Now a Major Motion Picture (32 page)

His fingers moved in slow circles along his throbbing temples.
For a ghost, that’s what. An illusion.
He opened his eyes and glanced through the open sliding glass door that led into his suite. Book three in Amelia’s series was resting, face-down and open, in the center of the king-size bed, its spine cracked and its pages dog-eared and worn.

Every spare minute he’d had in the past two weeks, he’d spent with the books. He read them in a fog, a haze that didn’t lift even after he devoured the last word. When he finished all three books, he started over. When he’d read them twice, he started again. Now he was almost through his third read, and still he didn’t know what to make of them.

He stared bleakly at book three, its gray cover half hidden by the tangled mass of crisp, white hotel bedding. As he studied it, his heart swelled with a discomfiting mix of confusion and pride, shame and sadness. He’d always known Amelia was brilliant. But now that the world shared this opinion, he felt…violated, almost. Like she was somehow
less his
, even though that didn’t make any sense. She wasn’t his anyway.

But then, nothing made sense when it came to Amelia’s books.

The first time he’d read them, he’d almost thought—no, he’d been sure—he could see himself in them. The main character was so much like her, the supporting character so much like him. Certain things they said, certain things they did made him think of his time with her, made him wonder if she was thinking of it, too, when she wrote it.

But as he read them again—and again—he’d convinced himself he was imagining things, reading more into the books than what was there. After all, the world she’d created bore no resemblance to the world they’d grown up in, and apart from the fact that “his” character betrayed hers, the story looked nothing like their own past. Besides, why the hell would she be writing about him? After walking in on him with Ashley, Amelia had wanted nothing more to do with him. There was no reason, all these years later, for that to have changed.

And clearly she’d moved on. He winced as the images of her and Colin—
Colinmel
, he thought with disgust of the asinine tagline the media had given them—flooded his mind again. He didn’t know what of all the Hollywood gossip he could actually believe, but he did know they were together. That news was everywhere, and why wouldn’t it be? One of Hollywood’s fastest-rising stars caught in a secret affair with the young, beautiful author of the books behind his new movie franchise. It was like a movie in and of itself.

A fucking fairy tale
, he thought, his heart heavy at the thought of her with someone else. Anyone else.

But that wasn’t fair, was it? Because he was with someone else, too. His thoughts flicked back to Erin, adding guilt to his crippling array of emotions.
She’d hate me if she knew.
He’d spent more time in Miami in the past few weeks than he had at home, and yet he’d seen nothing of the city. When the other members of his team—two assistants from his office and three guys from the Dallas-based development group—went out at night, he went back to his hotel, declining every offer to go out and have fun after the requisite meetings and business dinners ended. He was content to let the legendary South Beach nightlife swirl around him while he spent reclusive evenings in his room, reading.

He glanced inside the suite again and sighed, heaving himself out of his chair as the Technicolor sky slowly traded its brilliant reds and oranges for deeper shades of indigo and purple. He didn’t bother to save a backward glance for the action that was just swinging into life along the strip. He had all the action he could handle in the room behind him, calling out from the pages of Amelia’s books.

* * *

A couple of hours later, the shrill sound of his phone buzzing beside him on the nightstand jarred Noah awake. His hand cut a path across the cluttered tabletop, almost knocking over a glass of water in his fumbling attempt to find the phone before the ringing stopped. When his fingers finally curled around it, he snapped it up and glanced at the screen, though he knew who it would be.
Erin.
What time was it?

“Hey.” He yawned, rubbed his eyes.

“Hey back.” She sounded surprised. “You already asleep?”

“Yeah, I guess I did fall asleep.” He glanced around his suite, the lights still on, the heavy, pewter-colored draperies that framed the panoramic view still flung wide open. Guiltily, he picked up the third book in Amelia’s series from the spot where it lay, still open, on his chest and moved it onto the bed, being careful not to lose his page.

“I’m surprised you’re not out having fun. You’re in South Beach, for God’s sake. What are you doing in bed at nine-thirty?” She paused. “I think you’ve been working too hard.”

