Chapter Twenty-Two
Hannah was trying to kill him.
That was the only explanation Ethan could find for the way his heart stopped beating when she stepped out of the hotel bathroom wearing that dress.
The deep purple color made her blue eyes seem almost indigo. A plunging neckline revealed a tantalizing strip of creamy skin rivaled only by the equally tempting glimpse of her bare thigh through the slit running up one side of the dress. It was cinched tightly at her waist, sheer fabric flowing out from her hips, and a line of laces ran up the back of the bodice. It made him think of a scene in one of AK Wild’s books where the heroine was laced too tightly in a corset and the hero used his knife to cut her free.
“Do you like it?”
she asked, smoothing her hands over her hips self-consciously.
He was on her in two strides, gathering her in his arms and kissing her as though they had all the time in the world. Her startled laugh turned to a deep sigh as she draped her arms around his neck and kissed him back, the sensation of it making him feel like he was floating. When they finally pulled apart, she pressed a hand to her lips. “It’s a good thing I didn’t put on my lipstick yet.”
“I like smearing your lipstick.”
He kissed her again, softly. “You look stunning.”
She smoothed the lapels of his suit jacket. “You don’t look half bad yourself.”
He watched as she flitted about the room in her last minute preparations—applying her lipstick and adding the tube to the small clutch she would carry with her to the premiere, fluffing her hair in the mirror, checking her cell phone for the arrival notification from the car they’d ordered—and with each smile she shot his way, each offhand remark about something she wanted to remember to tell Tessa or a movie she wanted to show him when they went back to Aster Bay, his chest expanded. Like a balloon overfilled, any more affection for her and he knew his heart would burst.
Not just affection.
No, affection was too mild of a word. But it was too soon for the alternative. Wasn’t it?
“Ethan.”
He blinked back to the present moment at the sound of his name on her lips. “Are you ready?”
“I am.”
Hannah filled the brief minutes of the car ride to the theater with chatter about the people he’d meet at the premiere, which reporters were friendly and which ones were always hunting for a scandal, and he did his best to listen. But all he could think about was the overfull balloon feeling, the pressure against his sternum as the words he was holding back pressed forward, threatening to crack apart his ribs.
Tomorrow. You’ll tell her tomorrow.
This was her night, after all. She deserved to revel in her achievement, to be showered with the adoration she’d worked so hard for.
The car slowed and came to a stop and, even through the tinted windows, the flash of cameras pulled Ethan from his thoughts. Hannah took his hand in hers. “Stay close, okay?”
“Always.”
Then the door was open, and a harried-looking man stuck his head inside. “You two ready?”
“Ethan, this is Micah, my manager,”
Hannah said. “Micah, this is—”
“Ethan, you’ll go first. Then help Hannah out and she’ll take the lead.”
He turned back to Hannah. “Jackson is two cars behind you. We’ll do a reunion photo on the carpet, then head inside. Watch out for Johnny Blue on the left. He’s hunting for a scandal.”
Hannah rolled her eyes. “What else is new?”
“You remember what to say?”
“I’m so excited for everyone to finally see our little show on the big screen,”
she recited.
Micah nodded, then stood back. “It’s go time.”
Ethan squeezed Hannah’s hand one more time, before exiting the car. He was immediately blinded by the flashes. It was disorienting, like stepping outside on a sunny day after having your eyes dilated, and combined with the noise of the city streets and the shouts of the assembled press, he wanted to retreat back into the car as quickly as he’d exited. But he was there to support Hannah, and he’d be damned if he let her down.
He turned his back on the press and focused on Hannah. She took the hand he offered her and climbed out of the car. As he helped her to her feet, the noise around them swelled, people shouting her name from every direction. He felt dizzy. Trapped. His heart raced as the faces in front of him blurred together and his first few steps were stilted, unnatural.
“Stay close,”
she whispered through a smile.
He nodded, swallowing hard. So long as he remained focused on her, he hoped the rest of it would fade away. It was only a few yards to the door. He could make it a few yards.
