Chapter Six
Freddie
Iloved the townhome Aunt Trudy left me. I hadn’t expected such a generous gift. My other cousins might’ve been jealous—two even threatened to sue—but in the end everyone acknowledged I’d spent the most time with her when we were young. I’d been gutted that she died when I’d been at Stanford.
Between her passing and Andreas’s inconstancy—read, dumping me—coming home had been an easy choice.
Going back to school with a slightly altered course of study had been a no-brainer as well.
Switching from dead British authors to mostly alive Canadian ones had been a challenge.
Pursuing a doctorate had never been on my bucket list, but I enjoyed reading and had a knack for being able to understand subtext.
Or to find meaning in ordinary things. Or, on occasion, to just make shit up.
Harder for a dead author to dispute an interpretation of their work.
The live ones hadn’t come at me yet either.
I didn’t share that philosophy with my thesis supervisor—I didn’t figure she’d be very impressed with my way of thinking.
Andreas spun in my guest room. “You’re putting me in here?”
“Uh, yeah.”
He pointed to my desk.
I waved him off. “I can work at the kitchen bar on the island. I often prefer there. The view from here is…absorbing.” I had a view straight out to the water and then across to Vancouver. Just as stunning as his had been from the hotel—only I was much closer to the ground.
He strode to the window and pulled back the sheer. “Oh, wow.”
“Yeah. So you can see why I don’t study in here often.”
“Still…” He pointed to my floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, crammed with everything from the latest thriller to a rare copy of Ulysses. I loved Margaret Atwood, Lawrence Hill, and Madeleine Thien, but James Joyce was also a favorite. “I’ve read every book in here.” Oops. Didn’t mean to boast.
His jaw dropped.
“Well, all those years of undergrad and then my Master’s degree. I had time…”
“And you were a personal trainer.” His brow furrowed.
“That was…for fun? For spending money? I needed a break from all the reading, and I figured I was good with people, so why not?”
“You didn’t come back to study that? You could’ve studied to be a physiotherapist.”
I waved him off.
He held my gaze.
“I still loved literature. Despite...” Plus, certifying to be a personal trainer had taken a fraction of the time it would’ve to become a physio. Between spending time helping people get fit and burying myself in books, I’d had a good life.
Have a good life.
Just because the man I’d once professed to love, and who had spurned that love, was now in my home, didn’t mean I wasn’t still happy. “Look, settle in. Closet’s practically empty. I’ll rustle up some grub.”
“I can help.”
“Maybe just…” I considered. “Sure. You can make the salad.”
An hour later, we sat on my rooftop deck with a view of the skyline.
“Hallstein and Myles live just a short walk from here.” Right, because your boss is a safe topic.
What the hell is he going to think of you bringing your protectee here?
“I need to tell him you’re here. He needs to make certain the hotel isn’t billing him.
They reimbursed the studio for the one night. Seeing as they clearly were at fault.”
“That was….” He furrowed his brow as he poked his salad.
“Fucked?”
“Yeah, that works.”
“Food okay?”
He met my gaze. “Yeah. I just…today didn’t end up being what I was expecting. Like, kissing Norah wasn’t part of the script. But I think the director liked the choice I made. At least Norah wasn’t mad.”
“Why would she be mad?” I cut a piece of chicken.
“Well, I didn’t ask her permission.”
“Right.” Consent was everything. “You’ve got some bedroom scenes next week.”
“Yeah. And I’ll ask her permission before, uh…” His cheeks pinkened.
“When did you become so prudish?”
“Hey.” He frowned. “I’m not…that is…” He sighed. “I loved the guy. Or at least I thought I did. And we’re not going to talk about that fucking tape again. Ever. Clear?” He held my gaze with his intense light-blue eyes.
“Clear.” I had a million questions for which I wanted to demand answers. Number one was how could he be so stupid? What had become abundantly evident over the last couple of days was, though, that he regretted whatever impulse had led him to trust someone enough to pose naked.
We finished eating in silence.
“Look, I’m going out with friends tomorrow. Do you want to come?”
He cocked his head. “You were going to leave me alone in my hotel room, weren’t you?”
“I planned to drop by in the evening…”
He glared.
“Uh…okay…maybe that wasn’t the nicest thing to do. Still, you had a stunning view, unlimited entertainment, fantastic food—”
“And you expected me to spend my day off alone.” He pursed his lips.
“When you put it like that…”
“Even dogs get walks.” An epic pout.
“Humans have indoor plumbing for a reason.”
He barked out a laugh. “You don’t mind me coming with you to see your friends? I won’t embarrass you?”
“Chances are they won’t know who you are. But I can hold my own. I’ll call them and give them the heads-up.”
“Right. Sure. Can I bring something? Like a bottle of wine?”
“That’s a nice idea. I’ll ask Troy.” I shot my friend a quick text.
Seconds later, he said he was excited to meet my friend and a nice bottle of red would be great with the steaks Rocco would be grilling. And yes, they had enough for one more.
“We’ll stop at a wine store before heading over. The weather’s supposed to be nice, so why don’t we walk? To the Quay, I mean. Quick hop on the SeaBus and their condo is about a twenty-minute walk.”
“Sounds great. Won’t be too hot?”
I checked the forecast. “A bit cooler tomorrow. We should be fine. There’s a nice wine store by Waterfront Station. A lovely bottle of Okanagan red would be great.”
“Okanagan?”
“That’s a wine region in the interior of British Columbia.” I waved my hand eastward. “Heading toward Alberta.”
He cocked his head. “Didn’t you say Alberta was like Nebraska?”
“Yes, on many levels.”
“Right. And Okanagan’s before that?”
“Between here and the Rocky Mountains, yeah.”
“I want to see the Rocky Mountains. I mean, I drove through them to get to Stanford, but I’d like to see them, you know, as a tourist. Not some teenager hellbent on getting out of Dodge.”
Showing him was out of the question. Suggesting we might do anything other than work alongside each other to get through this film was absurd. And yet I couldn’t deny the pull was still as strong as it had been seven years ago. I cleared my throat. “Maybe someday you will.”
“Yeah.” He put his fork down. “I was telling my publicist I was thinking of heading to New York when I’m done filming. A fresh start.”
My jaw dropped. “You don’t want to go back to LA?”
He shrugged. “Not exactly anything waiting for me there.”
“Andreas—”
He popped up. “So can I get my script and we can do lines?”
“Well, sure.”
He piled our plates and headed down the stairs.
I could’ve followed, of course. We still had our glasses of soda to finish, though, and I suspected he needed time. So I sipped my drink and waited for him to return.