I close my eyes and let her heartbeat set the pace. For the first time in years, I don’t feel alone.
CHAPTER 10
EMMA
I wakewith my cheek stuck to Asher’s chest and one boob out of the sheet. Every part of me aches delightfully—thighs from the pounding, mouth from all the grinning, abs from laughter and orgasms, and trying not to wake the whole floor at three AM.
Asher stirs beside me, already on his phone, thumb-fighting a losing war with his email inbox. He reads a subject line aloud in a mock-announcer voice: “Revised edits for a script I haven’t even read. Big stuff, Em.” I tilt my head up, hair in my mouth, and blink.
“Do I still have eyebrows?”
He glances over, actually checks. “You look like a woodland creature. In a good way.” He grins, then sets the phone aside and pulls me up to straddle him, the mattress squeaking.
“Morning.” I nuzzle into his neck, and I’m sort of stunned by how…easy it is. No morning-after awkwardness, no existential hangover or urge to run upstate and change my name. Just warmth and the same relentless chemistry, even as our bodies complain.
Asher kisses me, slow this time, and for a second I wonder if he’s going to say something dangerous—something we’d both have to remember later, when we’re back in public, and theperformance matters again. But he just makes a dumb joke about room service and how much I snored, and I burst out laughing, clumsy and delighted. We shower in tandem, careful not to slip on the tile. I work shampoo into his scalp, and he stands there bowed and still, like he’s not used to being touched for no reason.
We don’t say the things I think, don’t talk about what it means, if it means. But when he hands me a towel and half-dries my hair with it, the gesture’s so gentle and out of character I almost cry. Even after everything, I’m still a walking bruise of nerves, wired to short-circuit at kindness.
By the time we’re dressed and presentable, most of the breakfast crowd has migrated to the hotel’s event terrace, buzzing with more urgent hangovers than mine. Industry brunches are their own kind of hell—everybody fake-wired on caffeine and cold-press, hustling their own brand of self-deprecation. As we step into the fray, I spot Lena Carson immediately.
She sits at a patio table overlooking the pool, sunglasses opaque, a little too put-together for the hour. Perched beside her is Ciaran Doyle, whose reputation for Irish charm is exceeded only by his reputation for not leaving parties until forcibly ejected. Asher and I zero in, and Lena clocks us before we even reach her. She raises one brow—just the one—and cocks her head, ferret-sly: “Morning, lovers.” I roll my eyes, but Asher leans in and gives her a European cheek-kiss, acting like he was born to the script. Ciaran doesn’t stand, but offers a hand and a lopsided smile. “Romeo and Juliet survived the night. Miracles do happen.”
Lena pulls off her sunglasses and eyes me, openly inspecting for hickeys or other evidence. “You look radiant. Is that a postcoital glow or are you just happy to see me?”
I pretend to be scandalized. “I had four hours of sleep, two of which were—” But Lena cuts in, “You should see your hair, darling. It’s positively baroque.” Asher orders coffee with three shots. I order a Bloody Mary, which—contrary to legend—does not actually cure hangovers, but at least you get your salt and vegetables. Lena sips something clear and medicinal, possibly water, possibly gin. “The reviews are in,” she says, her smile the kind that means she’s teasing but will also someday blackmail you. “People love you. A Variety stringer is convinced you two are already screwing.” Asher squeezes my thigh under the table, the only sign he gives that this is real, that the gossip is almost catching up to us. “It’s cute they think we’d be that obvious,” he deadpans. I nudge his knee. “I’m insulted. After all my training in double-agency romance, my subterfuge should be airtight.” Ciaran makes a show of tipping his chair back and stretching his long legs. “Kids, it’s too early to see this much sexual tension. Lena and I are older and wiser. We’ve retired to celibacy with dignity.”
Lena snorts, but then her eyes soften, and she actually looks at me, voice dialed down. “You hanging in there, Em?” She’s not asking about breakfast. She’s watching for the micro-tremors and all the other tells. Lena’s always been able to smell panic or heartbreak at a hundred yards. She’s the only person I ever let see it. “One festival down, four to go,” I say, then gulp my Bloody Mary. “If I can survive Texas, the rest is cake.” She leans across, voice pitched for my ear only: “Don’t get too attached, honey. This town will eat you alive if you start believing the headlines.” I feel a flash of something—gratitude, embarrassment, maybe dread. “I’m fine,” I say, and I mean it, but it comes off a little false, and she knows it. Lena holds my gaze for a count of three, then shrugs and sits back. She’s got her own brand of armor. She wraps herself in jadedness so sharp it can draw blood. Ciaran, sensing the lull, steers us back to shop talk. “You two headedback to LA after this, or straight to Paris?” I glance at Asher. In our briefing call last week, the publicist laid out the itinerary: one week in LA for printing and press, then a blitz of festivals—Paris, Hong Kong, Barcelona, and the final bloodbath at Cannes. But the publicist doesn’t have to juggle PTSD and jet lag.
“We’ll be in LA for a few days,” I lie. “I have reshoots, and Asher’s got…something.” This is what we’re supposed to say, the script for plausible deniability.
