“I know it’s your art form,” he said gruffly. How had they gotten here? He suddenly wished they were talking about anything but this.
“But?” she pushed.
He shook his head, exasperated she wouldn’t let the topic go.
“Seth? I want to know what you think.”
“It’s just . . . how does a person ever know what’s real and what’s not?”
Regret swept through him as his words seemed to echo around the sunny, still kitchen, and he took in Gia’s frozen expression.
“A person,” she repeated in a hollow tone. “By person, you mean you? How do you know when I’m ever being real or not?”
He shrugged irritably. No, that wasn’t what he meant. He made a sound of frustration, struggling to find the right words. “That night . . . when I opened that door and saw you standing there, I thought you were the freshest, least contrived, most unexpected person I’d ever met in my life.” He raked his hand through his hair, feeling prickly under Gia’s stunned stare. “When I found out you were an actress, it was like . . . discovering something that didn’t fit with everything else.”
“What?” she asked, clearly confused.
“I don’t know how to explain it.” I don’t really want to explain it, even to myself. He knew he had no choice, however, when she continued to stare at him, silently entreating him to clarify. “It was like . . . finding out the most natural thing in the world wasn’t what you thought it was, like being blown away by the immensity of the Grand Canyon or stunned by the beauty of a night sky, and then realizing it’s a movie set.”
“Fooled,” she said sharply, putting down the knife on the granite countertop with a clanging sound. “You were fooled by me. I wasn’t that natural, unaffected woman you thought I was. I was really a fake.”
“No, Gia,” he grated out, halting her by grasping her upper arm when she started to turn away. Jesus, how had this moment plummeted from heaven to hell so damn fast? He saw her proud, hurt expression and experienced a sinking sensation. “I mean yes, to be honest. That’s what I thought then.” He tightened his hold slightly when she started to go. “I don’t now,” he added grimly. “I was wrong. You really are uncontrived and fresh. I don’t know how this business hasn’t spoiled you, but it hasn’t.”
“Still, there’s a chance it still will. Isn’t that what you think?” she asked in a low, vibrating voice. “Isn’t that why I’m a risk? And even though you say I’m uncontrived, you can’t trust entirely that I’m not faking. Right?”
He winced. He didn’t want to tell her he did find it damn unsettling, the way she could alter right before his eyes into Jessie, for instance, or the way she could so brilliantly transform on the screen until the woman he thought he’d known disappeared. Maybe that had been part of his wild need to have her while they’d been on the road together. He’d been desperate to see the woman beneath the façade, to touch her, to possess her, to assure himself of her existence.
He exhaled in temporary defeat at the realization.
“I’m sorry,” he said, releasing her arm. “You said you wanted to know, so I was trying my best to tell you. I guess I didn’t say it right. I didn’t mean to insult you.” He hesitated. “It’s hard sometimes, figuring out what’s real when you do the work we do.”
He walked out of the kitchen, knowing he’d ruined the brilliant morning with her by being honest about his doubts. He regretted it like hell, but was clueless as to how to make it right.
Fourteen
Gia told herself to stop being so hyperaware of Seth’s whereabouts and actions in the house that morning and a better part of the afternoon, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself. After he’d walked out of the kitchen earlier, she’d sat down at the kitchen table, determined to eat her breakfast and sip her coffee as if everything was normal and that charged, bewildering, hurtful exchange hadn’t taken place. Or that it didn’t matter.
Even though it did.
At some point, she’d heard him moving in the hallway and then a door opening. She’d paused in the act of smothering her toast in Sherona’s delicious strawberry preserves, her ears keyed in for any hint of noise. Sure enough, she’d made out the distant rumble of rapid footsteps. He’d mentioned a lower level area with a workout facility. Maybe that’s where he’d gone.
After she’d cleaned up her breakfast, she added a log to the fire Seth had started that morning and found her tablet. She managed to lose herself for ten-minute stretches in the Eleanor Roosevelt biography she was reading for the third time, but that was the extent of how long she could focus. A producer had approached her about the possibility of playing a young Eleanor in a movie based on the same book. She was very interested in both the book and the possibility of doing a movie version, so her difficulty in concentrating was unusual and annoying.
She would intermittently look up when she heard a slight sound of Seth moving in the distance, wondering what he was doing, then becoming irritated with herself for caring one way or another. Too many times, his words would rise in her consciousness, batting aside her focus on the book.
“It was like . . . finding out the most natural thing in the world wasn’t what you thought it was, like being blown away by the immensity of the Grand Canyon or stunned by the beauty of a night sky, and then realizing it’s a movie set.”
What an awful thing to say, she thought, scowling as she stared blindly out the windows onto a glistening autumn day.
“It wasn’t horrible. It was honest,” she mumbled irritably to herself. Hadn’t she begged him to explain his reservations about her career, about her? There was little doubt he hadn’t relished telling her, or that he was bewildered by his own feelings on the matter.
Still . . . to compare her to an artfully contrived movie set, a skillful facsimile of the real thing. That stung.
She exhaled her irritation with effort. He’d also told her he didn’t feel that way anymore. He’d said he was wrong for judging her as a fake. But he was also still struggling with his thoughts and feelings when it came to her.
She couldn’t alter that. He’d have to deal with it on his own. She had nothing to prove.
When she heard his solid step on the stairs a while later, she focused on her book with determination. He didn’t come into the living room though. Tracing his movements through the comfortable, but small home, she suspected he was in the shower. Taking her opportunity, she furtively entered the bedroom they shared. Sure enough, the door to the bathroom was shut and the shower was running.