When Stars Fall

by Wendy Million

Chapter Six

  Ellie

  Present Day

  I’m at my side door, pacing, waiting for Wyatt to appear. Calshae came to warn me last night about Wyatt’s arrival on the island. A lawyer circulating with NDAs at her family’s hotel coupled with Wyatt’s interview made her think he’d be in Bermuda shortly. She was as surprised as me that he was already at my house. We might not be close anymore, but the island mentality of looking out for one another has been ingrained in each of us from birth. We’re both from intergenerational Bermudian families, and she’ll protect my secrets like they’re her own even if she never agreed with them.

  My sister wasn’t impressed when I called her back to tell her I was spending the day with Wyatt. She reminded me of what was at stake. I argued that giving in a little now would mean I could manage him better later.

  I lied.

  He doesn’t work that way and capitulating won’t help me. Today’s dilemma is why I’ve kept the emotional door shut and locked with any form of security available. Once he lodges in my heart, rooting him out is impossible. Leaving him crushed me. At a certain point, I wasn’t sure I’d bounce back, be whole again.

  But I survived. I’m capable of enduring enormous heartbreak and not crumbling. There’s no need to learn that lesson again, and definitely not from him.

  The security intercom buzzes, and my heart rate skyrockets. With my hand on my chest, I close my eyes to center myself. “Yeah, Jerome?”

  “Mr. Wyatt Burgess is here?”

  Right. I forgot to tell him. If he saw The Jackson Billows Show last night or checked any form of social media, Wyatt’s appearance might not be a surprise. He’s a tornado ripping through my life, but no one else has been sucked into the vortex yet.

  “He can come through.” Wyatt anywhere in Bermuda during broad daylight is a disaster waiting to happen. There are only sixty thousand people on the island, and we’re all six degrees of separation away from each other. One person’s aunt is another person’s cousin. I’ve never worried about anyone selling us out because very few people have come looking, and Bermuda values loyalty over betrayal. They protect their own, and in return, my family is exceedingly generous with our time and money.

  #Wyllie is trending. People have tagged me and Wyatt in stories, videos, GIFs, and memes. Anything with a touch of relevance has our old nickname. I can’t check social media for more than a second. Too much, too soon. My burner phone has only vital contacts, and it’s stemming the torrent.

  I peek out the blinds as Wyatt rounds the hedges. My breath hitches in that old, familiar way. When he used to stride in my direction, eyes trained on me as though he could devour me, I wondered how I got so lucky.

  Before I can talk myself out of letting him in, I open the door. My expression should be neutral, but my heart is running wild. I’m a good enough actor to fool him, right? He takes me in from head to foot, and a grin spreads, lassoing the out-of-control beast in my chest.

  “You look amazing,” he says.

  “Thanks.”

  My fingers tingle. To have him this close and not touch him goes against every instinct in my body. We were always very affectionate, very connected. He had a lot of faults, but demonstrating his love to me and everyone else was never one of them.

  Sitting across from him in the living room last night was a huge test of my willpower. When he came close enough for me to smell his cologne, I breathed him in. How can this connection be the same? Memories rushed through my barricades. Instead of fending them off, part of me welcomed them, wanted to drown in them.

  I grab the two motorbike helmets off the kitchen island and pass him one. He eyes me. “You’re still driving a bike?” he asks.

  We fought about a few things, but we were both risk takers, thrill seekers. After I left LA, I had to change—but I have no idea what he’s like now.

  “You’re not?” I open a side entrance to the garage and hit the button that lifts the door to reveal the private laneway.

  Wyatt caresses the helmet. “No, not really. Got too dangerous with the number of paparazzi I had hunting me.” He follows me into the garage.

  “Ah, the life of a famous person. Must be exciting for you.” A low blow since Wyatt’s rides were one of his only outlets from his fame.

  I catch myself staring at him but he’s still focused on the helmet. When he glances up, he shrugs. “Turns out there were a few things in life you were right about.”

  I purse my lips. Externally, I won’t give an inch. Internally, there’s a riot brewing. “Who could have predicted?”

