CHAPTER 51 Twenty-Three Million
August 11, 2012
“Can you hold back my hair while I brush my teeth?” I had just had it styled into waves, and I didn’t want to use a hair tie to avoid leaving any marks.
“Sure.” William set his phone on the bathroom vanity to help me.
As I rinsed my mouth carefully to avoid messing with my makeup, William’s phone buzzed, making me glance at his screen.
Incoming call Arabella Rivers …
William disregarded it and kept holding my hair. I grabbed a towel to pat my mouth dry, and I asked, “Aren’t you going to take that?”
Why was Arabella Rivers, that co-star he used to go out with, calling William on a random Saturday evening out of the blue? My stomach turned when I remembered watching them kissing and having fake sex on the big screen the day of the premiere.
William released my hair and said, “No, I’m not.” He sent the call to voicemail. I wanted to ask him about it, but we were in a hurry and needed to leave soon to make it on time. I still needed to pack my clutch and put on my dress, shoes, perfume, and lipstick.
William was freshly shaved and ready to go, looking polished and elegant like the literal movie star he was in one of the many elegant black tuxes he owned.
When he had walked into my bedroom through the invisible door earlier, he had to say my name twice so I would snap out of the deep trance he had put me in after seeing him looking like that. His fresh, citrusy cologne alone almost made me fall to my knees.
We were in such a hurry that I didn’t even have time to feel jealous or ask the pertinent questions to put myself at ease. We needed to leave, or we were going to be late.
William’s phone vibrated again after I finished lining my lips and applying lipstick and a thin layer of gloss. He let out an audible grumble and sent the call to voicemail again.
“Seems urgent,” I said sarcastically, walking out of the bathroom to grab the stunning dress William had bought me on such short notice. It was an up-and-coming designer that worked with sustainable materials. Lily recommended her, and I gasped when I first saw the dress. It was perfect for the occasion. Feminine, elegant, and shiny as hell. The jewel neckline, straight, fitted dress came in a pale, icy blue color. It was covered by a sheer cape embroidered with hundreds of rhinestones in various shapes and sizes, making themselves scarcer as they reached the cape’s bottom. Most were silver mixed in with a sapphire blue here and there. It created an effect of a waterfall made of brilliant, tiny stars.
The designer explained to William that 80% of the dress was made from recycled textiles and materials. That meant my dress ticked all the boxes required for the event’s sparkling, eco-friendly theme and dress code.
“Could you zip me up, please?”
William stood behind me, carefully sliding my hair to the side and kissing the nape of my neck before pulling up the zipper. It gave me goosebumps all over. I thanked him and sat on my couch to put on my heels.
His phone vibrated—again—and I groaned. “Seriously, what does she want?” I asked with a grimace, unable to keep my mouth shut.
“I think I have a clue of what she wants, but it’s not a conversation I’m ever going to have with her,” William replied in a clipped tone. He pulled out his phone to send the call to voicemail again.
“Is it a conversation you can have with me?” I was genuinely curious, especially since William was so sure about the reason behind her insistence. I didn’t see why we couldn’t talk about it.
“Can we discuss this in the car?”
“Sure.” I let it go. For now. I rushed around my room, fetching my clutch, darting to my closet to apply perfume, and making sure I didn’t forget anything so we could finally leave.
“Ready?” He asked, and I nodded. William smiled, placed his hand on the small of my back, and guided me out. He locked up, and we headed down to the lobby. When we stepped into the elevator, he complimented the dress and told me I looked beautiful, but I noticed a slight shift in his attitude.
Again, I let it go. William was leaving tomorrow, and I wanted to have a good time tonight. I didn’t want to spend it fueling my insecurities about that Arabella woman calling him and wanting to know why.
Aaron had the SUV waiting for us, and when he sped away, I cursed under my breath.
“What’s wrong?” William asked.
“Nothing, I forgot my phone.” We, or better said, I should’ve started getting ready earlier than I did. But it was my fault entirely. I was the one who wanted to watch one more episode. And William, of course, showered in five minutes, threw on his tux, and was ready forty-five minutes before I was.
“Do you want me to turn around, Miss?” Aaron asked.
“No, it’s fine,” I replied, unable to hide my annoyance. “We’ll be late if we do.”
William slid a hand underneath my hair and cupped the back of my neck, his fingers massaging the stress away. That felt good.
“Your neck is so tense, baby,” he whispered close to my ear. His fingers dug deeper into the taut muscles below my ears.
I turned my neck slowly toward him, and his lips were a breath away from mine. “That’s what jealousy does to necks, I guess.” My tone was playful and teasing. It was the safest way to let go of my insecurities and address the Arabella situation without escalating it into something more serious. I needed a little reassurance from him, not that he hadn’t noticed and hadn’t been providing that since we left the apartment.
