“Well.” Win let her feet swing back onto the bathroom floor. “I’ll probably do both.”
* * *
Leo clicked his tongue as they walked into the hotel ballroom. Even the technical setup—the cameras and screens, the lights being maneuvered into place and the great wardrobe rails tucked off to the side, coils of wires and empty packaging—couldn’t hide the brilliance of the room. It was a cathedral of gold columns and a high soaring ceiling fitted with frescoes, angels and weeping women clutching round-faced cherubs. The floor was marble, and Win’s heels were loud. She took a slow, wondering circle, with Leo on her arm, his expression remote and inscrutable. She discarded several opening lines, and in the end didn’t say anything at all before the team pulled them apart for makeup and wardrobe.
They lined Win’s eyes in gold and her mouth in a deep red, and teased her hair into something more artfully disheveled: “Bedhead,” the hairstylist said, “but for a dark angel.” They stripped her out of her clothes and put her in pale, expensive underwear, spiky threads of cotton feathering over her hips, her thighs, no bra but a backless pink silk slip dress.
Anya arrived with Tomas in tow, who settled in a plush chair in the corner and began mulling over his laptop, apparently undistracted by the chaos around him. Anya came over to look at Win. “Beautiful,” she said, “but her eyeliner needs to be higher. Whitman, when the mascara goes on, blink while it’s still wet—”
Win did. It left freckled dots of mascara under her eyes, and Anya nodded, satisfied.
“We’ll do the bed shots later, put a coat on the poor girl, for god’s sake,” she said, though it wasn’t cold. Win got to sit and have a smoothie while they tested the lighting. Leo showed up in a Lanvin suit with the jacket sleeves shoved up.
“They took ages on you,” Win said, lowering her phone.
Leo made a face. “The trousers were too long, they had to sew them up.”
Win laughed. “Don’t they know your measurements?”
Leo threw himself into the chair beside her. “Apparently I look taller than I am,” he said, and bounced up out of the chair with a guilty look when Anya snapped at him about rumpling the fit of the suit. He put his hands in his pockets, sulking like a kid. “She gets to sit down.”
“She is wearing heels,” Win said. Leo gave her a flash of a smile.
Win wished he’d keep grumbling instead, making himself ridiculous. They’d trimmed back his hair from where it was getting just slightly bristly, and the dark lines of the suit brought out his bone structure, made him look feral and handsome. Win turned back to her inbox. She was very careful not to think about the conversation with Shift.
“We’re ready for you, sweethearts,” Anya said.
Leo held out his hand. They’d spent time on more than his trousers, she realized; the dark circles under his eyes were gone, hidden by concealer. It made him look younger, made Win wonder how worn down he actually was.
Anya called out instructions that were half editorial direction and half film narrative, some vague story line about two mysterious strangers meeting and falling in love. Win slouched against a pillar and Leo leaned over her, his arm braced above her head, his face tilted down to her.
“Won’t do interviews, won’t act, but you’re a professional at this,” Win said as they posed leaning up against a pillar.
“This is more fun,” Leo said. He took her hand, whirling her out as though they were about to start dancing. Win tossed her hair around a bit, kept her face turned to his and half smiled. There were people filming for a making-of video that would go up on Ci Sarà’s website. Marie was in the corner looking critical. Emil was petting a Tom Ford coat with a sneaky expression.
Anya said, “Win, could you give us some— Yes, perfect,” as Win gripped Leo’s neck with one hand and dropped backward.
Leo held her by the hips and leaned forward so she was in a dip, her hair a long dark cascade toward the ground. A couple of assistants ran over and tugged down her coat so that it fell low and bared her shoulders.
Leo’s smile was calculating. “You’re not wearing a bra,” he murmured, keeping his mouth still so Anya didn’t snap at him.
“Don’t drop me,” Win told him.
“I’m just commenting.”
“Well, concentrate,” Win said.
“You don’t need to pinch, Whitman,” Leo said. He didn’t sound unhappy, only interested, his voice low in her ear, a little rough, the way he spoke just for her. Win put her leg up, knee against his hip, and Leo smoothed his hand over the thin silk. “I’ve got you.”
