There’s nothing lonelier than waking up in an empty bed that’s usually filled with a gorgeous woman. I feel like the air’s been sucked out of this room. Jenna typically fills it with her smell and her smile and the soft sound of her voice whispering in the morning. I always tell her she doesn’t have to be so quiet. These hotel room walls are thick. She always jokes that she’s whispering because it feels sexier in the morning, like we’re keeping a secret.

Now I know just how true that feeling is for Jenna.

I guess part of me always thought she was bluffing with this whole casual sex thing. Old Jenna would never have gone that far, but this new version sent me packing at three o’clock in the morning, after some of the craziest sex I’ve ever had. I couldn’t wait to talk about it with her—once I’d caught my breath—but she hadn’t even put her robe on before escorting me to the door. That felt shitty, but not quite as shitty as it feels to wake up alone. Without her.

I childishly throw a pillow at the door. This wasn’t how things were supposed to be this time. This was supposed to work. We were supposed to work.

And yet here I am again, wondering what she’s doing while I order a fucking omelet.

I flip on the TV to try and take my mind off this pathetic morning. Some local weather person is standing in front of the giant map waving her hands at weird Canadian names. Her hair reminds me of Jenna’s, and I nearly change the channel, but then she launches into all the details of the famous Celebration of Light, Vancouver’s giant fireworks festival. It’s today, which reminds me that we’re not shooting. Fireworks and film sets don’t go so well together.

But neither do free days and bored actors. Now I have nothing to do all day, and no excuse to see Jenna.

I turn the TV off and throw the remote across the room, where it luckily glances off the pillow. I have to stop pouting before I earn a rock-star hotel trashing reputation.

But I’m not sure how to proceed, and until I have a plan, this room feels like a cage. To complete the metaphor, I start pacing like a wild animal as I try to work out what led to me waking up in my bed, alone. Jenna is pissed about something. I’m sure of it. She booted me for the jealousy comment, but for fuck’s sake. It was funny at that point. Because, come on, we both knew she was jealous.

And it was sexy and hot and fun that she was.

It wasn’t like there was any real reason she should be upset. I didn’t have eyes for Amber in the first place, but now Jenna has destroyed any possibility of me ever looking at Amber again without picturing Jenna’s bare ass over my knee and the taste of strawberries in my tequila. She knows it, too.

So jealousy can’t really be the problem.

Maybe she’s still worried about being seen together. I understand, I sold it to her as a private event, and then when we got there it was an industry free-for-all, with columnists everywhere.

I’m not going to look online, I know better than to ever Google my own name, but there’s simply no way no one talked about us. And as close as we were sitting…

I’ll pretend she was sick last night, and I brought her home, but how does that serve me? No, squelching these rumors only allows the distance between us to grow exponentially.

Then it hits like a bolt of lightning—what we need to do is manage them.

I race over to my phone. “Hi, it’s Tanner James. Can you put me through to Angela, please? No, she’s not expecting my call, but she’ll speak to me.”

It only takes a few minutes to arrange things, then I have the pleasure of reliving last night in the shower. If I don’t jerk off in there this morning, being around her will be absolutely unbearable. Once I’m clean, shaved, tousled, and aftershaved, I select my clothes.

Like most guys, I secretly enjoy fashion a bit more than I pretend to, but also like most guys, I don’t know nearly as much about it as I ought to. But I sure as hell know what Jenna likes. So I toss on some ripped jeans, not tight, but not baggy, the kind that make it very clear that I do work out—a lot. Then a button-down shirt, white with the palest gray pinstripe. After rolling the sleeves up to my elbows, I top it off with a darker gray vest.

I know I made the right choice when Jenna opens her door and visibly sweeps her eyes up and down my body—twice.

“You have a key,” she grumbles, turning to walk back in, but leaving the door open for me.

“I do. But I sort of thought that was to be used at a more late-night hour. For a more late-night situation.” I follow her in, watching her nostrils flare slightly as she breathes in my cologne. I wonder if she remembers that it’s the same brand she brought me back from a shoot she did in Barcelona a decade ago, made in a tiny couture house that’s existed for two hundred years, mostly catering to royalty before reluctantly opening their doors to the nouveau riche of Europe.

It’s the only kind I’ve worn since.

       “I’m not really up for a booty call right now, Tanner,” she says.

“And I’m not here for one. Have you eaten?”

“I’m not up for a buffet, either. Thanks for the invite though.”

“Look, Jenna, I just got off the phone with Angela—yes, I know, before you even start in. But here’s the thing. We pretty clearly left together last night. So right now, everyone’s making speculations about what’s going on between us. The paparazzi are going to be talking about us, whether we’re on a closed set or not. Now that there’s a whiff of smoke, those telephoto lenses will be looking for fire.”

