Now a Major Motion Picture (34 page)

But no, he’d been protecting himself. Being a coward.

Why am I such a coward?

He’d been scared of entering into a relationship again. Scared of committing to Erin, scared of hurting her, and scared of losing her. Now he had nothing to lose. And yet he was still scared.
Why?

He knew the answer to that, and it was what pinned him to this spot on his bed. It was what Erin had said to him just before she’d left. What she thought he needed to do.

But it was crazy, right?

How could he go to Amelia? She’d think
he
was crazy. Or worse, she’d think he was trying to edge in on her spotlight. Her life was a media circus, and she wouldn’t want him showing up in the center ring. He doubted he could get there anyway—she probably wasn’t the easiest person to contact these days. Who would he call? Her mom? Reese?
Hell, no.
He was miserable, but at least he still had some dignity. If he crawled back now to beg for her forgiveness, he’d have nothing, not even his pride.

He scrubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Nothing good could come out of chasing Amelia down—he knew that. But if he didn’t, would she keep ruining his life over and over again? If his past had kept him from making things work with Erin, how would he ever make a relationship work? Nine years had gone by, but Amelia’s impact on his life was as deep as if it all had happened yesterday, as real as if she were right there with him.

His heart ached, and he didn’t even know which source of pain was causing it. He felt numb.
I can’t deal with this.

He closed his eyes and forced his mind off the past three hours, replacing the images swirling around in his head—Amelia’s face as she stared at her ring, Erin’s eyes right before she’d said good-bye—with soothing ones of site plans, finish schedules, and steel-and-glass buildings. He could already feel the familiar, enticing pull of his work sucking him back in, like a beacon drawing him home. Thank God he still had his job—neither Erin nor Amelia could take that from him.

The next morning, he’d be throwing himself back into it with a vengeance.

Living the Dream

Amelia, January

Amelia did her best to position her menu at exactly the right angle to shield her face from the small crowd forming on the sidewalk, just beyond the vine-laced fence that separated the café’s terrace from the outside world.

Why was it again that she’d let Colin convince her to sit outside?

Oh, yeah. Because it was such a nice day, unseasonably warm for January, even for L.A.

And because they refused to live in fear of the paparazzi, the public’s prying eyes.

That second part wasn’t Amelia’s idea, but she was trying desperately to be okay with it. To pretend she wasn’t just pretending to be okay with it, for Colin’s sake.

She peered over her menu to steal a glimpse at him, his sandy-blond hair glinting where the sun’s rays caught it, his crystal eyes focused on his own menu, which he held at a normal level, oblivious to the commotion their presence was sparking in every direction.

He caught her looking at him and flashed a wide grin—his famous one, the one that reached his eyes, crinkling their corners and, impossibly, making the clear blue of them shine even brighter.

“What are you having?” he asked, and the normalcy of the question brought her back down to earth. She really needed to get better at this. They’d been dating nearly seven months, more than half of that time publicly.
You’d think I’d be used to it by now.
She forced herself to ignore the eyes she could feel boring into them, the whispers that accompanied the stares. She smiled back at Colin automatically, her stomach quivering at the intensity of his gaze. He had this unnerving way of making her feel like she was the only other person in the world, quite a feat when they were out in the open like this.

“Not sure yet.” She turned her eyes back to her menu and focused on it for the first time.

Colin glanced around, finally registering her agitation. He shot her a sympathetic look. “Ahh,” he said under his breath. “Your adoring public is here.”

She smirked at him. “Right.
My
public.” She shook her head.

He grinned again, enjoying this. “Yeah.
Your
public. Dying to catch a glimpse of
you
, their favorite beautiful, brilliant—did I mention beautiful?—world-famous author.”

The usual flush flooded her cheeks, and she reached down and pulled her thick linen napkin from her lap and playfully tossed it across the table at him.

“Shut up. You’re so full of it.”

His eyes widened in mock innocence. Then suddenly, his expression changed as he leaned forward in his chair. A shiver raced down Amelia’s spine as he slid his hand up her thigh under the table to replace the napkin in her lap. He straightened back up quickly and winked at her before turning his eyes back to his menu.