They took more photos up on the roof terrace in new outfits. Win sprawled across cushions with Leo’s head in her lap, another set taken of them gazing out over the view. Marie and Anya broke off occasionally to look at the shots, but neither Win nor Leo bothered to join them. Win had seen hundreds of photos of herself with Leo, posed for shoots or on the red carpet or apparently candid paparazzi shots. Her own face looked back at her from magazines and billboards like a casual acquaintance, someone Win felt fondly toward without any real interest in getting to know. It had been a long time since a photo of her and Leo properly captured her attention—none, really, since that week in New York when Win first realized their chemistry.
Except, perhaps, one other, stuck with a magnet to Shift’s fridge in Montreal. Shift had taken it the night they introduced her to Charlie. They were posing for the camera, but the photo wasn’t a story for viewers to obsess over, just a private smile for Shift. Leo’s arm was slung over Win’s shoulders, and they both looked smug: their plan had gone well; Charlie and Shift were hitting it off. At the time it felt natural, but now whenever she saw the photo, at Shift’s house or in the back of video calls, Win was always faintly uncomfortable, her stomach dipping. There was a line of empty bottles in front of them, and Win looked tired and happy. They could have been college friends, out after an exam. It was like peeking into another life.
Downstairs, Leo put on a new shirt and jacket and straddled a motorbike in the driveway while Win pretended to run down the stairs toward him in a long, dreamy Nina Ricci gown, bracelets jangling. While Win posed leaning against the motorbike with Leo braced forward like he was about to take off, Anya and Marie engaged in a low-pitched and furious debate. “My vision!” Anya cried, and “A waste of an excellent opportunity,” Marie countered, before they went back to hissing at each other.
With her arm wrapped around his neck, Leo was at the perfect height to murmur in Win’s ear. “If your publicist gets me in trouble with my mums, you’re gonna have to work really hard to make it up to me.”
“What’s the problem?” Win asked.
Marie was adamant. “There should be a kiss.” Her eyes were gleaming, already, Win was sure, envisioning the page torn out lovingly and pasted to thousands of teenage bedroom walls or circulating endlessly online. Anya thought it would sully the “delicious sexual tension.” Leo, one arm around Win’s waist to keep her from falling, looked sleepy and uninterested.
“Okay, Marie,” Win said. “It’s fine. I don’t think we need a kiss.”
“Thank you, Whitman,” Anya said. She looked very pinched about the mouth.
Leo nodded toward the guys filming. “Are they still shooting for behind-the-scenes?”
Marie gave him an astounded, approving look. Win pushed her sunglasses up to the top of her head and met his eyes.
He nudged her backward, so she was half lying over the motorbike handlebars, and leaned down to catch her mouth, his hand cradling her hip, thumbing at the gauzy material. Win wrapped one arm around his shoulders and let the other one touch his cheek, giving herself up to him. The grip of his hand in her hair felt like an anchor, but his mouth was soft, almost unsure, lingering like he was waiting for her to tear herself away.
When they broke apart, Anya was faintly annoyed, Marie had calmed down, and the photographer looked a little heartbroken that they would not be including any photographs she may or may not have just t
aken in the final editorial.
“One more scene,” Anya said. Win was taken upstairs and dressed in strappy cutout lingerie. She draped herself across satin green covers, while Leo leaned on one corner of the four-poster bed, taking her in as if she were a prize he had long since earned.
Chapter Eight
Sparkling wine and roses, to mark the end of the shoot. Oat milk lattes in the cars on the way back, while Marie briefed them on the guests at the Chavanne party. A bowl of quinoa salad at La Réserve, bites stolen between swipes of Matthew’s brush. Then pink Bellinis as they glided arm in arm onto the Chavanne yacht, and a revolving stream of waitstaff to refill their drinks as soon as they emptied. It was only when Win and Leo set their glasses down and escaped to the dance floor that Win was able to catch a breath, without anybody pressing the next thing into her hands.
