Starstruck

by Rachel Schurig

  “That will be nice.”

  His voice had changed, no longer as happy or eager as it had been. I remembered how he wasn’t looking forward to his evening plans.

  “How late will dinner last?” I asked. “Might you go out with friends after? So the night’s not a total waste.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.” He looked at me from the corner of his eye. “What are you going to do? Besides FaceTime with a four-month-old?”

  “Well, since I don’t really know anyone in this city, I’ll probably hang out at the hotel.”

  “Hmm.”

  I had thought he might invite me out, and there was that disappointed feeling again. What was wrong with me? When we had discussed this trip, my one demand was that things remained professional between us. Jackson seemed to have absolutely no problem with this—I was the one who couldn’t seem to keep it together.

  Being in L.A. probably reminds him of how much better he could do, I thought, feeling bitter.

  I spent the rest of the evening in the hotel, eating an early dinner with Sonja down at the hotel restaurant before she went up to call her husband and I went to my room to wait for Carla’s call. It never came. I avoided calling her for a half hour, not wanting to interrupt if she was rocking the baby. When I couldn’t stand it anymore, I dialed the house line. My mother answered.

  “Hi, Mama. How’s it going?”

  “Sofie! How are you? How’s L.A?”

  “I’m fine, Mama. L.A. is hot. And very busy. How’s my girl?”

  “She’s fine. Sleeping now.”

  I felt a hot swell of disappointment. I glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was only eight thirty at home. She usually took a nap in the early evening and then stayed up until nine or so. In the background I heard Carla. “Is that Sofie?”

  “Here’s your sister,” Mom said and then Carla was on the line.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I fell asleep rocking her! I didn’t realize I was so tired.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, even though I didn’t feel okay. I had been looking forward to that call all day. “I’ll be seeing her tomorrow, anyhow.”

  “It’s completely my fault,” Carla was babbling now, the way she did whenever she was overly anxious or excited about something. “I forgot how tiring newborns can be, you know? And she missed her late nap and—”

  “She missed her nap? Why? Is everything okay?”

  “She’s fine, Sofie. I promise. She was just a little fussy today, that’s all. Got herself overly tired, and you know babies never sleep like they should when they’re overly tired.”

  My chest clenched. She was fussy. And I wasn’t there to take care of her. Oh God. I didn’t think I could do this.

  “Don’t you go worrying,” Carla was saying firmly. “I mean it, Sof. She’s fine.”

  “Okay,” I said, and I could hear how small my voice sounded. “I should get going. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Please don’t worry,” Carla urged. “Everything is fine. I promise.”

  But I was barely listening. All I could think about was that my daughter had a rough day and I wasn’t there. Maybe she’d had a rough day because I wasn’t there. Maybe she could sense that something was different. Maybe she missed me.

  Feeling like absolute crap, I pulled on my pajamas and found a small bottle of wine in the mini bar before climbing onto the couch. Huddled under a blanket, swilling wine directly from the bottle, I flipped through the channels, hoping to find something to distract me.

  I wanted to call Lizzie. But it would be the middle of the night in London, and if I woke her up to complain about how hard being away from home was, she would never rest until she convinced me to give up this crazy idea of working for Jackson.

  I paused in my channel flipping on Bravo. “Yes,” I said, smiling for the first time since calling home. The Real Housewives was my very favorite guilty pleasure. Lizzie absolutely hated it, along with most other reality TV shows, but I didn’t care. It was escapism at its very best, and I couldn’t get enough.

  Two hours, and two small bottles of wine, later, I was finally starting to feel better. Nothing like a Real Housewives marathon to help you forget your troubles. I still wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing accepting this job, but it wasn’t a decision I felt capable of making at the moment. It was better to just try to keep my mind off of—

  There was a knock on my door. I threw the blanket off my lap and headed over to the peephole, thinking I would see Sonja on the other side.

  “Sofie?” Jackson called softly. “You in there?”