  We’re standing beside my favorite Honda motorcycle. Not the best or most expensive, but it attracts the least attention and is powerful enough to maneuver us up hills.

  I lower my helmet and climb on. “You coming?”

  “Which bike?” He takes in my collection.

  “You don’t have a license.” I flip up my visor.

  He raises his eyebrows in question, as though laws were meant to be broken.

  “Yes, that matters,” I say. “If we’re caught—can you imagine? As it is, there are limited places we can go where people won’t be uploading my life to social media without my consent.”

  “If we get pulled over, I’ll snap a few photos or sign a few things. Problem solved.” Wyatt searches my face. “We’ve done it before.”

  “Life was different.” Part of me wants to soften. The massive weight I’ve carried on my shoulders for years has lifted at his proximity. A weight I’ve carried so long, I didn’t realize the heaviness was a burden.

  He came. Finally, he came.

  He shoves the helmet on and swings his leg over the bike. Once his feet are on the pegs, he inches forward so his pelvis presses against my ass. My sharp intake of breath at his closeness is involuntary. He goes still behind me as tension rises between us, fills the garage. Wyatt has always been attuned to me physically. He secures his hands on my waist and then leans forward, the length of his chest pressing into my back. I close my eyes. I’m grateful he can’t see my face. The brush of our bodies is intoxicating. Every inch of me has noted every inch of him, and my body is singing, as it once did, just for him.

  I start the bike and rev it a few times. The roar is powerful. I can resist him. His brief visit doesn’t have to become anything. With a surge of confidence, I peel out of the garage to the gate. Jerome gives me a salute as he opens the metal doors and then watches us cruise along the narrow path. Foliage conceals the route to my house, and anyone who has managed to get the address has trouble finding it if they aren’t familiar with Bermuda.

  When we were dating, Wyatt came with me to visit my family several times. The temptation to wander memory lane is more than I can resist, and I take him past things that have changed in the last ten years. Every time we hit a new landmark he recognizes, he brushes against me to speak into my ear. Delicious shivers of pleasure race up my spine. That’s normal, right? The urge to draw him close, have our skin slide against each other, is a muscle memory. Means nothing.

  He reacts to each reveal as I expect. Our favorite old hotel demolished to be replaced by a modern monstrosity—horrible. The restaurant where we got food poisoning turned into a cleaning company—hilarious. There are too many places that remind me of him, but for a long time, there weren’t enough.

  Our final stop is also recognizable. I drive into the deserted parking lot of my favorite beach at the tip of the island. It’s the greatest distance from the airport and has no amenities. A parking lot, a rambling walk through brush, and then a wide, expansive beach with pink sand. It’s rare to find other people here, and since it’s low tourist season, even less of a risk today. This place brims with memories.

  Wyatt gets off the bike first. I secure my helmet and extend my hand for his without checking his reaction. My sunglasses are inside the seat, and I slide them onto my face. He’s here, in the flesh. Not a hallucination or my deepest wish sealed into a coin and tossed into a fo
untain.

  “I’m glad this place hasn’t changed.” He scans the area and sucks in a deep breath of ocean air. “Man, it feels like yesterday we were here.” His eyes, the color of the shallow sea, seek mine. “So many memories.” His expression is wistful. I hope mine is not.

  His implication is clear, but we can’t go back. There is no future for us. The beach is to the right, and I let him trail behind me.

  When the path widens, he falls into step beside me. “I’m sorry, Ellie.”

  “The attention will die if we don’t do anything to attract the focus to us.” There are a million things he could be sorry for, but I choose the easiest one, and when I let myself gaze at him, longing pours out of me, pools at my feet. I am a terrible actress today.

  “I’m sorry about ten years ago too,” he says. “For a long time, I’ve wanted to say that. Those words, to you, in person.”

  An unexpected lump forms in my throat. I have to close my eyes, and I’m glad for my sunglasses. His apology makes me weak in the knees. This conversation is too intimate, painful.

  “Is this a twelve-step, making-amends thing? ’Cause if it is, we’re fine. Well, we were until last night.”

