Panty Dropper (A Sexy Standalone Contemporary Romance)

by Paige North

  21

  It was two months later almost to the day, that I opened my mail and found an invitation on thick card stock. At first I thought it was a wedding invitation.

  The last thing I needed was to be around happy, joyous couples who’d found love and actually not screwed it up completely.

  I’d actually been doing a good job of sticking to my promise to myself of staying in my lane, doing my job with Delaney, and not getting involved in any hometown drama.

  When I opened the invitation, though, Leo came racing right back at me. It was an invitation to the screening of his new movie, All For You.

  “Why would he invite me?” I asked Delaney. I raced to her office, invitation in hand, soon as I saw what it was. “He’s going to publicly humiliate me, isn’t he?”

  “No, come on,” she said, examining the invitation as if it might hold the answer. “He’s a classy guy. He wouldn’t do that.”

  “So why?” I pressed. “Why invite me to the premiere?”

  Delaney dropped the thick invitation back on her desk. “I don’t know. But do you want my opinion?”

  “Always.”

  “Don’t go. The press knows who you are. You’ve been lucky no one wants to come way out here to the sticks to photograph you. But going to L.A., to this premiere, is stepping directly into the lion’s den. Haven’t you been through enough?”

  She was right. I’d suffered enough heartache, not to mention public humiliation. Did I really want to go back there, but myself on display simply to be ridiculed? It would be stupid to go.

  And yet.

  I didn’t know what Leo Armstrong felt, about me or anything else. Maybe this movie would show me how he’d felt about everything between us, even though I would surely be a villain in the film.

  But I also knew that part of my penance for the way I’d betrayed him—and myself—was to do the hard thing and show up for the premiere. I wasn’t going to cower away and hide from my past, I was going to face it and own the consequences of my bad behavior.

  “I think I’ll go,” I said, realizing as I said it, that my decision was final.

  Delaney shook her head. “You are insane. What did that guy do to your head?”

  “He twisted it in ways I never thought possible,” I said, and I meant it in the best way. “Besides, I think I owe it to him. I was the one who was dishonest with him. I did a terrible thing. So the least I can do is go back and watch this film he’s made.”

  Crazy or not, I would go. I would go and face whatever it was Leo Armstrong felt the need to say—on film, no less. Who knew—maybe it was the closure I hadn’t yet been able to find. I was willing to find out.

  It felt strange being back L.A. When I first arrived all those months ago, I’d had such hope of starting my life, truly starting the excitement of a career I was sure would skyrocket. Being back and seeing the cars and people bustling about, I felt a sadness of being kicked out of the club, in a sense. I wished I could still be there, if only things hadn’t happened the way they had.

  Ava Marie picked me up from the airport and let me crash at the apartment. It was odd seeing someone else’s things in what I still considered my room. Rosario, the girl who took my place, was at her catering job when I arrived late, and Ava Marie set me up on the couch.

  “I think you’re doing the right thing,” she said, tossing a pillow onto the end of the couch. “I think it’ll feel good to face him, and face this whole episode in your life. It’ll be therapeutic.”

  I scoffed. “Does my therapy have to be so public?”

  “One of my friends who’s an actor said Leo Armstrong was really burned by the whole thing,” Ava Marie replied.

  “So burned that I saw pictures of him with some bombshell not long ago.”

  Ava Marie shook her head. “That’s not what I hear. I mean, supposedly he hardly goes out anymore. He doesn’t date. He just works. And yeah, he’s been totally focused on this movie but people say he’s different now.”

  “Different good or different bad?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “No idea. Anyway, I think you’re brave for doing this. Good or bad, when you get back on your flight in two days, you can truly put it all behind you.”

  I seriously hoped she was right. But the idea of seeing him in the flesh again, after all this time, made my heart ache and my stomach knot.

  I wanted to see him so badly, but knowing he would only hate me was like actual physical pain. And there was no medication that could take it away.

