We make our way to the hotel, and there is no Yamina or Yolanda handing us our keys. “Do you want me to go check in so no one sees you?” I ask him, and he looks at me sideways.
“No.” He gets out of the car from his side, then walks around to open my door. “Come on.” He holds out his hand, and he doesn’t let it go. They try to upgrade him to a three-bedroom villa, but he turns it down. “It’s just the two of us, so there’s no need to do that.” The lady behind the desk nods her head at him and calls over the bellhop, telling him what villa we are in. We walk back outside and get into the four-seater golf cart as he takes us over to the villa. Rock mountains are all around us. We pull up to the villa, and Tyler gets out and holds out his hand. I walk up the steps, and when he opens the door for us, I take in the beauty of this room. Standing in the living room, I see a rock wall on my left and on my right is floor-to-ceiling windows that open with a private pool on the side. A single white loveseat is in the living room with a huge round brown ottoman. The fireplace is already burning and faces the pool. The bellhop drops the bag in our room that is right behind the rock wall, open on both sides. I walk into the room and the rock wall is there in front of the bed with the fireplace on both sides. A four-poster bed is in the middle with drapes to close us in if we wanted to.
“I didn’t bring my suit,” I tell him. Going back into the living room, I open the door and squat to touch the water. “It’s almost like a bath.”
“Are you hungry?” He picks up a room service menu to order us some food.
He smiles at me, and his phone rings. He answers it right away, and from his side of the conversation, it’s Yamina telling him what time the car will be picking us up. He hangs up after a couple of minutes. “The screening is at seven, so the car will be here at six fifteen.”
“Are you ever going to hire a new PA?” I sit on the couch next to him, and his arms open for me to lie beside him.
“I have time.” He kisses my lips when I look up at him. “Are you tired?”
“No, I’m good. When do we leave again?” I didn’t ask him any details about the trip; I’m just going along with him. I overpacked, so I’m not worried about running out of clothes.
“We leave the day after tomorrow unless you want to stay and sightsee. I just want to go back home and hibernate for the next two weeks.”
“That sounds like a plan.” I look out the window. “I really have to start looking for work.”
“Can you take a couple of weeks off?” he asks me, and I nod. With no rent to pay and only a car payment, I should be good for the next six months. Seven, if I’m really stingy. “Good,” he says, looking out the window while we wait for room service.
“Are you almost ready?” I hear him say from the bedroom. After room service, he ordered us a couple’s massage, knowing I was a wreck about our first red carpet event since I published my letter. A letter that went viral and was on every single magazine and entertainment show. The intimate picture of us is nowhere now, and it’s just the two of us in a boat smiling for the cameras with the cherry blossoms as our backdrop.
I stand and look in the mirror. I’m wearing a blush pink dress with a thin light gray belt around my waist. The dress goes high to my neck, the neckline sheer. Little light pink delicate flowers are sewn all over the dress along with sequins and pearls. I put on my light nude Louboutins. “Jess.” I hear him again, and he walks in. He’s wearing a light gray suit with a white shirt underneath and a dark blue tie. He stops in his tracks when he sees me. “You look . . .” His voice trails off.
“Is it okay?” I smooth down the front, the bangles on my arm clinking. “I mean, it’s not too much, right?”
He shakes his head, coming closer to me. “No.” He grabs my hand, bringing it to his mouth and kissing it. “Let’s go before I change my mind and take this dress right off you.” He pulls me toward the door. We take the golf cart back to the lobby and get into the black town car, making our way over to the red carpet. We pull up, and I hear the fans chanting outside. “This is it.” He turns and leans in to kiss me. “You ready?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think I’ll ever be ready.” The nerves in my stomach are making me nauseated. “Go and be the superstar. I’ll be here.” He gets out of the car, waving to the fans across the street, and then he reaches in the car to take my hand. “I’m not going anywhere without you.” With his hand in mine, we walk the red carpet. His arm goes around my waist while we smile at the cameras. I look over at him, and he gives the paparazzi what they want when he leans in and kisses me.
When we wake up the next day, another picture of us is all over the magazines. This time, the headline makes me throw my head back and laugh.
Hollywood Playboy no more.
EPILOGUE ONE
Jessica
Six months later
“I just don’t know why you are in such a rush to sell the LA house.” I look over at Tyler as he puts another log into the fire. We are back in Montana, sitting outside on the round circle couch he had delivered while we were in LA. I didn’t have to go back to LA with him. I could have stayed here, but when I told him I would be staying in Montana, he was like a child and pouted for a whole hour.
I look at the outside fire pit in all brown brick, matching the stones around the pool. The deck sits above the pool right next to the bubbling jacuzzi. He turns around and comes back to me. Sitting down next to me, he takes me in his arms as we watch the orange flames. “I’m in a rush because I’ve always hated that house, and I don’t want it anymore.”
I shake my head. “Shouldn’t you think about it before you do this?”
“Thought about it, babe.” His hand rubs up and down my arm. “I don’t want to be in that house. I want this to be my house.” Over the past six months, this has been our home. Yes, ours. He made that clear when he had my storage locker shipped to Montana, and now pieces of my home are mixed with his. I’ve been lucky to be a freelance journalist now. I decide what I want to write about and who gets the story. The fact that I’m Tyler’s girlfriend doesn’t matter anymore. It’s old news; we’re old news. I mean, there are times I’ll be at the grocery store and see a picture of us on the cover. A picture captured when we are out and about, which always stuns me since we never see the photographers. I’ve even been on the red carpet with him last week. We smiled, and he waved at his fans. What we weren’t expecting was to come face-to-face with Cassie. She saw us coming down the red carpet and hightailed it out of there. Word is she’s the assistant for some B-list actor.
“When do you leave to go to Washington?” I ask him about his next movie that is set to film there. He made me read the script, and I think it’s going to be huge, bigger than Adrenaline Rush, and that crushed the box office.
“You mean when do we leave?” I look up at him, glaring. “Jessica, I don’t want to come back to my house at night and be without you,” he says, bringing me closer to him. “You can work from the house. You know you can’t sleep without me either. The last time I went away for three days, neither of us slept, and you wore my sweater the whole time.”