He stared down at my lips and snorted a soft laugh. “You have nothing to worry about.” He ran the back of his finger down my cheek. “I was offered a lead role in Gustav Wagner’s next film. I was about to accept when my agent told me Arabella was offered the female lead role. So I declined.”
“What?” I was in shock at William’s revelation. I wasn’t an expert in the film industry, but I was learning a lot thanks to William. And I knew he was a huge fan of Gustav Wagner’s films. He had mentioned his interest in working with him in the past. “Why did you decline? Please don’t tell me you’re doing it for me.”
The answer was implicit. He hadturned down the role once Arabella had been brought into the project. He knew I’d been upset about them being in a film together when they had slept together in the past. But that wasn’t fair to him. He loved that director. If anything, they should’ve replaced her, not him.
“I read the script.” William removed his hand from my neck and scratched his jaw. “It’s a brilliant and stimulating psychological thriller, very much written in Gustav Wagner’s signature style. It only differs in that it has an erotic component to it. So, Arabella or not, I told my agent I was out. She probably thinks I’m refusing the role because of her or something along those lines, but I won’t entertain her theories or provide any explanations.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” The situation was bittersweet. I appreciated William for taking my feelings into consideration regarding the sex scenes he’d have to film if he had accepted the role, especially with Arabella Rivers. On the other hand, I’d never want to get in the way of him working with a director he admired so much. Besides, as much as I hated his involvement in sex scenes, I had never asked him to reject any roles. All I asked was to be given a heads-up about it so I would have enough time to fume about it internally before the premiere. “How much money were they offering you for the role?”
William silently considered my question. We talked openly about money all the time. About the millions he earned from acting and his recent involvement in producing films. But I wanted to know how much money he was sacrificing to make me happy, on top of losing the opportunity to work with this director.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does to me. Tell me.”
“Twenty-three million.”
I gasped. “William!”
He parted his lips to probably reply something to make me feel less shitty about it, but his phone buzzed again. Thankfully, it was Agent Hawthorne, not Arabella. I hoped she’d taken a hint.
William took the call and said “Yes,” “Okay,” and “I understand” a few times before hanging up.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah.” He slipped his phone back inside his inner jacket pocket. “Hawthorne’s feeling a bit under the weather today, so he wanted to let me know someone’s filling in for him tonight.”
“Hope he’s doing okay.”
“He sounded fine.” William frowned and looked out the window for a beat before returning to our previous conversation. “I’m not going to lie and say I wasn’t excited about working with Gustav Wagner because I’d already told you about it in the past. But you and your feelings are my priority. And if I have to reject a project or two along the way to ensure your peace of mind, I will not hesitate to do so. It’s not like I need the money, either.”
The situation became an inevitable paradox. We want to have our feelings taken into consideration without the guilt associated with the actions required to make that happen. It almost makes you want to say, don’t worry! Go ahead! Do that very thing that will hurt my feelings to clear my guilt away.
But I couldn’t do that. I wished I could be whatever I needed to be to avoid feeling like the world would come crumbling down if I had to watch William in bed with someone else. Kissing them. Fucking them. Even if it was all pretend.
“Thank you,” I said, my gaze dropping to my hands as I kneaded them on my lap. That was all I could think of saying without complicating the exchange. But I had one more question. “How many roles have you declined after the last premiere we attended, where we argued about the sex scenes?”
“A few.” The instant honesty was refreshing, as always. It was something I appreciated in our relationship. But damn, I couldn’t help but shake my head thinking how I didn’t want to be a hindering force in his career. “Don’t,” he said, catching my chin between his fingers and noticing my dilemma. “This is not on you.”
“We talked about puzzles the other day and how we would never allow anyone to assemble our puzzles, right?”
“We did. But these are my puzzles and I’m choosing not to assemble them,” he clarified. “I’m choosing to be better at accepting roles that will further my career without making you sad or uncomfortable or jeopardizing what we have.”
“Then why does it feel like I’m not even letting you buy the puzzle in the first place?” Perhaps I needed to wake up and be like other Hollywood couples, where both were actors, understood the business, and were more than capable of watching their significant other get it on with someone else on screen. I hated it, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t find a way to understand it in a way that would desensitize me about it somehow.
“Maybe you’re getting the puzzles mixed up.”
I cocked my head to the side, about to ask him what he meant by that, but Aaron parked the SUV in the venue’s stunning motor lobby and opened the door for us. We were already ten minutes late, so it was best to let the topic drop and go inside to look for my father.
From the moment we stepped out of the car, the flashing lights got directed our way. William shifted into celebrity mode, smiling and waving as he held my hand tightly and led the way toward the main entrance.