“Logan,” she says, begging. “Please understand. I had to leave for my own sanity, for my own life. Everywhere we went, I was your girlfriend. Every industry party, every joint shoot...every solo shoot for that matter, I wasn’t Raven Fleur, I was Logan O’Toole’s fuckdoll. Rumors started that I was only getting jobs because of you, that I would never be able to work if we broke up, and I started to think they might be right. I’ve been working in this business since I was seventeen, and for the first time in twelve years, I doubted every decision I made. I started to lose a sense of who Raven was, the work she liked to do, because it was so hugely eclipsed by your…” She gestures to me, to the freshly cleaned couch behind me. “Just you. Not only your business—I could have handled that. But your vision. Your you-ness. You didn’t leave any room for me to create my own world.”
I am immediately defensive. “I never, not even once, told you what kind of jobs to take or what kind of scenes to film. I never pressured you to be any more involved with O’Toole films than you wanted to be. And I would certainly never—”
“Logan,” she interrupts. “You’ve never had to pressure anybody in your life. Don’t you fucking get it? People fall all over themselves trying to make you happy. One tweet reply from you, one smile across the room at a party, and you win friends for life. And me?” Her mouth twists up in a rueful smile. “I was so desperate for your smiles, to be inside that playful but intense inner circle, that I was sacrificing myself in advance.”
“You should have told me,” I maintain. ‘“You should have talked to me!”
“And said what? Exactly what I just said, and then have you say exactly what you’ve just said, and then feel both reassured and ignored at the same time? Or worse, ready to go willingly back to my personal prison?”
I turn away from her, walking back towards the window overlooking the pool. I’m too angry and hurt to think clearly, even though I recognize the grains of truth in her words. I can be a little monomaniacal about my projects, and I do have a bad habit of wanting everyone I care about to be involved with all the same things I care about too. And maybe if I’d been a more sensitive boyfriend, I would have seen that Raven felt stifled in our creative partnership even as our domestic partnership still sailed steady atop smooth seas.
But it doesn’t excuse her cowardice. Or her infidelity.
“You did so much more than try to renew your career when you left. You didn’t even pay me the courtesy of a goodbye, not to mention the Italian guy.”
She clears her throat, and I realize she’s come up very close behind me. “I was wrong to do that. Luca and I...we were seeing each other for a while before I left.”
I know this. I have known this for months. So why does her admission spark so much rage inside of me? It should be old news, and besides, it took some courage for her to admit that. She never did like admitting she was wrong.
Once I can trust my voice, I speak, still keeping my eyes on the pool. “I wish you and Luca the best. And I suppose I feel more enlightened now than before we talked, so thank you for that.”
“Luca and I broke up,” she says quickly, before I can get to the part where I ask her to leave. “It wasn’t real, Logan, it never was. He was just in the right place at the right time, able to tell me all the things I wanted to hear.”
I swivel my head to look at her. She’s standing beside me now, her eyes on the pool as well, one pale hand pressed against the glass.
And then she says it.
“I’m still in love with you.” Her dark eyes meet mine. “I know I’ve fucked things up, but I’m not too proud to beg.”
For a moment, I remember why I loved her once. Her sharp beauty. Her stubborn pride. “You don’t still love me,” I tell her. “You’re here because things didn’t go according to plan, and I’m the last person you remember being happy with. Whatever you’re looking for though, I can’t help you. I’ve moved on.”
She takes this on the chin, her only sign of disturbance at my rejection of her a slight sucking of her top teeth.
“You’ve moved on,” she echoes. “Who is she?”
Devi flashes to mind, but no fucking way am I willing to tempt fate like that. Instead I say, “There’s not another girl. I just mean that I’ve moved on personally. I’m past what happened, and I’m looking to the future. I’ve got a great new project lined up, too.”
“A new project?”
I have no interest in pitching Star-Crossed to her, but my latent enthusiasm for it bleeds into my words anyway. “It’s a new project with Vida and that Dutch studio Lelie, like a reality show where two people are falling in love, but all the sex is also open-door, which makes it better than reality TV. Plus I’m making it with Devi Dare—remember that girl from Real Playdates? She’s fucking amazing. Like, her body melts my brain, and her actual brain could melt my brain, she’s so smart.”
Raven chews her lip. “Sounds like quite the project.”
I shrug. “I’m super pumped about it, but yeah. It’s needing pretty much all of my free time.”
“That’s a shame. I was kind of hoping we could at least work together while I’m in L.A. this month.” She drops her hand from the window and smooths her skirt. “You know, some clear-the-air kind of fucking. Even if we don’t get back together, it would still feel good, wouldn’t it?”
She steps so close to me that I can feel her breath on my chest. Prior squirms to get down, but I hold him tight.