Chapter 14
“Iswear,” Zariah said, “I married a man who thinks I’m a walking spice rack.”
Emily looked up from her teacup, amused. “What did he do now?”
“He asked me—no, quizzed me—on the difference between cilantro and parsley. Like I’m supposed to know that! I barely know the difference between basil and spinach when it’s on pizza.”
She snorted. “To be fair, they do look alike.”
“Exactly! And then he gets all whiny, ‘Zee, this is basic kitchen literacy.’ Yeah, my bad, it’s not like I’m the one who went to culinary school!”
It was taking everything in Emily to suppress her laugh.
“I told him if he wants me to identify herbs, he can label them like museum exhibits. ‘This is cilantro. Native to the fridge. Often mistaken for parsley by overstimulated wives.’”
She nearly choked on her tea. “You’re ridiculous.”
Zariah huffed through the line. “No, he’s ridiculous. If he wasn’t so hot, I’d have his head on a stake.”
Before she could respond, Emily’s phone died mid-conversation. She went in search of her charger but it was nowhere to be found. Maybe she’d left it in Talia’s car again.
She roamed the house for one.
That was how she ended up in Nicolas’s study. She’d opened mahogany doors to see walls that were walnut in color. At the center of the room was a massive desk. Behind it was a high-backed chair that looked like a throne.
Art pieces hung above, and a Greek figure sat in the corner. An extension outlet was also by a bookshelf. Aha! She bent, unplugging the charger that matched her phone’s port. While getting back up, her hand hit a stack of vinyls nearby.
She frantically picked them up.
Her fingers froze over the last cover, Chet Baker Sings. Was this the kind of music Nicolas liked?
Curiosity got the better of her despite the reminder that Zariah was probably texting like crazy because their talk ended abruptly.
She placed the record on the player anyway and music filled the room. It had a melody that sounded…sad, heartbreaking even.
The door suddenly creaked open.
Emily jumped.
Nicolas stood there. His gaze flashed from her to the player. Somehow, she felt like she’d infringed on his privacy.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to touch your—”
“You picked a good one.”
He shrugged off his jacket and hung it on the coat rack to the side.
Her brows lifted.
“Chet Baker,” he explained. He rolled up his sleeves with one hand and leaned against the wall, his eyes fixed on the spinning record.
The tension in her shoulders left. “Didn’t peg you for a jazz guy.”
He looked up at her. “I should do a better job of making that known. Put a tagline on my business card under CEO stating, ‘Jazz enthusiast.’ Would that work?”
She blinked.
Was Nicolas...joking with her?
It was a horrible joke too, by the way.
“Why is he a good one?” She stuck with asking something safer. “I don’t know much about Jazz. I’m more of an alternative girl. Florence + The Machine, Arctic Monkeys, Mitski, maybe a little Radiohead.”
“I like a little Radiohead too,” he breathed, making her heart stutter. Holy shit. He never sounded like that before. “But Baker’s songs and jazz in general have a certain transparency. What you hear is what you get.”
His eyes imprisoned hers. “I appreciate when things are exactly what they promise to be, no pretense.”
It was rare for him to speak like this. With such…feeling. The most emotion she’d heard from him was eight years ago. She wasn’t sure if it was the music or his long day at work that made him delirious. Either way, she also felt affected by the change in the atmosphere.
“In this piece he doesn’t start singing until five minutes in. I’ve always been a fan of delayed gratification so it’s no surprise it’s one of my favorites.”
Her blood pumped louder at the mischievous half-smile he gave. Gorgeous.
“You do seem like the type of guy who can wait as long as it takes for something.”
“You’re patient too. Your acting proves it. You give months to a project, waiting for that one moment when it all pays off.”
Her throat rippled.
Why did that sound like a compliment?
“My sister and I were taught growing up that everything had to be earned, not handed to us,” she revealed.
“It didn’t matter how long it took. I guess that stuck with me.
Our parents never spoiled us like the public thinks.
Sure, we had access to the best education and resources, but everything else was up to us.
And if we failed, our family didn’t hesitate to make us feel ten times worse, reminding us we had privileges most people don’t.
That they didn’t when growing up. As you may know, everything to the Pinault name was built from scratch. ”
She didn’t know why she was telling him all this. Maybe it was the magnetic pull in his eyes, or the softness in his voice. They were coaxing.
“And?”
Her gaze flickered down, finding the rug interesting.
“And that’s why I’ve always struggled with how people perceive me.
I wanted to keep making people like me, to make them proud.
The child prodigy. America’s Golden Girl.
The youngest female to win an Emmy. That…
bubble kept me sheltered from the possibility of ever facing what failure felt like.
I was driven to be the best—had to be the best, no matter the price. ”
I skipped meals for weeks just to stay camera thin.
I made all the prescriptions mine: Clomipramine, Fluvoxamine, every brain-silencing pill to shut my mind up when it insisted on comparing myself to others at 3 a.m. instead of sleeping.
I practiced my acceptance speeches before I was nominated because not being a winner, let alone a candidate, was never an option.
I smiled through mental breakdowns and dealt with a manic stalker.
