“Birdie,” he said. “You came for me.”
Her heart was pounding in her chest; her blood was pooling in her ears. She’d waited for Kai to pick her, choose her, for so many years. She’d almost never had the strength to turn him down, to walk away back then, even when he was ruinous for her. Even when he dangled her along with empty promises of breaking his engagement and emptier words that never proved true.Now, just like back then, she couldn’t assess if she had wanted this ending or should run from it.
She untangled herself from him.
“You sent the letter?” she asked.
He was a decent actor, but she thought she’d be able to tell if he was lying. Not that she understood why he would lie. Kai could have just about any woman he encountered. And for so many years, she’d wanted it to be her. How to reconcile that something in her gut, small but throbbing, told her that she had an honest-to-godrealchoice this time, that she could choose differently?
He nodded. “I did.”
“You knew she lived in Barton?” Mona asked, her eyes narrow. Birdie had forgotten she was there. Her arms were crossed, and she had a sour look, a sour vibe about her, like anything that Kai would say would be wrong. “Youmailedher a letter in Barton?”
Kai froze for a fraction of a beat, and Birdie doubted that anyone else saw it, but then, she wasn’t just anyone. She’d memorized the lines in his face, the glimmers of expression, the subtleties in a drop of an eyebrow, a twitch of his lips. Sometimes, when he was sleeping, she’d wake and just stare at him, like all she’d wanted to do was breathe him in and will him to choose her like she would have chosen him.
“Yes,” Kai said.
“Yes?” Elliot echoed.
“Yes.” Kai’s hands were back on Birdie’s cheeks. “Birdie, I owe you a multitude of apologies. I was awful, and you were wonderful, and you didn’t deserve any of it. I’ve changed. I’ve realized the error of my ways.”
“When did you mail this letter?” Mona asked, suddenly an intrepid detective.
“Does it matter?” Kai said.
“Am I to seriously believe,” Mona asked, “that you two were actually, I mean, I knew you did a movie together but—”
Birdie turned toward her best friend and nodded. “I stopped it when he got engaged,” she said. “But he promised me that wasn’t real, promised me I was the only thing that was.” She’d never told Mona because she’d never told anyone, and though there had been those unconfirmed rumors from time to time, as she’d said to Andie just last night, exceptionally adept PR maneuvers had managed to squelch most of them before they planted roots.
Andie. Where was Andie? Birdie took a small step back from Kai. She would like her sister here, the only one she’d told about Kai. The only one she’d told about Elliot.
“Wait,” Mona said, like she was doing the math in her head. “Why didn’t I, how didn’t I...?”
She faltered, then winced and composed herself. She shot Birdie a look that said:You could have told me, and Birdie knew immediately she was right. But she’d gotten used to keeping Kai a secret in those years. It occurred to her that maybe she kept him a secret not because she had to, rather because she was so mortified at what she’d gotten into. Running when he called. Accepting his attention in half doses. Buying into his flimsy promises, his dubious claims about calling off the allegedly fake engagement. Birdie was so busy seeking his approval that she lost sight of the wisdom of the people who really mattered.
Kai pulled Birdie into a hug again, and on instinct, despite her revelation from just a moment earlier, her arms found the broad part of his back. It felt nice, nicer than she’d expected, and thoughshe told herself this didn’t have to be a slippery slope, she could push off of him and walk away, she also suspected this was a convenient lie to salvage her pride.
Birdie eyed Elliot from the embrace, waiting for him to intervene.Intervene, she found herself hoping.Tell me he has it wrong. Tell me it was you.But Elliot was looking pale and a little sweaty, as if even though he’d gotten the answer he’d expected for his article, it turned out it wasn’t the one he wanted.
“Come back to my suite,” Kai whispered in Birdie’s ear. “Please. Just to talk. I have some things I need to say.”
Birdie didn’t particularly want to go back to his suite but thought maybe he’d apologize. For dragging her through so much over the years. For making her wait over and over. For not rising to her defense when his brother swung his ax and felled her. She didn’t realize how much she wanted to hear his apology, how maybe an apology could mean closure or at least a new beginning.
“Elliot?” she asked, all the same. One last chance, just for safekeeping.
Elliot kept his eyes on her, then lifted a shoulder.
“I guess we solved it,” he said.
It should have been a triumph. Instead, it felt like a defeat.
45
ELLIOT
For once inhis life, Elliot had absolutely no idea what to write, how to file this story.
He flopped back in the chair in his room, sighed, redoubled his efforts. He almost never had writer’s block. Thought that writer’s block was just something that lazy reporters cited to get out of doing the work. He’d figured he’d mapped it all out—come to Vegas, confront Kai, write a triumphant piece that would secure his future at theTimes. The issue was, he’d only just realized, that if he secured his future at theTimes, he’d throw away any shot of a future with Birdie.