  The dress I’d bought for the occasion was from the one nice store in Mechanicsville but it was pretty, or at least I thought it was. Modest, not flashy, with a full skirt, 1950s-style, and a halter top. I didn’t know what message I was trying to convey—all I really hoped was that Leo might see it and remember that this is who I was. A simple girl from a small-town who’d given up everything for him.

  I took a car service to the theater. I’d learned last time that parking was a nightmare.

  Already I was going into this thing wiser, or so I told myself.

  It started as soon as I stepped out of the car near the theater entrance but away from the red carpet (no way was I walking that thing).

  Once one reporter spotted me, the others swarmed in. Microphones and television cameras, photographers snapping pictures, everyone yelling my name—it all gave me serious flashbacks to the last time I was at a premiere.

  I had managed to escape all of this when I’d gone so far away from Los Angeles, but now I remembered that in this town I was notorious.

  Leo was holding this premiere at a smaller, less assuming theater in Westwood instead of the classic, big Grauman’s Chinese Theater of Trigger Happy. That meant one big, saving grace—a shorter walk to the entrance. I knew once I was inside, there would be no more cameras or reporters, and I could let out a sigh of relief.

  Cameras may have been absent from inside the theater, but it still felt like all eyes were on me. I roamed the halls as inconspicuously as I could, looking for Leo. I didn’t see him anywhere, but I got lots of side-eye from the other guests.

  “Do you know who that is?” one woman said as I passed. “It’s her.”

  I tried to keep my chin up and not break into horrific sobs. I didn’t see Leo anywhere—not even Elaine or any of his other assistants. I wondered what I thought I’d say when I saw him. When it was time to take my seat—thankfully on the aisle, where I could make a quick getaway if needed—it was clear he wasn’t there at all.

  That was like the final blow to my heart, and it just cracked open.

  He knew me well enough to know that I’d be expecting to see him there, but he didn’t respect me enough to even show up.

  He truly despised me.

  I took deep breaths as the house lights went down and the opening credits began. Tears were already dripping down my cheeks and nothing had even happened yet.

  I braced myself for the worst two hours of my life.

  I told myself I would sit there through the whole thing, no matter how painful or humiliating. It was the least I could do—it would be my final way of apologizing to Leo for all that I’d done. After this, I was done, debt paid.

  I was a bundle of nerves as the first scenes began. It was strange seeing some actress version of me on a giant screen, but soon I was lost in the story, fascinated at how it all played out. The film was from the man’s perspective—in the movie, his name was Martin—and focused on his fight to become a huge success at such a young age, and the constant pressure to stay at the top while everyone waited for him to fail. With every success the stakes became higher, until Martin thought he would crack.

  Sylvia entered the picture for the first time when “Martin” went to what he thought was just another painfully dull audition. Her honesty and light-heartedness helped soften Martin’s steely exterior.

  It’s safe to say I was on the verge of total breakdown crying throughout most of the movie. I did my best to hold it together because it was a
truly beautiful film. Wonderfully acted, shot like a dream, painfully honest. Frankly, it was just the kind of movie I would have loved anyway, even if it hadn’t been based on my life.

  As I braced myself for the ending—where Sylvia turns evil and crushes Martin’s soul—I realized slowly that such a revelation wasn’t ever going to occur.

  Instead, what I watched onscreen was Leo’s character give Sylvia an impassioned speech about how he blamed himself for losing the best thing that ever happened to him.

  In fact, this one scene was the only truly made up moment in the whole film. It happened in the same location as the dreadful premier night when my true identity had been exposed, when we’d been alone together and I’d tried to apologize to Leo, only for him to shut down and shut me out.

  But in this fictional version of our story, Leo was the one who truly opened up.

  “You pushed me to let my guard down, to believe in love and all its great possibilities,” Martin told Sylvia in the film. “But I couldn’t listen. I wouldn’t let myself. I kept my armor on even in our most intimate moments when all I wanted was to tell you everything, how incredible I felt when I was with you and how I wanted to change to be better for you—because that’s what you truly deserved. But I held myself back, never saying my truth, and so I lived a lie. But not anymore,” Martin said. “I love you, Sylvia. I love you so much but I was too much of a coward to admit it to you. Not anymore. Not ever again.”

