“Then let’s get this session over with and start celebrating our good news.” He skimmed his nose along the side of hers and brushed his lips over her temple. “I love you, Maria.”
“I know,” she said as he took her hand and led her out into the hall. “I love you too.”
The door to the suite they shared swung shut with a decisive thud, and her hand in his was as cold as her cheeks. Maybe colder.
He shivered but kept moving.
24
Maria would rather eat dirt than accept pity from strangers, and she refused to reveal her vulnerabilities to anyone who’d already hurt her.
So she wasn’t crying in front of a packed hall ofGatesfans, and she wasn’t crying in front of Peter anymore either, not if she could possibly help it.
He loved her. Just not enough.
It was a threadbare refrain, and it left her feeling fragile and frayed too. She was unraveling, faster and faster for every minute that passed.
Still, she smiled. Laughed. Answered questions. Bantered with Peter, because that was what the audience wanted. What they expected and deserved from someone they’d spent good money to see. If it was a nonverbal lie, it was one she needed to tell for everyone’s sake, including her own.
Using every ounce of grit and acting ability she possessed, she managed to convincingly sell that lie for almost the entire session. Only to find herself telling a tattered corner of the truth at the very last minute, in response to the very last question of the very last con event, and doing so not just in front of countless strangers, but in front of Peter as well.
And that was the disastrous part.
He might not love her enough, but hedidlove her, and she loved him. He deserved her utmost care in handling this situation. He’d earned it. And even if he was hurting her, he didn’t mean to, and she didn’t want to hurt him. Especially not in a setting like this, because he had his own pride and his own wounds to nurse in privacy. There was no way she could forget that, not when those wounds were the very reason he was leaving her behind.
Under the circumstances, with the stakes so high, such a simple topic shouldn’t have tripped her up.
“Um...” As the moderator glanced at his tablet, she distracted herself by studying hiscods of the gatestee, which she’d never seen before. It featured a line drawing of a large fish fin-slapping Jupiter, and it was perfection. If anyone on the cast deserved to be walloped by a vengeful cod, Ian was the one. “Final question, Peter and Maria. What’s happening next for you? Any upcoming roles we should know about?”
Of course he was going to ask that. It was the obvious, okay-we’re-almost-at-the-end, let’s-wrap-things-up question, and she had a rote, sharing-just-enough-but-not-anything-better-kept-to-herself response.
Peter answered first. “I have a few smaller roles lined up in some upcoming films. I’m especially excited aboutOn the Lonesome Range, a gritty western about nineteenth-century cowboys that doesn’t whitewash history, since so many cowboys were Latino or Black, or overlook the existence of female cowhands. The script is spectacular.” After a pause, he added, “All that said, I hope like hell they don’t put me near many actual cows, because cows are fucking terrifying.”
The audience laughed, assuming he was joking. He was not, of course.
When he’d accepted the role, she’d stared at him incredulously for several moments. Then mooed at him loudly and made him jump, which she’d found very satisfying. Cows aside, though, the script had delighted him. Hopefully he’d still be able to film his part between shooting episodes ofFTI.
Not that she’d know, because by then she’d be long gone.
At the thought, she swiveled her chair away from Peter, away from the audience, and convincingly—she hoped—pretended the terrible sound she’d made was a strangled cough, one so harsh it brought tears to her eyes and required a few sips of water before she turned back.
Peter’s warm hand spread across her back and rubbed there, even as he continued speaking, and his attempt to soothe her fake cough only made things worse. Much, much worse.
When she finally faced front again, he was wrapping up his answer with a vague hint concerning his big news. “I should be able to share more information about a future television role, a significant one, soon. What about you, Maria?”
He turned in his chair to watch her answer, and something about him in that moment undid her. His slight frown of worry as he uncapped a fresh bottle of water and handed it to her. The way his knees nudged hers in a gesture that might look accidental but was not. The final, gentle pat of her shoulder before he leaned back and surrendered the spotlight to her.
The open adoration lighting his dark eyes. The pride in his posture—all puffed-out chest and squared shoulders and relaxed satisfaction—as he surveyed her at his side.
She couldn’t speak for the agony of it. Couldn’t think.
Fuck. Swiveling away again, she faked another cough and bought herself a few more seconds, but the time to get a handle on thiswas now.Rightnow, so they could walk back to their shared suite, have the awful, heartbreaking conversation coming their way, and get this initial bit of agony over with already.
“Maria, sweetheart,” he murmured in her ear, one hand over the mic clipped to his collar, the other spread wide and supportive across her back once more, “are you okay?”
Another wet, violent cough dragged from laboring lungs. “I—I’m fine.”
It wasn’t a lie if she would be fine. Someday. Not soon, though.