Page 28 of The VIP Doubles Down
“You made it clear you didn’t want me there.”
“I suppose I did.” He had a hard time remembering the sequence of events, because he’d been gripped by a fury that had nearly blinded him. If he had been writing the scene, he would have unraveled the threads of pain, sorrow, regret, betrayal, and, yes, love that fed his anger, but he couldn’t step back and observe it when it had him in its suffocating clutches. “Maybe I overreacted.”
She started toward him, but he held up his hand, palm out. “That doesn’t mean I’ve changed my mind.”
“What can I do to change it?”
He looked at her, standing with her arms stretched toward him in a pose of entreaty, and felt the pull of her beauty even as he smelled the poison beneath it. He pushed himself out of the chair. “Nothing. Tell Greg his ploy didn’t work.”
She dropped her arms. “Just answer me one thing. Are you going to write another Julian Best book? Because I’ve been offered other spy film roles, and I’ve turned them down for you.”
“For me? That’s rich.” He laughed with a bitter edge. “I can’t answer your question.”
“You can’t write because you’re still angry with me.”
“Do you think I would screw up a multimillion-dollar movie deal because of you?”
She made a gesture of impatience. “What else could stop you from writing your book?”
“I ask myself that every day.”
Allie sat on the couch with Pie curled up beside her, googling Gavin Miller and Irene Bartram’s names together. After seeing the snarling antagonism between them, she was looking for clues as to what might have caused it. She found dozens of photos of the two of them walking various red carpets, with Gavin looking magnificent in a custom-tailored tuxedo. Irene was gorgeous, too, of course, but Allie’s eyes always went to the writer.
It made her sad to see the difference in how he looked at the actress in the photos and his expression today. In those happier times, Gavin had an arm curved possessively around Irene’s waist, and his ardent gaze fixed on the stunning woman by his side. Allie sighed. If Gavin ever looked at her with that kind of adoration, she’d melt into a puddle at his feet.
By contrast, while Irene’s body was always turned toward Gavin, she smiled directly at the camera. Allie was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt about the pose. Irene was an actress, and she was there to be photographed.
“So what happened to these two lovebirds, Pie?” she asked, scratching behind the cat’s ears.
She switched from pictures to articles. The standard story went that the two had met on the set of a Julian Best movie and had fallen in love instantly. The photos that went with the gossip showed them walking in and out of restaurants in LA and New York City. Allie spared one glance for Irene’s outfit and then went straight to Gavin in a perfectly fitting suit or khakis, and a white button-down shirt or worn jeans and a black leather jacket. “Yummy!”
His hair was shorter, and his smile seemed easy.
After their engagement became public, there were several posed photos of them, with Irene displaying a ruby-and-diamond engagement ring.
And then the breakup announcement. Irene gave multiple interviews after it happened. She said it was mutual and amicable. They were still friends. There was no problem with her continuing to star in the Julian Best movies.
Gavin had no comment. One gossip site had posted a photo of him looking grim and tight-lipped, but the photographer might have snapped it when Gavin was ticked off over a parking ticket or something.
However, Allie knew what he looked like now, and it wasn’t happy. In fact, he had looked at Irene with downright revulsion.
She scrolled through more articles and stopped at a photo that showed Gavin and Irene standing by a mound of dirt beside an open grave. The actress looked elegantly mournful in a fitted black coatdress, her downward-angled head crowned with a wisp of netting. Gavin wore a black suit and a dark tie. His face was somber and his jaw tight as he stared into the distance.
They held hands with fingers intertwined.
She checked the date on the photo. It was last fall, nearly a year after their breakup. The caption read:Actress Irene Bartram supports former fiancé and bestselling author Gavin Miller at his father’s interment.
Sympathy twisted her heart. The loss of her mother still sometimes blindsided her. But since Irene had been there for him when he needed her, why had Gavin been so rude to her today?
Although Irene hadn’t exactly exuded affection, despite calling Gavin “darling.”
Allie remembered two actors she and Troy had known when they were married, who would spend several weeks demonstrating their love so publicly it was awkward for those around them. Then they would have a screaming fight, also generally with an audience, breaking up and declaring they couldn’t bear to be in the same room with each other. They’d end up at a party together at some point, have sex, and fall passionately in love again. Allie found it baffling and exhausting, but Troy said some people needed that kind of drama to feel alive.
Maybe Irene and Gavin were like that.
Allie couldn’t picture Gavin enjoying an emotional roller coaster, but she barely knew him. With a shrug, she swiped away from her Gavin research and checked her e-mail.
No response to her résumés.
