Page 43 of Scripted for Love and Poison
“Plus, I’m still quite mad at you,” Sol said as they walked toward the hotel’s exit. She was still holding his arm tight as they moved, clinging to him for balance. “Even if the prospect of some angry sex sounds quite?—”
“Please don’t finish that sentence,” Luke begged her. “I checked at the lobby before you arrived. Unfortunately there’s not a single storage closet available at the hotel, let alone rooms.”
“Calmémonos entonces,” Sol said, and she sounded as disappointed as he was.
“Yeah, let’s get our heads straight.”
24
“So, are we good?” Luke asked her as they entered the already packed lobby of the Roosevelt Hotel in Hollywood. Perhaps she was just tired of being mad at him—or maybe it was the way he’d whispered those words in her ear, sending shivers down her spine—but she no longer remembered what had irked her so much.
“We’re good,” she said. She was normally quite adept at talking things over and analyzing whatever had happened so the relationship could continue to thrive. But she was perfectly aware that what she and Luke needed at the moment weren’t more words.
“I think I know why you didn’t want to come to this thing,” Luke told her, his arm around her waist and his lips close to her ear, looking ahead of them. Her hair was gathered in a simple knot at her nape, and she could feel his breath and each one of his words on her exposed skin.
“I hate parties. Plus, I wanted to have an early evening to scour the internet in search of a hotel room for us,” Sol told him.
“That, and you probably didn’t want to see her.” Lukepointed to Claudia a few meters in front of them. But before Sol could make a sudden one-eighty-degree turn and avoid her, the editor was already walking in their direction.
“Sol Novo! I wasn’t expecting to see you here,” Claudia said in her high-pitched voice.
“Well, I wasn’t planning on coming,” Sol told her in what she thought was probably an equally high-pitched tone, but she was feeling a bit nervous.
“You never got back to me about that job offer,” Claudia said, her tone only slightly reproachful, and she stared at Luke. “But, of course, in the end I guess you decided to leave me for such a gorgeous man.”
“Can you blame me?” Sol decided there was nothing else to be said. Not to Claudia, anyway.
“Luke, I know your case has been keeping you busy with new commissions. But we’re so absolutely devastated about Jason,” Claudia seemed compelled to say, even if she didn’t necessarily look devastated. “It’s completely heartbreaking. A terrible loss. And now that he’d finally found the courage.”
“The courage?” Sol asked, both because she was curious and because she knew Luke also wanted the answer to that question.
“To divorce her! It was no secret his marriage had been in shambles for years. Rumor around town,” Claudia said, lowering her voice and leaning closer to them, “was that he’d met someone else. You remember him from his days atPerformance Weekly, right?”
“Barely,” Sol said, and it was true.
“He’s been a miserable grouch for years! Absolutely unhappy with her—and everybody else because of it. Very open about it too,” Claudia explained.
“Why didn’t they divorce before if the marriage was sotroubled?” Sol genuinely couldn’t comprehend why someone would stay in a relationship that made them miserable.
“She’s loaded. He liked the money,” Claudia said.
“Ah.” Sol felt a bit naïve for ever thinking that a senior editor’s salary could stretch to a house like Jason and Emily’s in Hancock Park.
“Ah indeed,” echoed Claudia. “But, sadly, I need to let you and Luke go momentarily. I see that Ryan Gosling just arrived, and I have to harass him so that he gives us an interview for the home page.”
“Good luck,” Sol told Claudia as the editor walked toward Ryan Gosling like a predator in search of dinner.
“She offered you the job again?” Luke asked Sol when they were alone.
“She basically told me the job was as good as mine,” Sol admitted. “But I don’t want to work with her again. And I don’t want to move here again.” A mere month before, she would have also addedAnd the last thing I want is to live in a different neighborhood than you. There’s no fucking way I’m going to live in a different country and one ocean away.But she didn’t.
She rationalized the decision not to tell him. They were hardly in a private setting. Those were words better said alone and in confidence. But not that deep down she knew that she was also starting to have too many doubts. And all the chatter around her about divorce wasn’t helping her. Remembering her last failed relationship wasn’t helping. Luke’s attitude the last few days wasn’t helping. So she hardly felt like exposing her feelings for him even further—especially when she didn’t really know if she truly had the energy for another Relationship with a capital R.
“Victor Lago is at the bar,” she suddenly told Luke as shegot a glimpse of the director drinking alone. And she felt vindicated in her decision not to have told Luke all that she was thinking. They were there for a different purpose than having a heartfelt chat about the state of their partnership.
They made a fast approach in the direction of the bar, or as fast as humanly possible, considering Sol’s shoes and how packed the room was. “I’m going to make an introduction and be all nice with him so that he talks to you, but promise me you won’t leave my sight,” she said.
“Why would I leave your sight?” Luke then seemed to remember something she’d said. “What happened when you interviewed him?”
