by Darcy Burke
He winced at her description but couldn’t find fault with it. He also couldn’t quite bring himself to feel guilty. He’d been honest with Alaina. “I told you I suck at relationships and that I wasn’t interested in anything long-term. I told Michelle the same thing. I can’t help it if she forgot or chose to ignore what I said.” Shit, was the same thing happening with Alaina? Was she starting to expect more from him?
He turned his neck from side to side as his senses started to sway again. He’d wondered earlier if he might be feeling something for Alaina, something he’d never felt before. Something he’d never expected.
He pulled up the drive toward the house, glad that they were almost home and he could retreat to his solitude, where he felt utterly safe and in control.
“Sometimes people can’t help the way they feel,” she said quietly.
He couldn’t quite detect the emotion behind her statement, and spending a bunch of energy worrying about it would likely put him over the edge. He pulled into the garage and shut the car off.
She opened her door and jumped out. He followed suit and met her at the back. When he pulled out their bags, she took hers from his grasp. Their fingers touched, and he felt a pang of longing. He reached for her other hand, but she turned and started toward the apartment.
He grabbed his bag and shut the trunk, hurrying to close the garage door and catch up to her. “Do you want me to carry that upstairs for you?”
“No, I’ve got it.” She paused at the door. “I hope you had fun tonight. We didn’t even do everything at the dance. I meant for us to at least take our picture.”
Was that a twinge of regret in her voice? He wanted to turn back the clock and take that picture—and use a different condom. “I did. I had an amazing time until . . . you know.”
“Until a life you never wanted flashed before your eyes? I get it.” She opened the door and stepped inside.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked. “It’s Sunday dinner, unless everybody scared you off last week.”
She turned to look at him, but her face was completely in shadow, so he couldn’t see her expression. Not that he would’ve done a very good job of interpreting it. Right now, he had no idea what she was thinking or feeling. As in so many situations, he was helplessly, frustratingly blind.
“They didn’t scare me off. I’ll think about it. Good night.” She turned, and he watched her go up. He stood in the doorway, registering the cold but not caring about it, until she’d closed and bolted the door at the top of the stairs.
He wanted to say something, to repair the damage that had been done. Okay, apparently he wasn’t completely blind. He knew she was upset. He just wasn’t certain why. Had he freaked her out with his talk of meltdowns? No, she’d said she could handle it, pretty much said she wanted to handle it.
It had to be that he wouldn’t spend the night with her. She’d gone to all of this effort to create the perfect evening, and he’d pissed all over the climactic ending.
No wonder she was mad.
He closed the door and walked over to the house. He’d make it up to her tomorrow. Right after he asked his sister how in the hell to do that.
Chapter Seventeen
ALAINA’S PHONE VIBRATED on the nightstand, waking her from a deep sleep in which she nursed a baby contentedly until she realized it was fake and that it was just a movie role. She reached for the phone and squinted at the display. Four thirteen in the morning. Crystal better have a good reason for calling at this hour.
She slid her finger across the screen. “What.”
“Sorry to bother you, but I just got a frantic phone call from the producer of the Academy Awards. They are desperate, and since he knows you, he’s begging. Jeff’s a good guy. You should do him the favor. You know how things come back around in this town.”
Yes, she did. She fell back against the pillows and closed her eyes. “The whole point of my getting out of town was to lay low. If I come back and do this, I’ll be on the red carpet and people will ask stupid questions. I’ll throat punch them, get arrested, and, well, disaster.”
“The story’s died back. And you know you can skip the red carpet entirely. Just go on stage to hand out the award. So what’s the deal? Do you just not want to leave this guy you met?”
She would’ve said yes, until last night. She’d lain awake until probably two thinking about how a relationship with Evan would work out. How could she think about a future with a guy who basically didn’t see himself as boyfriend, let alone husband material, and for whom kids were completely off the table?
