“I know the feeling.” I pull myself up to sit on the desk, and he gets on beside me. I lean against him. We’re facing the glass wall, and I look out at the crowd and lights below us. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”
He doesn’t answer at first, and I tell myself that I shouldn’t push him. A moment passes. Then another. And it is becoming harder and harder for me not to say anything.
Finally, he speaks. “He came up to me like it’s a done deal.” His voice is low. Even. But I can hear the anger underlying it. “Like the movie’s going forward and there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop it.”
“You’ll stop it,” I say. “If it’s that important you’ll find a way.”
He nods, but he doesn’t look convinced.
I hesitate, then make myself go on. “But, Jackson, I still don’t understand—would it really be that horrible if it was made? I get that it digs into the family’s personal lives, but the papers have already covered the murder, right? And so did a lot of the news magazines and television news shows. So how much worse could a movie be?”
He turns to look at me. “Trust me. It would be worse.”
I wait for him to continue—to explain—but he doesn’t. Instead, he just turns back toward the window and looks out at the club.
I don’t press him.
And I do trust him.
But still, the question lingers. And, yes, my heart aches a bit. Because though I don’t understand why, I am certain that he is keeping things from me. Secrets. Big ones—big enough, at least, to eat him up inside.
I want to press, but I don’t. After all, I’m keeping secrets, too. He knows the what about the stuff that happened with Reed, but he doesn’t know the how or the why.
And those are both very big things. Big, important, emotional things.
My own words to Cass return to haunt me. Maybe you were seeing what you wanted to see, instead of what was really there?
Is that what I’m doing with Jackson?
Am I seeing trust because I want to see it? Because I crave his presence? His touch?
Am I fabricating depth to a relationship that isn’t there?
And if I am, how do I stop?
More important, how do I tell the difference?
fourteen
“I am completely undrunk.” Cass scowls at me as I take one arm and Jackson takes the other.
“Not drunk at all,” I agree. “But we thought you might want to ride in the limo.”
“Yeah?”
“It has a bar,” I remind her. “In case you want to get more undrunk.”
She narrows her eyes, but she’s too wasted to decide whether I’m serious or not.
We leave through the front entrance that faces Sunset Boulevard, and I see that Edward has pulled the limo up by the valet stand. We maneuver Cass down the set of six steps, then move across the wide sidewalk. Beside us, a crowd is gathered behind the velvet rope, impatiently waiting to enter this popular hotspot.
We’re walking slowly in deference to Cass’s general state of inebriation, and when the first camera flash fires, I realize that we’ve been recognized. Suddenly, both the in-line crowd and the passersby are raising their phones and taking pictures. The rapid-fire flashes burst all around us, making me feel like we’re arriving at a movie premiere rather than going home to nurse a drunk friend.
Usually, this kind of attention doesn’t bother me. Damien attracts the paparazzi wherever he goes, which means it has little to nothing to do with me. I’m just the assistant in the background, much like the way Secret Service agents appear in so many candid photos of the president.
Tonight, however, is different. Tonight, we’ve already dealt with Graham Elliott’s celebrity inside the club. Out here, we are dealing with Jackson’s. Because this crowd wants pictures of the guy who bloodied the face of Robert Cabot Reed. And if they can get a shot of him with the former teen model that Reed photographed, then all the better.
Honestly, the thought makes my stomach curdle.
“Jackson! Jackson!”
“Why’d you punch him?”
“Sylvia! Why did you give up modeling?”