Her face still flaming, she glanced around to make sure no one had noticed. Colin didn’t look up, but she saw him shake his head, his lips twitching at the corners. She ducked her head back into her menu to hide her smile.

She had to admit, it was nice to be here with him, even if it did come with all this unwelcome attention. Not counting this trip, she’d seen him only twice since he’d visited her in October: once in Austin, before filming there wrapped and moved to L.A., and again just outside Vancouver, on the set of an indie flick Colin was starring in. Both times the paparazzi had descended on them like birds of prey.

Colin had tried to arrange other rendezvous, but Amelia had been as unavailable as he was. She’d spent the past eleven weeks immersed in
Shattered
, struggling to produce a draft of the fourth book worthy of handing over to her editor. It had been a torturous process. She’d reworked no less than half the manuscript before finally clicking “Send” mere hours before her deadline.

And now she was free, and so was Colin, and she was here, visiting him in L.A. for the first time. It was surreal, even knowing what to expect.

In their many months of late-night phone conversations, he’d described in detail his house, his friends, his life in the Hollywood Hills—but hearing about it and seeing it were two very different things. Colin’s house, which he’d described humbly as “a bachelor pad,” was the most extravagant bachelor pad she imagined could exist.

She’d taken a cab from LAX to his house three days earlier. Attempting to disguise herself from the paparazzi, she dressed in jeans and a hoodie and pulled her hair back into a ponytail that ran through the band of a Cubs hat she kept low around her eyes. She didn’t go so far as to don sunglasses—she thought that would be too obvious, but it didn’t matter, because people stared at her anyway. She turned away from every curious glance and kept her head down as much as possible, and then she raced through baggage claim and found the driver Colin had sent for her—who held a sign that read “Allie Spencer,” the code name they’d agreed on—with a sigh of relief. As the car wound higher and higher up the winding roads of Laurel Canyon, her eyes widened as she drank in the view, then all but bugged out of their sockets when the driver approached the elaborate metal gate at the foot of Colin’s drive. He buzzed them in at once, and the gate swung slowly open.

The lengthy driveway curved around beautifully maintained clusters of shrubs and gently waving palm trees. When Amelia caught her first glimpse of the Mediterranean Revival mansion, her breath caught in her throat. Its stone-and-stucco façade included three wings that she could see. At the main entrance, a circular drive led to a pair of shapely staircases that curved up to an elaborately carved portico. Her eyes darted nervously in all directions, taking in the octagonal cupola at one end of the sprawling structure, glass on all sides delivering what she imagined must be a breathtaking view of the Southern California landscape. Near the other end was a rounded extension that could only be described as a turret.
A turret
, she breathed inwardly.
This isn’t a house—it’s a palace.
The thought nearly overwhelmed her. How could her life in any way include this? How could anyone’s?

Colin gave her the grand tour, which took about twelve times longer than the tour she’d given him of her tiny house a few months earlier. A neutral color palette carried through from room to room, bursts of color popping from skillfully placed accessories and a breathtaking collection of original art. His designer was very talented, she thought cynically. After the first few rooms, she found herself staring at Colin more than the house, feeling suddenly like she barely knew him.

But at the end of it, he’d turned to her with a shrug, and the sheepish grin on his face had made her laugh. That was the Colin she knew. And it
was
sort of funny, she thought. He lived here, and he seemed as much a fish out of water as she felt.

She’d been shocked to find the vast house empty except for the two of them, no staff members running around, no caretakers, no assistant, nobody at all. He’d given his entire staff a vacation during her visit. She felt an extreme sense of relief at that announcement, though it was tempered with incredulity.
His staff.
So hard to absorb.

And now here they were, out having lunch together as any two people would in their situation, only they weren’t just
any
two people, and this was lunch in a fish bowl.