  I threw the door open, surprised to see him. “Jackson!”

  “Hey.”

  He looked ridiculously good. Like, ridiculous. He was dressed for dinner in a slim-fitting suit, similar to the one he had worn to Thomas and Lizzie’s wedding, but this time, he had lost the tie and his top two buttons were open, leaving his neck exposed. I remembered the night of the wedding, the way the fabric of his suit had felt beneath my fingers as he pressed his lips against mine—

  “Are you okay?”

  I shook my head, desperate to displace the image. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t expecting… How was dinner?”

  “Every bit as boring as I thought it would be. I got the hell out of there as soon as I could.”

  “I thought you would go out.”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t really feel like it.” His gaze trailed over my shoulder to the room behind me. “I thought I would see what you were up to. You mentioned not knowing anyone in town, and I felt kind of shitty leaving you alone like this…”

  “I’m being pretty lame, to tell the truth. Watching crap TV and drinking bad wine from the minibar.”

  He laughed. “That actually sounds kind of nice. Not lame at all.”

  I searched his face, trying to determine if he was serious or just being nice to me.

  “Do you want to come in?” I finally asked.

  “Yeah?”

  I stepped aside so he could enter the room. “Be my guest.”

  Jackson’s eyes scanned the room, my little nest of pillows and blankets on the couch, the empty bottles of wine, the television blasting an argument between two of the housewives.

  He paused momentarily, a curious look on his face, before he moved to stand in front of the TV. One of the wives had grabbed another’s hair—there was a tremendous amount of shouting, most of it bleeped out. “What is this?” he asked, eyes glued to the screen.

  “Um, it’s stupid really. I was just…you know, flipping around.”

  But he didn’t seem to hear me. He sank down onto the couch without looking away from the drama. “Did that one just rip off the blonde one’s necklace?”

  “Um, yeah. That’s Stef. She does stuff like that.”

  Finally, he looked up at me. “You watch this show?”

  What the hell. There was no point being embarrassed about it. “Yeah.” I plopped onto the other end of the couch, pulling my blanket over my knees. “It’s a guilty pleasure.”

  “What is it?”

  “The Real Housewives. Haven’t you heard of it?”

  He shook his head, slipping his shoes off, eyes still on the TV. “These are housewives? What’s that one’s deal?”

  I squinted at the screen. “She’s pissed because the other one, the blonde one, didn’t invite her to a benefit.”

  “She should be pissed because her hair looks like a rat’s nest.”

  I snorted, very inelegantly, but Jackson merely grinned at me. “I mean, right?”

  “She does have bad hair. And she’s not even the worst one.”

  “Who’s that one? How are these women housewives?”

  I briefly explained the premise of the show and the various characters. He seemed much too interested in it for a guy who could be spending his evening in any one of the hottest clubs in the city.

  When he pulled the other end of my blanket up around his knees, I raised my eyebrows. “You want to watch this?”
>
  “Sure,” he said easily. “It looks fun.” He must have caught sight of my face. “Why?”

  “It’s just… I don’t know. This is pretty trashy. I thought you would be…you know. Too cool for this kind of thing.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Sofie, if Hollywood is anything, it’s trashy.” He nodded at the screen. “Dueling housewives sounds kind of entertaining, to tell you the truth.” His face clouded, as if uncertain. “I mean, unless you don’t like it—”

  “No, I freaking love this show.” He laughed, and I relaxed into the cushions, telling myself to stop worrying about what he thought of things and just take him at his word. If an international movie star wanted to watch crap reality shows with me, who was I to complain?

  “You hungry?” he asked, reaching for the phone. “Dinner was one of those bullshit raw bars. I ate about three bites of a plain green salad. I could totally murder a burger or something.”

  “A burger?” I asked. “I thought you were doing Paleo?”

  He made a face. “I’ll go back to my diet tomorrow.”

