Chapter 5
Emma
When I left home just over two weeks ago to head to Hawaii for the destination wedding of my dreams before a two-week are you serious, we actually get to do this? honeymoon in Fiji, I had a much different expectation of my life than where it is now.
And now is with me in an upgraded villa on a remote island for privacy courtesy of my brother, with Jonas Rutherford, billionaire heir to the Razzle Dazzle fortune and star of my favorite movies, sprawled on my bed while I rub aloe on his back.
The curtains are open to let in the sea breeze.
Waves crash along the rockier parts of the shore that are a barrier between my private beach and the next villa’s beach, providing nature’s soundtrack for background noise.
The entire room is lit in a soft orange glow from sunset, and the remains of our seafood dinner are packed away and ready for the resort staff to pick them up.
This would be a lovely romantic night were it my actual honeymoon.
But I think I prefer this.
Not because I’m touching my nearly lifelong celebrity crush.
More because this man has been the friend I didn’t know I needed.
And he didn’t have to be.
He could’ve walked away—and some people would likely argue he should’ve—yet he didn’t.
That has to say something about someone’s character, doesn’t it?
“Does this hurt?” I ask, trying to be gentle with the aloe.
“My own fault,” he replies in a husky voice. “Should’ve followed your lead and bathed in sunscreen before we left.”
It’s been three days since I woke up to him on my porch, and despite running over to his own villa once or twice, he’s always come back.
We’ve been boating. We’ve been hiking. We’ve had meals in and meals out.
Spa treatments. He’s crashed on my couch two of the past three nights.
And today, to prove he wasn’t as afraid of marine life as he apparently is of chickens now, we went snorkeling.
We saw tons and tons of tropical fish and sea life.
There were no funny looks from anyone. No press spying on us. No questions.
Nothing bad happened.
Except his sunburn.
“When do you start your next movie?” It’s odd that the question rolls off my tongue easier than I ever could’ve expected. But Jonas is so down-to-earth and friendly, it’s hard not to be relaxed.
And grateful.
So grateful for the distraction and companionship.
And the courage to leave my villa and enjoy my time here.
“Next question,” he says into the pillow.
“You’re not doing more movies?”
“I’m officially a has-been.”
I squirt more aloe into my hand and smooth it over the chiseled plane of his back. “It wouldn’t hurt for you to start playing older characters closer to your own age, but I wouldn’t call you a has-been.”
He barks out a laugh. “You and Begonia…”
I know who Begonia is. He’s mentioned his brother’s girlfriend more than he’s talked about anyone else in his family. “Is she any part of why you got divorced?”
He sighs. “No. She’s just my favorite person because she doesn’t ask questions like that.”
I laugh. Can’t help it. “Not sorry,” I say lightly.
“You shouldn’t be,” he grumbles. “And that’s not honestly why she’s my favorite.”
“Then why?”
“She makes Hayes happy, and it’s impossible not to like someone who can make the world’s grumpiest asshole happy.”
“Aww, you sound like me when I call Theo the world’s biggest troublemaker.”
“We see them for who they are, we understand why they’re who they are, and we love them for who they are, no matter how hard they are some days.”
“And who they are are those people who step up in ways no one else understands we need, right when we need it.”
“Do we have the same brother?”
“I think we covered that with the porn star question.”
He chuckles.
I’ve let Theo know a few times that I’m still alive, which I suspect he already knows from checking in with the resort staff. He might be a troublemaker, but he has a massive heart.
And my complete irritation for not telling me my ex set him up to do jail time .
And all of my guilt for all of the times I asked him to please get along with Chandler despite the fact that Theo was never the problem.
Never the bigger half of the problem, anyway.
But that’s something I’ll deal with when I get home.
If I want to be new and improved Emma , I have to.
Hiding from all of my problems and assuming that everything will turn out just fine in the end hasn’t worked so well, has it?
And I actively ignore that little voice in my head that says but the universe delivered Jonas to your doorstep . No matter how freaking hard silencing that little voice is.
But I do it.
This is not a reward for bad behavior.
This is a test. Or my opportunity to be a friend to someone else in need.
Or something.
“I told Peyton I wanted her to put her career on hold so we could start a family,” Jonas says into the pillow.
I almost squeeze my hands into fists. I wanted a family.
