19
“Luna Aldridge’s Million-Dollar Necklace Wasn’t the Only Thing Hanging on Her Tonight”
—Rumors Unlocked
I GRIPPED THE purse that Kelsey had handed me two seconds before I stepped onto the carpet and smiled.
“Ms. Aldridge, look here!”
“Luna! Luna!”
“Smile this way!”
I looked over my shoulder, posed, faced forward, smiled, and walked to the next set of photographers, doing it again. Cecilia waved me forward. Her face was a comforting presence in the commotion.
Cecilia kept a hand on my arm, directing me to the next mark. “How are you doing?” she asked.
She had been the first person to reach out after my divorce.
She didn’t want to talk about next moves or prepared statements.
She only wanted to ask how I was. Her girlfriend had broken up with her the same night I found Jeremiah cheating, so we ate cinnamon raisin bagels on the beach in matching flannel pajamas while we cried and wiped our runny noses.
Watching the sun set behind the ocean only made me cry more.
I could hear Mom’s voice. When the birds stop calling and the sun disappears, that means it’s time to come home.
Cecilia was the only person on my team my age. It felt like having a friend from college or a close cousin who somehow understood everything you were feeling all the time.
“I’m fine.” I smiled. “Only slightly overwhelmed, but it’s okay.” She nodded, satisfied with my response.
Stop again. Pose, smile, guarantee that my necklace can be seen by the flash. The air tasted like cologne, but it was filled with bright lights bouncing off diamonds and silky hair.
For a brief moment, I felt like Past Luna.
The Luna who walked out with a smile on her face and swayed in her silk dresses for the photographers to snap a good shot for the next day’s cover.
The Luna who kept her head up when a camera flashed and let her feet leave the ground on the court when she scored a point.
The Luna who wasn’t filled with a thesis-length of thoughts that felt unexplainable to even the most mentally sane.
Cecilia’s education in philosophy wouldn’t be enough to dissect what my stream of worries was trying to say.
I took a breath.
It was difficult not to think of Jeremiah everywhere I looked. He was attached to everything in London, like a light signal that plastered every building.
A piece of me was scared I’d see him here. There was no way, of course. He’d be on the court grinding out the bottoms of his sneakers until Wimbledon began. (He’d tell me I was an idiot for not doing the same.) But my throat still tightened.
At these events, there was usually an exception to his rules of our marriage. He’d tell me I was beautiful. Hold me close the whole night. Walk across the red carpet, take my arm, and whisk me away into a hidden corner.
My vision was jolted by a blurred figure the height of Jeremiah walking toward me. I blinked and found Kieran moving in my direction. The acid in my stomach settled.
His gaze was on me, and there was nothing hidden about it.
It didn’t help that his eyes were the same blue as the ocean outside my old bedroom window in Rhode Island.
An ocean I craved to brush my fingers against. One I wanted to be consumed by.
His presence did the same, pulling me in.
A gray suit hugged his chest and legs, while his hair was disheveled ridiculously perfectly. Messy but intentional. Short but wavy.
It was like he constantly oozed seduction.
My hands locked up.
What was he doing?
He was supposed to be inside already—photos taken and done. If I were to see him, I was told to stay far away because it was too soon. No joint photos. We would be seen together inside, sharing drinks, and holding hands instead.
This seemed like much more than holding hands.
My heart rammed against my chest in unison with his footsteps.
I didn’t even spasm like this before a tournament final.
I’d actually prefer to be on a court right now.
Hand me a racket and throw me in! New rule where I can’t switch out these heels?
Who cares! At least I wouldn’t be here with him looking at me like that.
I wasn’t even trying to look away now. There was no use.
Every photographer was staring at him in awe as he took his place in front of me.
I suppressed my breath—as if that would make me disappear, leaving a plume of smoke in my wake—as he blocked the camera flashes. His hand cupped my elbow, and he leaned in. For a split second, I thought he was going to kiss me, and my heart flipped.
His mouth brushed the shell of my ear. Goose bumps flew across the skin on my back.
“You look stunning,” he whispered.
I wasn’t sure if I inhaled or stopped breathing as a response. For all I knew, my heart had stopped working altogether and this was my body’s response to a temporary heart attack. He pulled away too quickly for me to unpack it, his hand the last to leave.
