Chapter 16
Chapter 16
Nine Months Later
Scarlett might’ve been born in a trailer park, but by the tender age of thirty-four, she’d played chess in dozens of countries. She’d been to dinner receptions at Versailles and the White House. She’d hit the New York Times bestseller list. But she’d never before faced her ex after telling him that his dad was in jail because of her.
Oh well, she couldn’t cry over spilled milk. She had to grab the darn rag off the counter and get cleaning—in the right outfit.
The dress she’d gotten for today was pink, not red, because everyone always expected someone named Scarlett to wear red, and she loathed giving people what they wanted. That was probably why she’d punched Jaime Croft in the guts a second time.
Except how did she explain the fact that her own guts smarted too?
Well, Scarlett was a puzzle. Everyone knew it. Maybe if she arrived in the studio outside of Vancouver for rehearsal and explained it in so many words to Jaime— me breaking your heart a second time was both ironic and on brand—then he might understand.
But all hope of that evaporated as she strolled into the rehearsal space and Jaime looked up from the script he’d been pointing to. He hadn’t cut his hair in a while, and a curl fell over his brow. He’d forgotten to shave, too, which worked for him better than it should’ve. Dressed as if for a hike, in a gray fleece pullover and worn jeans, Jaime’s entire appearance was vigorous and hot .
He was excited about what he was saying to the man standing next to him, but the second Jaime’s eyes found Scarlett’s, his face went—well, she had seen diamonds that were softer. His mouth dropped into an implacable line. His cheeks went white. The hand he’d been gesturing with clenched.
In the nine months since Scarlett had driven away from Jaime’s cabin, they hadn’t said a word directly and solely to each other. Someone else had been copied on every email they’d exchanged, and his messages were so formal, so removed, that she’d started calling him Mr. Croft .
He’d retaliated by calling her Ms. Arbuthnot —a low blow.
After the two months they’d spent together writing this show. After she’d let him in as much as she’d let anyone in. After she’d told him the truth, seeing that Ms. had made her want to cry.
It was pathetic. She was pathetic. But seeing his icy regard made her head hurt and her chest hurt and the spaces between her toes hurt.
She had to keep moving forward. He clearly had.
Scarlett mustered as much spunk as she had left in her store—it wasn’t much—and strolled over to him. “Mr. Croft, how nice to see you again.”
In some alternative reality, they were playing out another version of this moment. In that version, Jaime had listened, had tried to see what she’d done in good faith. He’d reached out after a few weeks of adjusting to it, and they’d talked. She hadn’t wasted her study hours for Stavanger fretting about him.
In that world, she hadn’t played mechanically but boringly in Norway because her heart had splintered into shards that were ripping her open from the inside out.
But Scarlett had to live in this world. The one where she was sad and lost and loathed, knowing that she’d earned all those labels.
She was an Olivia Rodrigo song personified. The only thing she could do now was make sure that she was one of the shouty ones and not one of the sobby ones.
A few seconds passed, and Jaime didn’t reply. He just stared at her, breathing hard.
Look, they had months of togetherness ahead of them. Rehearsing and shooting Queen’s Kiss was going to take longer than writing the thing had. If he kept this up, all of Jaime’s cells were going to evaporate. He needed to pace himself. Detesting her was a marathon, not a sprint.
With a shrug, she turned to the man Jaime had been speaking to, a slim white guy with a scruffy brown goatee, and said, “Hey, I’m Scarlett.”
“Our queen.” The man had obviously known who she was before she’d said it. He offered a hand. “Nate Pace, producer, codirector, and jack-of-all-trades.”
Oh, so this was Jaime’s partner in filmmaking. She’d pictured Nate as older and more harried. “I’ve heard so much about you.” Back when, you know, Jaime had been talking to her.
“Good things?” From someone else, those words might have been flirtatious, but they carried no heat here.
One thing was for sure, that week with Jaime had burned out every one of Scarlett’s sexual circuits. She hadn’t been able to so much as look at a man without feeling revulsion since she’d left Virginia. At some point, she was going to become kind of pissed about that. It was one thing to dump her. It was quite another to ruin her libido.
But wanting to piss Jaime off, Scarlett gave Nate a smile that would’ve melted most men and many women. In her sweetest voice, she said, “Yup. And we both know that Jaime always tells the truth. Whether he likes hearing it, well, that’s something else entirely.”
Yeah, whoever had said the truth will set you free was a liar.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Jaime open his mouth—and then snap it shut.
