Chapter 28
Chapter twenty-eight
Dressing Up Lies
It takes me a few minutes to control my breathing before I can properly stand up straight. My legs are wobbling like Jell-O, and my mind is completely frayed—twenty minutes behind schedule.
There are five unread text messages in the span of forty-five minutes blowing up my phone. The background actor and Lena are questioning me all at once.
To make matters worse, I have pit stains underneath my shirt from running down five flights of stairs. The nonstop buzzing in my pocket sends me flying faster out the door and onto the street, reading each one as I wait for my ride:
Lena: Charlotte, the press coverage is threatening to charge us even if you don’t show up.
Lena: Get your ass here now.
Lena: They are saying they will stay another thirty minutes or they are out.
An electric panic runs through me, acutely aware that I am about to be in front of cameras soon.
Pulling out the compact mirror wedged inside my purse, I take a second look at myself as I wait for the rideshare to pull up. My face is still covered in black-stained tears from the hour before.
Licking the palm of my palm, I frantically scrub the side of my face, desperate to remove it as the car pulls up. The gust of wind hits me all at once as I open the door to the back seat.
“Duas almas incompletas.”
A chant I’ve heard time and time again—it makes me uneasy knowing it almost always happens right before Holden is around me.
My pendant glows before her voice comes through.
“Call him, Charlotte. He is wondering where you are.”
Skye’s figure pops up out of nowhere next to me. She’s sporting blue jeans and a white top with the lettering “I’m just a girl” written across it in red.
All she has to do is breathe and my shoulders tighten.
I’ve seen her for months. Gotten familiar with the way she fades in and out of a room. Even the looks she gives that switches up in a moment’s notice.
Each facial expression and half-baked sentences are ciphers waiting to be decoded, making all my senses agitated.
“Where were you an hour ago?” I snap.
“Miss, is everything okay back there?” The driver immediately answers.
Her hand lands on top of mine, making me jump in place as she shows herself. I am only able to see her as she has completely gone mute.
“Yes sir, just talking on my Bluetooth. Phone call with my mom. Sorry.”
“It’s fine, ma’am. Glad everything is okay.”
“Put your headphones in” Skye reminds me. I press the earbuds into my ears as she continues.
“You were doing just fine. If I might add, I am proud of you,” Skye whispers.
It’s a definitive statement. One that I should be happy to hear from the ghost haunting me. Instead, my eyes drift to the car window, fixated on the palm trees breezing past us.
The last four years crash like a progressively sad montage. Every laugh. Every kiss. The lingering touches that imprinted my past. Careless with each other from the start.
“Call him,” she cuts through.
“Who?” I say, moving my attention back to her.
“Holden! Who do you think?”
Before I can try to open my mouth to argue, a thousand tiny fire ants bite at my chest.
“Okay, okay…” I whisper, watching her gaze flicker between the phone in my lap and my face. I unlock my phone and scroll for the letter “H” in my contact list.
I mouth the words, “Happy now?” to her as the ringing starts.
“Hello?” he says once the call connects. It takes me a few moments before I am able to utter a word. It isn’t till the second, “Is anyone there?” from him that I start rambling.
“I am so sorry. Something came up. I am heading there right now. My ETA says ten minutes.”
“I hope everything is okay?”
On the verge of more tears, I say, “Of course. Be there soon.” I try my hardest to pitch my voice higher.
“Char—”
Before I can let myself cry again, I disconnect the call, anxiously watching the dot move closer and further down the map to the pinned location.
When we finally get to the location, I burst out of the car, practically leaping as the driver pulls up to the entrance of the bistro. My phone is vibrating nonstop.
Lena: I need an ETA, now.
On the verge of responding to her text, I’m halted by a human wall blocking me from moving forward. A barrier that sends me boomeranging back to the car door I just leaped out of.
“What the—”
“Charlotte. We have been waiting for you.”
It takes me about fifteen seconds to place him in my head.
“Give me five minutes and have them hide around back.”
I don’t wait for a response as I slip the lead photographer I just hired a few days ago to pull this off a twenty-dollar bill into his jacket pocket.
A slow, devious grin releases across his face.
He slips away into the distance with his camera around his neck as he whistles for the other men to follow.