  “Do not throw that shit in my face, Ellie.” He growls in frustration. It’s the first sign I’ve seen of the hot-tempered Wyatt of old. “You’re better than that.”

  “Then what is this? Why now?” I flick off my sandals in irritation. They fly across the sand, and a weird satisfaction settles on me to see them land so far away.

  “I’ve been clean for two years,” he says. “I had to be sure sobriety would take this time.” He shakes his head. “I wanted to be completely certain.”

  “Certain about what?” My heart must be in my eyes. There’s nothing I want more than for this to be true. For him to be clean would be a gift, such a gift to me . . . to other people too.

  “That I could be the man you deserved, the one you asked me to be. I wasn’t ready then, but I’m ready now. The man you need—I can be him. I am that guy.” Wyatt closes the distance in the warm sand so we’re only a foot or two apart.

  I’ve built a good life. A decent existence without him present. What choice did I have when he refused to get help? Letting him back in could set my world, my family’s world, on fire, especially if he can’t maintain his sobriety.

  “You going to tell me that being around me hasn’t stirred up any old feelings? ’Cause I gotta say, I don’t believe you.” He searches my face. There’s a grain of truth I don’t want him to find.

  “Memories and nostalgia aren’t a solid reason to renew a relationship that wasn’t functional.”

  “You’re boiling our problems down to the wrong pieces.” Wyatt throws up his hands.

  My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I take it out. It’s Nikki, and part of me is relieved at the interruption. I hold up a finger and walk away from him.

  “Hey, Nikki, what’s up?” I try to keep my voice calm while my insides riot.

  His proximity has disoriented me, and I can’t get my feet on firm ground. The muscled expanse of his back shifts beneath his shirt as he skips shells and stones along the still surface of the shallow ocean water. His aura tugs on me, a tie I tried to sever with time and distance. But he’s right. A thread is there, binding us, more than he knows.

  “I’m at the hospital. The school called. Haven has a high fever. Probably nothing, but I thought I should tell you,” Nikki says. “I wasn’t sure I should interrupt, but I didn’t want you to get mad at me later.”

  A cool sweat breaks out under my arms at Haven’s hospitalization. “You were right to call. I have to drop Wyatt off somewhere and then I’ll be there.”

  We say a hasty goodbye, and I tuck my phone into my pocket. “That was Nikki. She’s at the hospital. I have to go.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She doesn’t think it’s anything, but I have to go.”

  Who’s the liar now?

  “I’ll come with you.” He collects my discarded sandals.

  After I take my shoes from him, I slip them on. I wish I could stay, try to sort out my complicated, overblown feelings, but the hospital is more important. “You can’t. People will recognize you. We do not need to feed the gossip mills. I don’t want paparazzi on my doorstep. It’s why I live here. Privacy. Freedom. Neither of those exist in your world.”

  He sucks in a breath and shoves his hands in his pockets. “Ellie.” He uses the voice that makes me melt in a puddle at his feet. This time, it’s not intentional. The result is the same.

  A desire to steady myself rises, but my only support is Wyatt. Leaning on him, emotionally or physically, is a terrible idea. At a deserted beach, we could slip into chartered, but rough, waters. Too easy to drown in him again. Haven’s fever could be nothing, but I have to go.

  “I’m sorry.” I head toward the path, ignoring the clench in my gut trying to convince me to stay.

  He hesitates for a beat and then follows. Younger Wyatt wouldn’t have taken no for an answer. We’d be fighting. He’d be forcing me to tell him the truth. I’m not sure how I feel about the change.

  As we walk through the brush, he’s behind me. “You remember the MTV awards when we won best kiss?” he asks.

  “Hard to forget.”

  If I closed my eyes, I could relive it. In true Wyatt fashion, he staged an elaborate scene to garner maximum attention. Our best kiss was a shower scene, and he had them bring a portable one onto the stage. When we stripped down to skimpy bathing suits, the crowd went wild. The minute we stepped into the shower, though, the whole stage and everyone in the Hollywood Palladium disappeared. The press of his firm body against mine, the warm water rushing down our bodies, and the innate chemistry we had right from the start made everything else fade away. We loved each other so hard, so well, until we didn’t. Seeing the expressions on our faces after we kissed onstage sent cracks through my heart, and each new view of the YouTube video widened them into crevices. We were in awe, like we’d stolen the moon out of the night sky and slotted a piece of it into each other. Shiny. Lit up. Deliriously happy.