Scarlett turned toward him with a pouty smile. She might be playing coy, but she wasn’t wrong. He’d asked for truth; it wasn’t her fault if he didn’t enjoy receiving it. And so, while he might turn into a pillar of fire at the sight of her, she wasn’t going to back down. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She wasn’t going to act as if she had.
Nate’s attention was shifting back and forth between Scarlett and Jaime as if it were a tennis ball bouncing off two brick walls. “The first all-hands production meeting is tomorrow. But I can find a PA to grab you a Tim Hortons or give you a tour if—”
“No, I’m here to meet with Clara Hess.” And to show off her new dress and her don’t-give-a-crap attitude to Jaime.
She just had to summon the don’t-give-a-crap part.
“Right.” Nate snapped his fingers. “I can show you where she’s hanging out.”
“That’d be great. See you again soon, Mr. Croft.”
Once again, Jaime didn’t say a word. Maybe someone else needed to have a few circuits replaced too.
Scarlett turned on a heel and left the room with Nate.
When the door had closed behind them, the producer gave her a sideways smile. “So you’re the woman who broke my boy. Twice.”
Scarlett caught the toe of her shoe on the floor and had to slam a hand on the wall to steady herself. The only thing that had made this bearable was her assumption that no one on set would know what had happened beyond Scarlett and Jaime.
Nate was smiling, but it wasn’t sharp or mean.
Here was the thing, though: Scarlett was the Wicked Witch of the chess world. What precisely had people expected from her if not this? Shattering a few hearts before breakfast was like some people’s morning yoga routine—and wouldn’t you know it, Scarlett was crap at stretching.
“Is this common knowledge?” Scarlett asked Nate, as she righted herself and began to glide down the hall again.
“Oh, no,” he assured her. “Everyone else just thinks Jaime is naturally grumpy. I’m the only one who guessed who kicked the stuffing out of him.”
Scarlett was tempted to point out the experience hadn’t exactly been easy for her either. A truer way to put it was that she and Jaime had broken each other, when they’d been kids and again now. But she didn’t know Nate. She didn’t owe him an explanation.
So she only gave an imperious look. “Yeah, and?”
For a second, Nate didn’t seem to know how to take that. Then he threw back his head and laughed. “I can see how it happened.”
“Buddy, you can’t see bupkis.”
Nate only laughed harder. “You two deserve each other.”
At this point, Jaime didn’t seem to think Scarlett deserved anything, and even if she rejected that conclusion, she did at least understand how he’d gotten there.
“Well, as much fun as this has been, I do actually have an appointment with Clara. So where is rehearsal room A?”
“It’s at the end of this hall.” Nate pointed. “The one with the blue sign. And, Scarlett? I might be Team Jaime, but I’m rooting for you too.”
Pfft. Scarlett was tempted to flip him the bird as she walked away. What the last few months had proved was that Scarlett didn’t need anyone to root for her, except for maybe Kit and Martina. But Scarlett could get through life with a very small team. She didn’t need to do any recruiting.
Scarlett marched down to rehearsal room A and flung the door open—and came face to back with her doppelg?nger.
Okay, so Clara Hess didn’t look exactly like her. But her hair was the exact same shade as Scarlett’s. When she turned toward the door, her green eyes were lively. And the shape of her mouth—Christ, this girl was the younger, movie-star-pretty version of Scarlett.
The actress was Hollywood’s idea of plus size, which was to say you couldn’t see her clavicle where her shirt dipped low on her chest. She was what you might get if you put Scarlett through one of those filters on TikTok and a cartoonified version came out.
“It’s uncanny, right? My agent can’t stop talking about it,” the girl said.
The shock must have been evident on Scarlett’s face. She reminded herself that staring was rude—and Jaime’s job—and extended her hand. “I’m Scarlett Arbuthnot.”
“Clara Hess.” Her shake was soft, all of her was soft, and certainly no one thought Scarlett was soft—extra-especially not Jaime—so that was another point of difference between them.
The actress stepped back and gave Scarlett a wry smile. “You know, it’s usually the talent who can’t walk across the set without heads turning. But you’re going to be, like, the main attraction here. I really ought to thank you.”
“Happy to take the pressure off.”
Scarlett took a seat at the small table in the room and pulled a travel chess set out of her bag. When in doubt, set up a chess board. The routine of it always settled her.
“I’m also here to help you learn chess.”
She twisted the black knights so they were facing each other, then shot a glance at Clara. The girl was watching Scarlett, rapt. If Scarlett had been performing a magic trick, she couldn’t have commanded Clara’s attention more thoroughly.
“They told me you don’t play,” Scarlett said.
