Chapter Ten
He shouldn’t have tried to kiss her again.
Jude drove with his hands at ten and two, his gaze locked on the road in front of him, carefully avoiding looking at the woman in the passenger seat beside him.
When he’d seen her stranded on the side of the road like the proverbial damsel in distress, his hopes had lifted that maybe he hadn’t irrevocably screwed things up with her. He could be there for her when she needed him and she would realize he was still the guy she’d gone to the top of the hill with last night—Jesus, had it only been last night? It felt like a lifetime.
He’d been ready to grovel—but she hadn’t wanted groveling.
He’d been ready to do whatever it took to redeem himself—but he didn’t have the first freaking clue what that was.
Just like Jack. Bumbling through a forgiveness tour with no idea what he really needed to do to be forgiven.
But he shouldn’t have kissed her. He’d known as soon as he touched her that he’d screwed up, pushed too fast, tried to make it about chemistry when it was about… hell, he didn’t know what they were about. He just knew he liked her and he needed to make things right for her.
Now all he had to do was figure out how.
They got back to the hotel too soon. The entire drive had passed in silence while he tried to think of something to say or do to make things better.
Jack was standing at the fire pit on the side patio, watching for them. He waved as Jude pulled up to the curb and Ginny unbuckled her seatbelt before the car had even stopped rolling.
“Ginny…”
“Thanks for the ride.”
Then she was out of the car and he was watching her walk away, moving not toward Jack but toward the hotel’s front entrance as the movie star scrambled to intercept her.
Jude needed to do something. Something to repair the damage he’d done.
His gaze caught on one of the production vans with a fender dented in four places. Ginny could be one of the greatest actresses of her generation but she was stuck in the middle of Bumblefuck, Nowhere, working on a film with a budget that may as well have been spare change gathered from couch cushions, because of him. Because of the tape.
He may not be able to unring the bell. He may not be able to bury the tape so no one ever heard it again, but he had contacts after three years in Hollywood. Maybe he could get her off the blacklist.
Ginny strode with purpose toward the hotel’s main entrance, determined to find Dani and figure out how to retrieve the production’s broken down car, but Jack Cooper apparently had other ideas.
“Ginny!” He jogged over from the side patio, looking every inch the heartthrob that he was with the wind ruffling his hair. “Ginny, hold on.”
It was tempting to pretend she hadn’t heard him, to keep walking and ignore the earnest sex god jogging to catch up, but twenty minutes trapped in a car with Jude had burned away her Zen and suddenly the idea of having it out with Jack sounded entirely too enticing.
She whirled to face him, not even caring that they were on the front step of the hotel where anyone could see them. “Why did you do it? Why ambush me like that?”
He fell back a step at her vehemence, but met her eyes squarely. “I wanted to help. I thought you’d like it—”
“You couldn’t just say you were sorry? Why does everything have to be a show?”
“I am sorry.”
Her anger popped and deflated in the face of his apology. “That’s all I needed from you, Jack.”
His expression softened and he stepped closer. “I’m sorry about the stuff with Agatha too. I thought you liked shows.”
“I did,” she admitted. “Until my life became one.” She looked up into his handsome face, so sweet and earnest it could break your heart. He really was the nicest guy she’d ever met in Hollywood. Just the wrong guy for her. “I’m sorry too. God, we were wrong for each other.”
“Were we?”
She could tell from his tone he was more curious than trying to get her back—maybe he never had been trying to pick up where they left off. Maybe her visions of reclaiming her past dreams had always been as one-sided as they were unrealistic. “Maybe we were right for one another then,” she acknowledged, “but I’m not the same person I was before.”
And she wasn’t sure that was a bad thing. Her world had fallen down around her ears, but she was stronger now—and she liked to think she was kinder too. Less inclined to let petty jealousy and hurt feelings drive her to lash out.
She’d never really worried about being kind before, but now it had become the unwritten rule by which she lived her life—and she couldn’t be sorry about that.
“I really am sorry I ghosted on you,” Jack said.
“I understood why you did. Everyone vanished on me—and I didn’t blame any of you.”
He shook his head, unwilling to be absolved so easily. “I shouldn’t have. I should have been there when you needed me. As your friend, if nothing else.”
On impulse, she reached up and hugged him. This good man, who sometimes let the blows be softened for him. “You wanna make it up to me? You wanna make amends for your forgiveness tour? Do me a favor. Next time something like this happens, next time you have a chance, don’t take the easy way out.”
He met her eyes and nodded. “Deal.”
He reached for the front door of the hotel and Ginny became aware of their surroundings. She was a little surprised they hadn’t gathered a crowd during their conversation, but that was one of the benefits of being in sleepy Libertyville. Though she thought she would have at least seen Jude.
He would have come this way on his way inside, wouldn’t he? Her conversation with Jack seemed like the kind of thing Jude wouldn’t want to miss, as a gossip columnist—but as soon as she had the thought, it felt wrong. That wasn’t who Jude was. Though she wasn’t sure why her inner voice said that when her better judgment kept trying to remind her that was exactly who he was.
Jack held the door for her and she walked into the lobby, scanning it for Dani to tell her about the car, but the woman she saw instead made her throat tighten.
“And speaking of not taking the easy way out, I think I have my own overdue apology to give.”
Dame Agatha sat to one side of the lobby in the hotel’s small café area, a cup of tea in front of her and a waitress fawning over her. As Ginny watched, Agatha dismissed the server with a regal smile—and calmly lifted her gaze to land directly on Ginny, as if she’d known she was there all along.
“Good luck,” Jack whispered as Ginny swallowed and began the walk across the lobby. Like a walk to the guillotine. On her way to face down the woman she’d publicly berated and privately worshipped.
“Once more unto the breach,” she muttered under her breath.