Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
GOING TO THE GETTY
Celeste
I step into the shower, grateful to wash away the salt and embarrassment from our failed surfing attempt.
Today we're heading to the Getty—solid ground where I actually know what I'm doing.
While Max belongs among crashing waves, I've always found my peace in hushed gallery halls. During my UCLA days as an art history minor, the Getty became my sanctuary, and then again after my mother’s diagnosis.
I'd lose myself for hours before a Botticelli or Titian, counting brush strokes, imagining the lives behind those Renaissance faces.
Something about stepping into their world made the beeping monitors and antiseptic smells temporarily disappear.
I've noticed the change in Max. He was so patient with me today, teaching me about his passion, surfing. And I’m surprised that he didn’t brush me off today in favor of surfing with the guys.
He’s choosing to spend time with me instead of with them.
So, he’s definitely nicer to me. Perhaps we could become friends?
Maybe my mother's brush with death stirred something in him, echoing his own loss. His mother chose to carry him to term rather than treat her cancer. Does he see some parallel I'm missing? Whatever the reason, I'm holding onto this fragile peace between us.
As for that kiss on the beach... I'm not fooling myself.
The tabloids have been watching him like hawks since our "engagement" announcement.
No more models, no more starlets, no more late nights at Soho House.
For a man who used to change women like designer shirts, three months of forced celibacy must be excruciating.
I was simply there—convenient, available, and technically his wife.
Nothing more than proximity and biology at work.
Steam follows me from the bathroom as I freeze in the doorway, towel clutched to my chest. Max sits perched on the edge of my couch, his fingers hovering over my leather-bound notebook splayed open on the coffee table.
My stomach drops. That's where I scribble character sketches, plot twists, and snippets of dialogue that come to me at 3 AM.
The look on his face—jaw tight, eyes narrowed—tells me he's mistaken it for some kind of Mean Girls-style burn book with his name scrawled across every page.
I freeze, watching his eyes lock onto the screenwriting book.
"Uh," I stammer, heat crawling up my neck.
My fingers twitch with the urge to snatch it away, to hide this evidence of my secret ambitions.
Max Kensington with his golden touch, his empire built before thirty, his life a highlight reel of achievements—and here's me, with my drawer full of rejection letters and half-finished scripts.
Development executives critique other people's work; we don't fail at creating our own. I can already picture the slight softening around his eyes, that terrible moment when admiration curdles into something worse. Pity. God, anything but that—not from him, not when my heart does that ridiculous flutter every time he walks into a room. “I’m sorry. I obviously need to get dressed.”
My fingers tremble as I reach for the screenwriting book, trying to appear nonchalant.
Max's eyes narrow, tracking my movement.
Yes, I was right—he assumes it's some kind of revenge journal, pages filled with elaborate descriptions of his cruelty, each entry a more creative condemnation than the last.
He just nods. I slip into my bedroom and slide the screenwriting book into a drawer.
Damn! What's he doing in my wing? He was supposed to meet me in his kitchen.
Now he's going to assume I've been filling pages with rants about him.
And you know what? Let him. Better he think I hate him than discover the truth—that I'm just another Hollywood wannabe with nothing to show for it.
Another dreamer who couldn't sell a screenplay if her life depended on it.
I reach for one of the sundresses Max bought me and pair it with a blue cashmere cardigan, then hesitate.
The coastal chill will creep in once the sun dips below the horizon.
Better to be practical. I swap it for dark-wash Rag & Bone jeans that hug my curves just right, caramel leather Frye boots I'd never have splurged on myself, a whisper-soft Vince t-shirt in pale blush, and a chunky cream cashmere sweater with pearl buttons that probably cost more than my old monthly mortgage—all expensive things that appeared in my closet courtesy of Max's platinum card.
Not that I'm trying to catch his eye. Sure, my heart still does that annoying flutter thing whenever Max walks into a room, but I've locked away any hope he might feel the same.
No point dressing to impress someone who's only being civil because he has to be.
I walk out and he raises his eyebrows, his green-eyed gaze lingering on me for a heartbeat longer than necessary.