“Not yet.”
When Clara’s team had reached out to ask if the actress ought to get a book or something, Scarlett had said no. She’d rather teach her from the start than have her learn something wrong or badly.
Starting from nothing was better than starting from crap.
“I haven’t touched a board or opened a chess book,” Clara said, “but I’ve been watching your matches nonstop on YouTube for months.”
Many of those had been edited into cheesecake shots of Scarlett’s cleavage. They weren’t exactly a way to learn about the game. It was more a window into how some of the men in chess objectified the women who had the audacity to play in their sandbox.
“Jeez, if you’re going to do that, maybe I should make a playlist of the okay ones.”
“Don’t worry, I know the internet can always be counted on to internet. You are always so gorgeous, though. You have to know that.” Clara sat down across from Scarlett. “I’m sorry, I’m babbling. I’m feeling a little starstruck. It’s really you .”
Scarlett had to laugh. “I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be my line.”
“No one knows who the heck I am.”
“They will, though.”
“You sound like my agent.”
“Why did you want to take this job?”
Scarlett had no choice about being herself. Clara had signed up for this, and while there was a paycheck, it might not cover the emotional damage. As far as Jaime was concerned, Scarlett was basically quicksand. Wasn’t Clara worried about sinking in it?
“It’s a great part. You are—you are amazing.”
On her best day, Scarlett was a manipulative pill. On her worst—well, she would have to ask Jaime ... if he ever started talking to her again.
“I am kind of crap, actually. But luckily for both of us, I’m good at chess.”
Clara reached out and touched the white queen lightly. “And I have to figure out how to make people think I am.”
“Eh, that’s easy. It’s just about attitude. And if Jaime hired you for this, it’s because he thinks you have it.”
Jaime might loathe Scarlett, but he was darn good at his job. If he thought Clara was right for this part, she was right for this part.
“All the moves are written out for you,” Scarlett told Clara. “It’s all choreographed, so it’s not like you have to learn how to play if you don’t want to. But you have to convince people that you’re coming up with the plays spontaneously.”
Scarlett quickly ran through the names of the squares and the abbreviations for the pieces, since that was how she’d written the notation in the script.
“I know how the pieces move,” Clara said proudly. “I had a crush on a guy on my high school chess team—it’s why I read the script. And I set up an account online after I read for the part, but the computer kept kicking my ass.”
“Don’t play the computer,” Scarlett said. “The way it plays ... I don’t like it. The human element is what makes the game. How different is it when you’re running lines on your own versus working with a great scene partner?”
“Point taken.”
“I’ll play with you as much as you want.”
“But you’re, like, a pro.”
“I’ll go easy on you.” Whatever Jaime might think, Scarlett was capable of that. “Let’s play now.”
Clara reached for the white pawn sitting ahead of the queen and moved it ahead one space.
“You can move a pawn two squares the first time you move it, and you should. You want to take control of the middle of the board.”
Oops. Scarlett couldn’t help but coach.
Scarlett moved, and then Clara bit her lip and laughed. “I don’t ... I never know what to do . I can react, but I don’t have any strategy.”
“Capture my king.”
“But—how?”
Scarlett couldn’t rewind her thoughts and get back to the time when she hadn’t had hundreds of openings and strategies floating around in her head. It was almost as if those had always been there, dominating her headspace, crowding anything else out of her mind.
In contrast, Clara was basically a baby. Unformed. Innocent.
“If you only ever react to other people, you give up all of your power.” In chess, and in life. “You have to set the agenda for the game; otherwise, your opponent will walk all over you.”
Clara’s smile was wry. “I bet that never happens to you.”
Except it had with Jaime.
Scarlett had to learn how to be the woman he thought she was, the reckless one who crashed through other people’s lives without a second thought. A few more days of licking her wounds and she’d get there.
“Not anymore,” Scarlett lied. “Okay, let’s learn a few basic openings and defenses.”
Clara didn’t need them to play this part. Scarlett could probably just teach her how to touch the pieces. How to scrunch up her face while thinking between moves. How long to pause.
But Clara needed to learn some things, if only so she would stop reminding Scarlett of a baby doe wandering through a forest thick with hunters. No one ought to be that vulnerable, in chess or in life.
Scarlett reset the board and gestured for Clara and her to switch places. “I’m going to teach you how to respond to white using the Sicilian. It’s all about countermoves and playing with aggression.”
“I love it already.”
Hearing this, Scarlett could tell she was going to love working with Clara—which had to be enough to make facing Jaime’s cold disdain worth it.