  So he ordered burgers and fries and some cheesecake for dessert, as well as beers for both of us. And we sat on the couch and watched Real Housewives for the next three hours, laughing at the drama, snarking on the clothes and the hair. Jackson, it turned out, was fantastic at snark. And he giggled—legit giggled like a little girl—at all of my snide comments.

  It was the most fun I’d had in ages.

  Much later, once the food was gone and Bravo had finally stopped airing the marathon, I reached for the remote to turn off the TV. I was sleepy, and we had two meetings early tomorrow before our flight. “We should probably both get some sleep,” I said, but neither of us moved from the couch.

  “That was fun,” Jackson said. I looked over at him, sitting cross-legged on the couch, his jacket long since abandoned, his fancy dress shirt untucked. He looked completely comfortable and at ease. And completely gorgeous, too. There was something incredibly appealing about a relaxed, casual Jackson Coles.

  “It was.”

  “Just what I needed,” he added. “Thanks, Sofie.”

  “Hey, I can provide crap TV anytime.”

  He looked delighted with the idea. With the TV off, it was dim in the room, the only light coming from the lamp on the nightstand, just enough to see the glint from his perfect, white teeth. His eyes looked darker without the sun shining on them, and I swallowed, remembering the last time we had been in a dimly lit room together.

  Maybe Jackson remembered, too. Or maybe I was reading way too much into things. Either way, he leaned back, further from me, and cleared his throat. “So,” he said, his voice businesslike. “How do you think the weekend went?”

  “It was…good. Busy. Kind of exciting.”

  He nodded, not watching me. He looked anxious. “Do you… Do you think this is something you want to do? This job?”

  I played with the edge of the blanket, thinking about the missed call with Beth and how terrible I had felt afterward. “I was having some doubts about it,” I admitted. “I… I really miss Beth. I don’t know if I can handle leaving her again.”

  He frowned, still not looking at me. “I meant what I said—about you bringing her along next time. Besides, there are only two more trips during the time I’ll be in Detroit.”

  “How am I supposed to find a nanny who’s willing to travel?” I asked. I shook my head, thinking of the long hours of the last few days. And he wasn’t even shooting yet. “Not to mention the weird hours you’ll have on the set.”

  “You don’t have to be on the set the whole time,” he said. “And there’s plenty of stuff you can do from home. Emails and phone calls and stuff.”

  “I just don’t know, Jackson.”

  He was quiet for a minute. Finally, he cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, his voice was low. “Sofie, do you have any idea what my life is like?”

  I stared at him. I had expected him to say something to try to talk me into it. “Um… not really.”

  He stared at the blanket in his lap. “I’m lonely, Sofie. I’m lonely as hell.”

  His voice was raw and honest, and it made my stomach clench. “Jackson—”

  “I feel better when you’re around. Maybe you don’t want to hear that, maybe it’s not professional enough.” He finally looked up at me, and my stomach clenched harder at the look in his eyes. “But it’s true. I think you can really help me.”

  I swallowed, my throat dry. “Why?”

  He gestured around at the room, at the mess of dishes and the now blank TV. “Because you’ll sit around and watch awful reality shows with me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’re real with me. Just about everyone else in my life kisses my ass. Everyone else in my life wants something from me. You… You’re just you. You tease me, and you hang out at the pool with me, and you…you…” His gaze dropped down to my lips and my stomach swooped.

  I’m not sure who moved first—who am I kidding, it was totally me—but the next thing I knew, I was in his arms, his mouth against mine, his lips insistent.

  It had been ages since Jackson had kissed me at the wedding, the last kiss I’d had in all this time. And it had been months since I had thought of myself as anything other than Beth’s mom. But Jackson was kissing me, pulling me close, holding my face like he wanted me. Like he thought I was beautiful. I felt beautiful in his arms. When I first met him at the wedding, I had assumed that spending time with him would make me feel inadequate. That there was no way I could compete with the intensity of his beauty. But in his arms, I never felt that way. I felt like I was worthy of him. Like I belonged with him—

  But then, he was pulling away, breathing hard, shaking his head. “What?” I asked, feeling slightly dizzy out of his grasp. “Did I—what’s wrong?”