A new wave of guilt washed over him as his eyes flashed to the book. He felt an irrational, fleeting fear that she’d somehow see it through the phone line and figure out how he’d really spent his evening. He cleared his dry throat, stifling his paranoia.

“Yeah, I’m just tired. Ready to come home. I thought I’d turn in early.”

She was silent for a long moment. “I’m ready for you to come home, too. I feel like I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“That’s because you haven’t.” He hesitated. “I’m sorry.”
Geez, it feels like all I do lately is apologize
. “I’ll make it up to you though. In twenty-four hours I’ll be home. And I’m not traveling again for weeks.”

“I know.” The relief in her voice was palpable, and he felt an urgency he couldn’t quite place.
I’ve got to get it together. She’s not going to take this much longer.
He had to figure out how to make her feel secure again.

He tried to make his voice light. “How’s your day been?”

She snorted, and then launched into a story about one of her trig students who’d gotten in her face over a test grade. As she talked, his tension ebbed somewhat—she sounded like herself now. When it was his turn to talk, words poured out in a rush. He told her about the groundbreaking he’d attended that morning, the press conference that followed. He talked about the hotel, about the property and the old, abandoned condos on it that looked so sad, as if they were already resigned to their fate. Before they hung up, he gave her his flight details, and they made plans to meet the next night.

Once he’d replaced the phone on the table beside him, he got up to draw the draperies, flip off lights, brush his teeth, and undress, and then he crawled back onto the hotel bed, sliding between the sheets and ignoring his guilt as his mind shifted from Erin back to Amelia. He picked the book up from the bed and delved into the story where he’d last left it.

Liana whirled to face him, a cloud of dust swirling up around her ankles.

“Damn it, Nicholas. Leave me alone. Can’t you see that I came out here to get away from you?” She paused. “It’s bad enough that I have no choice but to be cooped up with you in the command center. Do you have to follow me out here, too?”

Nick turned away from her on the high, dusty path and looked out across the desolate landscape that once formed the Chicago skyline. He tried to imagine it from the pictures he’d seen, but he couldn’t reconcile it with the mess of dirt, debris, and human suffering spread out before them. He shifted his eyes to the lake instead. It, at least, remained unchanged.

A fierce wind blew off the water, and he stifled his desire to fold Liana into his arms, to offer what protection he could. He’d given up that right—he recognized that, at least.

“It’s cold,” he said, feeling the futility of the words. There never seemed to be enough words when he was alone with Liana. At least, the right ones escaped him.

“Go away before I say what I’m thinking,” she said, misery etched on her face as her hair blew in a moving web around her. She hugged herself to stay warm.

“Just say it.”

“No.” She turned and started to walk away from him. “We have more important things to worry about than you and me.”

He put a hand on her shoulder to stop her, desperate to keep her talking. This was the most she’d said to him in weeks. “Nothing matters to me as much as you.”

She barked a laugh. “The world is pretty much screwed then, isn’t it? If you put as much effort into this mission as you put into us.” She looked at him for the first time since he’d approached her, her expression carved from stone. “If you’re cold, why don’t you find Angela? I’m sure she can warm you up.” She spun on a heel then and trudged down the path toward the compound without looking back.

Discomfited, Noah set the book aside and reached up to flip off the lamp beside the bed, unable to shake the feeling that Amelia had directed those lines at him.

He drifted into a restless slumber, his dream a continuation of the story he’d just been immersed in. There was one difference, though: instead of the characters Amelia had invented, his subconscious mind inserted himself and Amelia in Nick and Liana’s place.

Can’t Ignore the Truth

The next night, Noah dropped onto the sofa beside Erin in relief. Her roommate was away again—Sherri had a new boyfriend and was spending her weekends in Las Colinas—so they were hanging out at Erin’s place. She tucked her legs up and curled into him, and he wondered how, these past couple of weeks, he could have forgotten how much he truly liked being with Erin.

