Now, for the first time, she wanted to give that to Smith.
“You don’t mind if my boyfriend stays over, do you, T?”
At the word boyfriend Tatiana grinned widely and said, “Nope, I’ll just make sure I’ve got my earplugs handy.”
Smiling at her sister’s sassy response, Valentina was plugging her phone into its charger when she realized she had a message waiting from George, one that must have been there all afternoon. Even though she wanted nothing more than to get into bed with Smith, she couldn’t ignore a decade of the work ethic that had her dialing her voice mail and listening to what he had to say.
When she put down the phone, her hands were shaking. She looked at the two people who meant the most to her, and was glad they were both there to hear her news.
“George says there’s a bidding war going for my screenplay.” She wondered how her voice could sound so calm, when her insides were doing cartwheels. “A big one. And he said he thinks I’m going to be really happy with the studio that’s in the clear lead.”
“Oh my God!” Tatiana jumped up off the couch and hugged her.
Smith put his hand on her chin and pulled her face up to his so that he could say, “Congratulations, Valentina,” then kiss her, before grinning even wider and teasing, “If only I’d had a chance to see your screenplay...”
She laughed as she danced around the room with her sister, pulling him in so they were a wiggling, happy threesome. “I promise you’ll be the first person to see the next one.”
Tatiana found a bottle of champagne and after they’d all toasted and finished a glass, it was the nicest, most natural thing in the world to brush her teeth with Smith standing by her side at the sink, to strip the clothes from each other, then slip between the sheets together.
Valentina had no doubt her sister would need the earplugs on other nights, but for tonight, Smith simply wrapped his arms around her and held her tight.
And she held him right back.
Chapter Twenty-five
By the time Smith and Valentina made it into the kitchen for breakfast the next morning, Tatiana was already up and drinking a cup of coffee, a half-eaten bowl of oatmeal on the table in front of her. She smiled at them both when Smith said, “Good morning,” but when Valentina reached into the cupboard to grab two mugs, Tatiana mouthed to him, “We need to talk.”
“Hey, Val,” she said, “remember the earrings I loaned you last week? The ones with the rubies in them? I’ve looked everywhere and can’t find them. Would you mind checking to see if they’re in your bedroom?”
As soon as Valentina left the kitchen, Tatiana reached under the table and plopped a printout from the Internet into Smith’s hand. “Look at this.”
The page showed one of the “romantic” staged pictures of him and Tatiana that had been shot the week before to promote the movie while they were in character as Graham and Jo...and then another, slightly fuzzy picture of Smith and Valentina holding hands last night at the arcade. The headline between the photos shouted: Smith Sullivan introduces his gorgeous co-star to pleasure while having a secret affair with her older sister! All the details you need about the movie star’s torrid love triangle inside.
The paper crumpled in Smith’s hands as Tatiana said, “I don’t want Valentina to see this. She’ll freak out.” Both of them knew what a major understatement that was. “But if it’s already in this magazine, that means every major entertainment show and blog is bound to pick up the story by this afternoon. I just don’t know how we can keep her from seeing it.”
Twenty-four hours, thought Smith. Had that really been too much to ask?
Yes, since last night, it felt like they’d come a long way from the point at which he and Tatiana had finished filming the sex scene. But was it far enough for Valentina to trust that they could get past this kind of crap, especially with the echo of her saying, “I can’t imagine anything worse than being in the spotlight,” ringing in his ears?
Or would this headline, along with a picture of the two of them from the very first time they’d held hands in public, only confirm every single one of her fears about how hard her life would be with him?
“I know how much Val cares about you,” Tatiana said as she put her hand on his arm in what he knew was supposed to be a reassuring manner. “I mean, she hates stuff like this, but you guys are so great together.”
Valentina was coming back into the kitchen with the earrings in her hand, saying, “Sorry, I thought I gave them back to y—” when she looked between the two of them and frowned. “What’s wrong?”
There was no point in pretending it hadn’t happened, or trying to hold off the truth any longer. Smith held out the paper to her. “This.”
He slid his hand into Valentina’s as she read the article, all the way through the part about how “confidential sources” said not only couldn’t he keep his hands off Tatiana, but he was also having double the fun with the older sister who managed the business side of her career.
Tatiana’s voice shook as she said, “I know we can’t control this kind of stuff, but it’s not fair if it hurts you, Val, not when you haven’t signed up for this life like we have.”
Fair. Smith knew there wasn’t much that was fair about Hollywood, or the world that revolved around it.
“But,” Tatiana added, “once everyone realizes the two of you are actually together and that Smith and I are just working on this movie, I’m sure this will all blow over and everything will be okay.”
Maybe Tatiana was right about that, Smith thought, but even if she was, it meant the spotlight would turn entirely on Valentina.
Valentina hadn’t yet said a word, and that was what worried him most of all. Because if this had just been a picture of him and Tatiana, while he knew she wouldn’t have been at all thrilled about the false story, he had a feeling she would have been trying to comfort her sister the way she normally did.
Smith had spent so long trying to convince himself that he had control over this crazy circus life, that even as he could feel it all crumbling down around him, he told Valentina, “We make up stories to tell to the world in movies and TV shows and plays and books. These people are doing the same thing.”
The big difference, of course, was that the characters in his movies were pretend, whereas the photographers and blogs were playing with real lives. His life and Tatiana’s had been fair game for a while now.