  He gently lifted my arms, sliding several inches away from me on the couch. “We can’t.”

  “Oh.” Hot shame and disappointment filled my body. How had I been so stupid? I was here working for him. What did I think I was doing, sticking my tongue down his throat? He probably just felt bad for me. He could have any—

  “Sofie,” he said firmly, reaching forward to cup my face between both of his hands, making me look up at him, and even in the shame of the moment, I couldn’t help but shiver at his touch, at the strength in his hands, at the way he made me feel like he was cradling something precious.

  “Where your mind is right now,” he said, his voice low, “just stop, okay?”

  “Wh... What do you mean?”

  “Stop doubting yourself. Stop feeling bad. Stop being embarrassed.” I tried to look away, but he kept his hands firmly on my jaw, bending a little to meet my eyes. “Sofie, I want you.”

  His words were so plain, so sincere. My face colored again, but for a different reason this time. He wanted me. I hadn’t just imagined it.

  “Then…why?”

  “Because if I kept kissing you, it would have been too hard to stop.”

  I swallowed, an image of what it would have been like to not stop flashing through my head. “Why would we need to stop?”

  “Because if we… If we did what I want to do tonight, there’s no way in hell you’ll take this job. I know you won’t.”

  The job. Shit. The job I was supposed to be taking to make things better for Beth. And instead, I had screwed it all up.

  “Listen to me,” he pleaded. “I can’t pretend I don’t have feelings for you, okay? I can’t pretend like I wouldn’t have loved to take you over to that bed and…” He broke off, his breathing slightly ragged, and shook his head. “You matter to me. I want you to take this job because I like having you around. I think you’ll make me better at what I do. And I want you to take this job because I think it will be good. For you and for Beth.”

  I nodded, feeling close to tears. I had no idea what to do.

  “You can hire a good nanny, Sofie. You’ll have the money to do that. You’ll get s
ome great experiences for a few months and then…you can decide what you want to do after that.” I noticed that he didn’t say I would be moving on to a different job, but he continued before I could call him on it. “Whatever happens, Sofie, it will be better for you and better for Beth than working in that damn office.”

  He released my face, and I felt the loss like a blow. “I will not be the reason you stay stuck in that situation.” His voice was firm, and I wondered who he was trying to convince. Then he smiled grimly. “And I guess I just proved that I have the self-control to keep from fouling this up.”

  “More self-control than me,” I muttered, and he chuckled softly.

  “It won’t ever happen again, Sofie,” he assured me, and I felt like crying. Because I knew he was right, knew that this job was the best opportunity for me and my daughter. I knew that I needed to make my decision based on her alone, what was best for her.

  But I also knew that I didn’t want it to never happen again.

  “Say you’ll take the job,” he pleaded. “Say you’ll take it, Sofie.”

  I made the mistake of looking up at him in that moment. His expression was so obviously pleading, his eyes almost desperate. How could I deny him? How could I deny him anything?

  “Okay,” I whispered, unable to give any other answer. “I’ll do it.”

  Chapter Eight

  I had two weeks to get things together before Jackson came back to town. He had gone home to London to finish the promotional tour for his latest movie and complete a few post-production voice-overs for the Darkness film that had just wrapped. And then he would be back. Moving into the condo in Royal Oak. Where I would see him pretty much every day.

  It was impossible to get the kiss out of my mind. Just like it had been impossible to get the kisses after the wedding out of my mind. I tried to throw myself into the nanny search, needing the distraction, thinking if I could focus on Beth, I could forget my inappropriate libido.

  But my nanny search ended up making things much worse. Because my mother was pissed.

  I supposed heartbroken might have been a better word. She actually cried when I told her what I was doing. “Did I do such a terrible job with you,” she whimpered, “to make you not trust me with your daughter?”