“No, I could come back. Is this still best costume? I thought they got Reese Witherspoon to do it.”
“They did. This is for best picture.”
Wow. That was usually saved for legends. And she wasn’t a legend. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Would I call you at four in the morning for anything less than best picture?”
Alaina smiled. “Good point.”
“There is something else, actually. I didn’t want to interrupt your whatever last night.” Since she’d shipped Alaina’s things, she’d known about the date, but her questions about specifics had gone unanswered.
Alaina heard Crystal’s disappointment and felt bad for keeping her in the dark. “It was just a date.”
“Just a date in a Golden Globes dress, your favorite diamond earrings, and those Louboutins I covet.”
“I was trying to knock his socks off.”
“And did you?”
“Yes.” And everything else, too. She’d also scared the crap out of him with her plan to spend the night together, and while she was upset about it, she couldn’t be upset with him. He’d been clear from the start—just like he’d said—and she was the one who was trying to change the rules. “So what was the something else?”
“Isaac called me with a rumor, but his intel is pretty reliable. It sounds like Christopher Nolan’s sending you a script.”
Alaina sat up in bed, and her eyes shot open as all vestiges of drowsiness fled. “Shut up.” Nolan was her dream director. Every actor had one, but so few actually got to work with them. She’d worked with some huge names, but Nolan was the golden ring. If it was a science-fiction or fantasy script—like Inception or Interstellar—she would die.
“So I should book you a jet?”
Alaina’s pulse raced. “When’s the script arriving?”
“I don’t know. It’s just a rumor, but it came from the studio, so I’d say it’s a pretty good bet. You just might want to be here in case, you know, he wants to meet or something.”
For a brief moment, she wondered if she should stay, but why? Evan had been very clear about where he stood. “Let me know when I need to be at the airport.”
“Will do. I’ll get everything set for tomorrow. Isaac has a handful of designers on speed dial.”
Shit, the Oscars weren’t tomorrow, they were today. In like twelve or so hours. “That jet better get here fast.”
“I’ll text you with details.”
“Great. See you in a bit.” Alaina disconnected and tossed the phone on the bed.
Christopher Freaking Nolan. She squealed and kicked her feet under the covers.
This could change everything. Her decision to take a year or two off. Most importantly, the baby. And of course Evan. But she suspected there wasn’t anything there anyway. They’d had a great time the past ten or so days, and it was time to exit the bubble and step back into reality.
What was her problem? She loved her life. She’d worked her ass off to get here, and it was exactly what she wanted.
Except her reality felt different now. Incomplete. And not just because her biological clock was ticking louder than a hurricane.
Like Evan, she’d expected to be alone given her track record with guys. Finding a husband hadn’t worked out very well, which was why she was doing in vitro.
But now she’d had a glimpse of someone she could’ve spent forever with.
Too bad there was no way he would’ve felt the same.
“HEY, EVAN,” KYLE called out as Evan came down the back stairs at six for dinner. “We’re eating downstairs so we can watch the Oscars. It’s already on, and I’ve got a pasta bar set up. I’m just grabbing the garlic bread.” He wore mitts on his hands and opened the oven to pull out two foil-covered loaves.
Evan had actually wanted to avoid dinner with his family tonight, but that was hard since it was Sunday and he lived in the house. Plus, he was starving. He hadn’t eaten since breakfast, when he’d gotten Alaina’s text: I’m headed back to LA. Something came up unexpectedly—sorry. I’ll see you soon.
It had been vague, which was very unlike Alaina. It had also ruined his appetite for the rest of the day, as well as his creative mojo. He’d spent a good part of the afternoon in the gym.
“Where’s Alaina? We haven’t seen her yet,” Kyle said as he unwrapped the bread and set the already-cut pieces into a huge basket lined with a cloth.
“She’s, uh, back in LA. She had a thing.”
Kyle looked up at him, his hands stilling. “Everything okay?”
Evan shrugged. “Fine. Do you need help carrying anything down?”
