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“I do understand that. I think you’re doing a marvelous job. But...”
“What?”
I tucked myself into his side, loving how perfectly I fit there. “I don’t understand why you don’t documenteverything. If your goal is good press, you could be posting it more often.”
“What do you mean?”
“The pizza in New York? Having Jax help Betsy through the crowd in Boston? Taking me to the Empire State Building when I couldn’t get in? You don’t publicize half of the truly selfless things you do.”
He chuckled, but it sounded uncomfortable. “You want me to put our date up on Instagram?”
“I didn’t realize it was a date.”
He stopped and tugged at my hand, pulling me back to face him. “I bought you dinner and took you somewhere romantic. What if I thought it was a date?”
“Then I guess it was a date.”
He released my hand to put his arm around my back and pull me closer. “And what was that night where we walked to get pizza, or the night we played Uno until two in the morning, or the day we spent with room service and card games after Fallon rescheduled me?” He swept his free arm out to indicate the beach. “What does this classify as?”
Was I being tested here? “Dates?” I asked, as if it was a question.
“Last I heard, it takes two people to have a relationship. If you don’t think we’re dating, Beth, I should know that.”
But we couldn’t date, right? Not really. Not when everything we did was in secret and the public believed him and Karina to be a thing. “Last I heard, you were in a relationship with a famous rockstar.”
“I’m not sure you can call Karina a rockstar. She sings pop.”
“Okay, fine. Last I heard, you were in a relationship with a famouspopstar.”
“That’s publicity, not a relationship. For some weird reason, America loves me and Karina together. Bridget wants to capitalize on that, and with the new album, Karina wants to capitalize on it too. But I’m notdatingher.”
He was complicated. That’s what he was.
“If she’s your fake girlfriend, then what does that make me?” I asked.
“The girl I’m actually dating?”
Now he was the one asking questions.
A tentative smile played on his lips, his dark eyes roaming my face. “I like you, remember?”
My heart pounded. “I like you too.”
But where did that put us? All Rhett had said was that we’d gone on dates. That didn’t mean we needed to identify what we were to each other, right? Was it enough that he liked me and wanted to pursue getting to know me? Did that put my demons back to sleep for a little while?
I hadn’t known him personally for very long, and already we’d spent a good deal of time together. It didn’t really matter that our time alone was always in the middle of the night or going places no one would see us. Rhett had no choice but to be secretive while the media believed him to be in a relationship with his ex-girlfriend, and I could understand and respect that. I hadn’t spent years wanting to date a movie star without seeing how much of his life was splashed across the media. I was prepared for this weirdness. But maybe I didn’t realize until nowhowweird it would feel.
“You seem really unsure,” he said, pulling away and looking down at me.
“It’s hard to know the difference between what’s real and what isn’t.”
“My publicized feelings for Karina are not real. My feelings for youare.”
“How long does it have to last? This thing between you and Karina.”
“I’m not sure. I’m letting Bridget take the reins on this until everything—that is—I just...” He cleared his throat, lifted his hat again, and put it back on his head. He was wrestling with telling me something. I wanted to push him to tell me more, but I wanted him to do it on his own too.
So I looked at him and said nothing, hoping he would choose to step forward and trust me, hoping he would be different.
