, and all I could think about was you,” he said solemnly. “The whole awards thing…it felt fake. I felt like a fake sitting there because I didn’t give a crap about any of it. I don’t need an award to justify my career. I was sitting there the whole night, and all I could think about was you. That none of it meant anything unless you were there…” He swallowed hard. “That you were mine.”
I scoffed and shook my head, focusing my gaze onto my hands.
“She was trying to win me back, Lux. That whole speech on stage… She was trying to win me back so she could keep her job.”
“What do you mean?” I glanced at him then, confused as all hell.
“She didn’t get her contract renewed. She knew she was on the chopping block unless she could stay relevant, and it almost worked.”
“But I saw…” I began, my voice breaking. “In the hotel…”
“By almost, I meant on the producer’s side, Lux. Not on mine. I left, they called my name, and she saw an opportunity.”
“I saw you, Jude,” I hissed, realizing that he didn’t know that I’d witnessed their kiss. “At the hotel. I saw you. I woke up, and you were gone. You’d been gone for a while, so I went to get breakfast before checking out and there you were. Again.”
“Again?” he asked, his eyes widening. “I met her to tell her to back off, Lux. I went to tell her that I wanted you, and it didn’t go down well at all. Then I went back to the room to tell you everything, and you were gone.”
I couldn’t hear what he said. He’d gone back, but I’d already written him off, automatically fearing the worst. How could I have known?
“You kissed her.”
“She kissed me. I didn’t want her. I never did.”
“What?”
“Our entire relationship began as a publicity stunt, Lux,” he exclaimed. “It was fake, but I allowed myself to get caught up in the lie to the point I believed it. I believed I had feelings for her. I always thought we both did, but Tessa was using me the whole time. I never loved her. Never.”
He’d just confirmed the suspicions the entire cast and crew had had this whole time. They’d played their part so well that there was reasonable doubt. Hell, even I had believed the lie because I must’ve been a selfish idiot to even think that he was in it for the publicity. Love was real to me. Love couldn’t be faked.
Jude was a brilliant actor, but he’d believed the lie spun by Tessa Donahue. She was the real star, but too bad she couldn’t turn it on for the actual cameras.
“The Christmas party,” I began, my eyes misting with tears. “You walked me home and kissed me.”
He bowed his head, fisting his hands into his hair. “I know.”
“You know?”
“I was scared, Lux,” he exclaimed, looking back up at me. “I figured you’d pin it on drunken amnesia or something. I wasn’t ready. I was—”
“So you also realize that I saw you then, too?” I pushed off the bed and strode across the room. Resting my forehead against the wall, I screwed my eyes shut. “I was at the café with Candy and you got out the back of a taxi…”
I couldn’t say the rest. I wasn’t sure what Jude was thinking coming here and stirring all of this up. It was like he was dragging a river someplace searching for a corpse. The corpse that was our friendship, relationship…who knew what to define it as.
“I didn’t,” he said firmly. “We didn’t do anything.”
“Sure looked like you did.” Tessa tripping up the curb, her lips on his.
I heard his footsteps on the floor, and then his hands were on the wall on either side of me.
“Lux. Look at me.”
“What do you want from me?” I cried, willing him to go away. “You want closure? Is that what this is? You want to make sure I don’t sell my story to the tabloids? I don’t want anything. I want to forget.”
Grabbing my shoulder, he turned me around to face him, our gazes clashing. I couldn’t move, I was pinned against the wall, caged with no escape.
“I don’t want closure,” he said firmly. “I didn’t fly twenty-four hours and sit in a hotel lobby for another twelve for fucking closure.”
“Then what do you want from me?” I didn’t want to believe he was here for any more than that. If I believed he was here for that stupid thing that went boom in my chest, and it turned out he wasn’t… I’d been hurting enough. Too much.
Jude pressed closer, and he moved his hands so his fingers curled into my hair. Lowering his head, his lips brushed against my cheek, making my heartbeat accelerate to the point I thought I’d need a shock to skip it back into its proper rhythm.
“I was terrified,” he murmured. Jude Atwood was scared? “I’ve never felt like this before. I didn’t know what to do, so I didn’t do anything. It was a cop–out, and I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He kissed my cheek, his hands leaving my hair and cupping my face. “I love you, Lux. I know that now. Please don’t tell me it’s too late. I love you.”
I stared into his eyes and studied every tiny fleck of hazel, every hue of emerald that weaved through his iris’ like the minuscule changes of color held all the secrets of his soul like some kind of metaphysical binary code. But a person’s soul was private and sacred and most never knew the extent of their own, let alone someone else’s. I only had faith to go on, and right now, faith was blind…and scary as hell.
