Samuel was pulled out of the group by someone who’d come to say hello, but the rest of them were focusing squarely on me.
“Yes,really,” Émilie quipped proudly.
“Which role?” Sunglasses asked.
I took a sip of my drink, feeling their gazes as I slowly finished it. Pretending they weren’t all waiting for me to respond, I looked for a table I could put my empty glass on. Émilie grabbed it from my hands as if it would make me speak faster. She’d been talking me up to her friends, and now I had to seal the deal.
“I’m one of the wives. I host the weekly tea party.”
Claudine and Sunglasses kept eyeing me curiously.
“Which wife?” he said.
I got the sense he was enjoying this.
“Were you at the premiere?” I asked, my jaw so tight it hurt.
He shook his head. “But we were at the second screening, yesterday afternoon.”
He pointed at Claudine.
“Welovedthe movie,” she said. “Fiona Pills isluminous. And, honestly, Odetta Olson is pretty good, too.” Her eyes never left me as she spoke.
Oh shit.Of course there were more screenings scheduled during the festival, but you can understand why I blocked out that information.
I glanced down at my phone, as if it had just rung. I couldn’t bring myself to look back up. My cheeks in flame, I pointed vaguely in the direction of the kitchen. Behind it was a hallway, which I assumed led to a bathroom.
“Excuse me, I have to…”
Without finishing my sentence, I squirmed my way through the crowd—which had been growing steadily since we’d gotten here—gaze down.Excuse me, excuse me.A couple of older men shot me greasy smiles. A server slid a tray of mini éclairs in front of me. I didn’t stop. I’d reached the quieter hallway when I felt a hand press against my lower back. It was Samuel.
“What’s wrong?” he said, spinning me around.
My eyes had welled up on the way over, and I begged my tear ducts to behave themselves. I shook my head, unable to speak.
“It’s too loud here,” he whispered in my ear.
It wasn’t that loud, but I didn’t protest when he interlaced his fingers in mine.
“Come with me,” he added, as he started down the long and narrow hallway.
I had a hard time following behind, my heels clicking on the oak flooring, him pulling me forward. To our left, there was a living room and, at the center of it, a glossy black piano.
“I have a confession to make,” Samuel said, as we paused to peek inside the room. “My friends got passes to see your movie yesterday, and theygave me one.”
Every muscle in my body tensed. “You saw the movie as well.”
He made a funny face. “Don’t hate me, okay?”
I held my breath. I’d taken this guy for a player, but there he was, tiptoeing around my feelings.
His grimace grew deeper. “I walked out after fifteen minutes. Émilie texted that Dorian Fisher was at some party and she thought she could get us in. This is the problem with Cannes. There are so many parties that no one has time to see the movies.”
I was so relieved I didn’t notice Samuel leaning forward, his eyes drilling into mine.
“Can I make it up to you?”
His voice was husky, his body thrumming. I nodded. He kissed me. It was good, soft and tender. He gently pressed my head down so it would lean sideways and moved in deeper. I let him. I hadn’t been kissed in a very long time. I was so hungry for the attention, the comfort.
