The Summer of Him

by Stacy Travis

  It was torture. I wanted to reciprocate everything he was saying but I couldn’t. I had to protect my heart. I couldn’t get by on a visit to New York here and there and the occasional night out at a premiere. “Chris, I can’t be all those things you need. I get intimidated by paparazzi and fancy dresses and iced tea spoons. I’m not a superhero.”

  “You are to me.” His eyes sought mine and I had to look away.

  I shook my head. He was caught up in the moment, and it was a beautiful moment. But I had to make him see reality for what it was. If nothing else, I was good at being rational. I started to formulate my argument, gathering all the evidence of what I knew to be true—that we were lucky we’d had two weeks, that we had to be realistic, that I wanted more. That was the crux of it. I wanted more and there was no way for him to give me that.

  Except that he was talking again before I had a chance to say any of my rational words.

  “I’m not done with you. And… maybe I’ll never be done,” he said. He cupped his hand around my cheek and made sure I was looking at him. “So it occurred to me that it would be easier for me to see you as much as humanly possible if I sold my place in New York and relocated to LA.”

  “I… wait, what?” I couldn’t have heard him right. What I’d thought I heard sounded insane. My heart started racing as the blood flooded my brain. “That’s crazy. Why would you do that? You love New York.” Then I stopped looking for excuses. “You… would do that?”

  He cupped a hand around my cheek. “I think I’d love to do that.”

  I found myself at a loss for words. If I had allowed myself to dream up the exact thing I wanted Chris to say, this would be it, and I couldn’t even respond. I looked around self-consciously, wondering if we were making a scene, but no one was paying attention to us.

  Chris pulled me closer. “Are you okay with that? It would mean this isn’t just a two-week fling, or whatever you called it.”

  I started to laugh. “I think I called it vacation love.”

  “I think you did. Well, you got the love part right.” Then he kissed me, and this time, I didn’t think about holding something back in order to make it easier to get over him.

  Chris leaned toward the window seat, where the painting sat, and moved it. “Hope you don’t mind. That’s my seat.”

  “Wait, you’re really doing this? Flying to LA with me? What about your next movie and prep or whatever you said you had to do?”

  He put his hands up, as carefree as a person whose life was carefully orchestrated could possibly be. “I’m trying to push it back to November. I don’t know what this all looks like exactly. I still have all those commitments. It might take some logistics to get our schedules in sync. But I’m willing to try if you are.” He settled into the seat and extended his hand to me.

  I hadn’t let myself consider the possibility of anything beyond our two-week vacation, but now that it was staring me in the face, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. I had a feeling his assistant was going to have a busy day.

  I plunked into the seat next to him. It wasn’t lost on me how much bigger and nicer it was than the coach seat I’d just left.

  “So is that a yes?” He turned to face me and picked up my hand. He brought to his lips, then held it against his cheek. A thousand watts of light emanated from his eyes, along with the extra special sorcery that had me nodding like a zombie.

  “Oh my God, absolutely. Yes, please.”

  The flight attendant closed the curtain, shutting off the people with regular coach seats and preventing them from getting a look at what they were missing in business class. She started making preparations for departure in the small kitchen behind us, pouring champagne into real glasses and carrying them on a tray through our section. Another flight attendant came by with soft blankets and pillows.

  But I barely noticed any of that, because when Chris leaned in to kiss me, the rest of the world faded into the background. Everything that wasn’t the two of us—our lips, his hands, my skin—disappeared from view.

  At least, I wanted it to disappear.

  Unfortunately, there’s no such thing as being off the grid in Chris’s world. Our kiss was lovely, passionate, sweet. Then it was cut short by the incessant pulsing of his cellphone.

  He groaned and reluctantly pulled away from me and fished it out of his pocket. When he looked at the screen, he scowled, showing me what he saw: six missed calls from a blocked number.

  “That’s my assistant,” he said. I didn’t ask how he knew the blocked call was from her. He just knew. From the expression on his face, he didn’t seem to think she’d called six times to ask him what color file folders she should buy.

  “Give me a sec,” he said, standing up. Before he moved away, he bent down once more and completely covered my mouth with his, giving me the kind of kiss that made me drop a few IQ points and sigh his name. While I sat with a dumb grin on my face, marveling at what had just happened, he called his assistant back from a more private area in the front of the cabin.

  He wasn’t gone long, but from the look on his face, that wasn’t a sign of success. He didn’t settle back into the seat next to me. He didn’t look like the carefree Chris I’d been falling for over the past two weeks. He looked stressed. All he said was, “We have a problem.”

  THE END

  Forever with Him, Part Two in the Summer Heat Duet, will be released in August 2020.

  PREORDER Here.

  Read on for a sneak peek…

  About the Author

  Stacy Travis is an author of contemporary romance novels and romantic suspense fiction.

