CUTTING LOOSE

by Kristin Hardy

  Her stiff posture warned him to keep his distance. Her face was thinner; lines of strain made it clear that the past two weeks hadn't been any easier for her than for him. What they didn't tell him was how she felt about his being there.

  He took a deep breath. "We never finished our talk the other day."

  "I thought we said everything that needed to be said."

  He couldn't read her expression. Nerves, certainly, and wariness. "I don't think we said nearly enough. I thought maybe now we've both cooled off, we could try again." He swallowed. "I know I hurt you."

  "I'm fine," she said quickly, but he heard the ache beneath her words and knew she lied. She wasn't fine any more than he was.

  Guilt twisted at him. "I didn't plan to have it happen that way."

  Trish squeezed her eyes shut briefly, the way a person would at a body blow. "Just how exactly did you plan it to happen?"

  "I didn't plan for anything. I told you before, Trish, I care about you." He stopped, impatient with himself. "Look, I know I don't have the best record around. It's just that when you're in a movie with someone, you get caught up in the role. You've got the lighting, the costumes, the set, everything telling you that you should be falling for that person. You spend day after day convincing yourself that the emotions you're making yourself feel are real."

  "Is this the part where you tell me about Caitlyn?" she asked, her voice barely audible.

  "That's not … I'm screwing this up," he muttered. Without thinking, he reached for her hand, but she shifted away.

  "No," she said sharply, her voice stronger now. "Finish what you came here to say."

  Everything that had seemed so straightforward that afternoon was now lost in the maze of his thoughts. All he knew was that he needed her, but he had to tell her why. He had to make her understand that she wasn't just another in a line. He had to make her trust.

  Ty blew out a breath and tried again. "This whole thing with my costars, it was because I mixed up fantasy and reality."

  "The way we did working on your script."

  "No. What was between us was real. Is real," he amended. "It's not because of the script."

  "How do you know? Can you honestly say you didn't get caught up in it? I did." She blinked a little and he felt his heart clutch.

  "Yes, I got caught up in it, but that wasn't all. You mean something to me, Trish."

  "Do I really, or is it tangled up with play-acting?" she challenged. "Dark Touch, bondage … you even brought my script into it. Was that real, or was that just something to make me feel good?"

  It was a lead line out of the maze and all he could think about was grabbing it. "It wasn't just to make you feel good and you should know that." He rounded on her. "Michael is my role, and my partner Charlie is foaming at the mouth to direct the whole thing."

  Trish shook her head in confusion. "Wait a minute. I thought you were just going to show the script around. Now you're talking about actually filming? You told me you had a whole lineup of projects."

  "Yours was the right one." Confidence buoyed him. It was a way out of his action-hero box, and it was a way to tie them together. It was right. "We have an outside investor coming in with a quarter of the budget. If you're ready to sell the option, we're ready to go."

  "And the rest of the money, where does that come from?" Trish asked carefully.

  "Me." He'd expected excitement. Earlier in the day, he'd imagined their celebration. A celebration of the two of them, for the two of them. Instead, they seemed further apart than ever. And he watched the light die out in her eyes. "I thought it would be good news," he said quietly.

  "I don't know about good." Her voice was brittle. "It's certainly tidy."

  "What's tidy?"

  She tilted her head. "Oh, Jocasta gets a gallery, I get a script greenlit, Megan gets … well, I don't know what Megan got, but I'm sure it was something nice. You're very good to the women you sleep with. I don't know if you're coming after me to get to the script or if you're coming after the script to get to me. Do you?"

  "This isn't about manipulation," he countered. "I want this role, plain and simple. What's between you and me has nothing to do with that."

  "Prove it," she demanded. "You want the script, then let's do the script. Period."

  Ty blinked. "And walk away from this?"

  "You can't have it both ways, Ty. Don't you see?" Her voice trembled. "You talk about figuring out how you mix things up, but you've mixed us up, too. Between our working together and the script and whatever was between you and me, you've mixed it around until none of it's real."

