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Someone I didn’t like very much but found myself envying a lot.
I needed to talk to her.
But as I stepped near to her door I heard Gran’s voice from inside. “I told you, no frills, no lace!”
Evidently Tess was helping Gran get ready for the party.
Now wasn’t a time to talk. My stomach fell.
I turned and went back to my room, pulling my tux from the closet and heading for the shower, confusion roiling inside me.
Thirty minutes later I was sitting on the end of my bed, distracting myself by scrolling through photos of the house I’d bought, the house I’d hoped to share with Tess someday. Eventually, Juliet came to knock at the door.
I opened it, and realized that what stood there on the threshold of the bedroom I occupied was pretty much every American man’s red-hot fantasy. Juliet Manchester, glowing and gorgeous, in an emerald off-the-shoulder dress that perfectly matched her green eyes, stood waiting for me. Her skin was smooth and perfect, milky and beautiful, and her platinum hair fell in cascading waves over her shoulders. She looked every bit the movie star she was, and I wished for a few minutes I could make this all easier and find myself attracted to her.
But as she stepped near to tell me quietly she’d just heard from her lawyer again, another door opened and Tess stepped out. Over Juliet’s head, I watched her emerge from her room and stop, her light hazel eyes wide as she saw us there in my doorway, Juliet leaning in close, one of her hands on my arm.
Tess wore a simple dress, a straight rust-colored silk sheath that hugged her curves but not too tightly. The color was like burnished gold, and it set off gold strands in her hair and lit her skin with a glow I wanted to be near, to feel. Her lips were plump and pink and perfect, and every part of my body and mind responded to her as she met my gaze.
This. This wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a misplaced fantasy. I was supposed to be with this woman. I knew it with a certainty I’d never felt about anything.
But right now I couldn’t be. Right now I had a job to do.
Tess looked between Juliet and me for a long second, then sighed and turned, walking away as Juliet leaned in closer, bracing her hand on my chest as she finished quietly describing the article that had evidently been published on one of the trashier Hollywood news sites. An article Zac had clearly paid for, which detailed all of Juliet’s affairs.
“It’ll be okay,” I told her, wishing she could have told me all this from just a few feet away. I knew what it must’ve looked like to Tess—Juliet and I pressed together in the doorway of my room. And I knew I needed to talk to her, to reassure her, to make it clear how I felt about her.
“I really don’t see how it will be okay,” Juliet sniffed as we turned to head downstairs.
“Because it’s not true,” I said. “Maybe all the public needs to know, all anyone needs to know, is the truth.”
“Zac will ruin me,” she said quietly. “The tape … I can’t …”
I stopped her on the stairs and turned her to face me. “Juliet. You are a good person. In the end, isn’t that what really matters? Doesn’t that matter more than what the public believes? More than what Zac sells them about you?”
“Maybe you’ve forgotten what our lives are about,” she said. “In our line of work, it doesn’t matter what’s true. It only matters what people believe.”
“We’re in a shitty line of work,” I said, feeling the darkness in my words settle on my face, drape my shoulders.
“Smile, lovebirds!” Alison was waiting like a vulture at the bottom of the stairs, which were lit brilliantly by the photographers’ lights switching on so they could capture our descent. “How about a kiss?”
Juliet leaned in, and though every cell in my body screamed at me not to, I pulled her close and kissed her for the cameras.
“That was perfect,” Alison cooed as we descended the rest of the way.
“It was,” Tess agreed, her voice coming from the shadows behind the photographer’s bright lights. As they switched off the lights to move them, I found her standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “It was perfect,” she said, her voice flat and dull.
I didn’t know if she was talking about the kiss, or about what had happened between us the day before.
“Tess,” I whispered, moving close to her. “I need to talk to you.”
“Ryan! Juliet!” Alison called to us as the crew moved out toward the back porch. I glanced in the direction from which Alison’s voice had come, then turned back to Tess, torn.
“You should go,” Tess said, looking beyond me to the ever-perky Alison, and then she turned, heading back into the kitchen, where the catering staff flitted from place to place like butterflies. I watched her go, her perfect form moving away from me as my heart sank.
* * *
Two hours later,the party was in full swing. Well-dressed locals meandered over the rolling green bank of the back lawn, glasses in hand, as waiters passed among the guests wielding silver trays filled with dainty hors d’ouevres.