  Stacy lives in Los Angeles with her husband, two sons and a poorly-trained rescue dog who hoards socks.

  She loves to hear from readers so please connect with her on social media and join Stacy’s Social Club for all the newsletter goodies, including exclusive bonus content, swag giveaways, info about upcoming books, and excuses to drink margaritas.

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  stacytravis.com

  Coming in August, 2020

  Forever with Him - Book Two in the Summer Heat Series

  SNEAK PEEK

  FOREVER WITH HIM

  Chris didn’t have much time to think about missing New York before New York was beckoning with an urgent plea. He’d gotten a call an hour after I’d shown him the entirety of my one-bedroom condo—the walk-in closet, the tiny bonus room I used as a home office, the kitchen—and learned that production on a film that was supposed to start in November was starting ahead of schedule. His agent wanted to know if he was available.

  “Are you available?” I asked, wryly, expecting him to say no. He’d already spent part of the plane ride communicating with his manager to finesse the start dates of another project and committed to a second project because it would be shooting on location in LA. He still needed to do publicity for his latest White Serpent movie, but some of that would take place in LA, where he’d also do some talk shows.

  He didn’t answer right away and I could suddenly tell that everything had shifted. Gone were the sweet whispers of an hour before when Chris was telling me wanted to stay inside me forever. Reality had quashed any plans except those relating to his job. I felt a pit settle into my stomach. Here it goes, I thought.

  “Yes. I mean, no. I can always say no.” He smiled, like he could treat his career with the cavalier tone he was using, but we both knew the truth.

  “You don’t have to say no. If it’s something you want to do, you should do it.” I felt strongly about that. I’d never want him to turn down something he wanted to do, especially out of consideration for me.

  He looked torn. “I kind of want to do it.” I nodded. It would be fine, I told myself. “But if you tell me not to do it, I won’t.”

  “Oh no, that’s not how this is going to work. If we have a chance at all of being together, you need to work and be happy. I have a job. It’s not like I’ll be sitting here all day, waiting
for you in an apron. I’ve got a career to manage too.” I tried to sound like a badass, but I wasn’t sure I was pulling it off.

  I didn’t like the way he was looking at me, like he felt guilty.

  “Please. Let’s get this right at the outset,” I told him. “Go to work. Be your best self. And when you’re not at work, come be with me.”

  Chris sat on my blue denim couch and put his head in his hands. “Ugh, I hate this. You know I want to be here, right?”

  “Yes. Chris, I know.”

  “I could say I’m not available until the November date. They work around my schedule.”

  “If they could do that, wouldn’t they have kept the original date?” I still didn’t know enough about how the movie business worked to understand why they moved things around but I knew that did it for a reason.”

  “Right. It’s a co-star issue. She can’t do November and if we don’t shoot now, we wait a year.”

  “Sounds like you have your answer if you want to do this movie.”

  “But all the things I said… I still mean them. I really do want to be here. With you.”

  “I appreciate that. But we have to start things off right or we’re doomed. Let’s make it simple. You were planning on taking this role when it was shooting in November. And you don’t have anything—other than me—to keep you from doing it now.”

  “What if I’d rather hang here with you?” I went over and sat down next to him. He really seemed distraught over his choices. “Chris, that’s a lovely thing to say. And I know you mean it. But I’m not gonna let you start turning down jobs for me.”

  “So I should go to New York.”

  “You should.”

  “Will you come out?”

  “I mean… How? I have to work.”

  “Even for weekends. I can get you on whatever flights you need, so you can time it with your hours at work.” Of course I would try to make that happen. I wanted to be with him. It was worth some redeye flights and a little schedule juggling.

  “Of course. Sure I’ll come out,” I said, having no idea how I was going to do it. I knew I’d be returning to a full in-box and a lot of small fires no one had put out in my absence. The last thing I could do was take more time off. But I had to give Chris the affirmation he wanted. He seemed unable to move forward without it. “I just need to look at my calendar when I get back to work.”

  Chris looked elated. Finally the sad, guilty look was swept from, his face. All I had to do was convince him his life didn’t have to change in order to be with me.

  The reality was that his life hadn’t changed. After one night back in LA, during which we’d fallen asleep on the couch despite trying to enjoy our last few hours together, he’d flown to back to New York on a private jet.

  He’d unpacked his suitcase in his own apartment and made plans to meet the director the next day over lunch. He’d gotten coffee from a place on Thompson Street where he usually went and talked to the baristas there because he was that guy, always friendly, even though he was famous. A few people pretended to take selfies but were actually snapping pictures of him from a distance. Those pictures would end up on their Instagram feeds and soon he’d have tabloid photographers trailing behind him after getting tipped off about where he’d be.

  It was almost as if he’d never left. Almost like we’d never met.

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