Chapter 25 Ada
Ada
Early press has become routine over the last week, then it will cease until closer to the film premiere. When Ada and Vince
exit a studio following a radio interview, a group of young people notice them and nudge one another, clearly recognizing
the actors—attention that will grow tiresome eventually, Ada supposes, but for now, makes her feel like a star. They appear
to be of university age, she supposes, though she pretends not to notice them following her and Vince toward their car.
“Vince Hart?” one girl squeals. “I’ve seen all your pictures, and yours, Miss Worthington-Fox, and I read your recent exclusive.”
Before Ada or Vince can acknowledge the fan, one of the young men leers at Ada. “How about a private meeting, Miss Worthington-Fox?
I’ll let you give me an exclusive.”
“Mind your manners, sir,” she chides amid whistles and shouts of assent from the other fellows. Must they make everything
suggestive? Then she flashes a smile that falls between an invitation and a warning. “Is there to be another exclusive? If
so, I’m afraid you’ve done a poor job of convincing me to grant it to you, darling.”
Few things will ever be more satisfying than wiping a smug grin off a man’s face. By now they’ve reached their car, so Vince steps back to allow Ada inside while a question from another man follows on their heels.
“Was your statement true? Or are you a member of the Communist Party?”
And then Ada forgets the whistles, the catcalls, these brazen questions. As expected, her statement changed little. People
will ask what they wish to ask no matter how many times she answers.
“Why arrange a statement only to lie?” She arches a brow. “Every word was true, I assure you, including those regarding my
views.”
Then she precedes Vince into the car, and their driver takes them down the busy street toward Hollywood Hills.
Everything about Vince has shifted—his jaw tight, his winning smile gone. No longer beloved actor Vince Hart, instead a tense—even
angry—young man. Once she would have loosened his tie, hooked a finger through the loop, and pulled him close, murmuring that
all he needed to do was say the word and she would erase that look. For a moment she nearly does.
Instead she clasps her hands in her lap.
“You handle them well,” he says after a moment. “Those questions. I’m just sorry you have to endure people who have no respect
for you or your word.”
“Welcome to being a woman,” she replies dryly, though she briefly places an appreciative hand over his.
Silence descends over them. She glances at Vince—no longer tense or angry, simply that same indifferent look to which she’s
grown so accustomed. One so far removed. A knot forms in her throat while he shifts and passes a hand through his hair.
Ada runs her finger over a small tear in the seat’s leather upholstery. “At least our interviews have been civilized so far, although we’ve only been at this for a short time. They’re probably waiting until some good pictures end up in the papers before they really start speculating about us.”
“Should we give them a good picture?” Vince asks, his brow quirking in slight amusement.
“Such as you sweeping me off my feet and leaving a big kiss right on my lips?” she replies while his laugh joins hers. How
she’s missed laughing like this with him.
“It’s like we agreed before we started filming. Focus on the work. Anything else will only encourage them.”
Something about the way he says it brings a dullness to the pleasant brightness of their conversation. Perhaps the reminder
of how things are between them will always hold such power. The ability to take two people and keep them suspended in a liminal
space between comfort and discomfort, ease and tension, familiarity and unfamiliarity. Because what they had before is not
what they have now. Even if neither one wants what they once had, loss remains a painful ache.
After years apart and months working together, perhaps her reluctance to address that loss is what has kept them in this place
of in-between. As the car stops in front of Gordon’s house, Ada doesn’t step out right away.
“Will you come inside for a drink?”
The question leaves her mouth before she can lose the courage to ask it, prompted by something she has kept buried for so
long. She should have done this years ago when she left him, rather than once again succumbing to silence.
Gordon is out, and Sowerby greets them before retreating to the chaise longue in Ada’s office, his favorite place to nap.
The bar cart in the library is always supplied with a selection of libations, but Ada finds what she needs in the kitchen bar cabinet.
She pours cognac for Vince, mixes a martini for herself—gin, a touch of vermouth, plenty of ice, stirred and strained into a chilled glass and garnished with a lemon peel, just as she likes it.
Then she joins him in the library, surrounded by wood, leather, and the comforting smell of old books.