This year’s theme was Cherrybomb! and, as always, Zacharias had shown a dogged commitment to the aesthetic. Waiters with pouty red lips were dipping glacé cherries in vodka and hand-feeding them to passing guests. The upper deck had been turned into a cherry orchard complete with several full-grown trees. There were gilt-edged vending machines dispensing cans of something called Cherry Chavanne by the bar, and a mirrored wall to the dance floor was hung with pink lipsticks on gold chains. A few lip prints were already smeared across the glass. The boat was sailing up the coast to Château de Montfort, a renovated castle where the after-party would unfold. Win wished she could rest her forehead on Leo’s shoulder without looking like she was already drunk.
“This feels like the first time we’ve been alone today,” she said.
“This is a pretty liberal definition of alone.”
They were surrounded on all sides by guests and their entourages. They would need to do the rounds later. There were a few important producers here, rubbing shoulders with the pop stars and actors and European royalty, everyone taking the opportunity to shake hands and pose for photos before the night got started. Zacharias Chavanne was wearing a three-piece suit, meticulously sequined with tiny glittering cherries, sighing about how gorgeous everyone was and adjusting supermodels’ collars with pursed lips. Win’s team had gone understated, a white minidress and a silk red bomber jacket that draped over her shoulders, a few sizes too big. Versace had sent Leo a tux with Mon Chéri emblazoned across the back in fluffy pink fur. People kept reaching out to stroke the words as they passed.
“It might be as alone as we’re going to get tonight,” Win said. She took a deep breath. “You wanted to talk to me.”
Leo looked away. “I’m sorry for pushing. I know you were busy.”
“I don’t care about that,” Win said. She waited.
“I don’t think we should do this here,” Leo said.
“Do what?”
“I—” Leo faltered. “It’s just private. I don’t want to talk when there’s eighty other people in the room.”
“We can go somewhere else.” Win stepped back. “Let’s go outside. It’s quieter there.”
Leo didn’t look convinced, but he followed her all the same. Most guests were still circulating inside, and in the cherry orchard they could feel more alone than they were. Laughter filtered out through the leaves. The sunset cast them in glowing pink, and the air felt too soft, like the calm before the storm. They found a stretch of railing toward the stern of the boat and leaned over, watching the white path of waves as they cut through the water.
“I hate these parties,” Leo said. “Why don’t we just take a few selfies and leave?”
“I don’t want to miss the fireworks,” Win said, though she knew what he meant. It was a tiresome crush of false enthusiasm, the endless chorus of ohmygodhihowareyou, and only a matter of time before the coke-fueled pop stars and leering producers found them. But Win had looked forward to weathering it with Leo as they always did, exchanging amused glances over the shoulders of weeping boys, rounding up Riva and her friends, and sneaking off to one of the cabins below deck with a case of champagne, a bag of edibles, and a stolen tray of cake. Right now, Leo still wouldn’t look at her.
“Do you remember that night at the Met?” he murmured.
Win shook her head. “God, don’t.”
“That was a good party.”
He meant the night three years ago, when they’d run into each other at the Met Gala. Leo had come alone and Win had brought Adam, a comedian she was seeing at the time, but he’d wandered off to admire the exhibit and—Win suspected—smoke in the bathroom when Leo came over, friendly, to lean over the back of her chair.
“I like the outfit,” Leo had said, smiling at her. The theme was Golden Ages, and Win was draped in heavily embroidered gold fashioned to look like armor, brocade plates around her shoulders and the suggestion of a shield slung over her back. Win stood up to hug him, taking in the clean hit of Leo’s aftershave, the hint of stubble when he kissed her cheek. They were moving wordlessly away from the bright lights, where they could talk properly, when Jack Caplan, once a heartthrob and now a seedy older actor with a string of shiny twenty-year-old girlfriends, came storming over.
“Hey, Milanowski!” he called. “Milanowski! You think you can just fuck my girlfriend?”
Leo looked up, startled. Win rolled her eyes.
“Oh, come on,” she said. “Leo wouldn’t do something like that.”
“Uhhh,” Leo said. “What’s your girlfriend’s name?”
