Page 62 of Let’s Make a Scene

I keep my face as neutral as his, even though the fact that he really does consider what we just did a mistake makes me want to throw up. There’s no way I’m giving him the upper hand. There’s no way I’m going to let this… madness derail me when everything I’ve ever wanted is within my grasp. I can’t believe I was so reckless.

“No one can know,” I add quickly.

“I’m not in the habit of sharing details of my sex life with people.” Jack’s voice is cold, remote. “Especially when it’s going to make me… make both of us look unprofessional.”

He’s right. He’s right, and I’m so pissed about it. I feel the unwelcome sting of tears at the back of my eyes.

“Cynthie…” he says then, his tone uncertain.

I paste on my most glittering smile. “Good. Now that we’ve got that out of our systems, we can go back to hating each other,” I say. “It should be easy enough.”

And with that I hurry from the room, leaving the door open behind me. I move away from the cold light that spills out into the hallway.

Away from Jack.

Never again, I swear to myself. I’ll never forget myself like that again.

NOW THIRTEEN YEARS LATER

Chapter 21 CYNTHIE

The week after our brunch date, Jack and I have arranged for him to come to my place. Things have changed since the last time we did this. Then it may have been enough for us to hold hands on a red carpet, but now, well, now we’re a lot more well known, I’m absolutely mired in scandal, and there’s a constant stream of celebrity gossip being beamed into everyone’s hands 24/7.

People care just as much about a blurry picture of Jack arriving at my house as they do about one of us perfectly groomed and holding hands at a film premiere—maybe even more—and since our outing, the photographers have been back, haunting the gates to my property.

“This is… a lot,” Hannah says, looking up from her tablet where she’s watching the slideshow of images that Gayle’s assistant sent through. I’m not totally sure if she misunderstood the assignment or it’s an error, or maybe just Gayle’s idea of a joke (I’m leaning toward the latter), but the slideshow contains dozens of images of Jack and me eating ice cream, and then him leaning over me, all dissolving into each other to a soundtrack of Céline Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On,” which feels like… a choice.

“I knew there’d be interest, but I had no idea it was going to be this big a deal,” I confess, leaning against the kitchen counter. The response since the photos hit the gossip sites has been intense to say the least. They’ve been picked up by all the tabloids, and they spawned such a huge quantity of memes that you cannot engage with social media without running into them.

(Me looking at the new Emily Henry novel, one Instagram account I follow had written over a picture of Jack gazing down adoringly at my face.)

“Are people honestly that invested in the idea of Jack and me as a couple?”

“Are you kidding?” Hannah puts the tablet aside and looks at me. “A real-life second-chance romance? It’s like catnip for millennials. Actually, scratch that, because all the youths are into it too… even if they do consider it a vintage throwback.”

“Youths,” I huff. “All right, thanks, Grandma.”

“Anyway,” Hannah continues, with a wave of her hand, “the point is that the entire internet is rabid over the pair of you, and even though you might not love it, you have to admit it’s done the trick. No one is talking about you and the shithead anymore. All anyone sees is you living your best life. You two made quite the scene.”

“Gayle is practically turning cartwheels,” I murmur, my eyes drifting to the tablet, which is still playing the pictures on a loop. There’s Jack feeding me ice cream as I gaze up, lovestruck, into his face; there’s Jack leaning over me in a doorway, and it actually looks even hotter than I imagined it would—insanely intimate, like I’m about to drag him off and do wicked things to him.

“I think he out-leaned Bill,” Hannah says, her eyes following mine.

“You wash your mouth out,” I reply, but there’s less heat in the words than I’d like, because yeah… maybe he did.

“It was a good idea,” Hannah muses. “The pictures look so convincing, but he made sure you didn’t actually have to do anything you weren’t comfortable with.” She’s watching me carefully now. “That was thoughtful of him.”

I make a vague noise of agreement but offer up nothing else.

“So he’s really going to stay over tonight…” Hannah says, and though she sounds innocent, the look she gives me is sly.

“In the spare room,” I reply, defensively. “We’ll probably barely even see each other. It’s just so they can get a picture of him arriving and then leaving again in the morning. Gayle said it would be a good idea to fan the flames.” I don’t want to admit that I only put up the most token resistance against the idea, that after our last meeting I’ve been thinking about Jack more than I’m comfortable with.

“And you’re sure you don’t want me to stay?” Hannah asks.

“Don’t be silly,” I scoff, busying myself with getting a glass of water from the fridge so that I don’t have to look at her. “You have things to do, an actual date, not a pretend one for the benefit of strangers on the internet. I think I can handle one evening alone with Jack Turner-Jones.”

Hannah barely manages to keep a straight face. “Sure,” she says. “You just let me know if you need any help cleaning up the crime scene. We can use a code word on the phone so that law enforcement is kept in the dark.”