When they sit in caramel-colored leather armchairs, Ada can almost feel the tension beyond Vince’s relaxed exterior, can almost
sense him crushing down everything he wants to say because he knows she will never give him the explanation he seeks.
Not until now.
Ada has not rehearsed this speech, has not prepared, has done nothing in anticipation of this moment. For once, she wants
to speak freely.
“I wanted to succeed on my own. That’s why I ended things. Because I wanted to earn my place, not have it granted as an extension
of your fame or anyone else’s.”
Maybe he expected this discussion, maybe not. Vince sits straighter, a slight edge sharpening his words. “You didn’t think
I wanted the same for you?”
“What either of us wanted didn’t matter, not when the press knew me as Vince Hart’s lady. Nothing more. I wanted them to know
me first as Ada, then as Vince’s.” Her voice falls. “And you as Vince, then as mine.”
He visibly winces, as if she’s struck a nerve, then the muscle along his jaw ripples. “What’s your point, Ada? To make yourself
feel better? Because I know you’re not saying any of this for my benefit, not after you let me spend the last few years thinking
I’d done something wrong.” This time it’s her turn to wince as he finishes his drink in one gulp and stands. “Why now? Why
explain yourself now?”
“Because you deserve the truth.”
“And I didn’t then?”
Silence has always damned her, by choice or otherwise. Silence to protect her resistance work, silence about the life she
had, silence to Vince because she thought it was easier when, in fact, it caused far more damage than the truth.
Yet silence has also protected her in ways he will never understand. Ways she can never explain. Right now, though, she cannot allow silence to hurt him any more than it already has.
Ada sets down her drink and crosses to meet him. “What should I have said, Vince? I’m leaving you despite how I feel about
you?”
“Finally, some honesty.” He passes a hand over his jaw the way he always does when upset. “I thought we were happy. I thought
you were happy. And then I thought I’d ruined the best goddamned thing that ever happened to me.”
“Do you think it was easy, realizing I had to choose between my career and the man I loved?”
Deathly silence falls. She never admitted as much to him, even to herself. Loved.
Complete and total honesty, for once in her life.
They stand close together, chests rising and falling, both the drink and her admission rushing hot through Ada’s veins. His
words echo with each of her thudding heartbeats. The best goddamned thing.
Then she reaches for Vince and takes his face between her palms while his fingers tangle in her hair, and suddenly it’s him.
Only him. His lips tasting of cognac and charged with the tension still heating her skin, with everything she can never tell
him, with the distance of these last years, with the last months of being together while being apart.
Now, perhaps, they can escape the clutches of the liminal space.
The air rushes from her lungs with a little gasp when he presses her back to the bookshelves, and she is aware of every part
of her, every part of him. The tension in his fingers against her waist, the rumble of approval in his chest when she brings
his lips to hers, the nearly tangible, insatiable craving for each other exacerbated by time, by this moment.
“I’m sorry. For all of it.” She has little time for more before another kiss leaves her breathless.
“So am I.” He punctuates each sentence with kisses to her neck.
“Because if I’d known how you felt, I would have done anything.
Walked away if that was what you really wanted.
Staged a public separation and continued seeing you in private.
Anything.” He lifts his head to meet her eyes.
“You deserve your career, and you deserve to be happy. Not to give up one for the other.”
She loosens his tie, hooks a finger through the loop, and draws him closer, as she longed to do on their way here, as she
once did so often—slowly, never breaking his gaze. Then he kisses her until the wall of heavy books behind her and the pressure
of his body against hers are the only things keeping her upright. When they break apart, his voice is a rasp.
“Damn it, Ada, it’s you. Still.”
That word again.
Still.
Heat thrums through her stomach, marring her ability to ascertain anything other than an unmasked awareness of exactly what
she wants: more. And from the way his lips remain inches from hers, the way his hand grips her skirt, the way he leans in,
she senses he wants the same.
Except he doesn’t give it to her.
Instead Vince releases her. He steps back without another word, another look, another touch. Moments later, she hears the
front door close behind him, leaving her in the library, breaths sharp, heart beating too fast, heat spinning through her
body. Anticipating a more that did not come, and likely never will.