  "It is real," he said heatedly, "you just won't trust it."

  "And why should I trust it?" Her voice rose. "I remember hearing you and Charlie talk. Why should I believe what you say?"

  "Because I love you."

  His whispered words hung in the air. Trish caught her breath for a moment and then her eyes flashed. "It's not that easy, Ty. You can't just throw out the words and expect them to fix things." She shot to her feet. "You want me to believe, to trust? Then give me a reason to."

  He stood. "What do you want then? Do you want me to get out of the loop, leave it all up to Charlie?"

  "Yes."

  "And what about us?"

  "What us? You want this script, then we do the script. And when that's done, if whatever you imagine you feel for me hasn't evaporated, we'll deal with that."

  He walked to the door and turned. "It's not going to evaporate, Trish."

  "I wish I had your faith," she said softly.

  He gave her a humorless smile. "Looks like I'll have to have enough faith for both of us."

  * * *

  17

  « ^

  It was extraordinary how quickly life could change, Trish thought as she looked down the table at Rebecca's to see the rest of the Supper Club. Two months before, when they'd all been at Sabrina's party, she'd been walking dogs and grocery shopping for a living. Now she was script-doctoring, fielding calls from an agent, and planning for the first preproduction meeting on her own screenplay. She'd taken a huge step toward self-liberation and a step toward living out her dreams.

  If only she could feel it.

  No one's life came together like a fairy tale, she reminded herself. So she still had to temp occasionally to pay the bills. So Amber had yet to speak to her since her resignation.

  So she still woke in the mornings longing for Ty.

  Her life was still a work in progress, but progress it was.

  As though she'd heard Trish's thoughts, Delaney raised her glass. "All right, now that we've finished toasting Sabrina and Stef and romantic engagements on Santorini, here's to Trish and her emancipation from slavery," she proclaimed. "I only wish you'd been able to get a videotape of Amber's face when you did it," she added to Trish.

  "Don't remind me," Trish said ruefully. "I still get the guilts over it."

  "Don't." Cilla's voice was emphatic. "It was the best thing you've ever done, finally standing up for yourself." She signed the charge slip for the meal and handed the black folder back to the waiter.

  "It's huge, you know," Thea agreed. "You're different. I mean, something's changed in you. Something changed in order for you to be able to do it and doing it changed something in you."

  "You're so hot when you talk like a psychiatrist, Thea," Sabrina said playfully.

  It was true, though, Trish thought. Day by day, that rusty little part inside her, the part that let her believe in herself, creaked open a little more.

  "Laugh all you want, Cilla," Thea threw back, "but you watch. Things are going to change with her."

  Cilla laughed. "I think things are changing with you, Thea. That's the first time I've seen you wear something besides black since you moved back from New York. What is that, charcoal?"

  "Oh, you complain, but you love it," Thea retorted, glancing at Cilla's op-art print shirt. "It makes me the perfect foil for you."

  "If I had your bone structure,
I could get away with wearing black and skinning my hair back, too." Cilla sighed.

  Thea gave her a judicious look. "You wouldn't, though. You love being the peacock too much."

  "Ain't it the truth," Cilla grinned. "So, is our work here done?"

  The group rose from the table and began straggling toward the door. Cilla held back to talk with Trish. "How are you doing?" she asked quietly.

  Trish sighed. "Okay, I guess. Trying not to think too much. Work helps."

  "Have you heard from Ty?"

  "No. He's keeping his word so far. He hasn't been involved in any of the initial contract talks."

  "So is that good or bad?"

  Trish gave a laugh that ended in a choke. "I'll let you know when I figure it out."

  "He's not the only man who's ever going to be interested in you," Cilla reminded her. "I mean, look how the waiter was flirting with you tonight."

  But the waiter didn't make her feel the way Ty had. She wasn't sure anyone else ever would. Out at the curb, she glanced over to see Sabrina waiting in line for the valet. "Listen, I've got to go," she said quickly.