“No, we got everything.” Kyle looked at him another moment, and Evan worried he was going to ask about Alaina. When he didn’t, Evan exhaled in relief. “I’m heading down, you coming?” Kyle asked.
Why not? He could grab dinner, then head back upstairs. He needed to get some work done, not think about Alaina and whether her leaving was really because something had come up or if he’d driven her away with his freak-out.
As he walked to the stairs, Sean and Tori came in the back door. It was raining, and they both peeled off their wet coats. Tori hung hers on her hook and went to Evan. “Hey, I heard Alaina left. You okay?”
Is this how it was going to be tonight? Everyone fawning all over him because Alaina had gone back home? “I’m fine, and I’d appreciate it if you and everybody else stopped acting like Alaina and I are a couple or somehow joined at the hip.”
“Aren’t you a couple?” Sean asked, joining them.
Tori cast her husband a narrow-eyed stare and whispered something Evan couldn’t hear. He didn’t want to hear it either. He wanted to grab his food and get back to the quiet solitude of his room.
Except as soon as he got downstairs and his eyes landed on the television screen, he was mesmerized. They were showing a montage of movies that had come out in the past year, including one in which Alaina had starred. Her hair was pale blonde in the clip, her face overdone with makeup. She was playing a mother with two young children, and she was struggling with some sort of problem—alcohol or drug addiction or some sort of mental illness.
He couldn’t help but think of her as a mother to a child they might have created, and for a fleeting moment, warmth filled his chest. But then he thought of what kind of father he might be, and a chill overtook him. Still, he couldn’t look away from her luminous face. Then it was gone from the screen, and everyone erupted into applause and commentary since they now knew the famous actress.
He turned and went to where Kyle had laid out the food and began to dish up his dinner.
Tori came up beside him. “Are you sure you’re okay? You seem subdued—even for you.”
“I’m just busy with work.”
She tugged on his arm so he’d look at her for a moment. Her mouth was doing that little frowny thing that wasn’t quite a frown. “Don’t be dismissive. This is important. Alaina’s important. I’ve never seen you like you were with her. You were so on—you know, engaged . . . happy.”
He knew what she meant. “Yeah, so?”
“So, did you have feelings for her?”
He should’ve expected this would come up eventually, but that would mean he understood emotion and relationships, and he really didn’t. “I liked her a lot. I liked spending time with her.” Understatement of the century, asshole. He’d loved spending time with her. But had he loved her? He honestly didn’t know.
Her brow furrowed. “Could it have been more?”
“I don’t know. Tori, I don’t . . . I don’t do that. I don’t look for connections or relationships. If I get along with someone and stuff . . . happens, well, it just happens.”
Tori picked up a pasta bowl. “And what ‘happened’ with Alaina? You guys seemed pretty close. You actually copped to dating her, for crying out loud.”
He smiled faintly. “I guess that does make her sort of unique.”
“Completely.” Tori pressed her lips together. “Is she coming back? Do you have plans? I really think you could make a go of things.”
“In what universe?” He thought about his conversation with Liam at Georgia’s. “How does a guy like me even function in her world?”
Tori flinched. “I don’t know, but you could figure it out.” She looked at him earnestly. “I wasted almost a year of my life trying to fight Fate. I didn’t think Sean and I could work at all—not with what had happened, with how we’d started out. But things changed. I changed. And what I thought was impossible wasn’t just possible, it was critically important to my happiness.” She grinned. “And sanity.”
She was talking about the funk she’d existed in as a result of Alex’s death. Or what Kyle referred to as her “spiral of doom.” Sean had saved her—or as Sara said, love had saved her. But, contrary to Internet memes, love wasn’t an answer.
“I’ll stop pummeling you with questions. I just hope you have plans, that you’ll see each other again. Things seemed too special for you both to just go your separate ways.”
Evan spooned marinara sauce onto his pasta. “I suppose.”
