As soon as our waitress was gone, I elbowed Cinder. Hard. “You jerk! I can’t believe you just did that!”
He doubled over, but only because he was laughing so hard.
“I’m not one of your little playthings, you perve! Quit invading my personal space and go back to your side of the table. Your dinner’s getting cold.”
I shoved him and he laughed even harder. He reached across the table and pulled his plate to him—not going anywhere. If anything, his grip on me tightened.
“I didn’t peg you for shy, but I like it. You’re absolutely irresistible when you blush. See?” Grinning, he held his phone up so that we could study the picture. Sure enough, I resembled a tomato. “Look how adorable we are together. It’s the perfect picture for your first Cinder and Ella feature.”
“My what?”
“On your blog.” Cinder took a big, sobering breath. “Remember how you used to do those ‘Up Close and Personal’ posts on your blog whenever you and your mom met a new author?”
For a brief moment my lungs seized up at the memories, but Cinder pulled me tightly into him, and I found I could breathe. His voice turned soft, shifting with our moods. “I had an idea a while ago. I thought that if we ever did meet in person, we could start a new feature on your blog. It would sort of be like your old one, except instead of collecting authors’ autographs in books, we could collect photographs of us with different celebrities.”
Shocked by the thoughtfulness of his idea, I stared up at him. He met my gaze with a sad smile. “I know it wouldn’t replace all the books you lost—nothing could replace those, and I wouldn’t want to try—but I thought maybe you could start a new collection.” He swallowed nervously and added, “With me.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I could whisk you off to different events or movie sets all over the world and introduce you to the actors of the movies you review. We could call it ‘The Adventures of Cinder & Ella.’ We could even get an artist to draw us as characters for it, like our own comic. That would be so awesome.”
When I didn’t respond, he shifted in his seat and ran his hand through his dark locks. I felt bad for making him nervous, but I was so shocked all I could do was gape at him.
“What do you think?”
“You’re serious?”
“Of course.”
I let out a nervous bark of laughter. “Don’t be ridiculous. That sounds amazing, but I couldn’t let you do all that for me.”
For some reason, his nerves disappeared. His expression softened into something that made my heart flip in my chest. The smile on his face wasn’t one of amusement or even happiness; it was so much more than that. It was as if somehow, by saying no, I’d just made all of his dreams come true. “But that’s just it,” he said. “You can let me do that for you. Any other girl would let me. Hell, most of them would expect me to. But for you, I want to.”
He released his hold on me so that he could turn and face me fully. He took both of my hands in his. “Do you have any idea how much I care for you?”
My stomach lurched up into my chest as he pulled my hands to his lips and kissed my gloved knuckles. “I would take you anywhere, Ella, give you anything you wanted. All you’d have to do is let me.”
It was my wildest fantasy come true. No, it was every girl in the world’s wildest fantasy. Except it was too good to be real. I knew it was. He made it sound so easy, but nothing about either of our lives was that simple.
I pulled my hands from his grip and put a few precious inches of space between us. “What about Kaylee? Need I remind you that, real or not, you have a fiancée right now?”
He shook his head. “That’s done. I ended it the second the meet-and-greet was over. I mean, the media doesn’t know yet, but Kaylee definitely does.” He smirked at a memory. “She was DEFCON 1 level pissed.”
I couldn’t believe it. He’d dumped his supermodel girlfriend for me. My heart was ready to give in, but my brain was screaming all kinds of warnings at me. Talk about DEFCON 1. I was on such high alert the hairs on the back of my neck were standing at attention. I had to keep this logical. “What about your career? You said Kaylee threatened to ruin you.”
Cinder shrugged. “She’ll try her best. She might do a little damage, but nothing I can’t recover from. Nothing that wouldn’t be worth being with you.”
My heart fluttered again. It was winning the wrestling match against my head at the moment. My resolve was crumbling to bits. “And the bosses you talked about?”
“Agents, managers, publicists, lawyers… There’s a whole list of people who control my life.”
That’s what I thought. “You think all those people are going to be happy about you breaking up with your co-star for me?”
