Page 31 of Emma's Element

“I know that now,” she stated. “But back then, he was hot! You all were.” The man had been caught in a compromising position with the nanny. He’d left his wife and kid for her and eventually dropped her as well. He went through women like he had a certain goal to reach, and he never treated any of them with any semblance of respect. Marcus was utterly disgusted with his former co-star.

“Were?” he teased.

She laughed. “Okay. You still are. Those other guys have gotten old and ugly. But not you. There. Does that help stoke your ego?” she quipped.

“Immensely,” he responded with a smile. He looked down at the poster again. “I wish I could remember meeting you.”

“How could you? You must have met thousands of people on just that day alone.”

“I know. Even still, I would have liked to have known you back then.”

“I wasn’t much different than I am now.”

“I was. Very different,” he mused. He’d been so arrogant then. So naive about stardom. If he had known then what he knew now, would he have wanted to sign on for bigger and better movies? Marcus couldn’t answer that question.

“Hey,” Emma said softly, taking the poster from him and placing it on a nearby end table. “I didn’t show you that to make you sad.”

“I know.”

“Come on.” She pulled him by the hand to the couch. “Sit and tell me what is on your mind.”

He sat but didn’t feel much like telling her everything. “Forgive my moroseness. Just the musings of an old man.”

“Bah! You are hardly old. What are you, thirty-two? Thirty-three?”

“Thirty-four.”

“When’s your birthday?”

“April twenty-fourth.”

“Ha! Mine’s in January. Therefore, I am older than you, which doesn’t make you an old man,” she teased. “What’s really on your mind,” she asked, her eyes full of concern.

“It’s nothing. I’ve enjoyed these last few weeks here, and I’m wondering if my life choices have been worth it,” he confessed.

“Of course, they’ve been worth it. Look at all you’ve done. All the people you’ve helped. Do you think just anyone could afford to spend weeks helping people recover from the tsunami? How many charities do you have anyway?”

“Over the years . . . eighteen.”

She gaped at him. “Eighteen! Holy buckle, you are amazing!”

“It’s not that many now. There are about five core ones I keep open,” he told her.

“Even still, not everybody could do that,” she said, then thought for a moment. “And the general public knows nothing of that?”

“I don’t do it for notoriety.”

“Exactly,” she stated. “You don’t do it for the notoriety. You do it because you care, and you have the resources to help. You couldn’t do any of that if it hadn’t been for your life choices. You take the good with the bad.”

“You’re very wise.”

“I know,” she said mockingly.

He was quiet a moment. “What type of cancer did your mother have?”

“Breast cancer,” she answered quickly. “Oh no. No, you don’t. You are not going to start up another charity,” she insisted, guessing his reason for asking. He grinned at her. “Seriously, Marcus. You don’t have to do anything like that for me. If you want to help, give to the American Cancer Society or something similar. There is no need to start up a whole new charity.”

His grin remained in place as his mind raced with all the possibilities. It would take some time and research, but he was sure he could come up with something. Then a sobering thought occurred to him. “Is there a risk to you? Could you get the same cancer?”

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