A Winter Wedding(57)
“What?”
“That you feel you have to admit to things you didn’t do just to get some peace...”
She’d learned a few tricks over the course of her career. “The life of a celebrity. It’s great on the way up. But coming down? That’s a bumpy ride.”
“You’ll be back on top again someday. Someday soon.”
She liked how he encouraged her. She got the impression he really believed it was true, and that helped.
“So you think the press will leave us alone now?” he asked.
“I’m hoping. Since I basically told him we’re romantically involved, there’s no big secret to reveal, no reason to keep badgering me or digging for dirt.”
“Smart.”
“But you’ll have to play along while I’m here—to make it believable.”
“No problem.”
“Okay, thanks. I’m sorry I didn’t have the chance to discuss it with you beforehand. I didn’t go into the interview planning to say what I did. I thought of it when he started asking questions and went with it because I decided it might be as good for Olivia to read as Derrick.”
He propped his hands behind his head. “Olivia doesn’t care who I sleep with.”
Lourdes wasn’t so sure. Kyle had made some mistakes, but he was still special. No one could miss seeing that. “It’s always hard when an ex-lover moves on,” she argued. “There’s nostalgia attached to it, if nothing else. Anyway, even if Olivia doesn’t care, Brandon will be happy. Your folks, too. Now maybe the past can stay in the past, and she can view you as her brother-in-law and not her ex-lover.”
“It’ll make Sunday dinners easier to tolerate—although my folks will certainly wonder when you don’t show up with me.”
“Maybe I’ll go.” She imagined holding his hand and gazing up at him as if she was in love and didn’t think that would be very difficult to feign. “We could put on quite a show.”
When he smiled, she sensed that he found their deception amusing but wasn’t taking it seriously. “Thanks for pretending to be my girlfriend,” he said.
She grinned. “I owe you one. And since you can’t seem to get a girlfriend on your own...”
“Whoa! I haven’t even emailed those women you chose on Single Central.”
“True. So when are you going to do it?”
“Soon. Anyway, I’m still surprised by what you told Ed. I thought I was supposed to be protecting you.”
“You’ve never dealt with the press.”
He stared off at the tree they’d decorated. “How will Derrick react to our involvement when he hears? Because he will hear.”
“Of course. We can count on it. But I’m not sure how he’ll take the news. I’ve always been so loyal, so dedicated to him. It’ll come as a shock to think I’ve already moved on.”
“Will he believe it? I mean...you were with him last week.”
“I saw him last week, but I haven’t slept with him in over a month, as you know. He’ll assume you’re the reason, I guess.”
“I never called him back the other night when I was supposed to go by and check on you.”
“That’ll only make this more convincing.”
“He might tell Crystal to take a hike and come after you.”
“I suppose anything’s possible.”
Kyle leaned forward. “Is that what you’re hoping for?”
“No. I can’t go back to him now.” She lifted a hand so he wouldn’t interrupt. “It’s not just that he had sex with another woman, although that’s bad enough. It’s that he slept with my competition. We’ve had other problems—when I did the pop album, the way he looks at women sometimes, that sort of thing—but I feel we could’ve overcome those. No relationship is perfect. It’s that he let me down when I was at my most vulnerable. That tells me I can’t count on him when I need him, which leaves me no choice. I have to get over him. There’s no going back.”
“So we’re in the same boat.”
“Yes. You have to get over Olivia, and I have to get over Derrick.”
“I can’t wait until Noelle reads that article,” he said. “Normally, I don’t react to all the shit she does—not these days. It took me a while to learn that I was falling right into her trap when I let her lure me into an argument. I’d walk away feeling terrible about the whole thing, and she’d accuse me of being ‘just as bad’ as she is. But this... I have to admit, it feels good.”
“She asked for it.”
He got up. “I say we celebrate. Would you like a glass of wine?”
“No. One hangover a week is enough for me, thanks.”
“You won’t have even one glass?”
She picked up her guitar to keep her hands busy. “Not tonight.” She didn’t want anything to erode her self-control. Now that she was officially on the rebound, she needed to focus. With every day that passed, being with a man like Kyle looked more and more appealing.
16
Noelle probably wouldn’t have seen the paper if she hadn’t specifically asked to see it. And she did that only because, when she showed up at Sexy Sadie’s on Wednesday night to work her shift, everyone was talking about a particular article.