“It still wouldn’t be the strangest client demand I’ve fought for.”
I imagine not. He works in Hollywood, after all.
We work out a few more details, making a list of questions he’s going to find answers for, and then Josh leaves.
I’m left alone again in the sitting room. My house-tortoise, Newman, crawls slowly across the tile and pees next to the divan, but I barely notice.
A movie. With Blake.
Can I really do that again? After everything?
I should be up and getting things done, doing preliminary updates toThe Schedule. But I just sit there, numb, for easily a half hour.
My phone dings with a text, and when I pull it out of my pocket, I see the text is from Blake.
I can turn it down if you want me to, it says.
Just that.
He already knows, obviously, and by the lack of preamble, he must somehow know I’ve found out by now. His agent, Camilla—who used to be my agent, too, until I decided to switch after the divorce—has an ability to suss out information that the NSA would be jealous of, so I’m not really surprised by that.
Or by his offer, really. It speaks volumes in only a few words. He gets the position I’m in—if I really don’t want to do this and bow out, I’d take a lot more heat than he would for doing the same thing. And it would have a lot less overall effect on his career.
It’s a kind offer, but it also flares up that old anger—at Hollywood, at the differences in treatment of us by both the public and fellow industry professionals.
At him.
No need, I text back.I’m fine doing it.
I consider saying more, but put the phone down instead. I was needlessly curt, just like I always am with him. I know it. But I can’t seem to be any different. Every time I talk to him, every time I text, I feel that bitterness I hate so much—the anger that he moved on so easily, that he got over me so fast, and I can’t seem to do the same, no matter how much time has passed.The hurt that he wanted out of our marriage, that he walked away without ever turning back.
I don’t blame him for any of it, not really. I made his life hell. I didn’t mean to, but I did anyway. Knowing that, though, doesn’t make the hurt less. It doesn’t make my feelings for him go away.
I drop my head in my hands, my heart squeezing tight.
I’m going to be starring in a movie with my ex-husband, the father of my children, a man who I am still, after all this time, desperately in love with—a man who doesn’t feel the same way about me, if he ever did.
I definitely don’t have a plan forthis.
Two
Blake
I’m still stinging from Kim’s response to my text message as I’m waiting in the entry courtyard of my condo complex for Kim’s driver to drop off the kids. I always wait inside until I see them through the gated doors.Through the slats, I can see the ever-present car parked across the street—a Miata this time.This particular paparazzo is doing well.
I settle my sunglasses and sit down on the edge of a large planter filled with six-foot palms. It’s not like Kim being short with me is unusual—the opposite, in fact. And this was far from the height of snappy, irritated things she’s texted at me in the six years we’ve been divorced.
She’sfine. Fine doing a movie with me. Fine with me playing her love interest. Fine walking onto a movie set with me like that doesn’t bring back all the memories in the world.
But having a conversation with me about it?Thatis clearly out of the question.
I shake my head, glad that the thick, wide gate bars shield me from photos. Not that there aren’t about a million pictures of me in cargo shorts and t-shirts and sunglasses outside this place.The security within was the main reason I bought the condo—it’s nice to be able to take the kids to the pool or run around with them in the interior courtyard gardens without having to tread beyond the iron gates that keep us in and the many photographers out.
It’s about the only way I can spend time with my kids without security, and I’m grateful for it, even if I do envy Kim her ranch and the privacy it affords.
I was supposed to run it with her, once upon a time.
A slick, black car pulls up outside the gates. I see the Miata’s window drop as Lukas bounds out of the car, hauling along the plastic case he uses to store his latest Lego set. I unlock the gate and swing it open as Ivy follows her brother out of the car.
