Elastic Hearts (Hearts #3)(20)

“What?” I said, trying to ignore the way my heart spiked.

“We have a proposition for you. A very big one, one that will benefit you immensely if you agree to it,” Darryl said. Despite the mistrust I felt for him, I knew he always had his client’s interest at hand. My brows rose.

“Let’s hear it.”

We sat down at our long dining room table. The one we’d only used a handful of times to entertain guests on holidays or to talk about the laughable proposition, because that’s what it ended up being. Absolutely ridiculous and laughable. They basically wanted me to pretend that maybe, just maybe I wasn’t going to divorce Gabe after all.

“We haven’t been seen out together in almost a year,” I pointed out. “And in that time he has been seen with multiple women. All of whom weren’t me.”

“He’s been traveling for work. You’ve been busy with your own career. He’s back temporarily and is finally realizing how good he has it and he wants to save his marriage,” Darryl said.

My heart sunk again. Did he not realize how much this hurt? Listening to this with my estranged husband, whom I had longed to patch things up with, sitting across from me? Yes, I was over him. Yes, I wanted to move on, but his manager pointing out that Gabe would never feel the way he just described, still hurt. I swallowed my emotions and tilted my chin up.

“What I’m hearing is ‘Gabe wins again.’ I still haven’t heard the part where Nicole gets something out of this,” I said.

Gabe cleared his throat, clasping his hands in front of him. “Maybe it’s true. Maybe I want to try.”

My jaw dropped. I blinked, blinked, blinked. “You can’t be serious,” I said, once I finally found my voice. The way he said he wanted to try made me think of the time he took me to my favorite sushi restaurant because he wanted to do something nice for me, but instead we ended up in the ER because he was allergic to the crab he’d ordered. It was sweet when I told him we could never go back there again and he looked at me, big puffy red eyes and said, “Maybe I want to try again. For you.”

He shrugged those broad shoulders of his and I blinked out of my memory. “Why not?” he asked.

“What the . . .” I paused, trying to rein in my anger before it got the best of me. I took a deep breath in order to regroup. “Gabe. I just filed for divorce.”

“Forget about that,” Darryl said. “Let’s leave emotions out of this. We don’t need to complicate something simple. If you want to discuss your marriage, that’s fine, even though I think we can all agree it’s probably not working out for a reason.” He raised his dark eyebrows over the frames of his glasses and shot Gabe and me a knowing look.

“Bastard,” I said.

Gabe sighed.

Darryl shrugged. “The proposition is this. Go with him to the movie premiere this week, and give the media some comments about your relationship. Positive comments. Keep them guessing. Wear your wedding ring once in a while. Gabe will keep his on and just play the part.”

“What’s the point of that? The divorce has been filed. The papers were leaked. This whole thing will look stupid, and I still haven’t heard the part where this benefits me.” I looked at Gabe, who was watching me with a look I wanted to slap off his face. It was almost an admirable look, as if he was impressed with me.

“We talk to all of the production companies and tell them that I acted out of spite when I said I wouldn’t work with them if they hired you as their costume designer,” Gabe said. I clenched my jaw and stabbed him in my thoughts. Repeatedly. I put my hands under the table and sat on them when I felt them begin to shake.

“You guys think you’re so f*cking cute playing with my career. You think that just because you’re Gabriel Lane, Hollywood’s sweetheart, that I can’t end you?” I asked. “You forget whose hometown this is, Gabriel Rogers. Or is your birth name something you’ve forgotten too? Maybe you should lay off the f*cking drugs once in a while.” My chair screeched against the marble floor as I stood up.

“I’ll give you the condo in New York,” Gabe said as I turned to walk back to my room. My heart lurched at the mention of my beloved condo. I stopped walking and turned around.

“Just like that?”

“I’ve f*cked up, Nic. I know I have, but with all of my . . . partying and other things, my image is looking really bad right now and I have two movies coming out in the span of four months. I need to fix it,” he said, blue eyes pleading as he stood and put his hands as if he was about to say a prayer. “Please. You’re the only one who can help me. I swear I’ll stop making things difficult for you.”

I let that sink in for a moment as I looked into his apologetic blue eyes, eyes that could very well be lying to me. Eyes that had lied to me so many times in the past. He ran his hands down his newly shaven face and looked at me again. He was so damn handsome. Handsome, charming, great in bed, and he’d once been mine. Sadly, in this moment as I looked at him, trying to figure out whether or not he was just putting on an act, I couldn’t even remember the good moments.

“I want this on paper,” I said finally. “On paper and I want both of your signatures on it.”

“I’ll have Phil draw up a contract right now,” Darryl said.

“Fuck Phil. I’ll have my dad do it.”