“How so?” He looked surprised.
“People are going to recognize you everywhere you go. They’ll want your autograph and to have their picture taken with you. The paparazzi will stalk you and start rumors about you. People will be watching you all the time. It’s different. Right now you can do whatever you want.” He hadn’t thought about it yet, but he realized that she was right. He wasn’t sure if he’d like it or not.
“I don’t care what people do, as long as I can be with you when I’m not working,” he said adoringly.
“What if the press hounds us?” she asked him, watching to see how he’d react.
“So what? We have nothing to hide. And if they drive us crazy, we’ll find a nice comfortable cave and hide there. I love you, Allie, I don’t care what the press says about us.”
“I’m older than you are,” she said, as though revealing a dark secret to him. He smiled.
“I know. I don’t care. I looked you up on Google the first time I went out with you. Big fucking deal. You look younger than I do.”
She grinned. “So you think we’re okay?”
“Better than okay. We’re great and I love you.” She looked happy and relieved. Francine had made her nervous when they’d gotten in an argument over their pictures and the fact that Allie was dating a client seventeen years younger than she was. It was happening very fast, but she liked it. “Now let’s go home to bed before I tear your jeans off right here at the deli.” She laughed. He paid the bill, and they raced home to her apartment. They were breathless from running when she unlocked the door to her loft and he slammed the door behind them, then pulled her to one of the comfortable living room couches. He had her clothes and his own off in seconds, and made love to her as passionately as he had every night since they had started dating. She felt as though she was flying and could do anything as long as he was with her. It was an incredible feeling. And when he made love to her again, nothing else in the world mattered to either of them but the two of them together. It was all new for her. For the first time in her life, Allie thought she was actually in love.
Chapter 5
Hailey’s extraordinary organizational skills came into play from the moment she picked Phillip up in a chauffeur-driven SUV, and they were driven to the airport. She had snacks in her tote bag for him, Tylenol in case he had a headache, eye drops if his eyes got tired before he went on TV. She had her laptop, an iPad, her phone. She had a spare printout of their schedule in case he had forgotten his. She had booked a VIP service to get them on the plane. They flew first class to Boston, which seemed silly but was fun. Phillip had a glass of champagne, since he was a nervous flyer. She handed him a magazine and The New York Times, and he looked perfectly relaxed by the time they took off.
Before they arrived, she had made sure that he had a suite at the Four Seasons, and she had a plain double room down the hall from him. She was close enough if he needed her. He had an interview with The Boston Globe that afternoon. It went smoothly, and he was booked for a morning show the next day, so they would have to get up early. He had gone to Harvard, so after the interview, they took an Uber to Cambridge and walked around the campus. He showed her all his old haunts. They had dinner that night at his favorite restaurant from his student days. He said they had the best steaks and burgers in Boston. He enjoyed her company thoroughly. She was a great audience for his stories. Most of them were funny, and she was comfortable with him. They got an Uber back to the hotel after dinner. She had ordered all his favorite snacks for his room, and a bottle of a good French Bordeaux. She had made everything easy and effortless for him. Her function, she realized, was to be half wife and half mother, making sure that he felt comfortable and at home on the trip.
Book tours were grueling and stressful, and wore thin after the first city or two, and this was only the beginning. She wanted to give him enough space that he didn’t feel intruded on, but also support when appropriate. It was an art sensing what he needed when and being an almost invisible presence, there to assist him but not crowd him. She chatted with him when he wanted to, and was at ease being silent. And she left him alone to go to her own room to make phone calls and answer emails, to keep up with some of her other clients.
When she knew they’d all be at home, she called her children, and they were happy to hear from her. Will cried the first time she called and said he missed her. But by the second day, he was getting adjusted. She FaceTimed with them, and Arianna tried on her Annie costume for her. Felicity was with them, and Hailey told them all about Boston and visiting Harvard. It was the first time she had ever left them, and as much as she missed them, she was surprised to realize that it felt good to be on a grown-up trip where she could actually watch a TV show or read a magazine, or just relax, without worrying about who had had a bath, who had done their homework, who had a stomachache, or hadn’t eaten enough dinner. For the first time in the five years since Jim died, she didn’t have to worry about them every moment and be on duty. She had two full-time jobs now, as a mother and as a literary agent, and she was on vacation from one of them, although she was still working at the other. But for once, she wasn’t doing both.
Phillip was easy company, he was polite and considerate, and she enjoyed making the trip easy and comfortable for him.
“I feel like I don’t have to worry about anything or handle anything. You take care of it all. It’s almost like being a child for two weeks, with an incredibly thoughtful, efficient mother. You’re awfully good at this, Hailey,” he complimented her on the way to the studio the next morning at six-thirty. They wanted him there before seven for makeup if he needed it, and then to wait in the private dressing room they provided for him. He had worn a good-looking gray suit, a light blue shirt, and a navy tie. He looked very handsome and respectable, conservative but not boring. He had asked her advice about the tie, and she told him which one she preferred.
He’d had his pre-interview the night before over the phone, so the questions they asked weren’t a surprise. The interviewer was a very attractive woman who had actually read the book, and the questions were intelligent. He had written a clever political thriller with a twist at the end, which had even surprised Hailey. Phillip was charming on TV and told some funny stories about when he’d been an undergraduate at Harvard. It was a perfect interview. He was calm, relaxed, and appealing. It was over by eight-thirty, and they were back at the hotel by nine. She ordered breakfast for him while he changed out of his suit and walked into the living room of his suite in jeans and the blue shirt he’d worn on TV. His breakfast arrived a few minutes later. She left him alone to enjoy it and went back to her room to get organized for the next engagement. He was doing an important local radio show, and after that, they were flying to Chicago that afternoon. It was a city she had always liked, although she didn’t know it well.
The radio show he did at lunchtime was fun, with an engaging host, and Hailey was impressed by how smoothly Phillip handled it. He was a pro. And although he said he didn’t like book tours, he did them well. She continued to smooth the way for him and tried to foresee any problems, so they could avoid them.
She sat next to him on the plane, and they were about to take off in a few minutes when Felicity had the children call her. They FaceTimed her again, and she got a minute or two with each of them before she had to hang up when the plane was about to take off. Phillip looked at her after she ended the call.