Win started to laugh despite herself, Leo grinning guiltily at her.
“You think it’s fucking funny?” Jack said, voice ugly. “You think that’s a really good joke? I’ll show you a fucking good joke—”
“I mean, this is already pretty funny,” Leo told Win, relaxed and amused as ever, which meant he missed it when Jack lunged toward him, fist raised, face dark with rage.
Win, who had been eyeing Jack with dislike, did not miss it. She moved forward on instinct and shoved him, hard and solid, one heavily jeweled ring catching in the flimsy silk of his toga-style shirt and tearing across his chest.
“That’s enough,” she snapped.
“This doesn’t have anything to do with you, princess,” Jack jeered. “Stay out of my way.” He barreled forward again, but he was wasted and stupid and Win had spent the past two years starring in a superhero franchise, working out early in the mornings and late in the evenings. She took another step and shoved Jack again, and this time he stumbled backward, flailed for a moment, and then tripped right over the edge of a mosaicked fountain, falling with a heavy splash. Silence broke around them. Jack gaped up at her before his face twisted in rage.
“You fucking bitch,” he said, and launched himself out of the fountain and toward her, at which point Leo swung smoothly in the way and punched him in the face.
There was no video (“Thank god,” Marie had said, looking pale, at the same time Emil said, “Too bad”), but the incident was widely reported and discussed, especially when a photo emerged of Jack with the first beginnings of a black eye, dazed and furious, and Win and Leo blurry in the background laughing into each other’s faces. More photos continued to surface over the next few days as Marie desperately tried to do damage control, revealing the truth of the night. They’d been so pleased with each other, high on adrenaline and their own daring, slouching through the party like they owned it, arms slung around each other. “You fucking idiot,” Win had said, smiling up at him, “can’t you keep it in your pants for, like, half an hour?” Leo had shrugged. “Didn’t know they were exclusive,” he said, and put her hand to his mouth, kissed her palm, told her she was better than a knight in shining armor. Win never remembered to find Adam again. She didn’t even think of him, spending the dregs of the gala swaying with Leo in a low-key slow dance, half messing around, half…not, with Leo’s hands on her hips, Win’s fingers hooked through his belt loops. Their mouths a breath apart.
The media was delighted. Win was a diva, she was dangerous, she’d grown up doing who knows what in the rough parts of London. She beca
me the crazy voicemail girl again—unstable, untamed—except now she’d corrupted America’s golden boy in the process. People were worried for Leo.
“This is highly embarrassing,” Marie said. “If you’d just let Leo fight him on his own, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I could have made it look like a romantic gesture.” She considered, then added reluctantly, “It’s quite an impressive black eye.”
* * *
“That was a nightmare,” Win said.
“I shouldn’t have put that picture up,” Leo said ruefully, because a week after the party, when the gossip was just starting to die down, he’d posted a photo of Win in her gold armor, looking directly at the camera, hand out like she was reaching for him, pleased and possessive, her eyes lined with black. He captioned it My hero. “Marie was so mad.”
“You have no idea.”
She didn’t tell him about the private conversation between her and Marie, at dawn on the fire escape of the hotel, hunched over their coffees. Is this something I need to worry about, Whitman? Marie wasn’t accusatory. It wasn’t her job to dictate Win’s private life, only to control how and when it was revealed to the world. Win’s no was firm.
“One day she’ll forgive me,” Leo said.
“Well, you’ve been very well behaved this trip,” Win said, and frowned when Leo winced. “Leo?”
It had gotten dark while they were standing there. Inside, a Runaways cover band had started up and were already being matched shout for shout by the crowd. The orchard was filling up with partiers eager for smoke and gossip. No one was sucking on cherries anymore—instead bottles of red liquor were being passed from group to group, tossed carelessly aside when they were empty, and Win had to lean in close to keep her focus.
“I don’t know how to say this,” Leo began.
“Leo!” a stranger yelped, not for the first time that night, but Leo swung around at the sound, and then the man was shoving himself between them, wrapping himself around Leo in a greedy hug. Leo hugged him back with startled, stilted affection.
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