Breathless, I walk through the bistro, hearing the bell chime as the door opens wider. In the corner of my eye, Holden is already bombarded by women fan-girling over him. I break out in a faint smile when I push closer toward the women huddling around him.
Holden’s brow stays permanently arched, a pins-and-needles expression etched across his face.
He rubs the back of his neck as the women press in, circling in around him.
“Hey, babe,” I say loudly, pushing one of the women to the side, feeling her eyes burn holes through my skull, catching everyone’s looks now on me.
Holden immediately wraps his arm around my shoulder, softening his eyes.
“Charlotte Elizabeth.”
The butterflies pick up again.
“Traffic was insane. Did you already get my food?”
“Food and a coffee,” he says.
“Wow, I am a lucky girl.”
I lean into his arm, which is hugging my shoulders, embracing his touch as the girls scatter around him. A smile washes over me.
“Figured we need to get a jump on everything, so I ordered for you,” he whispers.
I reach for the cup with my name on it. “Is this—”
The question dies in my throat as I take a swig, dissecting the flavors.
“You look like you just had a euphoric out-of-body experience. You haven’t lived until you have tried their Italian,” he says, handing over my hoagie. I chuckle, mumbling a quick thank-you under my breath. I come to the conclusion that he memorized my coffee order.
How?
Why?
This kind of accuracy sends a chill up my spine as I take another sip.
My phone is still buzzing in my pocket with more notifications coming in. I pick up my phone to lower the volume when his voice cuts in.
“So on the phone earlier?”
“Yeah?”
“You good?”
“Yeah. I just broke up with Aidan. No big deal—let’s eat outside,” I say, walking ahead.
I hear his brisk footsteps follow behind. The chime hanging over the door goes off again as we exit the restaurant and walk toward the black aluminum chairs and circular table open for us.
Holden is already digging into his food as soon as our asses land in the seats. I’m finally able to send the signal.
I type the three words: Let. It. Rip.
Three dots appear a moment later before she walks our way in a frumpy cream shirt and long brown maxi skirt with a thick, brown belt. A look-alike Diane Keaton who lands knees-first into the rocks aesthetically designed along the walkway.
“Oh no!” I cry.
“What’s the matter?” Holden says, dropping his sandwich into the wrapper as I tilt my head in the direction of the woman who just fell. His feet are catching up faster than he can swallow, springing out of seat toward the lady.
My smile is glued to my face as I spot the man far off in the distance, capturing every juicy second of it. I wait a full sixty seconds before I walk over.
“Are you okay?” I say.
“Yeah, better now because of this young man.”
She is batting her eyelashes and leaning into his body with pure delight written on her face.
“Do you need help inside?” Holden asks.
“No, sweetie. I think I got it from here. Got my man waiting for me inside.”
Our eyes meet each other’s at the same time, holding back a smirk as the lady limps off into the restaurant while Holden props the door open for her.
A two-minute scheme that took fifteen hundred dollars from my pocket and three days to put together was anything but simple. I just hope the payout to distribution companies will make me break even on this.
“Poor thing.” It slips out of my mouth as I paste a downturned smile in the direction of where she disappears.
When he finally removes his foot, which is propping open the door, I ask, “Do you want to keep eating or head over to the styling suite?”
He shakes his head and walks back to the table. He takes two aggressively large bites into the sandwich before dumping it in the trash can. He heads back toward me, still rooted in the same spot where he left me.
“We can go now.”
He tightens his grip on my hand, which is open for him, as we stride toward the direction of our appointment. Nobody is around to see the way his hands envelop mine with such ease. How we synchronize our stride as we walk in the direction of where we need to go.
How easily we slip into this role.
We do this for fifteen minutes until it hits me that we have walked up and down the same street several times.
“Is this it?”
We break apart for the first time in the whole walk, individually holding up our phones and staring at the location we were sent on the map. Our maps are tilted in different directions, unable to get a clear read to the pinned location.
“Right here!”
An accordion-looking barrier is pulled open as a stylish blonde woman stands in front of us, waving us over.
“Rebecca?” I holler as I walk up the stairs to the suite.
She gives a clipped “yes” as she rushes us in and locks the door behind her.
Anticipating the space to be gritty with an overinflated reputation, Holden and I walk into a prestige room of creams, beiges, and bright lights.
Racks of clothes are lined up in the middle of the room.
The back wall is reserved for individual dressing rooms that are spacious.