“Give me something to work with,” I pleaded. “Consider this like confession and I’m your priest.”
“I’m not religious,” he shot back.
“Okay, then a therapy session,” I countered.
“Me?” Harrison pointed to himself, incredulous. “Intherapy? Why do you think I visit the puppies?”
God help anyone who tried to psychoanalyze him. Talk about a thankless job. Kind of likemyjob, at the moment. The man was being ridiculous. “Harrison, if you don’t tell me what you were doing at the courthouse that day, I’m calling Susan and Denise to ask them.”
“Don’t youdare.” Harrison let out a long sigh. “I work extremely hard to keep my personal life out of the news. All the public needs to know about me is my business, not who I’m fucking or what kind of aftershave I wear.”
I was actually curious about the aftershave, because he always smelled incredible.
“Understood,” I said quickly. “And believe me, I’m not planning to advertise anything you tell me. It’ll stay between us, unless I think it’s absolutely necessary to feed some scraps of it to the masses to keep them from digging any further. My job is to make sure we don’t encounter any surprises, so the only way we can ensure that is if you’re open with me. Honestly, the fact that you’re not telling me what happened is starting to freak me out. My brain is conjuring up all sorts of gross scenarios.”
“For fuck’s sake, Gwen, give me at least a shred of credit here,” he fumed. “It wasn’t a ‘gross scenario,’ I was signing my divorce papers!”
I’d been poised to fight back, but I clamped my mouth shut at the pain in his eyes. Had he been heartbroken by the end of his marriage? Was that why he turtled up on the topic, hiding away his emotions? And if so, wasthatwhy, when pushed on another topic—such as Scarlet Rush’s canceled event—he’d seized the opening to let himself vent?
“I don’t like failure, and putting my signature on that piece of paper was concrete proof of just that. Okay? Are you happy now?”
His paper stacking got a little more intense, like he needed to keep himself busy to avoid whatever emotions were associated with the end of his marriage. I could appreciate how staying busy was a way to redirect big feelings, but I needed him to stay with me as we navigated our next steps. His tight, furrowed expression suggested I wasn’t going to get much more backstory.
“I’m relieved,” I said gently, hoping to deescalate him. “Thank you for trusting me with that information. Now that I know, I can finish your script for the show.”
Harrison went quiet, and I wasn’t sure what to say to him.
Thankfully, Dominic appeared from the back, a welcome distraction.
“So, have you two been keeping an eye on the weather?”
Harrison looked at me and huffed out an angry breath. “I’ve been too busy. Why, what’s up?”
Dominic shuffled nervously. “Unfortunately, there’s been a change to our itinerary…”
9
GWEN
Harrison was on the phone before Dominic even finished explaining what was going on.
“We’re diverted because of weather,” he said to whoever he was calling, his voice sounding pained. “Stopping over in Philly for the night. Could you?—”
He listened quietly and nodded, rubbing his temple.
“Great. Appreciate it, Drew.”
Ah, so apparently he’d called his brother, Andrew Ashford, to tap into their network of hotels and resorts throughout the country. Dominic had told us that an unexpected thunderstorm had grounded everyone at LaGuardia, so we’d spend the night in Philadelphia, then make our way to Manhattan first thing tomorrow morning.
Harrison hung up, frowning.
“What?” I asked. “Is there a problem?”
“Other than the weather-induced monkey wrench in our down-to-the-minute plans? No, we’re totally fine,” he said.
I frowned right back at him. “Hey, give me some credit. I made sure our itinerary has some breathing room. If you’ll recall, you wanted to arrive mere hours before the show.”
“Right, because all of the extra time waiting is wasted,” he fired back at me. “And Ihatewasting time.”