“Shit,” she mumbles, her shoulders drooping. “We made a mistake last night.”

“We did not,” I say firmly. I reach out to take her face in both hands, tilt it up to me. It’s a deliberate reminder of what Richard Thurgood did, but also a reminder that I have been nothing but gentle with her—minus the spanking, of course, but she wanted that.

“You were upset. I was upset. We needed to leave. Leaving last night was the right decision, but now we need to decide where to lead the press. Because at this point, we’re still in charge. We get to write our story. TMI can’t make this what it isn’t.”

It’s as close as I’ve come to telling her about the video, but if some part of me was hoping she would read between the lines, I’m disappointed. Because she doesn’t.

“Okay,” she says, nodding. “This makes sense. So…how do you propose we write our story?”

“If the gossip rags think we’re hiding a secret sex thing,” I raise a brow at her until she blushes, “they’ll never let go. But if we go out on a very public date, tipping them off where they can find us, the whole thing will smack of a publicity stunt. And no one cares about fake relationships. Just look at what’s his name—the British guy and the pop star, you know who I mean.”

Jenna’s starting to grin. “Everyone hated them! You’re right!”

“So we just go out and do Vancouver together, me and you, all day, in public. Let them take their photos. The world will be yawning by supper, and we’ll have our privacy back.”

“Plus, IK PR can’t say we didn’t do our part in being visible. This is brilliant. You’re brilliant!” She pops up on her tiptoes to kiss me reflexively. She freezes as soon as she realizes what she’s doing—rewarding me with real affection for finding a way to make our non-relationship look fake. I laugh softly against her mouth to let her know I’m in on the joke, and she smiles too.

For a second we stay like that, faces together, sharing breath, happy and excited, and it feels like we really are Janner again.

Too soon, the moment’s over, but I don’t stay upset about it for long. Her delightful immodesty surfaces as she tosses her robe on the floor, revealing that she’s nude beneath, and she bends over to rummage around in the pile of designer clothes strewn over the chair by the window. I don’t even tempt myself by walking closer, knowing that she probably won’t welcome any advances right this second.

But goddamn, do I enjoy the view.

Once she’s dressed, I have the pleasure of escorting her downstairs, where we loudly ask the concierge to arrange a car service for us for the day.

People are looking, and not so covertly snapping pics on their phones. Jenna notices, and grins widely as she strikes a very awkward pose next to me, purposely leaning away from me with her upper body so that even the most casual onlooker can see her body language is reading “I don’t like this”.

For a quick second, I feel my insides freeze up. Does she actually not like this? Did I just accidentally orchestrate, not a slow burn seduction, but an “out” for her?

My worries are not entirely relieved when she playfully flashes me on her way into the Town Car, but it does take the edge off. Still, I know this little concern is going to be playing in the back of my mind all day. The trouble with letting the audience in is that now we can’t be real. Or, at least, we can’t know for sure what’s real. I can’t know what part of Jenna’s character she’s flaunting is for the papz and what part is just for me. Maybe none of it. Maybe all of it.

Hey, a guy can hope.

For a—what did Jenna call her? Oh, yes. For a real shit-stirrer, Angela sure threw together an extravagant day out for us on absolutely no notice. I can’t imagine what she’d do for a couple that was actually willing to play her games. Although I suppose as long as she gets what she wants in the end, it may not matter.

Our first stop is Vancouver Lookout at Harper Center, and it’s even more ripper than I remember from shooting Jet. That was back before I knew Jenna, and I remember wishing I had someone to share it with—this crazy, expansive, top-of-the-world vista. Three hundred sixty-degree views from forty flights up, all in a room that feels like it’s enclosed in the clouds.

Angela has rented us an entire section of the observation deck, a little bubble of our own, created of glass walls. Chilled champagne is waiting for us.

Jenna is over the fucking moon.

It’s one of those days where the giant cotton balls in the sky are low and fluffy so they’re actually passing close to the windows of the view deck. We run around snapping selfies that make us look like we’re stuck inside a big cumulus. Jenna slaps a filter on the shots that give us wings like we’re some angels and shoots them off into the world.

       “If we want the papz on us we’ll have to leave a trail,” she says.

       “Haven’t you noticed yet?”

       “What?” she asks, and I nod my head toward what she hasn’t noticed in all her excitement—photographers are on the other side of the glass, snapping away, capturing every selfie and sip of bubbly.

“Angela?” Jenna asks, popping immediately back into her fake mode. She waves at them while doing another weird lean-in.

