I want to erase his doubt. I want to smooth the pain of the breakup and the creative fear and wait with him while he finds his confidence again. ‘When your rebound relationship with the actress imploded, you let it take the screenplay down with it …’
My voice drops now, as if I’m afraid to suggest the next part. ‘And if you give up now, you won’t be tested. You’ll always be the screenwriter who was nominated for an Oscar. You’ll never know what proportion of the accolades were Lucinda’s and which were yours.’
He stares at me, dark eyes flashing, the room charged with a heady mix of shock and daring and truth and resistance … and a tsunami of sexual tension, at least from where I am standing, watching Beau Davenport crack open.
He is all raw intensity—looking as likely to sweep out of the room as he is to sweep me into his arms. And suddenly, if it’s going to be the latter, I need him to know about more than just my messy grief story and the failed music career. I need him to know how low it all pushed me and what I lost because of my actions.
He’s scanning my face as all of this plays across my brain.Or is he mapping it ahead of kissing me?Yes, now he’s taking a step closer, dark eyes devouring me as he reaches for my hand. I don’t think I’ve ever wanted anything, oranyone, more.
‘Beau, wait,’ I whisper, letting go and putting my hand on his chest as he leans towards me. If this isn’t going to be just some random event, if there’s even the smallest possibility it could head somewhere deeper, I need him to hear exactly how far I fell. ‘I’m an alcoholic,’ I stammer into the charged air between us, entirely out of context, killing what was left of the mood. ‘That is, I have alcohol use disorder. You’re not meant to say “alcoholic” these days—too stigmatising. You’re meant to use person-first language—’Getting off track, Audrey!
I take a breath and refocus on him. ‘Eight hundred and fifty-two days sober. I lost Fraser’s child from my life because of it. She’s here, actually, at a music school. I’m not supposed to see her without her mother present. And the reason I know this is because Fraser’s brother—my original muse and vice versa, who is meant to be in New York and who was involved in the plagiarism case—was here, in this room, half an hour ago, before I kicked him out of my life again—’
The admissions gush out of me, one after another, as if my subconscious mind is attempting to lope several steps closer to Beau via the exposing of every single secret in one massive information dump. If I share my deepest, ugliest truths, perhaps he will, too? Except, now I’m worried all of this will push him further away. He’s certainly paused the kiss. And as my hand drops from his chest, he steps back, considering me carefully from arm’s length.
‘I know about the alcohol,’ he replies, unexpectedly, his voice calmer and softer. ‘Not the timing and details, obviously …’
‘How?’
‘Yourface, when I didn’t press you about your choice of drink in Tathra. The sheer relief that this wouldn’t become a battle.’
‘Am I that easy to read?’ I’ve been an expert in hiding this. It terrifies me that he just saw it, straightaway. And it intrigues me that he didn’t run then.
‘I’m a writer. I notice details.’ He waits for me to make eye contact again, and when I do, my whole body feels flushed with the nakedness of this admission. ‘I’m very impressed, Hepburn.’
Impressed?Shouldn’t he be shocked or disappointed?
‘There’s nothing attractive about recovering from addiction,’ I confess. ‘It’s a painful, ugly, shameful, messy—’
‘There is, actually,’ he interrupts. ‘I mean, here I am, mucking around with a small creative problem, and there you are, being a bloody superhero.’ He looks me up and down.Reallylooks at me, in a way that makes me feel even more undressed, as though he can see through my skin, observing every sinew and nerve ending.
‘It’s not something I tell people,’ I admit. ‘I’m scared that between this and the death stuff and the creative angst and the whole soap opera I’ve just outlined—’
‘What, you’ll be too interesting?’
That is not where I was going.
‘You’re right about Lucinda,’ he says, interrupting my inner thoughts and taking a seat on the piano stool now, backwards, resting his elbows on his knees. ‘I’m scared I’m not up to it without her. It’s easier to avoid it, then run out of time.’
‘Failure on your terms, right? I’ve spent the last eighteen years proving this methodology, with a perfect success rate.’
He smiles at me from the stool. Reaches for my hand, pulls me over, and stands me in front of him, between his knees, looking up at me. ‘Thank you for telling me all of that.’
He hasn’t let go.
‘I trust you,’ I find myself admitting. Imusttrust him, given all the information I’ve disclosed.
‘We met on Thursday, Audrey. It’s now Monday.’
‘Are you saying I shouldn’t?’
There’s a bolt between us. Lightning attraction, breath quickening. This is Beau Davenport: Hollywood darling, wildcard entrant inPeople Magazine’s sexiest man alive, person who’ll let me unleash the terrors of my heart and who will stay, even after I guide him through a tour of the very worst parts of me …
He breaks our eye contact and exhales slowly, looking worried.
I let go of his hand and step back, skin prickling. ‘Please tell me I can trust you.’
He was entirely discreet about the actress when I asked. But with her he signed an NDA. We have no such legal scaffolding. Just our word. And I’ve told him everything about me that counts.
