Chapter 19
LEXI
Back at the rental house, I scrubbed my face so hard the skin went pink and the mirror fogged over again. The hot water had long since run out, but I stood there, palms flat to the counter, listening to the quiet press in around me.
Hannah was doing a very specific kind of avoiding: the kind where you move through the same rooms as someone without ever intersecting.
Her coffee mug sat, pristine, on the counter; her tote bag was by the door; her schedule printouts lived face down on the kitchen table like a stack of sealed indictments. We didn’t fight. We also didn’t speak.
My phone lay beside my toothbrush, face up because hiding from it hadn’t helped.
National outlets had moved the story into a sleeker font.
Variety: Mystery Man Protects, Then Whisks Away Lexi Montgomery in Charleston.
People: Montgomery’s New Love? Sources Say It’s Complicated.
USA Today: Bar Brawl Hero? Hotel Escort?
Photos Suggest Same Man With Montgomery.
They ran the same grainy frames side by side—one from Pelicangate, my cap low, Lucas’s shoulder and jaw turned just enough to look heroic and anonymous at once; one from the Palmetto Rose, me in that soaked dress, his hand on my back as we slipped through a side entrance.
The headlines never said his name because they didn’t have it.
They didn’t need it. Unidentified companion did the work.
The analysis had arrived like vultures on a fence.
My “dating history” unfolded in tidy boxes: a tennis player, a director I didn’t want to remember, rumors with a co-star that had been nothing more than chemistry on camera.
The tone varied by outlet—breathless, arch, faux-concerned—but the conclusion was the same: I was in love with a shadow in Charleston and that shadow might be the same man who’d leveled a Navy officer in a bar.
Whatever Lucas was didn’t make headlines. Didn’t exist. And still, a blurry shoulder could ruin a career.
I dressed in silence—loose jeans, white tee, ponytail—and padded into the kitchen. Hannah glanced up, then past me, like her gaze could choose a safer path, if she just asked politely.
“You saw it,” I said.
“Everyone saw it,” she answered, measured. “I emailed a holding statement to Franklin and the studio. ‘We don’t comment on my personal life’ with a side of ‘Lexi is focused on the work.’”
“Thanks.”
She didn’t say you’re welcome. She did say, “Please don’t make me a liar.”
I swallowed. “I’m not trying to.”
“Intent doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “The pictures do.”
Noah honked from the SUV. We moved at the same time, reaching for our bags, passing each other like dancers who’d forgotten the choreography and were faking grace.
On the ride to set, James Island gleamed like it always did—the water bright enough to blind you. I watched the marsh slide by and tried not to think about the way rain had tasted on Lucas’s mouth.
On set, the air had the sticky, overcaffeinated hum of a crew that had been up before dawn and had also read the internet.
Conversations stopped, then restarted with a new topic when I walked past. The caterer didn’t call me sweetheart.
The grip who always asked about my grandma somehow had no questions at all.
Franklin intercepted me halfway to wardrobe, call sheet rolled into a weapon in his fist. His eyes were bloodshot; his smile, nonexistent.
“Good morning,” I tried.
“Don’t.” He thrust the paper into my hand. “We have one day to make up from last week, one day to thread the needle with tides, light, boats, and a town that decided to triple our permit fees overnight because you just became a walking headline.”
I kept my voice flat. “That’s not on me.”
“It is when your face is on USA Today,” he snapped. “In two different photos with the same unidentified man who looks like he moonlights as a battering ram.”
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep the edge out of my tone. “He stopped someone from drugging me.”
His jaw worked. “I know what he did. I also know how narratives mutate. And right now, the narrative is reckless starlet endangers production with secret romance.” He inhaled through his nose.
“So, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to be brilliant.
You’re going to be early, prepared, cooperative, and invisible to every camera that isn’t mine. ”
I nodded once. “Okay.”
His gaze softened a millimeter. “I don’t want to be your enemy, Lexi.”
“I know.”
“I want my movie.”
“I know that, too.”
He studied me, something like pity flickering and then dying. “Wardrobe. Then rehearsal on B dock.” And just like that, he pivoted and started yelling about a C-stand as if none of this had ever been personal.