There's something in his eyes—a flicker of heat that makes my stomach flutter.
It almost looks like...no. I shake my head, dispelling the thought like morning mist. The man who has barely said two words for me for weeks isn't suddenly attracted to me.
My imagination is running wild again. I smooth down my jeans, forcing my lips into a casual smile that hopefully masks the blush warming my cheeks. "Ready."
He nods toward my front door. "We're taking the Lucid," he says with the casual air of someone downgrading from a private jet to first class.
My heart skips. The Lucid Air Sapphire—electric dream machine, 1,111 horsepower, zero-to-sixty in under 2.
5 seconds. I've kept the brochure in my nightstand for three years, a glossy reminder of what I can't afford while Mom's medical bills pile up.
For Max, it's merely his most modest car, slumming it below his Rolls Royces and Bugattis.
Is choosing his "cheap" quarter-million-dollar vehicle consideration or condescension? I can't decide.
I click my seatbelt into place and catch myself staring at the sharp line of Max's jaw.
My pulse skips, and I force myself to look away.
This is dangerous territory. If he keeps being decent to me, I'm going to end up like one of those women who doodle a guy's name in the margins of important documents.
Next thing you know, I'll be sitting in meetings about script revisions while mentally cataloging the exact shade of his eyes.
I shake my head. No. Not happening. Romance with Max Kensington needs to stay firmly in the realm of impossible things.
At the red light, his hand drifts across the center console, fingers slightly curled.
Is he reaching for my hand? Or just resting his hand there?
I stare at it for a second too long, then turn to the window instead, watching a woman walk her corgi along the sidewalk.
My heart thuds against my ribs. Better to focus on the dog's stubby legs than risk grabbing a hand that wasn't offered in the first place.
He finally breaks the silence. "So. Rosa told you about my mother.
And my father." His voice cracks on the word "father.
" When he looks at me, the raw pain in his eyes hits me like a physical blow.
I can't breathe. Those green eyes that always seemed so controlled, so calculated—now they're drowning in grief that's decades old but still bleeding.
I want to look away—need to look away—but I'm transfixed, pinned by the naked vulnerability he apparently rarely shows.
"What did you think," he whispers, "about that story? "
I inhale slowly, searching for the right words.
The last thing he needs is another round of those hollow reassurances—the ones therapists and well-meaning friends have probably recited to him for years.
Those empty platitudes about how he’s not to blame, about how he didn’t ask to be born, how he shouldn’t feel guilty.
I can almost see them bouncing off him, worn smooth from repetition.
No, I won't add my voice to that useless chorus.
I swallow hard. "I understand that feeling," I say, my voice barely audible.
The words are coming from somewhere deep inside me, somewhere I don't usually let anyone see.
"Sometimes I catch myself thinking that my mother's cancer and my father's death are somehow...
connected to me and Lexi existing in the world.
Like we're the reason everything went wrong. "
He furrows his brows. “I don’t understand.”
I narrow my eyes. "It happened on a ski trip.
My father was an expert—black diamond runs, perfect form, the whole thing.
My high school was planning this big winter trip, and I'd never been on skis before.
" My voice catches. "Dad insisted on teaching me himself.
Four days in the mountains, just the two of us.
He was so patient, showing me how to position my poles, how to stop without falling.
He made sure I knew every basic technique.
" I take a deep breath. "That's when the accident happened. "
He nods. “What happened?”
“My father was so focused on me that he never saw the novice skier spiraling out of control down the slope.
The collision was brutal—the kid's helmet smashed right into Dad's skull.
But Dad just laughed it off. He looked at this terrified teenager and said, 'The agony of defeat!
' with this ridiculous grin.” I smile at the memory.
“I remember laughing despite everything. The kid looked confused, and honestly, I barely caught the reference myself. It was from this old ABC sports show Dad always watched—their intro showed this poor skier wiping out spectacularly after a jump. That was my father in a nutshell—flat on his back in the snow after getting bulldozed, and still making jokes.”