  He embraced her as tears ran down Sylvia’s face, and kissed her passionately. He pulled back to look closely into her eyes. “I love you, Sylvia. Now until the end.”

  I didn’t even notice the credits running, my face wet with tears, and I was openly sobbing, as the audience stood and applauded. Somehow Leo had put in the very thing I’d wished and wished had happened that night.

  Maybe he really did know how to torture me so cruelly, because changing that one scene was almost too much for me to bear. I’d rather he painted me a villain than shown me such a vivid version of what might have been.

  An extra roar of applause erupted from the audience as the house lights came up, and I turned to see what people were looking at.

  And then I saw him.

  Leo.

  He was real, and he was there, walking down the aisle in yet another perfectly-fitted suit looking painfully beautiful. I searched his eyes for compassion and love and anything good. All I could feel was the tears on my face and the instinct to run to him, but knowing he wasn’t mine to run to. As he got closer to my aisle, I realized he carried a large bouquet of red roses, probably for the lead actress.

  But he stopped. Right next to me, at my aisle. And then, Leo Armstrong turned to look at me. I was frozen.

  He reached out his hand for me to take, and I did, going solely on autopilot. All thought had left my mind. I had no idea what was happening or what he planned to do.

  Leo smiled and looked around the theater, taking in the applause. He held up one hand in a gesture for thanks and quiet, and the audience immediately obeyed. The theater was as quiet as it had been during the most intense scenes of the movie. And then, Leo spoke.

  And when he spoke, his eyes were on me and only on me. He wasn’t talking to anyone but me now.

  “You’re probably wondering what all of this is about,” he said.

  I nodded, still unable to find my voice. Seeing him again, the realness of him, the love I still had for him, was like drowning. I couldn’t bear to be this close and know that we were over.

  “The truth is, when I first started this script, I was going to do a real hatchet job on you,” he said. “I was so angry and hurt and heartbroken, more jaded than I’d ever been before. I intended to hurt you by writing this film, Sophie.”

  I swallowed. When I opened my mouth to tell him that I didn’t blame him, he held up his hand. “Wait,” he said softly. “Just let me get this out. I need to say it all.”

  I nodded my acquiescence, and he continued.

  “But as I worked on the screenplay, everything flooded back to me. All of our time together, and the way you made me feel. I remembered who you truly were, and for the first time I was able to step back and objectively view our relationship.” Leo swallowed, his chin trembling momentarily. When he spoke again, his voice was full of emotion. “I realized that you’d given yourself to me fully, and I was the one who’d held back. And then I understood, by the end of writing and filming, that I was the one who’d been a coward, too afraid to show you my feelings, Sophie. You’d lost everything to be true to what we had, and I hadn’t been willing to do the same. It had been easier for me to blame you. But that’s because I’d been a fool.”

  I so badly wanted to talk now, but I recalled that he wanted me just to listen. So I kept my mouth shut even as tears streamed down my face.

  Leo looked into my eyes. “I rewrote and reshot that last scene only a few weeks ago, and it was only then that I realized what I needed to do.” He took a deep breath and sighed, his eyes brimming with unshed tears. “I needed to tell you the truth, Sophie Scott. I needed to tell you that I always loved you, and that I still love you more than ever. Your love made me seize not just the day, but my life. And I intend to spend the rest of my life with the woman of my dreams…if she’ll still have me, that is.”

  He handed me the bouquet as I nodded, barely able to speak. “Of course,” I said, as the crowd burst into thunderous applause that I didn’t even care about. All I cared about was him.

  Leo.

  He loved me back. He didn’t hate me at all.