Validation had been Emily’s drug. She’d overdose on it every time someone made her feel worthy. Every time someone praised her.
“That was until that bubble finally popped.”
Lying on the floor, unable to breathe until Talia, terrified, had to rush her to the hospital.
That was when she faced the music.
The truth was, Emily had known it all along. She’d been burning herself under a spotlight that never cared whether she turned to ash. But what was expected from a girl who had everything and nothing at the same time?
That was the thing about ambition, it had her coming back for more. She wanted to continue being an actress. But her career back then had reached the point of life or death. She’d misunderstood that stopping would mean the latter so she kept at it.
Acting hadn’t just been acting for her; it had been oxygen. It was how she breathed in the world, how she convinced herself she could own it. It made up for the constant craving for love she’d lacked as a child.
And though it almost cost her life, Emily was ready to do it all over again. Because without it, she was better off dead, a jarring contradiction nobody but herself could ever understand.
Marrying Jake would have been the prelude to her comeback.
It was what she’d planned internally. She’d felt stable enough to return, even her therapist had agreed.
She’d wanted to get her new home settled first then choose her projects carefully because the industry was tough on married women.
But it just so happened things turned out differently.
Life had a hell of a way of ruining a person’s plans and humbling them.
Nicolas’s eyes softened. “You’ve been doing this since you were five. Give yourself some grace.”
Her heart felt lighter, but her eyes narrowed. “How do you know that?”
“Your background check,” he said like they’d switched to talking about the weather.
She tsked.
“But I understand,” he sighed. “My parents were the same. My sister and I got tough love. The company was built from my grandfather’s sweat back in Italy, before he took it international.
My father was thrown into it young. He expected the same from us.
When my younger sister, Anna, was born, she was supposed to help too, but growing up her heart was always in the arts.
She has a gift for drawing and a color palette that, apparently, only those with high IQs can master.
I also never wanted her to know what it’s like to learn about a market microstructure at twelve years old. ”
So he put all the pressure on himself—their only son, the sole heir to their empire, and created a choice for his sister. A choice he never had.
Emily was floored.
His background check hadn’t revealed any of that.
“The only person who coddled us was our mother. Mostly because she wanted her ‘little assistants’ as she’d call us in the kitchen.” He laughed, a glimmer shining in his eyes. “We loved it. It was our excuse to escape our father’s wrath.”
“Is she to credit for your amazing cooking skills?”
“That, and more.” He became serious. “Cooking was always her way of bonding. She believed a meal was the most selfless thing you could give someone. It only turned out well when your heart was in it.”
Her world spun off its axis.
He cooked for her. Every day.
Feeling her eyes sting, Emily’s fingers busied themselves and another discovery came.
Blu-ray discs were tucked into the nearby cabinet. She pulled one out with a light chuckle.
“You liked fantasy movies?”
She saw his pupils waver but he stood his ground.
“I like fantasy movies,” he corrected. “Present tense. And I don’t think that’ll ever change. I have a habit of staying loyal to my fixations.”
Her heart flipped, but she teased a light, “Nerd.”
He huffed begrudgingly.
“I’m starting to think some stuff the public says about you is a lie.” She put the disc which looked like a relic back. “Is that what this is? A facade to scare people into thinking you’re the big bad wolf when you’re really not?”
He startled her when he pushed off the wall.
His body hovered over hers in a flash, forcing her back to press against the cabinet.
He peered down with little space between them.
“I never scare people who don’t deserve it.
” He said it like it erased the fact that he did so anyway.
“And I could say the same for you, Golden Girl. Is that the real you? The perfect ray of sunshine? Because I’m starting to think it’s not. At least not entirely.”
“I’m whoever you think I am. It doesn’t matter what I say, you’re going to form your own opinions of me anyway, I’m used to it.”
He tilted her chin up with his index finger, making her breathing hitch. “Aw, don’t be mad. All’s fair in this industry, darling. You should know this by now. You’ve been a people pleaser your whole life while in entertainment. I bet it’s exhausted you, sickened you, hasn’t it?”
Her eyes became fiery, but she stayed quiet.
“We all wear masks in our lives. If not for protection, for respect or in your case, for love.”
She scoffed. “Don’t patronize me, I doubt you even know what it’s like to earn love.”
Shit. Why did she say that? Was it the embarrassment of him calling her out? Was he even?
God, how had such a heartfelt conversation taken such a turn for the worse? She was annoyed he’d burst another bubble of hers.
No, you burst it, you self-saboteur!
His touch fell away from her chin.
“You think you know everything about everyone just because of your tendency to read them. But the truth is, you fear that, don’t you? You fear not knowing so much you convince yourself that you do and—”
“Careful,” he cut her off gruffly.
“What? Did I hit a sore spot? All’s fair, right?” Sarcasm laced her tone. “Look, I get it. You took over a company worth billions before thirty. That’s impressive, more than impressive actually. I can only blame that kind of responsibility for the fortress of walls you’ve built around yourself.”
Her gaze cooled. “But don’t think you can treat me like everyone else. You don’t get to toy with me, and you certainly don’t get to test me because you won’t like the end result.”
Before he could say anything else, she turned on her heels and left.