Page 9 of Scripted for Love and Poison
“What gossip?” Luke could see Sol was reaching the end of her limited patience with Claudia, even if the editor was seemingly offering her a job.
“Simon. Smith. Has. Gone. Missing,” said Claudia, getting closer to them and exaggeratingly enunciating each word. “Rumor has it that he pissed someone off again with one of his incendiary reviews and finally got what he’d been asking for for years.”
“You can’t mean to say someone made him disappear because he dissed their movie?” asked Luke, full of curiosity.
“Look at you, sexy and sneaky!” said Claudia, bumping Luke’s shoulder again with her clutch and looking at him with eyes that could almost be described as appreciative. “But you seriously should read what he wrote aboutHaughty Horizons. I would havekilled himif he said that about a movie I’d written and directed after spending ten years developing it like Victor Lago has.”
“Wow, yes,” Sol said. “I’d forgotten he’d been developing it for forever.”
“But enough about Simon. Where did you two meet?”Claudia suddenly changed subjects just when things were starting to get interesting.
“London, of course. But we’re going to go get that drink now. I loved seeing you,” Sol said, putting an abrupt end to the conversation. She grabbed Luke’s arm and steered him away from the editor in the direction of the bar.
“Why are we moving away from the woman who could have given us more information about Simon Smithandwas offering you a job?” Luke murmured into Sol’s ear, guiding her through the sea of people, an arm around her waist.
“Because I can’t stand the woman!” Sol brushed his neck with her nose as she spoke.
“She was offering you a job.” He tried navigating around the incoming celebrities and their considerable entourages surrounding them in all directions.
“And I’ll take a look at it, but she’s literally one of the reasons why I hate her profession so much, so forgive me if I tell you that if she is going to be my boss again, the offer doesn’t sound too enticing,” Sol said. “And that wasbeforeshe said I’d have to move back here.”
Luke had always been supportive when it came to Sol’s career, but he had to admit he also hadn’t liked the idea of a job that would take her away from London. Even if the position, to him, had sounded perfectly fine, and he didn’t want to be the reason she wouldn’t contemplate it.
“She seemed to have some information on Simon.” Luke continued whispering in Sol’s ear while they were still moving toward the bar.
“We’re in a room full of journalists. It’s going to be easy to find someone else who babbles. News travels fast in this sector, and the best thing is, you don’t even have to pry people for information. Everyone is probably already hammered and loves gossiping. The food is not only notgood, and I wouldn’t recommend having any of it, but there’s really not that much to begin with. But everybody knows there’s plenty of free booze,” Sol said. “Plus, the woman was annoying me even more than usual. She was getting handsy with you.”
Luke couldn’t repress his smug smile.
7
“This isn’t happening!”Sol protested when they reached their table inside the big hangar where the ceremony would take place.
Luke narrowed his eyes at her, silently questioning. “Sol, you keep saying that, and then things still happen.”
“She’s sitting with us,” Sol said, referring to Claudia Hopkins’s name on a seating card placed next to her own on top of table number 13. “I’ve never been seated in a better position in all my years attending these things. I can literally almost touch the stage from here. There’s even some talent sitting at the table with us. And she has to also be sitting here! The one time I’m lucky with the seating lottery in an awards ceremony, but of course it can’t be all good luck!”
“Maybe it’s going to be a good thing, and she can tell you more about that position she mentioned,” Luke said, and Sol wanted to strangle him. Why was he so fucking reasonable? Yes, she’d always been attracted to the part of him that respected and supported her career, but was he actually suggesting she should leave London? He was literally the most attached-to-London person she’d ever met. A job offerin LA had to sound preposterous to him. She wasn’t still sure how he’d said yes to accompany her here when it meant leaving his dear hometown for four full days—more, counting the many hours spent in the air. Yet all of a sudden, he wanted her to contemplate a jobawayfrom London? Could he be getting tired of her and that was why he was pushing that idea so much?
She’d decided she couldn’t wait to find out the answers to those pressing questions until later that day, when they’d finally be done with the circus of the awards ceremony and alone. She was going to try to take him to a more private place to talk about everything—the Christmas debacle included. But although having that conversation was all Sol needed, they were interrupted once again.
“Look who’s here!” Claudia’s high-pitched voice reverberated behind Sol, and she decided the person she most wanted to strangle was her former editor and not the man standing next to her, looking dashing.
“It looks like we’re seated together, yes,” Sol said, trying to sound cordial and unannoyed but not sure she’d achieved it.
“You need to tell me what you have been doing in London,” Claudia said to Sol. “Other than picking up sexy men, of course.”
Sol didn’t know how to tell Claudia that it wasn’t okay to objectify Luke in that way, even if he looked more like the character of a soapy TV show than a real person sometimes. She could testify to the fact that he was, indeed, an actual human whose feelings could be hurt.
“He’s quite smart, too, you know?” Sol said. She didn’t want to confront Claudia too overtly. The ceremony would drag for more than three hours, and she didn’t want to be seething and angry, seated next to a person with whomshe’d just had an argument, during all that time. But she also didn’t like the way Claudia had spoken about her lover.
“Is he now? So, how’s life been treating you across the pond?”
“I’ve been writing a book and freelancing forRed Carpet. I normally work with Julie McQueen. Is it possible she told me you folks know each other?” Sol asked Claudia, attempting civility and hoping Claudia would take the hint.
“Yes, yes, dullest woman in the business.” Claudia waved a hand, brushing Sol off. Sol begged to differ. She would take Julie over Claudia as an editor any day, but she wasn’t allowed to protest, because Claudia continued voicing all her thoughts. “But look at you, acting all grown-up and writing a book!”
Sol decided not to say anything. She was forty-three. She would have objectively said she’d started acting like a grown-up at least a decade before. That’s what homeownership did to people, right? It crashed their youth. Plus, that book of hers was not only unpublished, ever since she’d written its closing paragraph, she’d felt a sort of dread at the idea of no longer being able to spend time in that world.
