He had my little Regency purse in his hand. “You left your reticule in the tent,” he said as he handed it to me.
“Thank you,” I murmured.
Jeremy stood aside so I could pass and leave with Harrison, but just as we were about to walk out the door together, Lacey came barreling in. “There you are, Harry. I’ve been looking all over for you. We need to go out to the lawn. There are a ton of photographers out there and I promised them some good pictures after our scene. They’re going to do a full write-up about us in the Times,” she gushed.
Harrison’s face went pale. “Can it wait? I need to speak to Meg now.”
Lacey’s smile faded and her nostrils flared. “No, it can’t wait. They’re waiting for us right now. Besides, I promised Dr. Holmes we’d give them their photo ops. This is what we came for.”
She gave Jeremy and me a once-over. “I’ll give you one minute,” she said to Harrison before releasing the door and letting it shut.
I could still feel her presence hovering outside the door.
Harrison closed his eyes, which had dark circles under them. He truly looked tortured. Good. “I’m sorry, Meg. I really am. I have to do this.” He nodded toward the door and the awaiting paparazzi.
“I know you do,” I said. I’d known the minute Lacey invoked Dr. Holmes’ name that Harrison would be powerless to resist. “Go.”
In the moment, I honestly didn’t care if we ever talked about his kiss with Lacey. It was nearly comical what had happened between us since Lacey Lewis had stepped into our lives. She was like a famous tornado with painted nails.
“Meg,” Harrison said, staring into my eyes intensely. “I want you to know that that kiss meant nothing. I’ll explain more later, but you have to believe me.”
His eyes told me he was telling the truth, but I didn’t know what I believed anymore. And it didn’t change the fact that I felt humiliated. “We’ll talk later,” I said. There. How was that for unemotional and non-dramatic?
Harrison took a deep breath. “I hate that I have to leave you like this, but Dr. Holmes—”
“You don’t have to explain. Just go.”
Harrison bit the inside of his cheek and nodded. When he turned away reluctantly and pulled open the door, Lacey was standing out there, her arms still filled with roses, talking to a crowd that had somehow formed around her. The door shut behind Harrison, and I sighed and shook my head.
Then I turned, hiked up my skirts, and began climbing the stairs to the second floor. Jeremy followed me and we continued mostly in silence. “I didn’t know your purse was called a ‘reticule,’” Jeremy said as we trudged down the long, corridor to our room.
“Yeah, it’s a Regency word,” I offered halfheartedly.
He nodded.
Once inside the room, Jeremy unbuttoned me and I went into the bathroom and changed out of my gown. My mind was numb. It was as if the thoughts of Harrison and Lacey had been swept away, replaced only by a big blank spot that felt vaguely melancholy. I thought about all the erasing I would have to do in my planner if Harrison and I broke up. Hell, I’d probably have to throw it out and get a new one. Sob.
By the time I came back into the bedroom wearing black yoga pants and a gray T-shirt, Jeremy was already in navy boxers and a white T-shirt. He held up a bottle of red wine. “Dinner?”
I grinned at him. He really was great. “Looks delicious.”
He poured two glasses and handed me one while I sat on the end of his bed. I took a halfhearted sip.
“Are you okay?” he asked quietly.
“Yeah.” I shrugged. “I think I am. At least, I know I will be. This isn’t my first rodeo.”
“You mean being cheated on? Like you told me last night?”
“Yep, and I know I should be sad and mad about my boyfriend kissing an actress, but I’m only pissed that I screwed up the competition.”
The hint of a smile played across Jeremy’s face. “We’re not out of it yet. Where’s that competitive spirit of yours?”
I stood and made my way over to the window, where I pushed back the curtains and peered out to see Harrison and Lacey, their arms behind each other’s backs, smiling for the ring of cameras that surrounded them as if they were on a red carpet. “It’s been trampled to death by the paparazzi.” I let the curtains fall back into place and settled onto my little bed, my wine glass still clutched in my hand.
Jeremy sat on the side of my bed near my feet. I was wearing socks but I could no longer care about whether he was horrified by my hooves. Great, apathy. How attractive.
I laid back and stared at the ceiling, the wine glass resting on my belly. “Why is life so hard?”
Jeremy lay back next to me and did the same thing. “A question for the ages.”
“Seriously, why?” I said with a sigh.
“Life is hard,” he said. “But it’s a hell of a lot easier when you’re doing what you love. I can tell you that.”
I propped myself up on an elbow and took a sip of wine, facing Jeremy. “Is that why you quit being an engineer?”
He continued to look at the ceiling. “That’s exactly why I quit.”
“Why did you major in it to begin with?” I took another sip of wine. Wine usually put me to sleep, but sleep sounded good to me right now. Quiet, restful sleep where the mess my life had become would just go away for a few hours.
Jeremy propped himself up on his elbow too and faced me. We were less than a foot apart. “I majored in engineering because I thought it would earn me a good living. And it did. The only problem was, it turns out a living without happiness isn’t a good living after all.”
I nodded. “I thought I would love being a history professor.”
“Do you?” he prompted, taking a sip of his wine.
“There are parts of it I love,” I admitted.
“But you’d rather be writing novels?” he prompted.
“I don’t know. I think so. But what if I try it and hate it?”
He pressed his lips together. “There are no guarantees in this life, Meg Knightley. There are only gut feelings. No one ever promised that following your dreams would be easy.”
“Yeah,” I said solemnly, taking another sip of wine. “You’re right. But I don’t do well with failure.”
His brows shot up. “Is that why you’ve never tried? You’re afraid to fail?”
I sighed and stared at my wine glass. “Ellie would tell you that’s exactly why I’ve never tried. I’ve spent most of my life being a super-organized planner with every step mapped out. Writing a novel is messy. I can’t control what will happen there.”
“Yeah, about that,” Jeremy said. “What made you such a control freak anyway?”
I groaned. “Do you want my pat answer or the deep one that I paid a psychologist thousands of dollars to tell me?”
His lips quirked into a smile. “The expensive one, please.”
I brought my wine glass up to my nose as if I could hide behind it. “I can’t believe I’m telling you this, but here goes.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t know if you know this, but my dad had...has a gambling problem.”