In my more honest moments, I can confess that’s why I stayed with Chandler so long. Because he looked like the fastest path to the family I wanted. Because starting over didn’t mean that much longer until I get married .
Starting over meant that much longer until I have babies .
No matter how much I was or wasn’t actually in love with him , I was wholly in love with the idea of the life we could have together.
I know I don’t have to want a family. I know I don’t have to fit into that box that the world likes to put women in.
But I want it .
I crave it.
It’s always been what I’ve wanted. Who I’ve seen myself being. The idea of motherhood feels as right to me as Laney running her parents’ online photo gift shop feels right to her. As right as Sabrina running her family’s café always felt right to her.
And here I go with the regrets again, since Chandler just sold the café out of the family.
Without telling anyone.
And all of that has nothing to do with why Jonas got divorced, and this is my time to listen.
My hands drift lower, slathering his lower back with the aloe. “So the tabloids got it right.”
“They did.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“And why didn’t you two work it out? That can’t be the whole story.”
He mumbles something into the pillow.
“Oh, you have a case of the don’t wanna talk about it s, hm?”
He sighs and turns his face so I can see his profile. The strong nose. Chiseled jaw. Pouty lips. Lowered lids with thick, dark lashes under his prominent brow.
All lit by the soft glow of the dipping sun.
This man was born to be on the big screen.
“I doubled down on insisting kids before career was the right move when I should’ve told her the truth,” he says quietly.
Hard to miss the pain and regret in his voice. I wonder if he’s told anyone this yet.
I squirt more aloe in my hands and tackle his shoulders again. “Go on.”
He slides one brown eye in my direction, then lets his lids close. “Before we got married, we talked about expanding beyond Razzle Dazzle. Doing bigger projects. Heavier subjects. More—more acting . Bigger. Stronger. Stuff that would get critical acclaim in a way Razzle Dazzle films just don’t.”
I make a soft noise to let him know I’m listening. I know he’s won awards—like an Oscar, maybe?—but I think it was when he was a child actor. Nothing recent.
He sucks in a deep breath that makes his back move under my hands.
“The first couple months we were married, we were both hip-deep in projects. Me for Razzle Dazzle. Her too, for one. But she also had one for an indie company without a lot of expectations. No one was talking about film festivals or awards or anything. For her, it was a pure passion project. A foot in the door for branching out. When she finished that up and came home talking about another new script she’d read, one that she wanted us to tackle together that was next-level, I—I got cold feet. ”
“About working with her?”
“No. About the project. It was big. It was bold. It was—it was something that needed an actor with the chops to pull it off. And I’m the guy who doesn’t even have a film agent because all I’ve ever done is movies for my family.”
I still. “That’s?—”
“Unheard of?” he supplies dryly.
“Absolutely fucking ridiculous.”
Here’s the thing.
I sugarcoat everything . It’s a superpower and a curse.
And it’s why I’m here. It’s why I was able to lie to myself about Chandler being the love of my life for so long. It’s why I let him gaslight me into believing no one else would want me. It’s why my friends kept secrets from me.
To protect me from having my sugarcoated world view popped.
And I need to stop .
So I’m trying. Right here, with my favorite movie star on the entire planet.
Jonas shifts to his side and pushes up to face me. “I get the feeling you don’t think me not having an agent is ridiculous for the same reason I think it’s ridiculous.”
He doesn’t think he has the chops for a project.
He’s afraid .
“You’re hiding behind your family,” I say.
His lips part. He holds eye contact briefly, then looks away.
“You’re Jonas Fucking Rutherford . You were practically born on a movie set. You have all the resources to get the best teachers and coaches in the world if you’re tackling something bigger . What can you honestly be afraid of?”
His Adam’s apple bobs, and he looks me square in the eye again. “Until the past few months, I’ve never failed at anything.”
I don’t know what my face is doing, but whatever it is, it’s making his face do something new too.
He’s embarrassed .
“Did you tell her you were afraid?” I ask.
“No.”
“Why not?”
He huffs out a breath. “Three guesses.”
“ Jonas .”
He was afraid.
He was afraid to tell her that he was afraid.
Can it be anything else?
“I know,” he mutters.
“You married her, and you couldn’t tell her you were afraid?”
“I think she figured it out. Probably before I did, if I’m being honest. I’ve never…I’ve never been afraid of anything before. I didn’t even know that’s what it was.”