Cinder hesitated long enough for me to see the truth he was trying to deny. He glared down at his plate. “We’d be fine.” He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself. “They only wanted Kaylee and me to hook up because it would generate some free press for us and douse some of the flames on my reputation.”
I raised a brow at Cinder and he grinned sheepishly. “In my defense, I only went through so many girls because none of them ever came anywhere close to the only one I really wanted.” He kissed my hand again. “As the world will soon discover.”
Talk about needing to douse some flames, I was tempted to dump my ice water on my face to cool the heat rising from it.
Brian chuckled. “The breakup will be bad news because Kaylee won’t be classy about it, but the public will like the idea of me dating a normal, non-famous girl. The fans will go crazy over it. Our story would get a ton of press. My management team will have to be okay with it.”
Aside from the panic the idea of “getting a ton of press” gave me, I knew his team of people—the ominous They—would never approve of me. The kind of press I’d give Cinder would only hurt him. I didn’t want to harm his career any more than I wanted to expose myself to the world. I was the last person that should ever be in the spotlight.
Cinder started to look excited, but I couldn’t share his optimism. “I don’t think so, Cinder—er, Brian. I’m the last person your people—especially your fans—would ever accept.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but I didn’t let him get a word out. I had to say this before I lost the nerve, because he needed to know. He deserved to know. “There are things you don’t know about me, too. Things I never told you, because, like you with your fame, I was afraid of you treating me differently.”
Wariness and determination battled it out on his face as he waited for me to elaborate. I really, really didn’t want to. After having him this close, saying all the things I always dreamed he’d tell me, it was going to kill me when he decided he didn’t want me anymore. And I was under no illusion that he would. How could he—at least, not in the kissing-my-knuckles-and-nibbling-my-ear kind of way?
“Ever since my accident, everyone treats me differently, too. Suddenly I’m that girl. The one everyone stares at and whispers about. I’m the girl with all the baggage. The one whose mom died. The crippled girl with the scars.”
“Crippled?” Cinder jerked in surprise. His eyes swept the length of me and he frowned. He couldn’t see anything wrong.
“Didn’t you notice when I walked away from you after we met at the meet-and-greet?”
His brows scrunched up on his forehead as he tried to remember our earlier encounter. “Things were a little hectic then. I was thrown from having met you at all, and I was trying to pay attention to you and my fans at the same time. Besides, how was I supposed to notice anything except how that guy you were with was all over you?”
I almost snorted. If I weren’t in the middle of something as painful as revealing the truth about myself, I’d have lectured him on the idiocy of jealous, testosterone-filled guys. Instead, I shut my eyes and took a deep breath. “My staff isn’t just a costume prop. Today, it’s doubling as my cane. My friend had it specially made so that I could leave my regular cane at home.”
“You use a cane when you walk?”
I nodded. “The doctors told me it was a miracle when I learned to walk again after my accident. I’m grateful that I can do it, but the action isn’t pretty. My limp is very pronounced and causes me a fair amount of pain. And I’m slow. That’s why I was almost as late as you tonight. It took me that long to walk here from the meet-and-greet. I’m handicapped, Brian.”
His face fell as my news started to sink in. His eyes raked me over again, focusing on my lap, but of course there was nothing to see. Yet. “You said you were hurt, but you never mentioned…” His voice trailed off as he was overcome with emotion.
I figured my condition would upset him, but I hadn’t expected the amount of devastation he displayed right then. He didn’t even know the worst of it yet. “Brian…” I gulped, hating to see his sadness. “If you can’t deal with that, then there’s no way you can handle the rest.”
His head snapped up. “The rest?” he asked, horrified. “There’s more?”
Despite my best efforts, tears finally pooled in my eyes. “There’s so much more.”
I closed my eyes again because I couldn’t stand the look on Cinder’s face, and I felt a thumb wipe a tear from my cheek. The gentle action, so sincere and caring, only made more tears fall.
“What else is there?” Cinder asked in a voice as soft as his touch.
I shook my head, refusing to open my eyes. “I don’t want to tell you.”
Cinder wrapped me up in the safety of his arms. Hugging me tightly, he rested his head on top of mine. “Whatever it is, Ella, it won’t make a difference to me. I won’t think any less of you.”