“Your excitement is overwhelming.” Her sarcasm provoked him to smile. “Sean has to fly to LA next week for a meeting. He’ll be there overnight. Why don’t you go with him and take Alaina out for dinner?”
Shit, how would that go? Random nobody takes mega movie star out in Hollywood. Think people would notice? Maybe she could disguise herself again. Or maybe they could just get takeout at her house. His body quickened at the thought of seeing her—physically, mentally, and yes, emotionally. He missed her, and it had only been a day. He’d never missed anyone except his family, not for more than a few hours at best.
“I’ll think about it.”
The show came back on, and the room quieted. Jon Stewart was hosting, and Evan appreciated his dry, self-deprecating wit. Maybe he’d stay and watch a little bit.
The only place to sit was on the couch on which he’d made love to Alaina. Try not to think about that. Just be in the here and now and focus on your family.
He fought the urge to laugh, as he’d never really had to work at being in the present before. It was the other stuff, like dwelling on Alaina and their “relationship,” that typically took effort.
Before he knew it, he’d watched almost the entire show, and now they were down to the last award of the night—best picture. The presenter was a surprise guest, touted as one of Hollywood’s brightest stars and an Academy Award winner herself. His gut clenched as he wondered if it could be her . . .
Then Alaina’s name was announced, and she walked onstage. She looked breathtaking in an aqua gown with a deep V-neck, a massive diamond nestled between her breasts. Her dark blonde hair was pulled back and cascaded down her spine in artful waves. She wore the same earrings she’d had on last night.
Had that only been last night? It felt like a lifetime ago.
Her toes—the nails already a different color than they’d been on their prom date—peeked from the hem of her gown and the strap of those Louboutins she’d worn. Everything about her was both familiar and foreign—she looked ethereal and utterly untouchable on the screen. The movie star was an Alaina he didn’t know, an Alaina he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. Her life was so complicated, so public. In a word: a nightmare.
The room erupted again as everyone commented on how she looked and how cool but weird it was to see her on
TV after having her as a guest. Sara turned to look at Evan. “Did you know she was going to be on?”
He shook his head. Would he have watched the show if he’d known? Would he have been able to stop himself? He had a hard time reconciling the woman on the screen with the woman he’d come to know.
Suddenly he didn’t think he could go with Sean to LA. That was her world, and it was about as far from Evan as a person could get.
Chapter Eighteen
ALAINA WALKED INTO her kitchen just as Crystal was taking something out of the fridge. “I thought you said you were bringing dinner.”
Crystal set the container on the counter and went to turn the oven on. “Yeah, well, there was a line at the restaurant you asked me to stop at, so I texted Maya, and she said she had a pasta thing in here that I could throw in the oven.”
“Great, carbs,” Alaina muttered.
Crystal snapped her a frustrated glance. “Excuse me?”
Alaina flopped down onto one of the barstools at the granite island. “Sorry, I’m just grumpy.”
“Uh-oh, what happened at the doctor?” Crystal winced. “I was going to open wine, but maybe I should go for the Patrón instead. Or maybe you can’t drink anything alcoholic?”
“Nope, bring on the tequila. The test was negative.” Alaina had gone to the fertility clinic that afternoon under heavy disguise to see if last weekend’s condom mishap had resulted in disaster. It hadn’t.
Crystal breathed out a heavy sigh. “Good news. Wine, then?”
“Actually, I think I’d rather go for a margarita. Maya made some mixer yesterday—it’s in the door of the fridge.”
Crystal retrieved the plastic pitcher. “Your personal chef is awesome.”
Yes, she was, but Alaina found herself missing Kyle’s cooking. And just about everything else to do with Ribbon Ridge.
Crystal went to the liquor cabinet to fetch the Patrón, then set about making the drinks. “Why are you grumpy, then? Unless—” she sent Alaina a sharp look “—unless you’re disappointed by the result?”