  Cilla saw the direction of her gaze and nodded. "Yeah, you do. Good luck." She gave Trish a quick hug. "Don't worry, it'll go fine."

  Trish walked up to where Sabrina waited for her car. "Hey."

  Sabrina turned, her eyes bright with fun. "So can I tell you how much I love being where I can eavesdrop on people and actually understand what they're saying again? Although I was actually starting to pick up some Greek toward the end," she reflected.

  "You might need to go back to the islands for another few months to get fluent, huh?"

  "Maybe on our honeymoon," she agreed, the sapphire on her finger flashing under the lights.

  Where to start, Trish thought. "There's something I need to tell you." You know the cousin you told us all to avoid? Well I slept with him. Or maybe, I'm actually a closet groupie, so I did your cousin. Stop stalling and do it, she told herself. "I don't know how you'll take this but I just had an affair with your cousin."

  Sabrina blinked. "Lee?"

  Trish started to laugh and ended up coughing. "No, your other cousin."

  "Ty?" Shock spread over her features. "But how?"

  Trish shrugged. "We met at your party. He hired me to work for him."

  Sabrina clutched at her arm. "Oh God, Trish, what did he do? I'm so sorry."

  "Relax, he didn't do anything." Except steal my heart, she thought. "Anyway, I'm the one who should be sorry."

  "Why?"

  "Poaching on your family."

  Sabrina snorted. "Ty's a big boy. He can take care of himself. Although he did promise to stop going after my friends," she reflected. "Actually, he swore to me that he was off dating and sleeping around or I never would have even invited him that night. We all wondered where you disappeared to. Why didn't you tell us? You were being kind of cagey about the script stuff, now that I think about it."

  Trish winced. "I was embarrassed. I mean, you'd warned us all. Besides, he's so far out of my league it would have sounded like a joke."

  "What's that supposed to mean?" Sabrina asked with an edge to her voice. "He was lucky to have you."

  "It still wasn't smart. I'm not sorry I did it, but I can see how it would have looked to you guys."

  "Oh, come on, you know how it goes. Advice, yeah, but you've got to let your friends live their lives, and you stay around to pick up the pieces if they need you to."

  Trish hugged her and felt the sting of tears.

  "So tell me he wasn't a complete nightmare at the end. Tell me he broke it off nicely," Sabrina said, automatically taking the keys the valet handed her.

  "Well…"

  "Or at least semihumanely. What did he say?"

  "Well…" Trish said awkwardly "…he told me he loved me."

  Sabrina made an impatient noise. "God, what a jerk. The old 'I love you but…'"

  "No," Trish said in a small voice, 'just 'I love you.'"

  A beat went by. "So you're still having an affair, then. The way you sounded, it was over."

  "It is. More or less."

  Sabrina blinked and handed her keys back to the valet. "Sorry, we're going back inside," she said. "I've got to hear this whole thing from the beginning."

  * * *

  Trish stood in front of her full-length mirror and gave herself a final check. True, she wasn't as skilled as Cilla at doing blow-outs, but she'd done a respectable job, she thought, shaking her mostly smooth hair. Good enough for a meeting, anyway. It wasn't as though she was trying out for a role, it was just a preproduction meeting on her script.

  The forest-green pantsuit was a holdover from her PR days, with its short, tailored jacket and smooth trousers. It brought out her eyes and made her skin look luminous, though it hung on her more than a bit, now that she looked at it critically. She'd lost ten pounds over the previous month that showed everywhere. Time to get an appetite again, she told herself, though it was hard to care.

  Of course, if she could work instant miracles on her appearance she'd probably get rid of the dark circles that persisted under her eyes. Even today's cosmetics couldn't make them disappear entirely. It wasn't that sleep eluded her, but it was rarely restful. Thea could probably have lectured her about the anxiety dreams that dogged her. Maybe they were driven by the pressures that came with her screenwriting projects, and maybe they were manifestations of guilt over Amber.

  And maybe they were just a manifestation of missing Ty.