Carrie met me in the trailer with a hug so quick it barely qualified but still cracked something open. “Don’t read the comments,” she murmured as she zipped me into the dress that meant vulnerability in Franklin-speak.
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“Fine. I am.” My laugh sounded like it’d been dropped and chipped. “They brought up the tennis player.”
“They always bring up the tennis player,” she said as she smoothed my hair. “Lay low. Give them nothing. If you’re going to be scandalous, at least, let it be on film.”
I squeezed her hand, grateful.
Outside, the sun had the audacity to be unbothered. Crew clustered along the dock, scurrying with light bounces and sandbags. The wind machine coughed to life. Seagulls judged from the railing.
Benji was nowhere to be found.
“He’s late,” Hannah said, appearing at my elbow with a headset and a frown. “Again.”
“He had a concussion,” I said.
“He had bruises,” she corrected. “No head trauma. His team cleared him.” She followed my gaze to the security tent where new faces mingled with familiar ones. Extra guards. The kind with square jaws and new radios. “We beefed up,” she said.
“Because of the articles.”
“Because production finally believes me about risk,” she said, then winced like she hadn’t meant to say it aloud.
I wanted to be offended. I didn’t have the energy.
Benji showed just as Franklin’s patience began emitting an audible whine.
He moved fine, but the cut on his cheek would need a makeup miracle.
He didn’t meet my eyes when I walked toward him.
He did nod once, short and professional, like we’d never eaten dinner together or talked about starting over.
Was he mad at me?
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey.”
“How’s your face?”
He managed a smile without humor. “My face is insured.”
“Benji—”
“You’re late to apologize,” he said quietly, not looking at me. “So, let’s just be actors.”
I supposed I deserved that. I didn’t agree with it, but I deserved it.
Ever since the story about me at the bar broke, the set had been a circus.
Paparazzi at the gates. Fans showing up with homemade signs.
Reporters digging into every personal detail they could find.
It wasn’t just me under the microscope anymore—it was everyone connected to the production.
The unwanted attention had put pressure on the crew, made tempers short, and turned even the most mundane things into potential headlines.
And Benji—sweet, even-tempered Benji—had been the one who paid for it when he was attacked.
He was definitely mad. Irritated, at least.
We hit our marks. The opening was a close two in natural light—his hand on my waist, my soft smile, that ache Franklin loved, the wind teasing the loose tendrils by my temple that the hair person had engineered to look like chance.
The scene asked for longing and restraint and something that looked like fate.
I could do longing. Restraint felt like a sick joke.
“Action,” Franklin called.
We danced the scene without touching more than the line allowed. The camera drank everything—my eyes, his breath, the split-second tremble of my fingers as his thumb brushed a seam of fabric. It was good. I knew it was good. It also cost me something.
“Cut,” Franklin said, low, like a prayer. “Again, tighter. We’re living in half-millimeters.”
We lived there for three more takes. Between them, I sipped water and avoided the edge of the set where spectators had gathered—the kind of locals who smelled a story and had friends at news stations. Security politely pushed them back, which only made phones rise higher.
When he arrived, Lucas was a slice of shade in the periphery—black shirt, sunglasses, that watchfulness that made the air around him feel like a plan. He didn’t get closer. He didn’t need to. I could find him without looking, the way you locate your own pulse.
In a break that was barely long enough to be called one, Hannah sidled in with a tablet.
“They’re everywhere,” she said without preamble.
“CNN’s entertainment arm, Vanity Fair, syndicated gossip shows—everyone.
They’re rerunning the Pelicangate clip next to the hotel stills.
Speculating it’s the same man. They can’t ID him, but the posture is similar enough that even our mother could spot it. ”
I stared past her at the sun winking off water. “What’s the studio saying?”
“They want a clarifying statement.”
“I’m not feeding this.”
“I know.” She exhaled, shoulders dropping half an inch. “They’re dredging old boyfriends like they’re building a dock out of exes.”
My laugh was a bark. “They’ll run out of lumber.”