He was happy to find that, since the last time he’d been on this sofa, the tension between them had dissipated almost to the point of nonexistence. It was as if the time apart had given them both some much-needed perspective.

Erin turned her face up toward him, and he brushed her waiting lips with his. This time, tonight, nothing would come between them, he thought. He willed himself to push any thoughts out of his head that weren’t related to Erin and right now. He’d been spending too much time thinking about someone else lately, but that was done. Over.

It was the dream that had done it. He’d woken up at 3 a.m. feeling tortured by his own subconscious. One minute, Amelia was storming away from him on a dusty, lonely road. The next minute he was alone, twisted into the sheets of a king-size hotel bed. It was an illusion, but the tears that streaked his cheeks were real—and they pissed him off, because there wasn’t any reason for them. Yes, he’d screwed things up with Amelia, royally. But he’d done it
nine years ago
. It was ridiculous that he was crying over it.

Still.

Again.

He’d thrashed his way out of bed, crammed the book into his suitcase beside the other two, and slipped back between the sheets. Then he’d tossed and turned for hours, unable to go back to sleep.

When he arrived at home, the first thing he did after picking Amos up from the kennel was shelve Amelia’s books, literally and figuratively. From that moment on, he swore, he wouldn’t obsess over their contents or their author. He had to make things right with Erin, and he knew he couldn’t do that until he put the books behind him.

He studied Erin’s eyes, which shined with a look that was half relief, half desire. This was the Erin he hoped he’d encounter tonight. He shuddered and slid his hand up the inside of her thigh. Instead of tensing up, as he feared, she answered by shifting her body onto his and kissing him. She tugged his shirt up and slipped it over his head. Within minutes they were in her room, reclaiming the spot he’d ruined with his discovery two weeks earlier.

Afterward, she snuggled against him beneath the covers. He lifted his arm and wrapped it around her, finally tasting the contentment that had eluded him for weeks. He breathed in deeply. Erin turned to look up at him, and he was shocked to see tears in her eyes.

He tightened his arms around her. “What’s wrong?” he asked, bracing himself for her answer. It wasn’t like he didn’t know. He’d done nothing but hurt her for two solid weeks. One good night was hardly going to erase the pain he’d caused.

She stared at him silently for a few seconds.

“I’m just so happy you’re back,” she whispered, and he didn’t miss the double meaning in her words. He leaned down and brushed his lips against her forehead.

“I love you.”

She smiled. “I love you, too.”

They drifted to sleep in each other’s arms.

* * *

Three and a half weeks passed in a blur. Noah’s office hours were hectic as usual, his calendar so packed with meetings and conference calls that he barely had time to fit in any actual work. That meant the only time he
could
get work done was after hours, after the phone stopped ringing and emails stopped flooding in and no one was around to make small talk or pepper him with questions.

Each night after he left the office, he was careful to keep his schedule—and his head—clear for Erin. Things were still good between them. They hadn’t talked anything out, hadn’t brought up Amelia or the books or their fight. He felt a little uneasy about the way they’d both chosen to brush it under the rug, but more than anything he was relieved by the fact that things seemed back to normal. He wasn’t about to bring up Amelia’s books himself. If Erin was okay, he was okay. He’d even managed to break his addiction to celebrity gossip. He’d stopped surfing the web for headlines about Amelia, stopped turning the contents of her books over and over in his mind.

Which just meant he wasn’t prepared for the news when it hit.

It was a Thursday night. On his way home from work, he made a spur of the moment decision to run by Target to pick up toothpaste and laundry detergent before meeting Erin at his place—she was off for fall break and was spending her whole four-day weekend with him. He slung the heavy jug of detergent onto the conveyor belt next to the box of Crest, his mind on Erin and dinner. He didn’t notice at first that the customer in front of him—a weary-looking redhead who glanced back at him as she tried to make herself heard over the toddler wailing from the front seat of the cart—was having an issue with a gift card until the cashier rushed off with the card in her hand. As Noah cast his eyes around to find another open lane, the woman glanced at him again.