“Hey,” he says, crouching down in front of me, his hands encircling my wrists I’m still staring at. “Jac.”
Instinctively, I pull away. Henry releases me, crouching down in front of me. “Jac, listen to me,” he says, his hands on my thighs. I choke on my breath, keeping my head down.
“Breathe,” he says, digging his fingers in ever so slightly, a source of pain to concentrate on as I choke out breaths, willing myself not to cry in front of him. “You’re okay.”
“I’m—” I start, but I can’t. I take another shallow breath. “I’m not.” I clutch at my chest and then release my hands.
“Okay,” he agrees. “You’re not.”
I look up at him, his dark eyes and calm features. He’s seen it a thousand times, I think. A thousand contestants.
That night, in his room in Charlotte, he’d stared at me like that. Openly, unafraid of being caught. Something raw in his face as his fingers tangled in my hair. We’d had sex and then drank red wine, tangled up in his sheets.
“So,” he said to me, “my dad fucked off to Vietnam literally six months after Mom died, and got married a month later to a woman my age.” He removed his free hand from my bare back and made a jazz hand. “Anyway, my makcik—Mom’s sister—called me having an absolute meltdown when she heard about it.”
I propped up on my elbows with a pillow under my chest, looking over at him. “Why’d you stay in LA then?”
He shrugged, his broad shoulders going up and down. “I don’t know. I guess it was nice to be in a place that reminded me of my mom. It was complicated, but I needed it those first couple of years. Plus, the job. It was easier. I got caught up in it.”
“I know what you mean,” I said, reaching forward to the end table and grabbing up my own glass.
“Remember that family emergency on the day I was supposed to meet you? I had to fly out to Vietnam because my dad got drunk in a bar, got in a fight, and then told his wife he was going to throw himself into the South China Sea. So, you know, really functional shit.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” he answered bitterly. “So, now, tell me about your sob story. New York.”
“My downfall,” I answered.
He raises an eyebrow. “New York was your promised land, though.”
“Sure,” I said, pulling my glass from my lips, nodding. “At first. And a published novel was my pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Not to mix metaphors.”
“Never.” He smirked, and I removed the pillow from under me and hit him with it. “Hey!” he answered, fighting back, rolling over on top of me, play fighting, and then, sliding his fingers up my jawline, leaning in and kissing. “So, New York?” he asked again.
“How can you think about New York at a time like this?” I whispered back, pushing a piece of his black hair back from his forehead.
“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me off camera.”
That meant something to me. Those words. “New York was like a wonderland. A different rabbit hole down every corner, and I thought I’d follow them all. I’d be a million different people and write a million different stories. I wouldn’t be like everyone else.”
“And?”
“And—” I laughed. “I was. It was exhausting. I was just like every other single girl in New York who’d spent their whole life being told how different they were from every girl around them, how special.”
He scooted in closer to me, one arm sliding farther under me as he sank onto his elbow, hovering over me. “What’s so great about being special anyway?” he asked.
“Well.” A small smile played on my lips. “I’ve seen this show. Isn’t that how you get the girl?”
He’d laughed and kissed me again.
That hotel room feels like a pocket in time, one that can only be accessed via some magic wormhole I will likely never re-create. That’s what I’m thinking trapped here in this tiny French hotel room.
“What if I just do it?” I say after my heart rate has slowed down. “Confess, before Marcus can tell on me?” I take a shaky breath.
It’s hard to miss the way he recoils. “You want to play it out?”
“I don’t know,” I say. He pops up from in front of me and goes to the fridge. Coming right back, he hands me a water, and I take it, take a deep drink, before I look at him again. “Do I?”
“You say that you and I are . . .” He glances around almost like he’s expecting someone to jump out from behind a piece of furniture.
“Are . . .” I say.
“Yeah,” he says. “That we are. Then what do you get out of that?”
The question stops me. It’s been so long since I’ve considered getting anything out of this mess than pain and embarrassment. “I don’t know,” I admit. “I’m free from this shit show.”
“And in a brand-new one,” Henry quickly responds. “I just—I think that’s worse for you than this, Jac. You’ll forever be known as the girl who fucked the producer on the 1. That’s not who you are. You’re an author. You’re a woman other women wish they could be.”
“Says the producer I fucked,” I answer.
Henry stares at me, swallows slowly. “Call his bluff. Ride it out. He isn’t going to propose to you just to spite me.”
“You really don’t think so?” I ask. “Seems to me he’s already done plenty just to spite you.”
“Marcus cares too much about his image to do that. He wants to keep this publicity going as long as possible, and that only works with a girl who’s madly in love with him. Anyone can see that’s not who you are. You keep going, you get dumped, you win. The book sales, the sympathy, all without doing the last thing I know you want to do. Drag your shit out for everyone to see.”
I feel myself relenting, giving in to the idea, to the idea of getting to have a me again, Jacqueline Matthis, New York Times bestselling author.