His promise hurt my heart. I knew he meant it, but he had no idea what he was facing. “Yes, you will.”
Unable to stand it any longer, I carefully pulled the long white glove off my burnt arm. “Looks are important to you,” I said as I worked the material off my fingers. “You always date the most beautiful girls in the world.”
With one final tug, the glove slipped off and I held out my exposed hand for him to see. Brian tried to hold in his gasp, but his sharp intake of breath was unmistakable.
“I’m not beautiful,” I said, pulling away, preempting his rejection. “Maybe I was once, but I’m not anymore.”
“Ella,” he choked out in a strangled attempt to speak.
Gently, he took my damaged fingers and caressed the scarred skin. I stiffened when he picked up my hand, but I didn’t pull away. He was the first person other than my doctors I’d ever let touch my scars. I didn’t know how to feel about it. The moment was torture—both good and bad. The sensation was amazing, but my heart ached.
He kept my hand loosely in one of his while his other hand drifted up my arm, realizing that the scars kept going. When he finally spoke, his voice trembled. “What happened to you?”
“The car caught fire. Over seventy percent of my body was burned.”
“Seventy percent…”
Our eyes met and suddenly I was desperate to do something I’d never done before. I wanted to show Cinder my scars—as much as I could, anyway. Now that I knew his true identity, I wanted him to know everything about me, too. I didn’t want any more secrets between us.
We were tucked in the booth in the back of the restaurant, and since he’d scooted in beside me he was blocking me from the rest of the room. I was pretty sheltered and no one was paying us any attention, so I reached for the tie at the base of my throat that kept my cloak in place. With shaking hands and my eyes glued to my lap, I pulled the cloak off my bare shoulders and let it fall to the seat behind me.
Cinder said nothing. I wondered what he was thinking, but I refused to look at his face. He was a very dramatic guy, and everything he couldn’t say would be written in his expression. I wasn’t ready to see that. I was too raw.
I lifted my hair and turned so that he could see my back, knowing the low cut of my dress would allow him to get an idea of the kind of damage I’d suffered. “It goes all the way down my right side and covers everything from the waist down. My feet are so burned that my toes are deformed.”
“Ella.” His voice did more than tremble now. I knew that if I looked, I’d see him crying.
I turned back around, but still, I couldn’t look up. I couldn’t face him. “I’ve never shown anybody this besides my doctors and Vivian,” I mumbled. “I always keep my scars covered. People are cruel to me. They stare, laugh, and say awful things. I’m bullied at school, and those kids have never even seen anything but my hand and the way I walk. And what’s worse…?”
I took a breath and turned my arms over, exposing my wrists and the different set of scars there. Cinder choked on another gasp and took my wrists into his shaking hands.
“Are you—” He swallowed. “Are you okay?”
There was no point in being dishonest. He knew the answer already. Still, I reassured him as best I could. “I’m not suicidal anymore. I promised you that, and I meant it. I’m not in danger of hurting myself, but I’m not always okay, either.”
I finally looked up and was unraveled by the pain I saw in Cinder’s face. Tears streamed unabashedly down his cheeks. My own eyes welled up to match his. “I can’t hide this. Your fans—and all those people in charge of your career—they would find out, and they would never accept this. They would never accept me. Even if they did, I’m not sure I could handle all of the attention. I couldn’t deal with the entire world knowing everything I’ve been through—everything I’ve done.”
Brian shut his eyes and lightly squeezed my wrists as he took a deep breath. “No one could blame you for this. You went through something horrific. You lost everything dear to you, including your own body.” He brushed his thumbs slowly over my scars. “This is nothing to be ashamed of. What matters is that you survived and got better. Look how far you’ve come.”
I pulled my hands out of his, unable to take any more of his touch—it was all too overwhelming. Brian watched me closely as I used my napkin to wipe away the tears that had escaped down my face. There was something different about him now, something in the way he looked at me. His innocence was gone. He knew the truth, and now saw me the way everyone else did—as if he expected me to break any moment. He finally saw me as a damaged, frail creature that he would have to handle with caution.
I’d just changed everything. I knew from the look in his eyes that things would never be the same between us again.