Page 58 of French Martini

“Hey, kitten.”

“Hi.” His voice sounds weirdly tense, like it does when permits are delayed or the paint is the wrong shade. “Are you busy?”

“I’m never too busy for you. What’s going on?”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you more than I already have, but I think we should stay in a hotel in the city for the week.”

“Uh, okay. Why?”

“Ridley found articles about me today. The parasites are already trying to dig up stuff about me to sell clicks and views.”

“Oh. So you want to get out of town?”

“I don’t want them coming to Willow Bay. I don’t want them creeping around you either when they find out we’re… you know.”

My heart sinks. Heisembarrassed. “Are you sure you want to go through with the fake fiancé thing?”

“Yes. Why? Don’t you?”

“Well if you don’t want them to know things about me?—”

“Shit. I didn’t word that right. It’s hard to understand because it’s not like I’m Beyoncé or anything, but the design world is small, and me and Alain were a big deal and an even bigger one when it blew up. He humiliated me.”

My blood practically boils when I hear the crack in his voice.

“He publicly flaunted his affairs and implied more than once that I wasn’t enough for him. I, on the other hand, chose to take the high ground and didn’t publicly say anything. Looking back, I think that was the wrong thing to do because it just made them hungry for any nugget they could get. It’s been years though, so they forgot about me until now.”

“Okay.”

“They’ll ruin your peace and quiet, Oakley. They’ll camp outside your house and bombard you with questions every time you leave. They’ll follow you to all your projects, and they’ll try to talk to your employees. They’ll do the same to me at Moby’s and try to talk to the guys.”

“Oh.” Now I understand where he’s coming from. He’s not hiding my simple life from them, he’s protecting me. “Yeah, if you want to stay in the city, that’s fine. Most of my work is there at the moment anyway.”

“They’ll still harass us, but at least it’ll be away from our real lives and in a week it’ll be over.”

“We’ll get through it. I’ll be right by your side.”

He’s silent for a second, but then he exhales slowly. “I can’t thank you enough for doing this. I don’t think I could face them alone.”

“I’m happy to support you. I can’t even imagine doing anything in my personal life the media would care about.”

“You’re about to experience it. I never wanted to be famous, you know? I wanted to be respected and recognized for my abilities, but becoming part of a power couple wasn’t on my vision board. He wanted the limelight and lived his life loudly,drawing attention to us. It was exciting at first. We could get into all the posh restaurants in Paris. We got tickets to shows and fashion designers wanted to clothe us. We had money and prestige and so much privilege, and I thought we were in love.”

“You weren’t?”

“I don’t think he was. I think he saw me as an asset. As for me, I don’t know anymore. I never felt the way—” He stops abruptly and clears his throat before he continues. “The way I think love is supposed to feel. I was young and impressionable and had stars in my eyes. I was flattered to be courted by someone I admired, but I’m not so sure it was ever love.”

“I’m sorry you went through that. Divorce, even in the best circumstances, is always awful. I’ve been there.”

“You’re divorced?”

“Yeah. I never told you?”

“No.”

“It was a million years ago. I was twenty-five and stupid as fuck.”

“What happened?”

---