Virtuous(45)

I shake my head. “Myles’s grandfather is in the hospital, so we’re not meeting at all this week. But get this—his mom is still paying me because it’s not my fault we couldn’t get together.”

“You have all the luck lately, Nat. We should call you Lady Luck.”

If only Leah knew what a huge price I paid for any luck I may be receiving now. For the longest time, I wondered if everyone else had gotten my share of the luck quotient. But lately… Lately things have been good, and I hope they stay that way from now on. No matter what happens, however, nothing could ever be as bad as what I’ve already been through. Knowing what I’m capable of gives me the courage to face each new day and every challenge that comes my way.

“I need to make myself pretty,” I say to Leah.

She rolls her eyes at me. “Puleeze. You were born pretty.”

Though I was born a redhead with green eyes and freckles, I bear no resemblance whatsoever to that girl anymore. I wear special contacts that give me brown eyes, and I regularly color my hair, which is much longer than it used to be, to keep it dark. Other than a once-a-month change of contacts, I never see my green eyes anymore. I’ve gotten used to my new look, but it didn’t happen overnight. The new looks were nearly as hard to come by as my new identity, not that Leah would have any way to know that. “Whatever you say.”

“Can I stay until he gets here?”

“Sure.”

“Am I allowed to talk to him?”

“Yes,” I say, laughing, “you can talk to him. I already know him well enough to know he’d want you to be normal around him.”

“Not sure I can promise normal, but I’ll try.”

While I run a brush through my hair, she finger combs her much shorter locks and makes funny puffy-lip model faces that have me laughing so hard I worry about tears sending streams of mascara down my face. “Knock it off, will you?”

“Hey, Nat, do you think you’ll ever look at him and say to yourself, oh, there’s Flynn? Just Flynn. Not Flynn, the movie star?”

I think about that for a second. “I already do think of him that way sometimes. When we’re sitting on the sofa chatting about a movie or how we like the same food or something one of his sisters said in a text, he’s just Flynn, just a regular guy. Then he gets a call from Marlowe Sloane, and I remember who he is to the rest of the world.”

“I don’t think I could ever forget that. And Marlowe Sloane… Watch out for her. Rumor has it they’re a hot item.”

“All rumor, according to him. They’re close friends.” I hold up a mirror from my purse and apply a light coat of plum lip color. “And besides, what’s the point of spending time with him if I can’t separate the man from the fame? There’s much more to him than his career, you know?”

“Is that right?” She eyes me shrewdly. “Have you kissed him yet?”

I look away, intently focused on my mirror. “Maybe.”

She pounces on that immediately. “That’s not a no!”

“Shut up, Leah!”

“Tell me everything, and don’t leave anything out.”

“Sorry, no time for that. Gotta go. If you’re walking out with me, try not to act like a freak.”

She links her arm through mine. “Oh, I’m walking out with you, and no promises on the freak thing.”

“Great.”





Chapter 9





Sitting outside Natalie’s school in the Range Rover, I debate at ridiculous length whether I should wait for her in the car or get out and risk someone recognizing me. That it’s f*cking freezing keeps me in the car until I see her emerge from the building with Leah.

They’re both so young, they could easily be mistaken for students if this were a high school rather than an elementary school. I experience a pang of guilt when Hayden’s words resurface to remind me she is way too young and unspoiled for the likes of me. Yet, even knowing that, I can’t walk away from her.

She spots the car and heads toward me.

That’s when I get out and go around to meet them, bowing gallantly. “Ladies.”

“Hi there.” Natalie’s lips are glistening with some sort of purple gloss that I want to lick off as soon as possible. Yes, that’s my first thought, and no, I’m not proud of that.

I kiss her cheek. “How was your day, dear?”