He dropped his hand to the small of her back and let her lead the way, pausing when she paused, his eyes focused solely on her. She was a revelation, sparkling and effervescent as she turned for the cameras, charming and so at ease while inside he was barely holding it together.
“Hannah Banana!”
Ethan barely saw the man moving before he had barreled into Hannah, wrapping her up in a hug that lifted her off her feet.
“Jackson! Put me down!”
she laughed.
He set her down, beaming, and held out a hand to Ethan. “Nice to meet you.”
Flashes burst in a flurry around them as Ethan accepted the handshake, wincing with each new burst of light aimed in their direction. Hannah wrapped her hands around Ethan’s arm, grounding him. “Jackson Hayes, this is Ethan Hart. Ethan, this is Jackson.”
Ethan tried to remember that Jackson wasn’t actually Hannah’s ex, just her friend, but when Jackson turned his stupid-wide, gleaming white grin in her direction, it was hard for Ethan not to imagine punching him in his chiseled jaw.
“Babe!”
Jackson called, waving to a statuesque blonde woman who was still posing by the car. “Come meet Hannah!”
The woman took her time making her way to them, or maybe the floor length red dress she wore was too fitted through her legs for her to take larger steps. Either way, the cameras ate up every moment of her walk down the carpet. Hannah’s smile turned wooden as she watched the willowy blonde approach.
Jackson slung an arm over the woman’s shoulder. “Yvette, meet Hannah Banana. Oh, and her date, Ethan. This is Yvette.”
Yvette smiled widely, the bright flash of it a perfect match for Jackson’s, and Ethan wondered what kind of heavy duty chemical whiteners were in Hollywood toothpaste.
“It’s so nice to meet you, Hannah. Jax has told me so much about you, I feel like I know you,”
Yvette gushed, clasping Hannah’s free hand in hers.
“That’s so kind. You were wonderful in the Twiggy biopic,”
Hannah said.
Yvette touched her long blonde hair with a self-deprecating chuckle. “You’re too sweet.”
Jackson slid his free arm around Hannah’s back, placing himself between the two women, and tilted his jaw towards a bank of photographers calling for a picture. Ethan stood firm on her other side, blinking against the bright lights. “You look good, Banana.”
Something in Jackson’s tone shifted when he asked, “Are you? Good?”
“Really good. I promise,” she said.
Jackson exhaled happily, like he was relieved. “Good. Good.”
He guided them down the carpet to the next cluster of photographers who snapped away.
“Jackson! Over here!”
someone shouted. “How about one of you and Hannah alone?”
Jackson turned his megawatt grin towards Hannah. “What do you say?”
Ethan waited for the moment he’d be cast aside. This wasn’t his world. He didn’t belong on a red carpet.
Hannah’s hold on him tightened and she called back to the crowd, grinning, “I made him promise he wouldn’t leave my side tonight, so you’ll have to crop him out if you don’t want him in your shot.”
Ethan felt the moment the cameras’ attention swung his way, intrigue rolling through the crowd as they tried to puzzle out who he was that she would decline their request.
But he didn’t care about the cameras. He was only paying attention to Hannah, to the bright glow of joy on her face and the warmth in her eyes and the heat of her hand wrapped around his arm.
He dipped his head and pressed a kiss to her bare shoulder before he could think better of it, so lost in the balloon feeling he hardly noticed the frenzy the small gesture set off around them.
“Hannah! Has Jackson apologized for Bora Bora?”
another voice called from the crowd.
Ethan felt Hannah stiffen at his side. “There was nothing to apologize for,”
she replied through a wooden smile. He hated that smile and the way it replaced the genuine happiness he’d seen on her face mere moments before.
“We’re all friends here,”
Jackson added.
“Hannah, what do you have to say about the reports you’ve been hiding out at an eating disorder clinic in the Berkshires?”
The color drained from Hannah’s face. “I—I—”
Ethan took a step towards the jackass with the snide smile who’d asked the question, but Hannah’s hold on him was firm. Stay close.
