EPILOGUE
“Thank you, ladies.” Tillie patted her elegant chignon as she led her personal stylists to the penthouse door. Typically, she liked to do her own hair and make-up, but she found it was often better to leave it to the professionals for special events, like the preview she’d be attending that evening. “As always, you’ve done a remarkable job.”
“It’s easy when you’re our canvas,” Edith, the woman responsible for the sleek chignon, quipped as she shuffled through the open door with two armfuls of equipment boxes.
“You’re too kind.” Tillie wiggled her fingers in farewell. “Thanks again.”
As soon as the lock clicked back into place, Oren came into the room. An untied black tie hung around his neck. “You’re all finished then?”
Tillie tightened the belt on her dressing robe and rolled her eyes. “Yes, dear. With that part at least.”
Oren moved to stand in front of a gilded antique mirror and began knotting his tie. “I miss the days when I could get ready for a preview in peace and quiet. I could hear those girls twittering from every room in this damn penthouse.”
“They’re harmless gossips who think I know the juiciest stories.” Smirking, Tillie perched on the arm of their sofa. “Mostly, they just ask about you.”
Oren barked out a laugh as he finished his final knot. “I’m sure they do. Maybe next time, I’ll stop by and hello.”
“I’m sure they’d like that.” Tillie slid off the couch. “What were you doing holed up in your office, anyway?”
Oren smiled and stepped aside when Tillie came up behind him to adjust his collar. “I booked our flights for the trip to New Jersey next week.”
Tillie pressed up her toes and kissed Oren on the cheek. “Thank you for doing that. It’s been ages since we’ve been back home.”
“We were there three months ago.”
With a sigh, Tillie rested her head on his Oren’s shoulder. “I wanted to come out to Hollywood and be a film star so badly, I never thought I’d miss home.”
He kissed the top of her head. “Are you ready to move back?”
The press badgered them often with questions about wedding bells and engagement rings. They always answered with the truth—they weren’t ready yet for this part of their life to be over.
Tillie glanced up at him through the heavy false lashes her make-up artist had just glued on. “No. But I do wish I got to see my nieces and nephews more often. Guy’s baby girl is darling.”
Last year, her sister-in-law gave birth to her fourth child. Because of their filming schedule, Tillie and Oren couldn’t make it out to meet the little girl until five months later.
“Just say the word and we’ll sell the penthouse, move back to Jersey, and have a baby of our own.” Oren looked around at their lavishly decorated living room. “Lord knows, we could afford it.”
Tillie patted his chest and lifted her head. “No. Not yet, anyway. I’ve only made three films—not quite the legendary career I’d always dreamed of.”
Oren had co-starred in all of Tillie’s motion pictures. People had started calling them this decade’s Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, only their real-life romance promised to make them more popular than their predecessors. If Tillie wanted a long career, she could have one.
“Good. I’m not ready to call it quits yet anyway.” Draping an arm over her shoulders, Oren led her to their bedroom. “Now, let’s get you dressed so we can get to this damn thing.”
“This damn thing?” Tillie scoffed. “You aren’t looking forward to the preview?”
“I am. But between the publicity for this picture and the filming for the next one, we hardly get to spend any time together. Just the two of us.”
Tillie nuzzled into his side. “It’s true. The only time we’re alone anymore is when we go to sleep at night. Let’s go somewhere before we come back from our trip home. We’ll stop off at a little, tucked away island for a day or two. Just you and me.”
Oren swept Tillie into his arms and kissed her. “That might be the best idea you’ve ever had.”
She laughed. “We both know I always have the better ideas. You’re the one who suggested our phony relationship, after all.”
Oren gasped in mock offense as he toed the bedroom door open. “I thought we agreed never to bring that up again.”
“Sorry, darling.” Tillie kissed his cheek. “I couldn’t resist the set up.”
They didn’t talk of their rocky start much, only bringing it up in instances like these—when one had the opportunity to make a playful jab at the other. Life had gotten busy after the fateful night they’d come clean in Oren’s Algonquin suite. Tillie flew out to Hollywood to film her screen test, which the execs all loved. Oren hooked her up with his agent, who helped her land a few modeling jobs in New York while Oren finished his run on Broadway. For his part, Oren promoted Me and Juliet, knowing interest in the play would fuel interest in the picture—and vice versa.
Oren put Tillie down on the carpeted bedroom floor. “What dress will you wear tonight?”
She unzipped a garment bag hanging from her closet door and took out a white, cap-sleeved number with sequins speckling every square-inch. The couple’s publicist insisted on Tillie dressing in light colors—white, yellow, pink, and blue—to play up the youthful exuberance George thought would prevent her from ever landing a decent role. America loved the dynamic between the two —Tillie was the sweet and talented hometown girl Oren roguishly swept off her feet in a whirlwind New York romance for the ages. Rumors of a script about their love affair had been circulating Hollywood before they arrived. But nothing had come to fruition, yet.
“What do you think?” she asked as she held the dress up to herself.
“You’ll look beautiful in it.” Oren sat on a chaise at the foot of the bed and tugged on a shoe. “Then again, I think you’d look beautiful in a burlap sack. I don’t know how well that would go over with our publicist, though.”
“Are you kidding?” Tillie undid the belt on her robe, aware of Oren’s attention, as she always was. Somehow, someway, she always knew when he was looking at her—whether they were across the room from each other at a party with a sea of people separating them, or she had her back turned toward him alone in their bedroom. “Linda would be over the moon about the press a stunt like that would drum up.”
“Listen to you.” Oren finished tying his shoelace knot and stood. “You’re the one who’s supposed to keep things light in this relationship.”
Tillie stepped into her dress and pulled the short sleeves over her shoulders. “I was telling the truth, not trying to be sarcastic. Remember when Lydia Tinkwell was caught sleeping with her director? Linda was positively delighted by all the fires she had to put out that week.”
He zipped her up. “You’re right about that. I think Linda misses the rumors I used to churn up.”
Tillie leaned back into Oren, and he slid his arms around her waist. “I’m glad you’re through with all of that now.”
“Me too.”
Her head tilted to the side when Oren began trailing kisses along her collarbone. Each one left a patch of heat on her skin, making her want to tear off the beautiful gown he’d just zipped her into.
“Oren, please. Oren, no.” She meant for it to be a warning, but her traitorous voice came out breathy and lust-soaked instead. Covering Oren’s roving hands with her own, she tried to pry them off her.
“Don’t make me stop.” He kissed his way up her neck, tickling her as he spoke. “I miss you, Tillie. I miss those New York nights when I could come back to my suite and have my way with you.”
“Things were simpler then. You were the only one working.”
Shortly after their relationship became press fodder, Tillie had been forced to leave her job at Centerstage. Rabid fans of Oren’s had flooded the diner. It would have been good for business if a few of the girls hadn’t been the misguided, jealous types that wanted to harm the woman who’d stolen Oren from them. She decided to hang up her blue uniform the day one of them threw a soda glass at her, missing her head by only a few inches.
“They could be simple now.” Oren nibbled her earlobe. “Until it’s time to leave for the preview, at least.”
Tillie let her head drop back against his chest. “We have to leave in twenty minutes.”
He kissed along her chin. “There’s a lot we can do in twenty minutes.”
“You’re right.” Tillie spun and linked her hands behind his neck, powerless to say no. “You’re right.”
And with that, they collapsed upon the mattress in a heap of sequins and tangled limbs.