Chapter 26 #2
He guided her back toward the bar while whispering, “River was trying to poach you. Scouts like him won’t settle for anything less than exclusivity—professionally and personally. If you call him, I can guarantee he’ll also do his best to steal you from me.”
“Well, he was very attractive. I’m sure someone who’s not me would’ve been tempted.” She placed her palm flat against Jordan’s chest and counted in time to his heartbeat to calm down.
He put his hand over hers, pressing down harder to help. “How are you holding up?”
Her lungs relaxed only for her lower body to tighten, so not great.
“It hasn’t been the worst day of my life, but…”
“The trailer,” he guessed.
“Everything’s kind of festering all at once, yeah.”
Watching the premiere felt like drowning. She was a Zaffre now and sinking like a stone.
The first impression her parents would have of Jordan—her wonderful, understanding, caring husband—would be tainted by lies. She shouldn’t have waited. He was perfect. They would love him. What the hell had she been thinking?
She hadn’t been. Not rationally anyway. It didn’t matter that the pictures in the trailer were old; seeing Jordan with someone else…
Deep in her heart, she’d been counting their inevitably numbered days since saying I do. She’d wanted to be sure her marriage was solid. He’d done nothing to make her believe otherwise. So, then…why? Why couldn’t she let those fears go?
Where did they even come from?
“Hey,” Jordan whispered, caressing her cheek. “Come back to me.”
He encircled her waist, pulling her closer, and her traitorous knee wedged itself between his legs.
Too close wasn’t close enough. She wanted him all over her.
She wanted to wake up in the morning, every morning, in bed with him.
She wanted to dance around the kitchen and tell him stories while he made them breakfast.
“How do you want to play this?” he asked.
“By ear, mostly. We have to give the people what they want,” she said. “But quickly. I want to go back to the hotel.”
He grinned. “Do you remember our code?”
How could she forget?
They made their official entrance together, immediately targeting anyone he knew who had the right connections, like potential distributors, curious patrons, and foundation chair members with discretionary grant funds.
Jordan surprisingly, and proudly, pitched Find Your Zin just as well as she did Tantivy—something she hadn’t expected.
Zinnia wouldn’t call what they were doing fun, but it was wildly entertaining.
Working the room together, matching dollar for dollar and dominating the not-so-complicated rich-people dance they both had memorized.
Thank Jesus he’d decided to use his powers of persuasion for good.
Jordan hated small talk, but that man could convince Scrooge McDuck to invest his last dollar in him.
He also had an inside edge on who to avoid. Specifically, anyone who was likely to ask about Sadie, Zaffre Hours, or Beatrix for gossip outlet bounties. He gave the signal, and she created graceful exits.
The trailer spoke for itself. No comment.
When they finally made it to the VIP balcony, Lulie screeched as soon as she saw them. Zinnia had expected nothing less.
“Happy birthday.” Jordan kissed her forehead and went to go see his parents.
“Happy birthday,” Zinnia echoed. “Are you having a good time?”
“The best, and oh my god, how are you feeling?” Lulie was bouncing on her tiptoes.
“Fine?”
“Just fine? It was your first trailer! Someone here already leaked it online. Everyone already loves you, by the way. Your tags are on fire.”
There was no way one of her chronically online raggedy cousins wasn’t sending it to her parents right now. “I have tags?”
“Don’t worry, I will personally help you adjust to everything. Before you know it, this will all be old hat. My dad loves saying that. Old hat. I don’t even really know what it means but it sounds good. Let’s sit!”
Thankfully Wylie was at a standing bar table and she could lean against it. She had a hard enough time getting in and out of the car. Sitting in a chair was not in her immediate future.
“Happy birthday,” she said to him.
“Thanks. Why a dragonfly?”
She beamed. He actually went to her website and looked up his character. “Do you like it?”
“It’s cool.” He shrugged.
“Zinnia.” Amber appeared at her side. “I need to borrow you for a moment. Come with me?”
Zinnia looked to the twins for guidance. Lulie was emphatically nodding, while Wylie was shaking his head. “Very helpful. Thank you.” She was about to tell Amber to lead the way, but suddenly forgot how to speak.
In the far corner, on the opposite side of the balcony, Jordan was talking to Bea.
Zinnia blinked and almost rubbed her eyes to be sure before remembering she was wearing too much makeup for that.
Because what she was seeing couldn’t be right.
And then all the air wheezed out of her lungs as Jordan took Bea by the elbow and led her behind a black curtain.
Their camera pods were right behind them.
Jordan
Beatrix looked different than he remembered. She’d changed her nose and her lips were fuller, but she still had familiar wide-set hazel eyes and freckled light brown skin. He let go of her elbow, shaking out his hand as if it burned to touch her.
“What are you doing here? Mabel said you weren’t coming.”
Camera pods had them in frame from both angles to make sure not a single eye twitch was missed.
“That was true. I was invited, and then I had this weird scheduling conflict so I had to cancel, but somehow, that cleared up about an hour ago. I’m feeling a lot like Cinderella at the moment.”
Jordan wanted to scream. He’d almost had a heart attack when Bea walked up to him. This is what he got for letting his guard down. He fought with everything he had to keep a straight face—the network wouldn’t get a single ounce of the boiling rage consuming him for Zaffre Hours.
She tsked. “I know you’re not still mad at me.”
“I wasn’t mad at you then. You broke my fucking heart, Bea. What made you think I was angry at you?”
“I think about us all the time,” she said, wistful as all get out. “I was honestly shocked when I heard you got married. I didn’t realize how much I was in denial about our story being over. We made a mistake back then.”
“If a mistake was made, it wasn’t by me. You knew what you wanted.”
“We were babies. We didn’t know anything.”
Jordan almost laughed, wondering if she realized that they were both speaking in sound bites. A civil conversation between exes for public consumption. If he’d really needed closure, he wouldn’t have gotten it here.
He peeked behind the curtain—Zinnia was okay. She was walking away from the twins’ table with his mom. “So, you would change the past, then?” he asked Bea.
Her clear hesitation was all the answer he needed. Exactly what he expected.
“We needed time apart,” she recovered quickly. “I don’t think either of us thought it’d be forever. We needed to grow up to find each other again.”
“No.” Sometimes, blunt really was best.
“You never stopped loving me.” Bea said it as if it was some grand revelation. “Do you love her the way you loved me?”
Now that was a question he wanted to answer. He knew the perfect thing to say. “I don’t need to because I grew up. I found her. I trust her.”
“Love is more than just trusting someone, Alfie.”
He scoffed. “I don’t love you anymore, Bea.”
“Why would you say that? Are you trying to hurt me?”
“No.” He shook his head. “The truth is that I’ve compared every person I’ve ever dated to you. They’ve never measured up. I always found something that you did slightly better than them.”
Her eyes lit up with startled hope.
“But Zinnia, my wife, is incomparable. She challenged me to think about love and commitment differently from the start. Getting to know her changed the way I think about my life and how I fit into my family’s life. I love her in a way that I’ve never loved anyone.”
When Zinnia watched this moment months from now, she’d immediately pick up on the secret clue he’d planted and laugh. No one else would get it—an inside joke just for them while the world watched.
Bea was blinking back tears. “You honestly expect me to believe you magically moved on two weeks before we were supposed to meet again?”
Those acting lessons were really paying off.
He didn’t want to hurt her or seem cruel, but he needed to be firm. When he looked at her, he only saw someone he used to love. He needed her to understand that. In this moment, he needed to convince the world.
“I hope you have a long, happy, and successful life, Bea,” he said, meaning it. “But I don’t want you in mine.”