Now a Major Motion Picture (25 page)

“I’m going to pour us some wine. I’ll meet you in my room.”

That effectively ended his protest. He watched her walk away, his eyes traveling the length of her as she moved toward the kitchen and disappeared around the corner. He slid off the sofa and moved wordlessly down her apartment’s short hallway and through her bedroom to the attached bath.

Leaving it a minute later, he sauntered back into her room. It smelled like her, like the tropical-scented lotions and shampoos she liked to use. Down the hall, he heard the sound of a cork being pulled from a bottle, and then of glasses clinking together as she pulled them from the cabinet.

As he waited he wandered around her room, which was neat despite the fact that it was crammed with as much furniture as would possibly fit into the space, and very girly, with stylized floral artwork on the walls and bursts of bright pink and orange winding a thread through the décor. He’d spent so little time here that the room was almost unfamiliar to him.

He walked around the bed and flipped on the room’s one lamp, which rested on a beat-up Ikea chest of drawers Erin used as a bedside table. He shook his head at the lamp’s hot-pink, fur-trimmed shade, a smile playing at the corners of his lips.
I’ll never understand women.

He made a move toward the door to switch off the overhead light, but as he turned away from the silly lampshade, an object underneath it caught his eye. He jerked his head back toward the nightstand and moved to it without thinking. His hands automatically reached for the thick paperback book that had grabbed his attention.

On the bottom, left-hand corner of the back cover, which was facing up, was a picture of Amelia.

He sucked in a sharp breath and let it out slowly, his heart racing in his chest for an entirely different reason than it had minutes earlier.

It’s not her. It’s somebody who looks like her. It’s just a coincidence.

Still, he pulled the book toward his face to examine the photo more closely. He took another deep breath and held it this time. The woman in the photo looked exactly like Amelia. He flipped the book over in his hands and studied its cover—deep gray, with a stark, white rose on a background of stars. Across the top, bold blue letters spelled out the title, “Shattered.” And across the bottom, in lighter blue type, was the author’s name. “Mel Henry.”

Noah blew out the breath in a slow gush.
It isn’t her.

He flipped the book over once again and studied the tiny picture. God, the resemblance was uncanny. Just the sight of it twisted his gut. He peered harder at the photo, and then his eyes drifted to the paragraph beside it labeled “About the author.” It read:

Mel Henry is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of three novels. Her debut,
Shattered
, has sold more than 50 million copies, been translated into 43 languages, and is currently in production as a feature film. Henry, a former public relations executive and a graduate of Brayburn University, lives in Memphis, Tennessee.

Brayburn University!
Noah felt as if the wind had been knocked from his chest, and he struggled to catch his breath.
Mel Henry.
Everybody Amelia knew called her Mel, everybody except him. And Henry—Henry was her brother’s name. But…no! No, this couldn’t be Amelia. He stared at the photo until it didn’t make sense anymore, until the individual pixels that formed Amelia’s face blurred before his eyes.

He shook his head slowly, trying to catch his tangled thoughts up to what his eyes had already processed. It
was
Amelia, he was suddenly sure, and she hadn’t changed much since he’d last seen her. Same long, straight chestnut hair, same quiet smile, same intense hazel eyes—eyes that had haunted his dreams for years, that haunted them still.

He flipped the novel over again and noticed a bookmark inserted more than halfway through it. He stood rooted to the floor, holding the book,
Amelia’s
book, in both hands. He was dumbfounded, unsure what to do next.

The sound of Erin’s footsteps moving toward him down the hall jarred him enough that he managed to drop the book to his side and sink dazedly onto her aqua-colored quilt.
Erin
. Oh, God.

She breezed into the room, red wine swirling in the stemmed glasses she held in each hand.

“Hey, you.”

Her voice was soft. She slid onto the bed beside him, reaching out to hand him one of the glasses. He made no move to take it from her. When he finally managed to compose himself enough to speak, he gestured with his head to the book that was still in his hands.