  Trish shook her head and left the bedroom. It wasn't as if they were going to refuse to work her script because her suit didn't fit. There was no reason to be nervous; her new agent would be there to ensure all went well. It was just a meeting with the producer and the director to discuss her responsibilities. And just because the producer happened to be Ty didn't mean she'd fall apart.

  She'd be fine.

  She repeated it to herself over and over on the drive to the office space that was GDI Films. She repeated it as she parked, as she sat in the lobby and even when the receptionist showed her to the conference room.

  "Trish!" Roberta Van Dorn might have looked and sounded like a debutante, but she was as tough as they came. She was also young and hungry, which, in her agent, suited Trish just fine. "How are you doing? You're finishing up the last of the Dark Touch work, aren't you?"

  "It's coming along." Trish set down her briefcase and took a seat. "I've got one more scene to finish today and I'm done. I'll get it over to Westhoff's offices tomorrow."

  "Great. We should also talk about—"

  A trio of people entered the room, cutting Roberta off. Trish took a deep breath. She went through the introductions almost mechanically, all her senses on the alert for Ty to walk in.

  But he didn't appear.

  Trish flushed when it came to shaking hands with Charlie. She'd only seen him from the back that day at Ty's, so his face was unfamiliar. His smile was surprisingly kind. He held her gaze for a moment. "I've heard a lot of good things about you."

  "I hope I'll live up to them," she replied.

  He grinned and turned back to the rest of the room. "Okay, people, the gang's all here. Let's figure out how to make ourselves a movie."

  Trish shot a look around the room. Ty wasn't there. At the head of the table, Charlie was handing around production notes and launching into discussion. She had to face the obvious: she wasn't going to see Ty at the meeting.

  It was only then that she admitted to herself how much she'd wanted to.

  * * *

  She sat at her desk that afternoon, staring at the screen of her laptop. The scene needed to be finished by morning because Westhoff was planning to shoot it the following night. Focus was important; she had to get this right. Somehow she kept finding herself staring into space, instead.

  Okay, so Ty never showed at the meeting. That was good, she reminded herself. He'd told her he'd keep business and whatever was between them personally separate. He was holding
to their agreement—so well, in fact, that he was apparently extricating himself from the business end, also.

  So why couldn't she feel happy about it? Trish rose and crossed the room to drop down on the sofa. For more than a week, she'd been a bundle of nerves over the idea of seeing Ty—what to wear, what to say, how to act, how to show him that she was getting along just fine without him. His absence should have been a relief.

  It had just made her miss him all the more.

  She let her head fall back against the pillows and pressed her palms against her eyes. She had to get past it. Clearly, Ty had or he'd have been in the meeting. Of course, that was no surprise with him—out of sight was out of mind. She raised her head, staring at the door. Then she saw it as though it were happening again—the look on his face that night when he'd left, the sound of his voice when he'd told her that he loved her.

  And the rusty gate inside her burst fully open and she believed.

  Oh God. Trish sucked in a long breath. She'd listened, but she'd never really heard. How could she have been so caught up in herself? How had she been so concerned about protecting herself that she'd managed to totally and completely screw everything up?

  She stood and began pacing. How insecure could she have been? He'd told her over and over that he cared, that she was different, that he wanted this. And all she'd done was throw it back at him. If he'd hurt her, she'd hurt him just as much. She'd made him fight and push until he got tired of fighting and pushing. And now he'd just gone away.

  She should have been happy that her predictions had come true. Instead, she fell back into her chair and curled up into a ball. The moments stretched out into misery.

  She stirred, finally. The script still had to be finished, whether she felt like it or not. Dragging herself back to the desk, she sat in front of her computer. It was just a few lines, just a matter of fixing the final encounter between the hero and the heroine, after he had discovered her deception, after he'd accused her of betrayal.

  In the original, it had only taken an apology for everything to be right, but Trish knew that things were never that easy. Her fingers began to type. The hero would strike out, the heroine would close down and protect herself. The hero would freeze her out.