When you’re a box office sensation and multiple time sexiest woman of the year, you get used to stopping conversation when you walk into a room.
I ignore the murmurs of my name and look around, searching for the one face I’m here to see.
Aidan.
My eyes lock on his, drawn toward him, almost as if I’ve heard him call my name.
Seeing him knocks the breath out of my lungs.
He’s standing at the bar, glass in hand. Dressed in an inky black jacket, dark pants and a dark gray shirt, he’s an improbable mixture of a bad-boy and a prep school prince. From across the room, his vivid blue eyes blaze daggers at me from a face that’s perfection personified—A face filled with emotions so intense, they almost knock me off my feet.
I take a step forward, drawn to him despite the animosity I can feel coming off him in waves. He turns away, tossing back his drink like he’s not aware the whole room is looking at us…waiting for us.
Someone vaguely familiar comes over to my side and starts to talk to me, and I smile in response, my eyes still on Aidan. He’s facing me again, glass now empty, the fierce burning in his eyes filling me with memories I’ve tried to ignore for seven years.
No more.
Cutting across the room, I make straight for him. I feel like he could devour me with his intensity alone, right here, in front of all these people, he would claim me and burn me to ashes, along with every single heartache of the years I’ve spent apart from him.
He doesn’t move until I’m right in front of him. I open my mouth to say his name, and right then, he strides past me, leaving me standing alone, open-mouthed, staring at his empty, abandoned glass.
Four days earlier.
It’s evening when we land in New York. The plane, a sleek jet with plush leather seats and thick carpeting is gliding through gold-hued clouds when the pretty stewardess appears and reminds me to fasten my seatbelt. After we land, she returns to ask for my autograph. I oblige, signing my name on the cover of a glossy fashion magazine adorned with a picture of me wearing bright lipstick and a careless smile.
Outside, a faint breeze stirs my hair and teases my cheeks. My sunglasses are already in place—black, oversized designer shades. With my high heels and straight-from-the-runway dress, I look every inch the glamorous movie star.
Two cars are waiting on the tarmac—one to transport my luggage to my rarely used apartment in the village, and a black SUV with tinted windows, to take me to my father’s home.
My gaze sweeps across the Manhattan skyscape visible across the river and longing fills my chest.
Home.
I’ve missed this place.
The sudden burst of music from my phone snaps me out of my nostalgia.
It’s Jenny, my assistant. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” she replies, her voice bright and chirpy, as usual. “Just checking to see you’ve landed. Marvin’s been blowing up my phone all day. He’s trying to reach you.”
I groan at the thought of my manager. “He’s the last person I want to talk to. He’s determined to make me change my mind about the movie.”
“Well…” Jenny draws out the word. “A guaranteed box office hit with one of Hollyw
ood’s biggest stars who also happens to be your ex? Think of the free publicity. He’d be a horrible manager if he didn’t try to change your mind.”
“Well, I’m not going to, Jenny, and you know why.”
She sighs. “Maybe if you told him why you had to leave, about your father… he’d understand…”
“No.” My voice is sharp. I trust Marvin Steeps with my career, but privacy in my personal issues is something I need to work harder than most people to attain and it’s something I guard closely. “Marvin might reveal something to the press,” I continue, my tone softer. “The Liz McKay brand is more important to him than discretion about my father’s condition.”
“You’re right,” Jenny sighs. “I’m sorry, Liz.”
“It’s fine.” At this point I just want to see my father. His illness is a shocking surprise. I didn’t know he was sick until his former assistant Natalia Barrow called me a week ago.
“You need to come down and spend some time with your father,” she’d said without mincing words. Instantly, I knew something was wrong, that my twice monthly phone calls with my father had not nearly been enough.