“You’ve…read this?” His voice cracked in disbelief.

Erin glanced down at the book in surprise, not yet processing the shift in his mood. She looked back up at him, a sheepish smile on her face.

“Who hasn’t?” she asked wryly. When he didn’t respond, she continued. “I know, I know. I fell victim to the trend. My friends just kept talking about how good it wa…”

Her voice trailed off as she finally seemed to process his staggered expression. She stared at him in confusion for several seconds, and then her eyes followed his to the photo on the book’s back cover. Her eyes grew wider as realization sank in.

“Mel.” She mouthed the word, no sound escaping from her lips. “Is that…that’s not…Amelia?” Noah just stared at her, a combination of distress and disbelief clouding his expression.

She took a deep breath.

“Mel Henry is Amelia?
Your
Amelia?”

He couldn’t form the words to confirm her suspicion. He gazed after her as she scooted from the bed and plunked the wine glasses on her dresser. They clicked together with a sharp
clink
, a few drops of dark-red liquid sloshing onto the light-colored wood. She rushed out of the room and disappeared down the hallway, returning a few seconds later with a thin, rumpled magazine in her hands. She leafed through it frantically before folding back several pages and thrusting the flimsy publication in his face.

“
That’s
your Amelia?”

He looked up at her, still in shock, and slowly reached out with one hand to take the magazine from hers. His eyes roved the page she’d placed in front of him for a couple of seconds before landing on the photograph she’d intended for him to see.

It
was
his Amelia. Only she wasn’t his. This Amelia was locked in an embrace with—he peered more closely at the photo—some actor. What was his name? He couldn’t remember.

He couldn’t focus enough to read the words beneath the photo to find out.

The hand holding the magazine dropped to his side, and he lifted the book again to read the back cover. Once he’d done that, he turned it over in his hands another time, lifting the front cover and flicking past the opening pages to get to the first chapter.

His eyes drank in the words on the page.
Her
words.

He felt lost. This wasn’t real, wasn’t possible. He’d just been given way too much information to handle all at once. So it took a few minutes for him to process the fact that his girlfriend, his
very annoyed
girlfriend, was standing in front of him with her arms crossed, watching him have a moment she should never have been forced to witness.

He’d blown through about six pages when Erin’s voice finally broke into the thick layer of silence that hung over the room.

“Would you like to borrow it?” she asked dryly.

He glanced up and gave her a bleak stare. Then he blinked hard a couple of times and shook his head, reclaiming his senses.

“Oh…oh. I’m…sorry. This is…well, I don’t know what the hell this is. I’m in shock.”

She stared at him a few seconds longer, her face fully expressing the hurt, the distrust he thought he’d finally managed to erase. If she’d doubted, during their earlier conversation, that he’d gotten over his past enough to see a future with her, well, now there was probably no question in her mind that he hadn’t. He shook his head. He couldn’t win.

At least he finally knew what his sisters had been keeping from him.

Anger swelled up inside him at this thought. How could everybody—how could anybody—have kept this from him? Apparently everybody knew who Amelia was, who
his
Amelia was.

Erin spun on her heel and left the room. He watched her walk away, not sure what to do. On one hand, he knew he needed to follow, make things right, make up for his reaction just now.

On the other hand, he needed a minute to himself. He glanced back down at the copy of
US Weekly
laying by his side. He picked it up, his eyes grazing over the cover in distaste. He’d never understood the appeal of celebrity gossip magazines.

Celebrity gossip. And Amelia was part of all that? He shook his head, incredulous. He couldn’t make that fit together in his brain. What the hell had happened to her?
Well, one way to find out
, he thought wryly, flipping through the glossy pages to find the photo again. When his eyes landed on it, he pulled the magazine close to his face to study the grainy, blown-up image.

It was torture. It was definitely Amelia, and she had definitely been caught with this Colin—he finally read the caption under the picture, shaking his head in awe and disbelief when he saw the words “
New York Times
best-selling author” in print—sharing an intimate moment.