“You consume me,” I whispered, deathly afraid that this thing I felt for him would creep into everything that I was, and I’d cease to be.
His trembling fingers traced my jaw and he replied, “You ignite my soul.”
Jude’s words ricocheted through my mind, and the shrapnel imbedded deep into my heart and worked their way right into the deepest parts of my psyche.
His lips were a breath away from mine, his touch gentle, his body trembling against mine. I saw love in every part of his face, I felt it in his being, and I wanted more than anything to believe… but Jude Atwood and Lux Dawson’s epic failure of a love story—chapters one, two and three—held me back.
“Lux,” he whispered, sensing that I was slipping through his fingers. “I’ll do anything for you. My life is yours. Whatever happens next, I will always love you.”
They were the words I’d wanted to hear my entire life, that I was wanted, that I mattered, that I was loved.
He dropped his hand away from my face, and a moment later, he held up his palm. Glancing down, my eyes widened. It was my necklace. The necklace that I’d sent back to him along with the dress that I was meant to wear to the awards.
L is for luminous.
“Please, take it back,” he pleaded. “Just take this at least.”
Trembling, I reached up and covered his hand with mine.
“Lux…”
“All I have left is my truth,” I whispered.
“And what does your truth tell you?”
It was my last chance to tell him what was in my heart. To tell him the things that I’d been trying to hide away all this time. My truth.
I swallowed hard and raised my hands. Sliding my palms along his jaw, my skin rasped against his stubble as I moved forward, pressing my lips lightly against his.
“My truth is you,” I murmured. “I’ve loved you for a long time. I tried to fight it… I thought… I thought someone like you would never want someone like me. I can’t lie to myself anymore. I want you. I choose you. I love you.”
His pupils dilated slightly, and he brought his mouth down hard on mine. Sliding my hands into his hair, his grasp dropped from my face and he circled his arms around my back, pulling me away from the wall.
It wasn’t the hungry kiss that we’d shared the night of the party, nor was it like the many passionate kisses we’d shared that night in LA. This kiss was slow and deliberate, a transference of power that leveled the paying field. It was a kiss that said, we’re one.
Jude was the one.
Jude was my truth.
Jude was m
y love.
“Only you,” he whispered between kisses.
“Only you.”
FADE TO: BLACK.
THE END.
Episode Thirty
So Long and Thanks for All the Fish
Los Angeles was a universe in itself.
It existed in this little bubble of sparkles, glitter, and a whole lot of sequins. And it was hot, like all the time.
When Jude had seen the place I’d found and intended to live in, he immediately ushered me out, went straight to the real estate’s office, and charmed his way out of the lease. Then he’d gone and found me something more suitable for ‘his love’. His words, not mine.
Suitable turned out to be a three-bedroom condo with its own private beach in some posh zip code that included BMW’s in every driveway and exclusive country clubs and golf courses. Jude said it was only a short commute to the FMC offices and to quit my complaining. It still awed me how he flashed his crooked smile and got whatever he wanted.
“How is this going to go?” I asked as he deposited my single suitcase with all my worldly belongings in the middle of the living room. “Me here and you in Atlanta?”
“We’ll make it work,” he said, moving behind me and wrapping his arms around my waist.
“Living on opposite sides of the country? I can’t imagine the mechanics.”
“You’ll have more free time than me,” he said with a smirk.
“So, I’m meant to be the one taking all the long flights cross-country?” I complained. “I’ll be making you pay for that, you know.”
“I’ll come when I can. Besides, we can FaceTime.” He wiggled his eyebrows up and down. “It’s the new phone sex.”
“Pervert.”
“Of course I am. I’m a dude.” He slipped his hands underneath my T-shirt and began to rub soft circles over my stomach.
“It’s only like four months,” I said, his touch already beginning to make my head swim. “Thirteen episodes.”
“See? There’s an upside already.” Pulling away, he grabbed my hand and tugged me out onto the back deck where the sun looked like it was already scraping the edge of the horizon someplace behind us.
“Where are we going?”
“To the beach,” he said like it was obvious. All that was missing was the word duh.
“Is this what being with you is going to be like?” I asked as my bare feet hit the warm sand.
“Like what?” he asked as we strolled along the beach toward the water. “Amazing? Mind-blowing? The best sex of your life?”
“I was thinking more along the lines of no studio apartments the size of shoeboxes and spontaneous walks on the beach outside the posh condo my boyfriend rents for me.”
He came to a stop just out of reach of the waves that were lapping at the shore, and I bumped against his chest. “I distinctly remember telling you something about wanting to spend my money on the people I care about.”