“You’re out of line, Johnny,”
Jackson said, pinning the reporter with a glare that would have sent lesser men running. Maybe Jackson Hayes wasn’t so bad after all.
“But you were at an eating disorder clinic in the Berkshires, no?”
the jerk—Johnny, apparently—insisted.
“No,”
Ethan said, whipping his head in the reporter’s direction. He wanted to memorize his face so the next time he saw the asshole, he could pummel him for embarrassing Hannah on her big night. “She was with me.”
“That’s enough, folks. We’ll see you inside,”
Micah said, appearing from nowhere. He ushered Ethan and Hannah past the remaining reporters into the lobby of the theater. “Stay here,”
he said. “Don’t move until the screening is about to start.”
“Where’s Lana?”
Jackson shouted across the lobby. “I want Johnny Blue’s credentials revoked. Someone find me Lana!”
“Don’t,”
Hannah said. “It’ll only provoke him.”
“He can’t just say shit like that,”
Ethan said. “It’s none of his goddamn business.”
“I’m gonna go find Lana,”
Jackson said, excusing himself and leading Yvette away, leaving Ethan and Hannah alone at the edge of the lobby.
"Baz has a great lawyer,”
Ethan continued, adrenaline making him feel like his skin was on fire. “We’ll sue the shit out of Johnny Fuckface. He doesn’t get to put your personal business out there.”
“That’s exactly what he does.”
Micah appeared at their side. “What do you want to do?”
“What are my options?”
she asked.
“We can ignore it, though I suspect he’s already got some kind of source confirming your treatment or he wouldn’t have brought it up. His information is too specific.”
“So ignoring it’s out. What else?”
she asked.
“We can ask for privacy and for the press to respect your right to keep your medical information out of the public eye.”
Hannah scoffed. “Like that’s ever worked.”
Micah nodded gravely. “We make a statement. Confirm Johnny’s speculation on your own terms.”
“It’s nobody’s goddamn business,”
Ethan snapped. His muscles screamed for him to get them out of there, to take her away from this insanity where any jackass on the street could shout out the most private details of their lives for all the world to hear.
“You’re right, but maybe it’s time I stopped trying to hide this part of myself. Maybe if more people talked about it, it would have been easier for me to ask for help sooner.”
She turned back to Micah. “But I’m not giving the story to Johnny Blue. Get me anybody else.”
Micah nodded. “On it,”
he said, before disappearing back into the crowd.
“Are you sure?”
Ethan asked, drawing her into his arms, focusing on the feel of her, solid and strong, beneath his hands as some of the tension left him.
“No,”
she said with a laugh, reaching up to smooth her palm over his beard. “But I’m done being afraid.”
∞∞∞
Hannah’s skin buzzed as she looked into Ethan’s eyes. There was so much she wanted to tell him, about the way he made her feel like she could be someone new, about how she never wanted to be apart, but this didn’t seem like the time.
He had kissed her on the red carpet.
Well, her shoulder. But still. It counted. Lips had made contact with skin.
He’d kissed her in front of all the photographers.
“Ms. Matthews?”
She tore her eyes away from Ethan and refocused on the older woman seated across from her in the tiny theater office. Elizabeth? Ellen? She couldn’t remember. Micah had ushered her into the cramped space and made introductions so quickly, she’d hardly had a chance to thank him before he was gone. But not Ethan. He’d insisted on staying—with her permission, of course—and had taken up a position leaning against the corner, though he hardly fit in the space, like some kind of bodyguard. The idea made a giggle bubble up her throat, but she covered it with a cough.
“I’m sorry. You were saying?”
she asked.
Elizabeth-Ellen smiled indulgently. “You wanted to make a statement about the accusations made by Johnny Blue on the red carpet,”
she prompted.
Hannah clasped her hands in her lap, the distant staticky hum in the back of her mind reciting Ben & Jerry’s flavors, but she pushed the sound away. She didn’t need a pint of New York Super Fudge Chunk. Her eyes flashed to Ethan again, to the careful way he watched her, the worry line between his brows.