  “Why.” I take a deep breath to steady myself. “Why did you bring that up?”

  “Had it on repeat when you first left me.” He chuckles, but the sound is sad. “YouTube is horrible and wonderful sometimes. Nothing like torturing yourself with something you no longer have.”

  My steps falter. Wyatt sitting alone in our massive house reliving our relationship replaces my warmth with a colossal ache. A grief I remember. If I dig deep enough, my heartache burns—covered over, but never forgotten. Never quite healed.

  When we arrive at the bike, I pop the seat and hand him a helmet. Before I put on mine, I take him in, memorizing, savoring. This might be the last time we’re together. Tears prick at the back of my vision. He can’t see them or he’ll realize how conflicted I am. Here. Gone. I want him in both places and neither.

  “Ellie.” He holds the helmet between his hands, and he’s focused on the plastic surface. “Tomorrow or any day for the rest of this week? It’ll depend on your sister’s health, of course . . .”

  I shove my helmet on my head, hardening my resolve. He wasn’t good for me ten years ago, and I’d be a fool to let him back in, to risk what I’ve built. The sight of his clear, beautiful eyes almost stops me short. Sober, charming Wyatt is so hard to resist.

  I swing onto the bike. “I can’t.”

  He opens his mouth to say something, thinks better of it, and then gives a curt nod. He climbs on behind me, and this time he judges the distance with precision. His pelvis connects with my butt. I fight the urge to lean into the contact, savor him. I rev the engine harder than necessary, then peel out of the parking lot to deliver Wyatt to his hotel.

  Getting to Haven is all that matters. Wyatt can’t be allowed anywhere near her.

  Chapter Seven

  Ellie

  Thirteen Years Ago

  I�
��m flying, and I want to stretch out my arms in the limo to drift on the current of the wind. Whatever Isaac gave me is magic. I’m more relaxed than I’ve ever been.

  He pats my leg and grins. “Bet your late call time tomorrow seems fantastic about now.”

  I’m drifting, floating, drifting. My hands. My fingers are so long. Who painted my nails this weird purple color?

  Isaac turns to the limo driver and says something, but I can’t focus enough to catch it. The rear door opens and lights flash. Wyatt climbs in, and he drags a leggy brunette behind him.

  He’s blurry, as though the lights from the cameras smeared him. Still beautiful, though. Bright eyes, dark hair, and so many glorious muscles.

  Isaac’s arm is around me, and I lean into him. Wyatt’s brought some random woman for our night out. Guess he won’t be expecting me to thank him this time.

  “Blanca, the Spanish supermodel.” Isaac gestures toward her and passes her a glass of white wine. “This is Ellie Cooper. Remember that name. She’s incredible. Gonna set the world on fire.”

  I nod at her instead of offering my hand. Everything in the limo is hazy, softer. Wyatt’s been pissing me off. Blowing hot and cold and every temperature in between when we’re in a room together. Keeping track of his moods makes my brain hurt.

  “What the fuck did you give her?” Wyatt leans forward and shakes my knee.

  “Leave me alone, Wyatt.” I burrow deeper into Isaac’s side and slap Wyatt’s hand away.

  “Seriously, Isaac.” Anger clouds his face. A storm is brewing, though they never seem to fight . . .

  “Why do you care?” I stare at Blanca, who is sipping her wine, amusement teasing the edges of her mouth. Maybe she doesn’t speak English.

  Wyatt cracks the tequila bottle and pours three shots. He passes one to Isaac, one to Blanca, and keeps one for himself.

  “Hey.” I manage to sit forward in annoyance.

  “Not happening.” Wyatt gives me a pointed, pissed-off look. “What did you take? Pill, powder, or liquid?”