“Yeah. She’s good.” The light mood from a moment before is gone, but this “us against them” thing is bonding us in a different way. Jenna tells me five times how much fun she’s having while we’re whisked off to our next destination, one I requested specifically, knowing what a nature lover Jenna is.

The mountains have always been her favorite thing about LA, but the San Gabriels have nothing on the Canadian gem that is Grouse Mountain.

The view from the top makes the Vancouver Lookout seem like a joke. It’s acres and acres of lush green pines that aren’t found in southern California. The sky tram drives all the way up to the peak to give an insane view.

“Ooh, are we going to get champagne in this one, too?” she asks as we walk up to the Skyride.

“Not in, exactly…” The look on her face as we’re beckoned up to the rooftop deck to ride up the mountain on the outside of the tram is utterly priceless. The car begins its smooth ascent, and the wind rushes through her gorgeous hair, lifting individual curls to stream out around her head.

She’s perfect.

I move closer to snuggle up to her, but she’s stiff, frozen in place.

The anxiety I felt earlier is suddenly back with more force than it takes to power the tram up this mountain.

“Are you okay?” I ask, my voice catching just a little. Did I misread her? Was she really faking all the fun for the paparazzi?

“I don’t mind heights. And I don’t mind cable cars. But being outside of a cable car, this high in the air, is surely nothing God ever intended.” Her voice is small, and a few words are carried away by the wind, but her white knuckled grip on the bar and the few words I heard were enough to understand.

I’m relieved and about to gather her to me to keep her mind off her nerves, when I glance up and see a couple photographers have beat us to the top and are shooting our ascent.

Even though it makes me feel like a real asshole to leave her panicking, pics where she looks stiff and terrified with me standing a couple of paces away will show the public that all the cuddling has been for show.

The crowd of photographers gives us space when we get to the top, hanging back as though trying to snap a picture covertly. Jenna’s visibly relieved when we disembark, and waiting for her, I have another surprise.

“Have you ever heard of a beavertail?” I ask, nodding toward the media in case she hasn’t seen them yet.

She gives a tight nod in response and takes my hand, holding it stiffly and far from her body.

“Is that…an animal part or a sex thing?” she asks carefully, giving me side-eye.

“Better than the first, almost as good as the second. It’s a pastry covered in different toppings.”

       “Wait, there’s a restaurant in this heaven?” she says as I walk her toward the entrance. “Thank God. I’m starving.” Her eyes catch mine and glint wickedly. “I burned a lot of calories last night.”

My grin is too genuine, and I have to lower my head to hide it.

       When I look up again, Jenna has selected a beavertail covered in maple— “When in Canada, eh?” and is utterly thrilled to discover, when the cashier hands her the fried pastry, that it’s the size of her face.

The sun is gleaming through the windows that surround the entire place, and the halo filter from before can’t touch the angelic look she now wears of pure light and joy. She runs over to a bar stool that’s positioned directly in a ray then flips back to me with a giant smile.

       “Take my picture!” she says, holding the giant beavertail up to her head as comparison.

       “Happy to,” I hear a voice reply.

It’s not mine.

       Jenna and I both freeze for a second. A few stools down at the bar is a guy with a long lens camera—another paparazzo. Although we knew they were around, it’s the first time we’ve had to directly address anyone of them.

       “So, is Janner back together?” he asks as he snaps a shot of Jenna, and then motions for me to join her.

       I know I need to manage this moment. This was my idea, so I should take charge.

I walk over to where Jenna is sitting at the bar and smile for the camera.

       “Yes!” I say heartily and over-loud. I wrap my arm around Jenna. She props an elbow on my shoulder, and I almost crack up at how over-the-top her pose is. “Now, can’t you see we want privacy?” I’m stiff in my delivery, and the only thing it seems we need is a to-go box because there’s no way that Jenna is eating that entire beavertail in one sitting.

       The photographer snaps a few pics then shakes his head with a frown. He disappears a minute later into a dark corner to check the shots on his screen.

“Oh my God, that was amazing,” Jenna laughs when he’s out of earshot. “You’re a pretty good actor, I suppose,” she teases. “As far as co-stars go.”

       I am acting, but it’s not the paparazzi I’m putting on a show for. My pretending is for Jenna. I’m trying to convince her I don’t feel anything for her and that’s a lie.

And, as she smiles happily and rips off another bite to hand me, I realize I don’t want to pretend anymore. I don’t want to play the role of boyfriend. I don’t want to spin this story a minute longer.

I want to be with Jenna for real.

But before I can have any sort of future with Jenna, I have to find out what happened to our past.