Colin had managed to convince her they should just go out, have fun, let him show her the things he liked about living in L.A. Sure, the press would know she was here, but his house was way more insulated than hers had been, and it wasn’t like their relationship was a secret anymore. She was going as his date to the Screen Actors Guild Awards the next night anyway, so they couldn’t take her preferred route and hide out.

Besides, she was tired of hiding out. She’d been shutting herself off from the outside world for weeks—it was the lesser of two evils. She despised the constant self-consciousness she felt when she was out in public now. People were so brash, so
rude
when it came to celebrity. Everybody around her either wanted a piece of her or they wanted to critique her. It was as if the minute her face had graced the cover of a tabloid she’d relinquished all rights to a normal life, to privacy, to a bad hair day.

The hardest part of it was that the celebrity wasn’t even hers—at least, not all of it. She and Colin were both being accused in the press of piggybacking off each other’s fame. Him, to finally land a major movie deal and break out of the small screen roles that had made him famous. Her, to sell more books and build her movie franchise. It couldn’t be further from the truth, for her at least. From her standpoint, added fame was the price she paid to be with Colin, not its benefit.

At that thought, a loud whisper reached her from the sidewalk, and the tips of her ears went up in flames.

“Ohmigawd! Emily, look—it’s Colinmel.”

She cringed, involuntarily straining to hear the camera’s click. No. Hell no, she didn’t want to be famous. Fame was the biggest complication in her life right now, bigger than the writer’s block that had plagued the end of her series, bigger than the fact that she and Colin never saw each other. Bigger, even, than the emotional mess she’d been since Ashley Howell had crashed her web conference and rocked her world.

At that thought, Amelia’s stomach muscles clenched. The fire spread from her earlobes to her cheeks as she imagined Noah looking at the tabloid covers, maybe even reading the things people were writing about her. What did he think about her life now? Was he amused? Bothered? Happy for her? Her nervousness and fear were even worse now that they were mingled with guilt and shame.

“Just ignore them.”

Amelia glanced up in surprise. “Huh?”

“There’s nothing we can do about it. Just ignore them. You’ll be so much happier that way.” Colin’s voice was a low murmur, his eyes intent on her face.

She raised her eyebrows, surprised he’d even noticed the two teenagers who were still goggling at them from the sidewalk. “Oh, yeah. I know. They’re not bothering me,” she hedged. “I was…thinking about something else.”

His brow furrowed. “What, the book? There’s nothing you can do about that right now either, you know. It’s out of your hands.”

She smiled weakly. “Yeah, I know.”

“I’m sure it’s better than you think it is, anyway. You’re always too hard on yourself.”

And he was too easy on her. Amelia shook her head. He’d let her off the hook—but that only added to her guilt. Colin knew she’d been struggling with the book, but what he didn’t know was why. He didn’t know that in the last three months, not a single day had passed that she hadn’t thought about a man who wasn’t him. Of course, the book was the
reason
for that, but it went beyond that now. Noah no longer felt distant, like a ghost from the past. His presence in her life was real, and it tormented her.

All of it, everything, had been her fault. All the agony, all the years without him. All for nothing.
He didn’t do it!

He didn’t sleep with Ashley. And he didn’t even know it—she was sure of that. If Noah had suspected what Ashley had done to him, he never would have let her walk away. No, he’d blamed himself for what had happened.

Amelia remembered how he’d looked the last time she’d seen him.
Like he was being tortured.
She’d been the one administering the torture. She’d never seen it that way before, but then, she’d always thought of herself as the victim in the situation.

And Noah—
oh, God, Noah
—was the victim all along.

She hoped with all her heart that he was happy now. In her loneliest moments in the last few months—the times she and Colin were too busy even to talk to one another, let alone make plans to see each other—she’d fought a deep, insistent urge to seek Noah out. Shouldn’t he know what had really happened with Ashley? But how could she tell him that? How could she confront him at all? He’d think she was mental. Not only had nine years passed, but he’d moved on. She remembered Brooke’s words from the night of Reese’s wedding:
“I saw Noah a couple months ago. He had a girl with him.”