“I can’t believe it,” Abby breathed, staring up at the giant screen outside of the Javits Center even though the close-up angle that had been on Zach, projecting every word of his heartfelt confession and apology, had pulled out in his sudden absence to capture the utterly stunned, bewildered, and for some, furious expressions of the #Blessed cast, crew, and executive producers. The latter of which—the furious ones—probably didn’t appreciate their press junket being upstaged by the scandalous personal life of one of their own. “What has he done?”
“The right thing,” Olivia supplied from beside her, as the reporters and cameramen who had begun spilling out of the massive exhibit center, eager to get a jump on what would surely be a dramatic reunion, sprinted over to Abby, crowding and cramming around her and Olivia. “He finally did the right thing,” she repeated as if to herself, a proud smile curling her lip.
“But I wasn’t actually going to do it,” Abby reminded her. “I would’ve never actually done anything to damage his career like that. I only wanted to get his attention, talk to him, see how he really felt about all this.”
Ignoring the reporters who were thrusting their microphones in her face and demanding, “Is it true? Was it a fake relationship all for show? Do you believe he loves you? Do you love him? Is this just another publicity stunt?” she turned back to the giant screen and saw her own face.
Oh God.
Whichever cameraman was filming her, the framing of it alerted Abby to the alarming fact that five police officers were pushing their way through the wall of press to get to her.
“Am I going to get arrested for this?”
“Not if I can help it,” said Olivia, locking eyes with her reassuringly before she pressed through the reporters hoping to cut the cops off or at least slow them down.
Just then, Zach burst through the stately glass doors of the Javits Center and in an instant, all of the reporters and cameramen and photographers parted for him like the Red Sea once had for Moses. They hushed as well, anxious to get good soundbites. The only noises were the gentle hum of traffic, Olivia quietly charming the police, and the pounding of Abby’s own heart as she watched with baited breath as Zach neared her, one determined step after the next.
His tight green eyes looked round with a nervous mix of hope and apology, his entire expression open as if every part of him was poised, terrifying as it was, to accept her reaction, whether she needed to scream or cry or tell him off or, just maybe, forgive him because she still loved him and nothing could change that.
Looking up into his eyes when he reached her and blind to the press who were now crowding in on them, she breathed, “What if they don’t renew your contract now?”
“Then they don’t renew my contract,” he said easily as he searched her eyes.
“But what about your career?”
“What about us?” he countered.
She felt her spirit lift, but it still didn’t compute. “I can’t believe you risked your entire career. I would’ve never said anything, Zach. I—”
He stepped in close and it took her breath away. “I can’t believe I didn’t do it sooner. I don’t need to be single to be a good actor. The Christian Network is hardly the beginning and end of my career. They’re done controlling me. I don’t want their contract, not if it means I can’t be with you. I don’t want to be apart from you, Abby. Not ever.”
“You don’t?” she asked as Zach slipped his hand into the front pocket of his slacks.
“The past two days without you were the hardest I’ve ever had to get through and I once kicked smack in a Mexican prison.”
She laughed and felt her eyes mist over with tears, but they were nothing compared to the ones that blurred her vision when Zach’s expression turned serious as he looked down at the black jewelry box in his hand.
As he lowered onto one knee, his eyes didn’t leave hers. “When I had a moment alone with your father that night, I asked for his blessing.”
He opened the box, presenting a glimmering diamond ring, and Abby’s hands flew to her mouth to muffle the gasp that had popped out of her.
“Abby Gallagher?”
Tears of joy were streaming down her cheeks now and she was already nodding her emphatic answer, but he asked formally.
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes!”
He scooped her into his arms, cameras flashing and entertainment news reporters finally shouting every question they could think of. But Abby was deaf to them. The world had disappeared. There was only Zach and her and what would surely become their happily-ever-after.
It was.
As eager as they both were to get hitched, there was no need to elope and they spent the next six months carefully planning what ultimately became an extravagant, fairytale wedding, one which Abby’s entire family attended along with the second, Tate & Cane one she’d developed throughout the months, quickly working her way up from assistant to junior associate to associate while Zach enjoyed his time off from acting, fired his entire team of ‘people’ only to quickly replace each position with reputable individuals who agreed that acting was an artform and would never suggest PR stunts. They were above it, and so was Zach.
The best part about the stunt and resulting scandal, aside from the fact that without it Zach and Abby might never have found one another, was the redemption story that naturally followed. America sure did love a comeback and by the time they returned from their honeymoon in Belize, Zach’s new agent had a film role all laid out for him that, in the agent’s words not his, ‘screamed franchise’.
“Franchise, Zach! Franchise!” his agent blared through Zach’s cell phone so loudly that Abby could hear him as she set her tote on the kitchen islet, having discarded her carry-on luggage the second she’d gotten home to the penthouse suite.
A deep, rumbling laugh spilled out of Zach as he set his own luggage beside the elevator door and shifted his cell phone from his right ear to his left.
Abby loved that sound.
“It’s a done deal?” he asked, meeting Abby’s interested gaze.
His agent had calmed down a little and when Zach realized she couldn’t hear the man, he relayed the answer, mouthing, “All I have to do is sign and it’s happening.”
Abby gave him two excited thumbs up.
Again, Zach laughed loudly in response to something his agent said, but this time he placed the man on speaker phone and asked him to repeat himself.
“I said,” he shouted through the receiver, “as soon as you get the contract I just messengered over, all you have to do is return it signed, sealed, and delivered.”
“Kind of like how I met my wife,” he said, but only to Abby. He’d tossed his cell on the couch and as he stalked towards the woman he’d spend the rest of his life with, a distinct sexual hunger smoldering in his intense green eyes, the faint, tinny sounds of his confused agent kept coming through the cell.
As far as Zach was concerned, the conversation was over. He wrapped his arms around Abby, feeling the length of her warm body against him—a sensation he thought he’d never get enough of—and crushed the hardest kiss against her plump lips.
She squealed, smiling, then her lips molded to his.
“I thought I’d worn you out in Belize,” she said in a kittenish tone.
His eyebrows shot up to his hairline and, looking down at her with an air of mock offense on his otherwise sexy face, said, “Never.”
“Never?” she playfully challenged.
Stripping out of his clothes while corralling her into the bedroom, Abby giggling the whole way, he teased, “If it takes a thousand times to prove it to you, then it takes a thousand times.”
She hoped so.
She hoped for many frisky years of love and happiness.
Maybe she didn’t have to hope.
Everything about Zach was a promise she could trust.
So, that’s what she did.
THE END