Ann Major - A Scandal So Sweet

“People don’t change, boy. She’s probably stepped on a lot more folks to get where she is. You gonna end this or not?”

Or not.

Since he couldn’t reassure Nick, Zach fixed his gaze on the blueprint. The tension between them built until Martin knocked on the door of the trailer.

“Pete’s here,” Martin said. “He thinks he sees a way to get what you want done and not go over budget.”

“Great.” Zach turned on Nick. “I’m busy as hell. I’ve got things to do here. The costs on a project in Houston are going through the roof, so I’ve got to fly home ASAP. You and I-we’ll catch up later, okay?”

“I’m not finished here, no. That little gal proved what she was fifteen years ago, yes. All that she ever worries about is what’s good for her. She don’t care about you. She never did. She never will.”

Flushing with dark embarrassment to have interrupted his boss’s personal conversation, Martin backed out of the trailer.

Zach’s face grew stony. “Look, Nick, I’ve dated a lot of women since Summer. Can’t a guy fool around?”

“Not with her, you can’t, no. You’re not just playing with fire. She’s nuclear.”

Zach clenched his fist around his pencil, letting go of it right before it snapped. “You’re right. You’re right.”

“Which is why you’re madder than hell, yes.”

“Stay out of this, Nick.”

Grabbing the blueprint, Zach stormed past Nick and out of the trailer.

“No! No! No! Earth to Miss Wallace!” Paulo, Summer’s stage director, was bouncing up and down as he bounded toward her, his face purple.

“You still haven’t got it! Quit thinking about your personal love triangle and listen to me!”

Summer blinked first. Then she blushed. She was sick of the ceaseless teasing she’d had to endure due to all the news stories.

“Sorry.” Rubbing her forehead, she fought to concentrate on what Paulo was saying.

Paolo was actually a very insightful, inspiring director, one of the rare ones who really understood actors. Still, it wasn’t easy for her to take direction. She was too worried about her fragile new start with Zach and about how she would tell him about the baby. She was concerned about how all the media attention impacted him, as well. Again, the sex had been glorious. Again, she’d felt she’d shared everything with him in bed. But once they’d separated and the stories about them had hit full force, he’d erected the old walls between them. So, she was no closer to feeling the time had come for her to confide in him.

He’d called her once, texted her twice. All three times her heart had leaped with joy. Even as his husky, but oh-so-controlled tone had made her remember all the thrilling things they’d done to each other-against the wall, on the floor, in the bed, on the chair-she’d sensed his emotional withdrawal.

In Bonne Terre, after their night together, she’d felt so close to Zach. He’d seemed easy, open. But now he was unreachable. Really, she couldn’t blame him. He wasn’t used to life in a fishbowl. He’d said he’d hated the stories that had linked them for years.

Rehearsals were difficult during the best of times and trying to give birth to a character could be exhausting. Summer’s head, back and feet ached from the effort. Distracted by Zach and the media storm, she’d found the rehearsals this week to be sheer torture.

She would think about him and break character, lose her bearing. Another actor would say a line, and she would just stare at them, lost. The entire cast was out of patience with her, as she was with herself.

She needed to get a grip before she sabotaged the show completely. At night, when she was alone in her apartment eating takeout, her obsession was worse.

She would try to imagine living with Zach as an ordinary couple in a house with a garden and a picket fence, try to envision holidays with Gram and Tuck, dinners with friends, shared vacations, dark-haired children that looked just like Zach.

But, always, her vision would pop like a bubble as an inner voice taunted her.

Zach has his life and you have yours. You’re still keeping your secrets. He values his privacy, and you can never have total privacy. So-just enjoy what you have now.

An affair such as theirs couldn’t last long, not with her secret eating at her and the world interfering and them living so far apart, not with each of them working at all-consuming careers. Added to those obstacles, there would be no way for her to leave New York on the weekends once her show started.

She thought of Gram, who was always pressuring Summer to marry and have children, who now called constantly to express her pleasure at Zach’s renewed visitations and to express her concerns about how their story was playing out in the media and around Bonne Terre.

“You are running out of time for children,” she would say. “He isn’t.”

“Gram, please…don’t!”

Gram’s advice added unbearable pressure to Summer’s already fragile situation.

Until Zach, Summer had focused only on her career. Now when she thought of the possibility of little darlings and a more private life, she felt an eager wistfulness.

What if Zach wanted children but saw her career and all that went with it as obstacles too large to surmount? Since he was a man, he could simply enjoy her for as long as it was convenient and then move on. He could choose a woman young enough to bear his children.

An urge to see him again and to make love to him-to claim him in all the imaginative ways he’d taught her-filled her.

By Thursday night, when he hadn’t called her again, she finally weakened and picked up the phone.

“I’ve missed you,” she whispered the minute he answered, fighting to keep the tension out of her voice.

Oh, why did I say that of all things?

“I missed you, too,” he admitted, his tone polite.

“I’m sorry about all the press coverage.”

He said nothing.

“I saw where you were besieged in your Houston office.”

“I didn’t realize you were so famous.” He didn’t sound happy about it.

“Hey, you’re the handsome billionaire. I think your money and your looks are as big a draw as I am. It’s a huge part of the fantasy reporters are trying to sell.”

“Oh, so now it’s my fault, too,” he mused, but his voice had warmed ever so slightly. “When I couldn’t get into my building downtown for all the reporters, I wondered why the hell I’d ever gotten myself into this mess. It seems so cheap…what they write about us. Maybe we should take a break until all the fuss dies down.”

When he fell silent after dropping that bomb, her breath caught painfully. For a long second, the wound from his words seemed too hurtful to bear.

“Zach, I…I hope you don’t really want that. I know the press is a major hassle right now, and I’m truly sorry. But once my show starts, I’ll be too swamped to travel. You’ll get busy with other projects, too… And then we’ll…drift apart…” Her voice cracked on a forlorn note.

“I’ve lived in the spotlight for years. It won’t always shine this brightly or be this invasive. I swear.”

“That’s reassuring,” he said in a smart-aleck tone that somehow cheered her.

“My PR people spend a lot of time manipulating my brand. It’s all so false. The person you read about in those stories is not me. It’s this pubic person, the actress. The real me often feels lost in all the hubbub.

“But there is a difference. Last weekend, after the ground-breaking, was wonderful and true. I’ve never been happier in my whole life.”

“Me, too,” he admitted slowly.

“So, will you give us another chance?”

“Sweetheart, who am I kidding? Don’t you know by now, that no matter how much I hate the press, I’d go crazy if I didn’t see you again-and very, very soon. I need you, even though I hate needing you. But that doesn’t kill the need. It’s fierce, unquenchable.”