I stared at him in shock as he walked away, moving down the rest of the carpet with his hands in his pockets.
What was that?
Did our last conversation in my kitchen spark his interest in a competition called Who Can Make This Act More Interesting?
A small, very tiny, almost indiscernible, part of my brain was boiling with… desire.
The whisper of touches on my back and the curious stares by his blue eyes were confusing.
I was navigating an extinct foreign language trying to admit it.
Those arm-hair-raising instances were baffling and deceiving and tugged at a feeling deep in my stomach that I refused to acknowledge.
And whatever that just was, it lit a fire in that very indiscernible part of my brain.
I pressed my eyes shut.
These were acts. Well-orchestrated dances that caught the light in the right way every spin. He doesn’t take your career seriously, he doesn’t believe anyone could love you, and he thinks you’re a snob, I reminded myself.
Stopping in front of me to whisper a secret in front of the entirety of London was an act. That was all.
But he could’ve said anything. And he chose to say that?
My subconscious was drowning in a string of questions. They were filling up my skull like a ball of yarn. I cursed my father for reading so many romances.
If photographers weren’t breathing on me, I’d shove my fingers in my ears to rid them of the sensation of Kieran’s voice in my head.
You look stunning, you look stunning, you look stunning.
When I looked at him again, he had his arm around his love interest in the film. She had curly red hair and an emerald-colored dress. A pinch attacked my chest. She was beautiful. Fiery. And worst of all, he thought so too. He looked down at her in awe, no inkling of our moment in those blue eyes.
It was as if it had never happened.
“You and Kieran shouldn’t be seen more than ten feet away from each other for the rest of the night.
Network, mingle, drink. But he should always be present in the corner of your eye.
The hardest audience to convince is a group of actors,” Deidra reminded me as we walked into the venue, Cecilia and Kelsey by our side.
A bar lined a grand hallway before guiding us to a theater. People filled the space with their conversations and gowns. It wasn’t hard to pick Kieran out of the bunch—a blond head that attracted women the same way fruit attracted flies. Flies with really high heels.
Based on the rundown of the night Serena gave me this morning, they’d start the film soon. Two hours where I’d have to stare at Kieran’s face and try not to think about how the word “stunning” was spelled or looked or sounded coming from his mouth.
What made this whole thing even worse was that I loved this book. It took every fiber of my being not to walk up to the writer and tell her how much I loved it.
My father had it sitting on his bookshelf when I returned home after the divorce.
I locked myself up in that house and refused to watch any live TV out of fear of seeing my or Jeremiah’s face.
I found Saving September in the office after managing to ruin the microwave with an exploded bowl of oatmeal.
It was a weak moment in my day. So I picked up the book and dismissed my romance ban.
At midnight, under a dying lamp, I sobbed, turning the last page.
I was convinced I’d never find a man as good as Theo Bennett and I’d die alone wanting nothing less.
Now Kieran was playing that role.
I walked to the bar and ordered a drink as a presence took up the space beside me.
“Ms. Aldridge,” he greeted me. My stomach flipped at the politeness of his voice. I looked up at the bartender, who was close enough to hear us.
“Mr. Alexander. How are you?” I asked.
Kieran glanced at the bartender before twisting and leaning toward me. I got a whiff of his cologne as his lips came close. It was like taking a sip of whisky.
“Sorry about earlier,” he apologized in a hushed tone.
Did I hear that right? I squinted, turning toward him to face him. “You didn’t try to catch me off guard on purpose?” I whispered.
“You think I would?”
“The look on your face made you look fairly determined.”
“Acting,” he said, taking a gulp of his drink.
“That doesn’t explain your choice of words, though,” I commented.
His eyes widened. They almost glowed when they did that. “It’s the first thing I could think of,” he answered casually, like we were talking about the correct temperature to bake sugar cookies at, rather than seductive compliments.
“I’m pretty sure you would’ve ruined this whole thing for us if I mentioned your preference for hiring assassins.” He laughed lightly. It was a genuine laugh. Not one of his usual conniving smirks that I wanted to rip off.
“Don’t say that so loud,” I squealed, throwing my hand against his mouth.
A blush crept out from under my palm.
Kieran Alexander, blushing.
