Her eyes collided with his, and he smiled at the soft expletive she didn’t mean for him to hear. Ah, so she’d been intending to fudge her way out of the experience, obviously hoping she could spin a BS story.
“Ah, I—” Kinga pushed her hand through her hair, making the short ends stand up on one side. It was a cute look on her. She wrinkled her nose and when her shoulders slumped, Griff knew she’d given up on the idea of finding a fake explanation for what had happened. “I haven’t had one for a few years, thank God.” She sipped her coffee, wrapping both hands around the mug.
“What triggers them? Is it a specific event or general anxiety?”
His first memory of Sian having a panic attack was when they were eight and about to do a live segment for a Christmas special. She’d passed out and the producers had rearranged the lineup to put them later in the program. Someone, possibly Finn, had given her something to calm her, and Sian was able to sing.
Looking back, he cursed both Finn and their parents for pushing them so hard to constantly perform. He’d been able to cope with the pressure but Sian, who was by far the better musician, vocalist and performer, didn’t enjoy the limelight. Her biggest dream growing up was to be a normal kid doing normal things.
Griff raised one eyebrow, silently reminding Kinga that she hadn’t answered his question about what triggered her panic attacks. Kinga ignored his silent demand and changed the subject. “We need to get moving. Your press conference is in an hour and you still need to change. And shave.”
He rubbed his hand over his not-too-heavy stubble.
“And please wear something nice.”
Yep, the princess was back. Griff was both sad and relieved. And while a pair of old jeans and a T-shirt sounded great—clothes he felt incredibly comfortable in—he had planned to wear something similar to what he’d worn yesterday, business boring.
It was his first press conference in years and, annoyingly, it would help if he made a good impression.
“Are you nervous?” Kinga asked him, her lovely eyes meeting his. He didn’t do morning-after conversations, but he had no problem with Kinga being the first thing he looked at in the morning. He rather liked her face...
And her body.
Recalling her question, he shrugged. He wasn’t, not particularly. And especially not if he compared it to the flat-out terror he’d felt when he heard Kinga asking him for help.
And, as he said, he’d done what seemed like a million press conferences before.
But none of them had been this important...
He was, officially, about to launch his comeback and he needed this morning to go well. Or as well as it could. It was going to be a helluva story and, since it washislife andhiscareer, Griff figured he was facing a barrage of ugly questions.
Luckily, with Sian being in the Keys, she’d be far away from any reporter wanting to get his sister’s reaction to his comeback plans. As per normal, they wouldn’t find her. The island’s ownership was hidden behind a couple of LLCs and they wouldn’t trace her through Jan, who had a different maiden name and married surname than them. Jan was also married to a reclusive Fortune 500 CEO who took his privacy very, very seriously.
Sian and Sam would not be caught up in the press hype. And that was all he cared about.
“They are going to ask a lot of rude and intrusive questions. Don’t answer them, just move on,” Kinga told him, her expression worried. She glanced at her watch. “We have fifteen minutes or so before we need to leave, so we can do a dry run.”
“A what?” he asked, heading back to the coffee machine. He needed, he estimated, a gallon more to feel human.
“Why did you divorce your first wife four months after you married her?” The question was like a bullet, but he saw the curiosity in her eyes.
“Because I was twenty-one and thought I was in love. Greta didn’t love me, she just needed to marry to extend her working visa and I was a means to that goal,” Griff told her, surprising himself by giving her the unsanitized version.
She had a way of pulling the truth out of him.
“Wrong answer. Rather tell them that you refuse to discuss your private life,” Kinga informed him.
“I wasn’t answering them, I was satisfying your curiosity,” he remarked, before turning back to the machine.
“I’m not curious.”
Griff finished making his coffee, and when he faced her again, he raised both his brows, watching as her cheeks colored. The hell she wasn’t curious...
“So she got her visa extended and filed for a divorce?”
Griff lifted his cup to hide his smile. “Pretty much.”
His ex was now one of the highest-paid actresses in the business, happily married, and hated, as much as he did, any references to their super-brief wedding. He’d forgiven her a long time ago, knowing that his ego and pride had taken a hit but not his heart.