He couldn’t imagine that she was happy about this photo. But what did he know? He hadn’t seen or spoken to Amelia in years. He didn’t
know
her anymore. The thought made a pool of sadness well up inside him.

There was somebody he did know, though.

Somebody he’d just hurt.

Again.

He stood, closed the magazine, and tossed it onto Erin’s dresser. With another long glance at the cover of the book that now rested in the center of her bed, he finally willed himself to walk away from it, flipping off the light and heading down the hallway to try to somehow fix the damage he’d just done.

Brain Freeze

His expression was contrite as he walked into Erin’s living room. He joined her on the couch, where she was curled into a tight ball in the spot they’d just left. He scooted in close to her and wrapped his arms around her sulking form.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered the words, his eyes heavy with remorse. “Seeing the book was a shock. I had no idea…”

She eyed him miserably. “What’s it to you?” She shook her head in disgust. “You haven’t even seen her in years.”

He winced. She had a point.

Her eyes were piercing as she studied him. “What happened between you two, anyway? I have a right to know.”

Ouch. Now it was his turn to look miserable. It felt like her gaze could slice right through him. With a resigned sigh, he glanced up at her. He’d always figured it’d have to come out sometime.

He could barely get the words out.

“She walked in on me with another girl,” he mumbled, his eyes cast downward. “I’d been drinking.” He paused. “That was it. It was over.”

The silence between them was thick. He couldn’t look at her. Shame washed over him in a violent wave, almost as if it had just happened, as if he’d betrayed Erin, too.

After a long moment, her voice, softer now, broke the stillness.

“Wow. I never would have guessed that.” She paused for several seconds. “I figured she cheated on you.”

He exhaled in a huff and looked away, rubbing a hand across his forehead in agitation. Yeah, he’d never taken himself for a cheater, either.

“Well, that explains a few things.” She reached up and grabbed his chin, turned his face toward hers. She drew in a sharp breath and then blew it out in a long, slow gush. “Look, Noah. I don’t really know what to say to help you through this. All I know is, you’re not with her. You’re with me. You say you want to be with me. So do you? Do you really?”

She didn’t give him a chance to answer.

“Because I want to be with you. I don’t care about your past. I have my own past to deal with.”

She stared at him sadly.

“I love you. I can’t help it. I just…do.”

He stared back. Could she really forgive him for this? For tonight? For Amelia? Did it even matter if he couldn’t forgive himself?

At a loss, he pulled her back into his arms.

“I love you, too. I’m so sorry.”

* * *

Back at his place the next morning, he sank onto the sofa and dropped his head into his hands. He’d spent the night at Erin’s after all, though he couldn’t believe she’d wanted him to stay after the way he’d acted.

It almost would have been better if she hadn’t.

He tried to make up for what she’d seen, for the obvious show of feelings he’d displayed for someone else. But as he kissed her, mumbling apologies between his kisses, he felt the wall slowly slide back up between them. When they moved from the couch back into her room, he thought if she could have built an actual wall between them in her bed, she would have.

And then there was the fact that it was hard for him to act…normal…with her, knowing that the book was there in the apartment, calling out to him from the spot where she’d tossed it on her bedroom floor. What had Amelia written about? Once Erin’s breathing grew even and he was sure she was asleep beside him, it took everything in him not to sneak out of bed to find out.

The long night of sleep—or in his case, no sleep—didn’t help the situation. She made him breakfast, and they both made an effort to act like nothing had changed, but the atmosphere between them was strained. When he left, she kissed him good-bye, but it was impossible to ignore the tension that hovered in the air like a poisonous cloud. It was even harder to resist a side trip on the way home to buy the book for himself, but for reasons he couldn’t articulate, he forced himself to drive straight to his condo. For one thing, he didn’t know if he could handle reading books Amelia had written, and for another, like Erin had said, what was it to him? He had no claim over Amelia anymore. He knew she shouldn’t have one over him.