Page 132 of Valentine Nook
After triple-checking that there’s nothing from the one person I want to hear from, I collapse into bed with a fresh onslaught of tears.
Igive up on trying to sleep, and when I see myself in the bathroom mirror, I decide the time would be better spentpraying for a miracle to make me look human. Because that’s what it’s going to take.
Last night’s makeup is streaked down my cheeks, and my eyes are completely bloodshot and the puffiest I’ve ever seen them. Two attempts at washing my face don’t improve much, so I text Ashley and ask her to have a spa service come around this afternoon to give me the full works before I appear on national television.
Because there’s no way I can step outside looking the way I do, now I’m back in the US, where my face is displayed on every other billboard.
I’m reluctant to even leave the bedroom, but the sound of Brady’s gurgling while Tanner talks to him is too tempting to stay. But it’s the second voice I hear that has me stopping short, because it’s not Millie.
Sure enough, my agent is sitting at the breakfast counter drinking coffee while Brady stares at her from his bouncer as she spins the balls on the mobile in front of him. If it wasn’t so weird, it would be comical, because Marcy—as she’s told me many times—is not a baby person.
“Hey.” It comes out as a croak, and I’m sure I see Marcy wince the moment she spots me, but it could just be from my eyes being fuzzy.
“Welcome back.” She smiles.
She definitely winced. Her smile is far too big and cheery to be genuine.
“What are you doing here? I thought we were meeting later? Did I get the time wrong?”
Marcy shakes her head. “No, doll. I just thought I’d pop by, haven’t seen little Tanner since he became a daddy. We can do our meeting here instead.”
That suits me. The longer I have to fix my face, the better. But I frown.
Along with not being a baby person, Marcy is also not thetype of person to “pop by.” Everything about this situation I’ve walked into immediately makes me suspicious. I’m guessing it’s because the past few weeks I’ve been too pissed to talk to her.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I wanted to see you before the craziness begins. It’s going to be a busy end of the year,” she adds, like she thinks I’m not aware of how busy my life will become.
I’m about to jump back onto the Hollywood juggernaut.
Taking a deep breath through my nose, I blow it out in one long puff.
“D’you want another coffee?”
“Sure.”
I flick on the machine, wondering if it would be easier for me to have it administered intravenously. Marcy and Tanner are talking about the World Series, which Tanner’s team crashed out of in the third round of the playoffs, and I zone out while they discuss trades for next year and who’s likely to win the title this season.
When I’m done, I place a coffee on the counter in front of her. “Here you go.”
Her eyes roll down to the cup and back to me. “Well, this is worse than I thought.”
I frown because she hasn’t even tried it. “What does that mean?”
“Holly, sweetheart, you look like you haven’t slept in a month, and that you’ve done ten rounds with Mike Tyson”—she waves her hand around dismissively—“or whoever’s boxing these days.”
I guess we’re not talking about the coffee.
“I know I look like shit, but why d’you think that is?” I snap. “I told you I didn’t want to come back early.”
She calmly picks it up and sips. “You’re under contract, Holiday. There’s nothing I could have done.”
Her voice is softer than I’ve ever known it to be, empathetic almost, and it nearly pushes me over the edge.
I can’t cope with Marcy being sweet to me right now. I need her to be the bullish badass agent she always has been.
I need someone to shout at who’ll take it without getting offended, and I need someone to blame for getting me into this situation, for having to take a break in the first place because I’d worked too fucking hard for too fucking long and was about to fucking collapse.
