We must talk, and it will be worth your while. I don’t mean the airfare or the hotel—that is incidental. I am going to repair the damage you suffered. I can give you back your life, Lucy. I just need to speak to you in person.
No, Isabella, you do not need to speak to me in person. You do not need to speak to me at all. I’m sorry if you feel bad about what happened . . .
Am I sorry?
No, actually, I’m not. That’s the old Lucy bubbling to the surface. She’s like a childhood friend I remember with alternating spurts of affection and exasperation. The Lucy who, as Nylah rightly said, couldn’t hang up even on a telemarketer.
I’m not pleased that Isabella is suffering. I’ll never be that cold or vindictive. Yet I won’t fly to New York to clear her conscience. She says she can give me my life back, but I already have that. There’s nothing more she can offer.
I’m still staring at the letter when a familiar bang-ba-ba-bang sounds at the door, and I scramble to tuck the letter, envelope and all, into my bag. Then I yank open the door, throw my arms around Marco’s neck and pour all my frustration into a kiss that leaves him gasping.
“So . . . good pizza?” he says.
“I’ve barely started it. I was heading outside when I got distracted. E-mails.”
He looks down at me. “Everything okay?”
“Just messages that needed an answer.”
“Ah.”
His gaze bores into mine, and I squirm under it. I replay my words, my tone, and it all sounds very normal. Even the kiss at the door isn’t out of character.
I only need to see his expression, though, to know I’ve failed to pull off the “I’m okay” charade. As usual, Marco doesn’t call me on it. I just get that searching look and a pause that I should fill with “Actually, yes, something happened.” When I don’t take the hint, he only gives me a smacking kiss on the lips, granting me my freedom and my privacy.
“All right, then,” he says. “Let me rummage something from the fridge.”
I hand him the plate with a quarter of the pizza. He smiles and accepts it with thanks. Then I miraculously change my water into wine—grabbing a bottle of red from the counter—as he gets glasses, and we head out onto the terrace.
Night two of not sleeping. This time, it’s that letter calling my name. The more I think about it, the angrier I get. How dare Isabella invade my privacy? How dare she send anything under my old name? All it would take is for someone along the mailing route to say, “Hmm, why does that name sound familiar?” and follow it to a Colt Gordon fan board and post “Hey, I found where Lucy Callahan lives. Anyone willing to pay for that information?”
If Isabella wants to make amends, she can damn well leave me alone. That’s what I want from her. All I want from her. Does she really think I’m going to squeal in delight at a cashmere shrug and a first-class plane ticket? I’m not that girl anymore.
And yet . . .
I’ve said I will fight this, and fighting it does not mean ignoring Isabella and hoping she goes away. If I even think that’s possible, I’ve forgotten everything I know about the woman. To truly fight, I must go to New York. Take this meeting. Tell her I’m glad she has had this epiphany, but if she really cares about helping, she’ll leave me the hell alone.
I could do that on my own dime. Lift my chin, buy my own ticket, reserve my own hotel room . . . and blow my meager life savings on this trip. That’ll teach her.
If Isabella wants to throw blood money at me, let her. While I’d never be spiteful enough to rack up a bill with room-service caviar and champagne, I will enjoy the trip, and I will get what I need from it. Peace, at last. My past buried not in shame but in quiet reverence for a life I’ve left behind.
I send a message agreeing to the trip.
Sleep comes easily after that.
Chapter Six
The Hamptons 2005
After two weeks at Colt and Isabella’s place, I’d settled in enough that I even mentally referred to them by their first names. On that day, I’d taken my own role in the exact same scene I’d walked into that first day. Jamison swam in the pool while Tiana reclined on a chair with me lounging beside her, both of us holding novels while we talked about boys.
“You do know that’s weird, right?” she said. “You should have a boyfriend by now.” She lowered her glasses to look over them. “Do you like girls? It’s okay if you do. We’ve got friends with two dads, friends with two moms, friends with two of each, even, all living together. It’s Hollywood.”
I chuckled. By now, I was past the point of being surprised by this ten-year-old girl. She’d been raised in a world where kids didn’t stay kids for long, no matter how much their parents tried to shelter them. Part of this was an act, too—Tiana was playing the world-weary ingenue to impress me. Or shock me. If she hoped to do that with her talk of same-sex and polyamorous couples, she was barking up the wrong tree. I was a musician.
“I like boys, and I have dated,” I said. “I didn’t have a high-school boyfriend because I didn’t want anything keeping me in Albany after graduation. Now that I’m at Juilliard, I don’t have time to date.”
“Have you had sex?”
“Your parents would love it if I answered that.”
“Actually, they’d be fine with it. You’re a role model, and I have important life questions that require serious answers.”
I snorted.
She grumbled. After a moment, she said, her voice quieter, “How did you know you liked boys?”
Resisting the urge to look over at her, I talked about my first crush—a bass player named Samson—and the telenovela stars whose posters decorated my wall, the boys I dreamed of kissing.
“Did you have any posters of my dad?”
“Nope.”
“Did you ever dream of kissing him?”
Now I did look over, my nose wrinkling. “Eww, no. He’s old.”
She giggled, a true child’s giggle, sputtering and snickering.
“What’s so funny?” a voice asked, making me jump.
Colt strode off the patio. I’d come to realize that Colt Gordon did not “walk” anywhere. He strolled; he ambled; he sprinted. He was an actor—every movement and expression had to be imbued with meaning.
Today, he wore athletic shorts and nothing else. Well, I presume underwear, but trust me, I wasn’t thinking about what Colt Gordon wore under his shorts.
I hadn’t been lying when I told Tiana her dad was too old for my girlish fantasies. He was good looking. Criminally good looking, as Nylah would say. I could appreciate that, but it came with the mental corollary of for his age.
For his part, Colt never spared me more than a friendly smile. There’d been some initial discomfort, where he’d almost seemed to go out of his way to avoid me. I understood that. Every time he had lunch with a female co-star, the tabloids screamed that he was having a fling. People might say they love happy Hollywood marriages, but scandal is so much more delicious.
So Colt had been careful, making sure I wouldn’t give off any flirty vibes myself. I must have passed that test with flying colors because he no longer walked out of a room if he found me alone in it. I didn’t feel obligated to look away when he was dressed like this, either, which was good because he was almost always dressed like this.