“Sorry.” I withdrew my hand, forgetting about personal space.
His lips parted and closed. “No, you’re fine—it’s fine—you can.” You can. He swallowed. “I’m happy to hear you’re keeping this side business quiet. Even if I’ll suffer.”
Nari approached him before I could respond. She spoke briefly in his ear and then walked off, her lanyard swinging.
“Are you ready to go?” he asked.
“Yes, but—are we sitting together? That seems like a bit much.” I scrunched my nose. Shouldn’t he be surrounded by his costars?
Sitting in the middle of them as they accepted a standing ovation seemed as uncomfortable as people singing “Happy Birthday” to you as a teenager.
He fidgeted with his watch. “No, we’re leaving.”
“What do you mean we’re leaving? We’re not going into the theater?” I put my glass down.
He shook his head, a quaint response for my full questions.
“But you’re supposed to sit with everyone and watch the movie together?” I may not work in film, but I’ve been to enough movie premieres to know how they worked.
He twisted the ring on his pinky finger.
It was gold with an A pressed into it. “I know, but I don’t, so I’m going to leave.
You’re more than welcome to stay and enjoy the show, though.
” His words were chopped. Clean-cut and final.
No longer that round edge of his laughter.
The one that made me lean forward and listen.
“Of course.” I shook my head.
“What?” he asked. The switch in his tone and body language was palpable. Two words, and he was suddenly annoyed. An Oscar-winning actor, ladies and gentlemen!
“No, it’s just funny.” I laughed, pressing a hand against my chest. “That you, of all people, one of the most egotistical people on the planet—” A string of giggles left my mouth uncontrollably, cutting me off.
People were starting to stare, but it was difficult to care.
This had to be one of the funniest discoveries of the twenty-first century.
Funnier than when Walt learned what a tampon was for from his first girlfriend—which also turned out to be his shortest relationship.
Or the time Cecilia wanted to try hitting a tennis ball and sent it behind her into Coach’s windshield.
Learning that Kieran didn’t watch his own movies but boasted about them was the equivalent to tennis commentators picking apart a player’s strategy when they had never won a Grand Slam themselves.
Kieran took my hand—more laughter exploded because, God, what a weird feeling to have his hand grasping mine and still not be familiar with it—and pulled me down a quiet hallway.
“—doesn’t want to watch himself on a screen the size of a billboard?” I finished my thought, cracking up. My head fell back, bumping against an ornate frame. Kieran clutched the back of my head, forcing me away from the frame. Then, he stared at me with his arms crossed, waiting.
“Done yet?” he asked, an unimpressed look on his face. I recognized it because Coach wore the same stare when I cracked jokes over his defeat in practice. He accepted my lack of laughter as an answer. “Phenomenal,” he said, and then turned and took a step in the opposite direction.
As the humor diminished, panic set in.
How would this look if neither of us showed up to the actual film? They’d assume it was me who convinced him to leave. That I begged him not to go to get my way.
And anytime he wasn’t present at an event, they’d point their fingers at me. The press would print headlines about him, but they’d really be about me. My lack of support, my poor influence, my hold on him. They’d assume I was the reason his ranking in tennis—
My heart trembled. Its shutters slamming open against the stormy wind, smacking against my rib cage.
“Wait, I don’t understand,” I said, stepping forward. He stopped immediately. “It’s only an hour and a half.”
He turned. His mouth was a hard line of determination, but his eyes looked tired. A slight crease of stress branched from the corners of his eyes.
“I don’t watch the movies I’m in,” he said finally. No emotion, no question. It was final. Water hitting a dam and stopping.
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. After all that talk about which of your movies I had seen and—”
“This is my job. I did my job. I played my part in the movie, and the movie is done now. I don’t want to discuss it, Aldridge.”
I—I didn’t know what to say. He was being completely serious. This had nothing to do with our fake relationship or how much we hated each other. This was him. And I touched a nerve I wasn’t supposed to touch. One I wasn’t supposed to see.
“Kieran,” I said softly. His eyes sparked with surprise. “I—”
A shadow in the corner caught my peripheral attention.
No. It couldn’t be. I blinked again. No.
My lungs caved in, and my throat tightened as if ten fingers wrapped around it.
Jeremiah was here.