“Yes,”
Hannah said, turning her attention back to the reporter. She inclined her head towards the small recording device the woman had placed on the desk. “Are you ready?”
“Ready when you are,”
Elizabeth-Ellen said. “Hannah, did you receive treatment for an eating disorder at an outpatient clinic in Massachusetts?”
“I did.”
As soon as she said the words, she felt lighter, the noise in her head quieting. “About a year ago, I was diagnosed with an eating disorder. The official diagnosis was ‘eating disorder not otherwise specified,’ which basically means it didn’t fit easily into the current available classifications. My disorder presented as a mix of behaviors usually associated with anorexia, exercise bulimia, and binge eating disorder. While I wasn’t diagnosed until a year ago, I have lived with some form of an eating disorder since I was a teenager, but back then, according to the wisdom of women’s magazines, I was just ‘dieting.’”
Elizabeth-Ellen smiled kindly. “And when did you enter treatment?”
“I began seeing a therapist and a dietitian pretty much right away. I was actively performing in Bridget Jones’ Musical at the time, so more intensive treatment was difficult to fit in the schedule and I did not want to take time off from the production. But by the time the show closed, it was clear to me I needed more help. Jackson had friends who sought treatment in the Berkshires—”
“Your co-star, Jackson Hayes?”
the reporter clarified.
“That’s right."
The more she talked, the easier it became. She carefully sidestepped the details of her relationship with Jackson, playing coy, but made sure he was given credit for coming to her rescue financially. If she was going to tell them about her disorder, at least her friend could get some good publicity out of it, and she could shine a light on the financial inaccessibility of quality mental health care.
By the time she was through, there was a short knock on the door and Micah poked his head inside. “It’s time for the showing. Are we all set here?”
“I have what I need,”
Elizabeth-Ellen said.
“I’d like to say one more thing,”
Hannah said. “Please tell your readers... I spent years, decades really, being ashamed. At first, I deluded myself into thinking my behavior was normal dieting, but I knew something was wrong for a long time before I got help.”
“Why’s that?”
Elizabeth-Ellen asked.
Hannah glanced at Ethan, the familiar shame slithering beneath her skin. He tipped his head in the barest of nods, his eyes fixed on her with an intensity that felt like the sun—warm and cleansing, because he saw her, all of her, and was still standing by her side. She filled herself with the heat of his gaze, allowed it to banish the shame back to the recesses of her mind, and turned back to the reporter patiently waiting for her answer.
“I was embarrassed. I thought people would look at me and decide I wasn’t thin enough to have an eating disorder, or there must be something really wrong with me to be incapable of properly feeding myself. There’s an immense amount of shame that comes with mental illness. But I was also afraid of giving it up. Who would I be if I wasn’t always on a diet? What would happen to me if I let myself eat the way other people did? My eating disorder was the thing that terrorized me, but it also comforted me. It made me feel in control. But I wasn’t, and I couldn’t see it until I got help. So, I don’t know, tell your readers I’ve been there, and I’ve seen how incredibly freeing recovery can be. If I can do it, so can they.”
Hannah glanced around the room, taking in this surreal moment where she’d spilled her guts to a complete stranger, signed releases so the details of her most private struggles could be published for the whole world to read. She had expected to feel nervous, unsure, but she just felt...right. Ethan winked at her from across the room, his worry face transformed into the picture of beaming pride, and she wanted nothing more than to leave the theatre right then and go home with him.
As they got to their feet, Elizabeth-Ellen held her hand out for Hannah to shake. “Thank you, Ms. Matthews, for your honesty and for trusting me with your story.”
“Thank you for listening.”
Elizabeth-Ellen gathered her recording device and notebook. “What’s next for you, after the premiere? I imagine your phone must be ringing off the hook.”
“Hannah is in very high demand,”
Micah confirmed.
Hannah looked between Micah and Ethan, then settled her gaze on Elizabeth-Ellen. “I don’t know what comes next,”
she said honestly, “but I can’t wait to find out.”