“They never do.” She slid her sunglasses higher on her nose. “Post something neutral. Please. ‘Grateful for the concern. Focusing on the work.’ It starves the beast.”
I hated that she was right.
“After lunch,” I said.
She hesitated. “Benji’s pissed.”
“I got that.”
“He was attacked, and a day later your love life eats the sun,” she said, gentle but sharp. “He knows you didn’t plan it. But he’s bleeding for the movie, and the movie is bleeding for you. It’s messy.”
“I’m allowed to have a life.”
“You are,” she agreed. “But our life is public. And right now, privacy looks like guilt.”
I swallowed. The fabric at my ribs felt too tight. “I’ll be perfect.”
“You don’t have to be perfect,” she said, surprising me. “You just have to stay under the radar.”
Franklin bellowed my name like a ship foghorn. We went again.
By the time lunch hit, the cicadas were high and so was my heart rate. Crew migrated to shade; Franklin migrated to his monitor; Benji migrated somewhere I wasn’t. I stepped behind the wardrobe trailer because it was the one slice of set no one ever filmed.
“Don’t run,” Lucas said, appearing out of sun and shadow like he’d been under both the whole time.
“I’m not running.” My voice came out too light. “I’m hiding.”
“That’s worse.”
I leaned back against warm metal and tipped my head up to look at him. He’d removed the sunglasses. Storm-grey eyes, steady as a level. “Is your career ruined because of me?” I asked, throat tight. “If someone connects the dots—”
“No one’s connecting the dots,” he said, calm like a tranquilizer. “Not if you don’t hand them the map.”
“Meaning?”
“Don’t say my name. Don’t look for me. Don’t react to the story. Go to work. Go home. Under the radar, like your sister said.” His mouth almost quirked. “You can stay under the radar.”
I snorted. “Watch me.”
We stood there a minute, close enough that I could see the darker rim around his irises.
The want was still there, a living thing that didn’t care about publicists or permits.
The want said pull him into the trailer and lock the door.
The adult said eat a salad and post a platitude before Franklin combusts.
A sudden flurry at the gate turned both our heads. A camera crew—not handheld, not fan iPhone, but shoulder mounts and a woman in heels and a pencil skirt who didn't belong anywhere near marsh grass—argued with a PA. The PA shook his head. The heels dug in. The camera didn’t blink.
“National,” Lucas said, voice flat.
“How?” I whispered. “We don’t release our call sheets.”
“We don’t need to. Restaurants talk. Hotels talk. Somebody in a headset wants a favor from their cousin in news.” He paused. “And you trend.”
I could feel the eyes finding me even from across the lot, like heat you can sense before you see fire. Lucas shifted automatically to block the line of sight. It was an act of protection so simple it felt obscene.
Franklin charged in with two ADs and a harried location manager, waving laminated permits like talismans. It bought us a half hour at best. After that, any footage they got from the public road was theirs to run.
“Post now,” Hannah hissed as she appeared, pushing my phone into my hand. “Please.”
I typed: Grateful for the love. Focused on the work. See you on screen. I added a still from yesterday’s scene—a safe, sanctioned photo of me on the dock in sunlight, hair in a neat halo, eyes on the horizon.
“Approved,” she said, hitting share before I could argue about commas.
It didn’t stop anything. It never does. But the comments turned a degree.
A few we love you’s rose to the top, buoyed by algorithms and pity.
A gossip account posted the caption with a kissy emoji and the words girl he fine though, which made me laugh loud enough that Hannah gave me a look like I’d cussed in church.
Benji chose that exact moment to pass. He didn’t stop. He didn’t glare. He didn’t forgive me with his eyes. He just nodded once at Lucas like men do when they recognize another man who can carry a body out of a burning room, then kept walking.
Guilt slid under my ribs and set up a cot.
“Talk to him,” Lucas said softly, reading me without asking.
“I will.” I shoved my hair back and wiped at an imaginary smudge on my cheek so I didn’t have to meet his eyes. “After we wrap.”
“We’re not wrapping early,” Franklin announced to no one and everyone as he strode by. “We are not ceding a day to personal nonsense. Fifteen-minute turnarounds. We make our day. We make our week. We make our movie.”