Page 27 of OctoBEARfest

A whole new sinking sensation opened in Gwen's chest and drained through her in an awful chill. "Are you serious?"

"Of course I'm serious. What am I missing here? Who am I supposed to be thinking you are?"

Gwen closed her eyes. For once in her life, she'd found somebody who really wasn't haunted by her history, maybe, and here she was, revealing it all to him. After a minute, instead of answering out loud, she got up and found her phone, did an image search, and handed it to him.

That let her watch the whole process of realization march across his face. Confusion again at first, at the pictures of a pretty little girl, then a pretty young woman with pale blue eyes and hair so fair it was nearly white. She smiled, that kid did. Such a big wide smile for the cameras. Gwen still had that same smile, but it played differently slashed with deep red lipstick instead of soft pink.

Same with the big blue eyes. The color was unmistakable, but with the harsh eyeliner she usually wore, the look was completely different from what the studios had called the 'Paul Newman Effect' when they'd first discovered her. People could drown in those eyes, clear as the sea. Fall all the way into them. Gwen watched Bill glance from the pictures to her, specifically at her eyes, and then she saw understanding and realization start to drop into place. "You're Emma Hart. From the…" He faltered, then shook his head. "I don't remember the show. There were a bunch of you. The New Kidz Club, something like that, I remember that. It was supposed to be a rival to…I forget what the mouse kids were called, too."

"Yeah." Gwen sat back down, putting her face in her hands. "I'm Emma Hart. Or I was. Gwen Booker is my real name, but they didn't think it was cute enough."

"You were…" Bill paused again, clearly trying to collect his thoughts. "You werereallyfamous. You were the most successful of them, weren't you?"

"That depends on how you define success." Gwen found she couldn't stay still after all, and rose to get underwear and her jeans, which she snaked on under the towel before dropping itand looking for socks. "Did I get the lead role inStarting School? Yeah."

Beneath that, Bill said, "That's it, that was the show," but it wasn't an interruption, just him placing her history. Gwen came over to get her phone and walked away again, still unable to stop moving. "Did I get my own show after that? Yeah. And then a bunch of movies for the network, and a couple real ones, and a record deal, because hoo boy, my dad, he sure could manage a tweenage-to-teenager's career. I skyrocketed. I was the next big thing, but I was terrified. And when I said I didn't want to do the record, Dad said I had to because I'd signed the contract. So I did the worst job I possibly could, and the day the album released, my dad and all the money I'd earned since I was nine years old disappeared."

She'd been living with that story for almost fifteen years. It almost surprised her that she could still be soangryabout it. "Nobody cared," she said to the window, or the wall, or anybody but the big kind man in the room, the one who hadn't known who she was until she blew it by telling him. "Not one person I'd grown up with, none of the other parents,definitelynot the studio heads, they didn't care. They told me I could still be big, all I had to do was sign on the dotted line. Yeah, because that worked out so well for me. I spent almost my entire childhood in the spotlight and I had nothing except a bunch of lunatic fans who thought I was their dream girl to show for it. I told the studios to fuck off and walked away. That worked out great, too, mind you, because what the hell did I know about dealing with the real world after growing up on set?"

"I am so sorry." Bill's voice was gentle, still not an interruption.

The way he said it helped, somehow. Maybe just because she felt listened to. Gwen turned back to him, finding his expressiona strange combination of crestfallen and fiercely protective. It almost made her smile. "It's not your fault."

"No. But I'm sorry. So what did you do?"

Gwen exhaled and went to sit in the chair across from him. "I cut off all my hair and dyed what was left black and started wearing different clothes and makeup. And joined a rock band when I realized I hated not making music as much as I'd hated being famous on somebody else's terms. You really didn't know?"

"I really didn't. I can see it now, especially because you're not wearing makeup, but you grew up." Bill smiled crookedly. "I wouldn't have guessed that cute baby face would turn into those razor cheekbones. But I never would have even imagined it. Can I ask you something?"

"If it's, 'did he ever turn up again with my money?' the answer is no. I haven't seen him since I was eighteen. I hope he went and got a new identity and then got killed in a car wreck so he didn't have a chance to spend any of it."

Bill nodded without a hint of judgment. "That's what I was going to ask, yeah." He hesitated. "Your mom?"

"Aaaah, my mom wanted to be famous. She would take me to local auditions when I was little. That's about all I remember about her. She died of a drug overdose when I was five."

Bill, involuntarily, said, "Jesus," and despite herself, Gwen let go a short laugh.

"I know, right? I got the whole child star tragic backstory, didn't I? It was actually a medical error, my Dad sued the hospital and moved us to Hollywood with the money, but I only ever heard him say it that way, that she died of a drug overdose. I didn't even know what had really happened until I looked it up when I was an adult. So now you know the whole sordid truth about Gwen Booker."

"I sincerely doubt that." Bill sounded so earnest it made Gwen smile again, which didn't happen often when she talked about her past. He went on, "I mean, I'm glad you told me, because it would have been embarrassing to have a tabloid cover our wedding or something and only find out then, but for what it's worth, I don't want to go to bed with Gilda. I really like Gwen."

Gwen closed her eyes, basking in the warmth the quiet words surrounded her with. "That's one of the nicest things anybody's ever said to me." Then she opened her eyes again, smiling. "Wedding, though?"

"You started it with the cinnamon roll," Bill said calmly. "'How did you and Daddy meet?' You don't think I'm the kind of guy who goes around having children out of wedlock, do you?"

A real laugh rolled through Gwen this time, even though it was quiet. "I don't think people who use the term 'wedlock' in this day and age do that, no."

"There we go, then. Now, look, I don't know if you've actually got flyers to put up, but it's past eleven now and if we're going to paper the city in advertisements, you'd better go put on your superhero disguise so we can head out."

"It works, doesn't it? The dark eyeliner and the red lipstick? I look like somebody else. Enough of the time, anyway."

"You look like a rock star," Bill murmured, and Gwen, unexpectedly happy, went to put on her makeup.

CHAPTER 18

That had not gone as planned.

Bill was still looking at pictures of 'Emma Hart'—on his own phone now, since Gwen had taken hers back—when she came out of the bathroom with her makeup applied, but when he glanced up to see if he saw the child star in the rock musician, it turned out that all he really saw was his fated mate. She was strong and gorgeous and had been through far more than he'd ever imagined, and come out as this incredible woman he was clearly destined to fall wildly in love with.

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