“Did you?”
“I don’t give a shit about the money. I want to see that you’re taken care of.”
“How romantic,” I said, staring up at him.
“I love you, Lux, and I have deep pockets. So what?”
“You know I don’t like stuff,” I complained.
He rolled his eyes and grabbed me around the waist, and in one swift movement, threw me over his shoulder.
“Jude!”
“So, no things, huh?” he teased. “You’re all about the experience? How about the experience of the Pacific Ocean?”
“Don’t you dare!”
“Tell me you’ll let me spoil you, Lux Dawson, or you’re going in the drink.”
“You’re such a smart-ass!” He let me slip closer to the water, and I clutched him tightly. “Jude!”
“Say it,” he commanded, amusement lacing his voice. “Tell me I’m a god, and I’m the best you’ve ever had.”
“You’re a god with a golden penis!” I exclaimed at the top of my lungs.
Bellowing with laughter, he hauled me back onto the sand and let me slip through his grasp until my feet hit the ground.
“I always knew being in love with you was going to be one hell of an adventure,” he said before placing a kiss on my lips. “But golden penis?”
I shrugged, trying to hold in fits of giggles that were trying their best to explode forth. “It was the first thing that came to mind in my panic to stay dry.”
Falling down onto the sand, Jude sat beside me, throwing an arm around my shoulders.
“Is this going to work?” I asked, leaning into him.
“Of course, is it,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “We’ll do it the same as before.”
I tilted my head to the side. “Before?”
“Last season,” he said with a smile. “Faith and maybe a little more trust, but pretty much just faith.”
I shook my head, wondering if I would ever stop feeling awed at the thoughts that grew inside of him.
“I like this,” he said, cupping my face in his strong hand. “How you glow.”
“It’s my name,” I retorted.
Trailing his fingertips along my jaw, he lowered his hand and picked up the little charm that hung around my neck. The delicate little L that he’d returned to me back in Melbourne.
“L is for Luminous,” he murmured, lowering his lips toward mine.
Fisting my hands into his shirt, I pulled him in the rest of the way.
And right there on the little beach on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, we kissed, just happy to be alive and to have found one another. We kissed and kissed until the sun went down and the stars began to shine in the sky.
We kissed until they went supernova, and the heavens were luminous.
Until there was no beginning or end.
Until all that we were went back to the universe to be born again.
Until forever.
L is for Luminous.
Did You Know?
Thank you for reading L is for Luminous! I hope you enjoyed Lux and Jude’s story.
It was something a little outside of the box I usually write in, but I had a blast doing it. It was the guilty pleasure story of my heart that I always wanted to write.
When I was working on this bad boy, I placed lots of little references to TV shows, books, science, astronomy and more within the pages. There’s a whole bunch of them, but I picked out some of the juiciest secret meanings for you guys to read below.
xoxo Amity Cross
* * *
• One of the TV networks in the book is called FMC Studios. I was looking for a cool name to use like HBO, and I settled on FMC, which stands for Fine Milk Chocolate. It was written on the packet next to me on my desk. My addiction runs deep.
• ‘The vampire show that shall not be named’ mentioned in the book is The Vampire Diaries.
• The comic convention Lux goes to in the first chapter of the book was based on Supanova, a huge multi-city con in Australia.
• The hotel in Melbourne where Lux and Jude meet and get stuck in the elevator is Crowne Plaza.
• Candy was named after a girl I used to go to hairdressing school with.
• The chapter titled ‘So Long and Thanks For All The Fish’ is a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (by Douglas Adams) reference.
• The house that Lux goes to her first day on the job to watch filming was loosely inspired by the same house in Atlanta that’s in the vampire show that shall not be named.
• There’s a Harry Potter reference in one of the chapter titles.
• Sharon Bloomfield's character is loosely based on Samantha Jones from Sex and The City. At least that’s who I pictured when I wrote her!
• There are tons of references to pop culture in most of the episode titles. See if you can recognise any of them!
• The scene where Jude takes Lux ice skating in New York was inspired by the movie Serendipity with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale.
Please keep reading to see more
by Amity Cross!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Amity Cross isn't her real name. That's no secret.
She is the author of wicked stories about rock stars looking for redemption, gritty romances featuring MMA fighters and dark tales of forbidden romance. She loves to write about screwed up relationships and kick ass female leads that don't take s**t lying down.
Amity lives in a leafy country town in southern Australia and can be found chained to her desk, held at ransom by her characters.
Don't send help. She likes it.
@amitycross
theamitycross
www.AmityCrossWrites.com
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