Proposing to Preston (The Winslow Brothers, #2)(54)

“Oh, honey!” said Gene, reaching over to thump on the back and yank away the offending bottle of water.

Philadelphia.

She took a deep breath and wiped away the tears in her eyes.

Philadelphia.

“Are you okay, love?” asked Gene, fussing over her.

“I’m fine,” Elise sputtered, clearing her throat.

“Fine? You’re coughing up a lung, poor princess.”

“The Philadelphia Story?” she asked weakly, after taking two more deep breaths.

“Actually, they’re calling it The Philly Story! It’s a re-make!” He nodded, his eyes sparkling and animated. “And you’d be playing Tracy! The star, darling! The star!”

Elise knew the original movie starring Katherine Hepburn, and the musical re-make, High Society, starring Grace Kelley. She’d loved both when she watched them in a “Re-boots and Re-makes” class at Tiscsh, and the idea of acting in lighter fare did appeal to her.

“And the best part since you’re missing the east? It’s being filmed on location in Philadelphia! Isn’t that divine?”

In Philadelphia.

Preston’s face flashed before her eyes and she held back a whimper of longing.

“Divine,” she murmured.

The door to Gene’s office opened and his assistant, Melinda, peeked her bespectacled face through the crack. “Mr. Miller, you asked to be alerted when Miss Rousseau arrived?”

“Ah, yes!” Gene winked at Elise. “The plot thickens,” he said dramatically, rubbing his hands together with glee. “I’m going to say hello to Miss Rousseau for a moment, and then—as long as it’s okay with you, darling—I’d like to introduce you to each other. She’s local legal for this project in Philly, and I understand she was just given an Assistant Producer credit for a Very. Important. Reason.”

“Yes, of course,” said Elise, grateful for a few minutes alone.

As the door closed, she took a deep breath, settling back into the couch and giving her misery full reign.

Originally, Elise had thought that Hollywood would be a legitimate escape from the panicked, trapped feeling she’d had the moment she said “I do” to Preston, but it wasn’t. Being apart from Preston had only magnified their love affair: forced her to review his persistent, patient courtship, his whole-hearted devotion, his thoughtfulness, his tenderness, his love. Missing him so terribly kept the best memories of him on constant repeat, and by the time she’d been in L.A. for two weeks, she was starting to recognize the terrible mistake she’d made: it hadn’t been in marrying him; it had been in leaving him before she’d given them both a chance to adjust to their whirlwind nuptials.

Except by then she’d signed the contract for The Awakening. She was on-set filming for twelve hours a day and trying to figure out her way around L.A. the rest of the time. For better or worse, she’d made her decision and it was too late to change it: too late to go back to New York, too late to be Preston’s wife, too late to choose her heart over her career. She’d told him as much when he’d visited her.

You’re not happy here. I can tell. Come home, Elise. Come home with me.

You’re making me unhappy, she’d responded frantically, by putting this pressure on me! I can’t be your wife. Don’t you see that? I don’t choose you. I choose acting. This is my home. This is my life, and you’re not a part of it.

So what was I? he’d asked tightly. What were we?

Lovely, she’d answered, watching his face flinch with pain, then harden in anger.

The moment the taxi whooshed away, she’d cried her eyes out, but the reality was that she’d already chosen her destiny, and it didn’t include a New York-based husband who wanted her living with him back east.

In those dark days after he left L.A., she expected divorce papers to arrive in her mailbox every day. After shooting, she’d come home to her rented bungalow and open her mailbox with trembling fingers. And every day that she didn’t find a manila envelope with his return address felt like a reprieve and gave her hope. False hope, probably, but hope nonetheless.

Maybe he wouldn’t stop loving her.

Maybe he loved her enough to hold on.

Maybe someday they would find each other again.

But then she would remember his face as he stepped into the taxi. His shattered face. His cold green eyes. She saw hate in those eyes—or something close to it—and the memory made her want to die because his love had been the purest and best thing her life had ever known.

Days turned into weeks, turned into months, turned into a year, and losing Preston—something that Elise had willfully engineered—became the biggest regret, the biggest heartbreak of her life. But the more time that stretched between them without contact or correspondence of any kind, the more impossible it felt to address it, let alone fix it.

The night she wrapped up filming on The Grapes of Wrath and returned to her dark, quiet home without the distraction of an early call the next morning, she’d stared at the ceiling of her bedroom, the question circling in her head as she longed for her husband’s arms around her: You haven’t seen or heard from him in almost two years. And sure, you’ve finally realized what you lost, but there’s no chance he will ever forgive you for walking out on your marriage…so what now? Elise had no answer for that question, so that’s where her internal dialogue had ended.