“‘Something’ is the name of my wellness podcast,” he deadpans. “It’s about mindfulness and keto.”
Ciaran cracks up, and even Lena smiles, toothy and wicked. The tension slides off the table for a minute, and we’re just four actors bullshitting by a pool, the surface of the world smooth and undisturbed. After that, the small talk takes over: who’s buying which project, who’s being courted for secrets they don’t want to give up, who slept with whom at last night’s afterparty. I pitch in where I can, but mostly I let myself melt into the rhythm, one hand always resting against Asher’s thigh, half expecting him to flinch or inch away, embarrassed by the proximity. But he doesn’t. If anything, he draws closer, knees touching, fingers tracing the seam of my jeans under the tablecloth. At some point, Lena slips her hand into her purse, pulls out an unlabeled bottle of Advil, and tosses it across the table. “Hydrate wisely, children,” she says. “There's no shame in chemical assistance.” I pop two and chase them with tomato juice. They lodge in my esophagus, ominous and promising at the same time.
The rest of the brunch is a carousel of people drifting by to say congratulations or dig for gossip. I catch the stealthy glances from the other tables—some curious, some flat-out envious—and I want to stand and shout: It’s not what it looks like. Or maybe: It’s exactly what it looks like, and finally, fuck you all for not minding your own business.
After an hour, Asher leans in and whispers, “You want to bail?” He looks like he might actually wilt if he has to smile for one more picture. I nod, and we stand together, making polite excuses. Lena catches my hand as we pass, squeezes hard. “Don’t be a stranger, Em. And call me with details as soon as you arrive back home.”
Ciaran just lifts his glass: “Godspeed. See you in Paris.” We exit out the side, cutting through the maze of bleached concrete and potted palms, pretending we’re being chased by paparazzi. Once we’re out of sight, Asher breaks character, lets his shoulders slacken, and doubles over laughing. “I think I got a contact hangover off Ciaran.” I grin, and—because I can’t help myself—press up on my toes and kiss him, right there in the corridor, public but not too public. He kisses back, no hesitation, no looking around to see if we’re being watched, and the urge to drag him somewhere private is almost overwhelming. But the smell of brunch has worked its magic: my body is demanding pancakes and Gatorade. “Food first,” I say, grabbing his hand and pulling him in the direction of the service kitchen, where the hotel staff is unloading trays of prize-winningly greasy bacon and congealing eggs. We steal a plate, hide out behind a vending machine, and devour everything in record time, trading bites and talking shit about last night’s red-carpet “rivals.” By the last bite of French toast, my stomach is full and my head oddly clear. Back in the elevator, he leans close and murmurs, “Your hair really is baroque, by the way.” “It means ‘irregular’ in French,” I say, stuffing my hair into a messy bun.
He grins. “I like irregular.”
We take the elevator to my floor, silent and racing each other with glances as the numbers tick up. By the time we hit my room, I have one hand already at his belt buckle and the other threading through his shirtfront, yanking him inside before the door’s even closed. He lets himself be dragged, barely evenpretending to fight it. The second the door snicks shut, I launch at him—in my head it’s graceful, but the reality is more like an enthusiastic leapfrog.
He catches me around the waist, grunting, and we stagger backwards, mouths joined, laughter fizzling through the heat. I bite his bottom lip, hard, and his eyes go hazy. “Did you just try to bite me?” he asks, voice gone rough. “I try to consume my prey before it consumes me,” I say, and he laughs—real, delighted, wild. This time, the sex is different. We collapse onto the unmade bed, and his mouth finds the hollow of my throat, teeth grazing skin as his hands slide beneath my hips. I arch against him, gasping when his fingers dig into my flesh, pulling me closer. He enters me with agonizing slowness, and the delicious stretch makes me cry out. My nails rake down his sweat-slicked back as he thrusts deeper, harder, his breath hot against my ear. “Look at me,” he commands, and when our eyes lock, I see everything—desire, need, possession—as he fills me completely, over and over, until I’m trembling and desperate beneath him.
For the first time, I start to believe it’s not an act. That maybe, in these stolen hours, we’re not pretending anymore—not even to ourselves. After, I rest my cheek on his stomach, tracing lazy circles on his thigh with my fingertip. “You realize Lena knows,” I say. He props himself on an elbow, smirking down at me, “She’s probably been taking bets.”
"Next time, let’s make it more confusing for her. Maybe stage a dramatic public breakup at the closing party.”
He rolls me over, pinning me lightly. “Or we could skip the breakup and just keep confusing everyone forever.” It’s a joke—almost. But it settles in my chest, sweet and slightly terrifying. I don’t admit how much I want that, how good it feels not to have to be someone else with him. We nap through the hottest part of the afternoon, blackout curtains drawn, a battlefieldof discarded clothes and room-service coffee cups littering the floor.
I wake first, skin damp and gooseflesh-puckered against the sheets, and for a moment I don’t recognize the body curled around mine. It’s a happy kind of panic, the kind that says:oh, this is mine.I’m allowed to have this.
CHAPTER 11
EMMA
