Page 58 of Isabelle and the Beast

“I’ll get in touch tomorrow,” Dad says. “Have a good night.”

“Bye, Dad,” I reply. I hang up and look at the phone in my hands.

“Is everything all right?” Adam asks.

I look back up at him and nod. “He just wanted to make sure I’m okay.”

Adam pauses for a moment. “And…are you?”

I hold his gaze and smile. “Yes.”

The side of his mouth lifts in a grin, one of the few I’ve gotten from him over the last week.

My phone buzzes in my hand, and I shift my focus down to the screen. A text from my Dad comes through with a link. “Here we go,” I say, opening the message and clicking on the article.

The headline reads, Adam Stone Makes His First Appearance in Months!

Below is a screenshot of Adam looking straight into the camera. I’ve been cropped out.

I scroll down to the text, where the article mostly talks about Adam’s appearance, the fight he got into with Tristan, and the mysterious scar over his eye. Which is still a mystery for me, too. The last paragraph of the article finally mentions me.

Adam will be appearing in a movie with Isabelle Lovett, younger sister of supermodels Joanna and Catherine. The rom-com willrelease on the Family Entertainment Network, a far cry from Adam’s typical action movies. Release date TBD.

Underneath is a screenshot from the interview, where Adam is standing above me and I’m looking up at him, like he’s my everything.

No wonder my dad says we could make a fake relationship work.

But that’s it. That’s the only reference to me, even though I talked to Allegra for twenty minutes about my path to becoming an actress.

So much for an article about me.

“I’m so sorry,” Adam murmurs next to me. “I didn’t mean to take all the attention away from you.”

I shrug my shoulders, brushing it off. “It’s all right. You were just trying to spin it in my direction.”

“But it still didn’t give you the focus you deserved.” His hand runs down my arm. “I wasn’t thinking.”

I look down at where his hand rests, wrapped around the soft skin inside my wrist. An apology from Adam means so much, especially considering where we started. I look back up at him, his eyes filled with concern. “It’s okay.”

I’m disappointed, but probably less than I would have been if he hadn’t stepped in. Because then the article would’ve just been about my sisters and nothing about me at all. At least this way there’s a small buzz going about my connection to Adam.

He stands. “Come with me.”

I furrow my brow. “Where?”

“To the theater.” He runs a hand through his hair, looking like he needs to brace himself for what he’s going to say. “Let’s watch something to take your mind off of all this.”

I stand and laugh. “Don’t look so excited. You don’t have to watch something with me.”

“It’s not that,” he says. “I actually…don’t mind your movies. I used to watch them, more than you probably expect.”

“Oh?”

He swallows. “The theater was my special place with my mother. We would watch movies together after all my younger siblings went to bed.” He smiles again, this time a little sheepish. “Classic musicals were our favorite.”

My mouth drops open. “That’s why you have so many of them!”

He nods. “But I haven’t been in there since she passed.”

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