I shake my head and rub the remaining aloe off my hands and on my thighs. “We’re both relationship disasters, aren’t we?”
“You dodged a bullet.”
“About seven years too late. At least you got out fast.”
He winces.
“I’m sorry.” Dumb dumb dumb . Maybe I need to not—no. No . What’s the worst that happens if I say something to piss off Jonas Rutherford?
He never talks to me again?
That was likely the course of my life anyway.
“Actually, I’m not sorry,” I correct. “Let me go back to you’re Jonas Fucking Rutherford .
So you do a project and it bombs. Totally, completely, unequivocally.
It. Bombs. People say you’re a hack. They call you a nepo baby who doesn’t deserve any of what you have.
That you should go back to playing teenagers or stop acting entirely.
You’re laughed off a stage presenting at an awards show.
Former fans leave dead flowers at your doorstep to mourn the loss of their perception of you.
For a whole entire year, you can’t go anywhere without someone clucking at you for nefarious reasons to mock you. So what ?”
He makes a noise, but I hold up a hand.
I am not done. “You’re still young. You’re still rich.
You’re still handsome as sin, with a good personality to boot unless you’ve been faking it here with me.
You can still go back to Razzle Dazzle films and no one will care .
Or—or just maybe —you fail when you take a leap and then you try again .
And you do it better. And in five years, you’re accepting every major award there is to win for something you put your heart and soul into because you believed in yourself enough to go for what you want instead of hiding behind who you’ve always been. Maybe that happens .”
He visibly swallows again.
His gaze dips to my lips, then back up to my eyes. “Are you talking to me or you?”
“ I’m not a freaking movie star . I’m an accountant. A very happy accountant.”
“But you put your heart and soul into a guy who didn’t deserve you for too long. Like maybe I’ve put my heart and soul into something I outgrew years ago.”
All of the breath in my body whooshes out of me. “I can’t get that time back. All I can do is move forward and be smarter and stronger and—and?—”
“Braver,” he finishes for me. “We can both be braver.”
This is going sideways, and I don’t know if I like it. “We’re talking about you.”
“You’re right. I need to be braver if I want to prove I’m more than someone who was handed this life on a silver platter. And I needed to hear that. Thank you. But who do you want to be?”
Who do I want to be? “I want to be happy ,” I whisper.
“So be happy.”
Is he leaning into me?
Am I leaning into him?
What’s happening here?
“You can’t just wave a magic wand and suddenly give me a home and a husband and babies and pets. It’s barely been a week since I left the man that I thought I would love forever.”
“Do you miss him?”
“I’m too furious at him to miss him.”
“ Will you miss him?”
“No.” I don’t even have to think. The answer pops out like it’s been lingering in there, waiting for someone to ask. So does something else that I never thought I’d hear myself say out loud. “Leaving him was almost a relief. No. Not almost . It—it was . I was relieved to leave him.”
“Emma.” He strokes my hair. “That’s a sign.”
“Were you glad she left you?” I whisper.
“I was more worried about how it would reflect on my family than I was about hurting her. And that’s my biggest regret in my entire marriage.
I wasn’t a good husband. I looked like I’d be a good husband.
The world thought I’d be a good husband.
I played a husband in movies dozens of times.
But I never put the energy into figuring out what it actually took to be a good husband in real life. She deserved better too.”
“We’re both disasters, aren’t we?”
“We are. And I think I passed out on your porch for a reason. I think we’re supposed to help each other through it.”
He’s going to kiss me.
Jonas is going to kiss me .
And fuck every warning bell in my head. Just fuck it all.
I’m going to kiss him back.
He’s been the friend that I’ve needed this week.
“I’m not relationship material right now,” I whisper as he slides both hands down my scalp to cradle my cheeks.
“I’m friend material,” he whispers back. “That’s all I’ve got.”
“I can take friend material. I like friend material.”
“Even if I do this?”
And then his lips are brushing mine, the sensations both magnetic and freeing.
Jonas is kissing me.
Jonas Rutherford—my celebrity crush and unexpected friend and everything I’ve needed here in Fiji—is kissing me.
I grip his solid forearms and lick his lower lip. “Yes,” I whisper.
Maybe this is a mistake.
But some mistakes are necessary.
And tumbling into my bed, kissing Jonas, is definitely necessary.