Chapter Five
Ginny turned toward Jude, startled by his question. “Jack?” She could make out his silhouette against the night sky more than his face, but she saw him nod. “We were both good at pretending to be in love,” she admitted, looking back on those weeks with Jack without bitterness—perhaps for the first time. What was it about Jude that made all the slings and arrows of the past seem much less important? “He’s a method actor, you know, and I was playing his wife. Sometimes you even fool yourself.”
“But you aren’t…”
“Still pining for him?” She grinned, even though he probably couldn’t see it in the dark. There was something comforting about confessing to a man who couldn’t see her face. Like for once she didn’t have to consider what message her expressions were sending. “No. Nothing like that. Jack was a missed opportunity. A sweet guy. The kind of man with a genuinely good heart, and six-pack abs, but—”
She stopped herself before she said something negative, some instinct reminding her not to speak ill of anyone. But who could hear her up on this hill, far away from Hollywood’s eyes and ears? Just Jude.
“But?”
She tried to think of a kind way of saying why she and Jack would never work. She hadn’t realized it until he cut and ran, but there was something almost weak about him. A man who let himself be steered. Let himself be managed. Let himself be coddled.
“Never a blow that hasn’t been softened for him,” she said finally.
“Philadelphia Story?”
She looked up at Jude in surprise. “You know that movie?”
“Great film. Classic. I secretly wanted to be Macauley Connor when I grew up.”
She laughed, delighted by his affection for one of her favorite films. “You do sort of look like Jimmy Stewart. I secretly wanted to be Katherine Hepburn.”
“Katherine Hepburn, huh?” He lifted a hand, almost as if he might touch a lock of her hair, but his fingers only hovered, inches away. “Are you a natural redhead?”
“I’ll never tell.”
He chuckled, dropping his hand, the sound deep and intimate in the night, stirring something in her chest that made her feel nervous and excited and keenly aware of him standing beside her.
She looked out over the town, focusing on the lights she wasn’t seeing until her breathing slowed and she dared look at him again. “Mr. Connor, huh?” she asked after the silence had stretched too long.
“Yeah. I even wrote a book.”
“You did?”
“Don’t sound so impressed. It wasn’t very good.”
“Don’t say that. I bet it was wonderful. I can’t imagine doing anything like that. Pulling an idea out of your brain and putting it on paper. That’s amazing. I’m just a puppet in someone else’s show, but you created something.”
He snorted. “Something that should never have been created to begin with, if you believe my critics.”
“What do they know? Miserable assholes who delight in tearing other people down, that’s all they are. Don’t listen to them.”
“That’s easier said than done.” His voice was wry in the darkness. “I think I have my worst reviews memorized.”
She grimaced. “I can empathize, unfortunately. I have that horrible article that came out on Fame Game with the tape memorized.”
Jude closed his eyes, cringing against the guilt and glad she couldn’t make out his face. He should tell her who he was. This was wrong. But he didn’t want to destroy this moment between them—and the truth would definitely destroy it. She wouldn’t forgive him. And he couldn’t blame her. But she needed to know.
Before he could confess, she went on.
“Why is it so much easier to believe the negative things people say about you than the positive?”
“Because we secretly agree with them.” His answer was ready. This was one topic he’d given a lot of thought. “We doubt ourselves. We feel like we’re putting on a front, so as soon as someone says something negative it’s like they’re confirming what we already knew. They saw through us. They see that we don’t really belong here and we don’t know what we’re doing.”
She groaned. “That’s horrible. And entirely too true.” She thrust her hands into her pockets, rocking on her heels as she stared out over the town. “We really need a bottle of champagne to toast our failure. Your book and my career.”
“That’s hardly the same thing.”
“Because I destroyed my own career?”
“Because I had one book published—primarily by nepotism—which was then justifiably massacred by reviewers, but you are an incredible actress.”
She turned toward him and he could feel her trying to see him through the darkness. “You say that like it’s a fact.”
“Isn’t it? Even if I hadn’t heard how fabulous you are. I saw you on set today. You’re one of the most amazing actresses I’ve ever seen. And that’s saying something.”
She snorted. “Just not such an amazing person, as it turns out.”
He looked at her, and now he was wishing for better light so he could see her. “I’m not so sure.”
Her face tipped up to him and the moon chose that moment to pierce through the clouds that had gathered, casting her face in flawless light that made his throat close at her beauty.
“Why did you say it?” he asked softly.
Ginny blinked, bemused for a moment, then seemed to realize what he was asking. “I’d had a bad day. Jack and I were fighting. Dame Agatha had… said something to me. Something…unkind.” She grimaced. “And then my mother called.”
“Your mother?” Something tickled at the back of his memory, some whisper of gossip he couldn’t place.
“She’s pretty much your typical stage mom. Or she was, when I was a teenager and she was managing my career. She used to do that all the time—be catty behind someone’s back when she felt like they’d wronged her. Or wronged me. It always embarrassed me. I never wanted to be that person. She remarried a couple years ago and her new husband became her obsession, so she stopped micromanaging me, but that afternoon she called me and I was already feeling like I wasn’t good enough for Jack or Dame Agatha and no one winds me up like my mother, so when my make-up artist said something snarky about Dame A I became my mother and piled on. I couldn’t even have told you what I said—until later when the tape was everywhere and everyone was quoting me.” She turned to face the view again. “For one moment I was everything I hate, and now it’s all anyone will ever know me for.”
Guilt dug into his chest. He’d done that to her. He’d made that one moment of weakness into her legacy. “You don’t know that. People have short memories. There’s a new scandal along every five minutes.”
“Yeah, but I’ll always be that bitch who insulted Dame Agatha Kelly.” She turned back toward the hill they’d come up. “We should probably get back.”
They began the climb down, slower going now that the moon had gone behind another cloud and they could barely see where they were putting their feet.
“I’m sorry,” Jude said when they’d gone half a dozen steps.
“Don’t be.” Her voice was light, easy. “I did it to myself.”
“You were human. You’re allowed to have a shitty day and not have to worry about your venting being broadcast to the whole world.”
“With the rich and mighty, always a little patience?” she quipped, quoting The Philadelphia Story again.
“You’re allowed to be human, Ms. Hepburn.”
She chuckled, making slow progress down the hill. “You do know Katherine Hepburn and Jimmy Stewart totally got it on in that movie.”
He knew he should pursue his apology to the end, but he couldn’t bear to lose her laughter, so he kept it light, playful. “Ms. Hepburn, are you propositioning me?”
“And if I was?” she asked, her voice daring him in the darkness.
Then she stumbled on the uneven ground, squeaking as she lost her footing. He reached out, catching her more by luck than skill—or maybe it wasn’t luck. Maybe she’d been reaching toward him as well. He steadied her against his chest, his hands framing her shoulders. She felt so delicate in his arms, vulnerable. But there was such a strength to her. Such determination. She’d never given up. Not like him.
She laughed as she braced her hands on his chest. “Why, Mr. Connor…”
He should set her away from him. He knew he should. “You know their relationship was doomed from the start,” he murmured instead.
She tipped her face up to his in the dark. “Yeah, but they had that one incredible night…”
She wouldn’t forgive him. He’d shredded her life because he’d been certain he was in the right, certain she’d viciously attacked for no reason someone he cared about. He’d thought he was protecting Agatha, that he was exposing a horrible woman for what she really was. But that wasn’t Ginny—and he wasn’t sure he deserved her forgiveness.
He certainly didn’t deserve her.
But she was right there… and she was so easy to kiss…