  I found myself wrapped up in Leo’s arms, tears running down my face and his lips pressed firmly to mine. I was his. It had always been that way but we’d let outside influences get in our way. As he kissed me there in that theater in front of his friends, colleagues and industry bigwigs, I cared only for Leo and our feelings for each other.

  I knew that I’d never let a day pass without showing him how much I loved him, and what he meant to me.

  Just minutes later, we walked out of the theater with our arms around each other, straight into a waiting limo—with Steve at the wheel, of course.

  “It’s great to see you again, Miss Scott,” he said, and I was happy and relieved at the use of my real name.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Leo said. “No offense, Steve, but let’s just get out of here already.”

  As the car pulled away, I stayed snuggled close to Leo, still in shock that I was there with him, and that he hadn’t stopped loving me after all.

  I felt the reality of Leo Armstrong, his scent, his feel, his heat. I let go of the flowers and clutched him.

  “What’s wrong?” he said, touching my cheek that was still wet with tears. “I thought this was a happy moment, Sophie.”

  “I’m afraid that if I let go of you, you’ll disappear again,” I told him.

  He pulled me closer. “Then don’t let go,” he said, his voice slightly bemused. But then he held me, too, his strong arms encircling me. “I won’t if you won’t.”

  And I knew then that he was a little scared too. We’d both thought that we’d lost each other, and being in one another’s arms again felt too good to be true.

  But it was true.

  I looked up into his eyes. “I’m so sorry—“

  “Don’t,” he said. “You never need to apologize to me. I’m in love with you, and besides—I think we’ve met our apology quotient for this year.”

  I laughed a little, my chest loosening. I was beginning to accept that this was actually happening. “I always want to tell each other how we’re feeling from now on,” I said. “Promise?”

  “Promise,” he replied, stroking my hair. “As long as we both shall live.”

  Epilogue

  “You’re wrong,” I said. “She would never say that.”

  “Sure she would,” Leo said.

  “Why? What’s her motivation?” I asked.

  Leo stood for a moment in our living room, his blue eyes fixed on the rolling hills
outside the large window.

  “See?” I said when he didn’t answer. I smiled and shook my head. “She wouldn’t say that. Let’s go back to earlier in the script.”

  Leo walked over to me. I tilted my head up toward him, offering up my lips, which he kissed. “I taught you everything you know and now I’ve created a monster,” he teased, running a hand over my growing belly.

  “I learned some things for myself,” I said, putting my hand on top of his.

  After the premiere, my life became just plain ridiculous. Leo and I eloped and then he took me to Mexico, just like he’d wanted to all that time ago. We stayed in a secluded area with our own beachside bungalow, big enough for a large family but all for us and complete with full staff and a chef. We stayed there for three perfect weeks, watching the gossip blogs go nuts over what happened at the screening and reading the reviews for All For You. Critics said the movie had signaled a new reign for Epix Studios, proving that the studio wunderkind could be passionate and thoughtful in his moviemaking and not just loud and explosive. Of course, I knew that already. And now, a year later, here we were, together in our new home working on a script—that old script he’d first had me work on during my dark days at Crush magazine. I’d finally gotten him to agree to change the ending to something more hopeful instead of the dark cautionary tale he wanted.

  With his hand still on my belly, Leo said, “I hope our baby grows up to be as strong as you are.”

  “And as willful as you are,” I added, kissing his lips again.

  Leo had sold his Wilshire Boulevard apartment and his Malibu home soon after we were married; now we were nesting in the Hollywood Hills, a place that was ours—and our soon-to-be bundle of joy.

  Even though it was a Saturday, we were working because we loved to work. When our minds went toe-to-toe it was as satisfying as when we rocked the bedroom—in a totally different way, of course.

  Delaney came out to visit so often that she practically had her own bedroom, and Leo was trying to convince her to open a shop out in L.A. She was considering it, especially since the New Hampshire location was doing better than expected. And I still kept in touch with Ava Marie, who was on the short list of dancers in the Epix offices, so she was working steadily and had even upgraded to a decent apartment in Santa Monica proper.