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“Oh, you want to finally lose? I’m feeling lucky.”
He shook his head, his smile wide. “You don’t have any luck when it comes to Uno.” He wasn’t smiling as hard as Mr. Teeth had, but he didn’t have to. His smile already made me light in the stomach.
“Sounds fun to me, anyway.” I pushed my case back to rest against the wall, then shot Rhett a smile over my shoulder as I left.
Chad stood out in the hall, facing me, Bridget beside him. I closed the door, feeling like I was about to be sent to the principal’s office.Chadwaiting outside the door, I was used to. Bridget, I was not, especially without a screen attached to her hand.
“Ten minutes,” she reminded me. I understood Rhett’s need for silence to prepare himself for being questioned on TV, and I hadn’t left the room that long after her. So I wasn’t sure what the minor reprimand was about.
“Yes.” I started walking down the corridor to scout out the craft services table. Bridget fell into step beside me, and I had a feeling it wasn’t because she wanted a sandwich.
“Listen,” she said, stopping in the middle of the hallway and making me stop beside her. “You need to give him space.”
Hadn’t we already gone over that? I was literally en route to a sandwich right now. “That’s what I’m doing.”
“I don’t mean only in this moment. I mean in general.” She pushed her curly black hair behind one ear. “It’s not a good idea to get mixed up with Rhett.”
My stomach slipped down to my feet, and a warning bell rang softly in my head. What did she know? Had we not been as sneaky as we’d thought? “Mixed up with him?”
Bridget tilted her head a little to the side, her gesture saying,Don’t play coy with me. “The last stylist was fired for trying to get too close to him, so you don’t want to make that same mistake. I’m just trying to warn you.”
I tried to clear my head. “Do you mean whatever happened at that restaurant opening you guys talked about in San Francisco?”
“Yes. Angelique came on to him, and it was uncomfortable for everyone. She’d been with us for a year already, got mixed up with Rhett, and poof”—she snapped her fingers—“lost her job.”
I tried to piece together everything I’d heard about Angelique in the last month, but there wasn’t a lot to go on. She’d been the stylist, she had come on to him at a restaurant opening, she was fired. But the wording was suspicious.Got mixed up with Rhettimplied more than a girl coming on to a guy.
Bridget must have sensed my hesitance. She glanced back at Chad and pulled me farther down the hallway. “Angelique believed Rhett was into her, or she wouldn’t have jeopardized her job like that.”
I could see why that stylist might’ve come to the false conclusion. Rhett had a way of looking at me that made me feel like the only person in the room, even when we were surrounded by others. If he treated all his stylists that way, then he was sure to make them each fall for him—even accidentally. But that wasn’t his fault. That was just his face.
And I’d like to think he didn’t treat all his stylists the way he treated me.
My mind flashed to our Empire State Building date, then kissing on the beach. If he had treated his other stylists the same way he’d treated me, they were absolutely justified in believing he felt something for them. Doubt curled into my chest like wisps of unwelcome fog.
“But you don’t actually know how she felt?” I asked. “Only that she made an inappropriate move?”
Bridget lowered her voice. “No one knows except Angelique and Rhett. Hecouldhave led her on, and we wouldn’t know. Between you and me, though, they spent a lot of time together without anyone else around, and I don’t think she was just styling his hair, if you know what I mean.”
My stomach dropped farther down, melting through the floor and plummeting all the way to the magma layer of the earth. It wasn’t the mental image of Rhett with his last stylist that killed me—believe me, I’d seen Rhett on enormous movie theater screens kissing other women many times. But something Bridget said struck a chord in me, because I had spent time alone with him too.A lotof time alone with him. And he didn’t want anyone else to know.
Had we been seen together? Were people saying the same things about me that Bridget had just said about Angelique? I had thought we were being discreet, but clearly we weren’t sly enough if Bridget picked up on it.
I swallowed, my throat as dry as Rhett’s chicken-and-grass dinners. “No, I don’t know what you mean.”
She didn’t look like she believed me. “Well, you didn’t hear it from me, anyway. I was just trying to warn you. Rhett wants connections or a way to pass the time. It’s normal for a lonely man to seek out someone to fill that void, especially someone in his position.” She pushed a curl out of her face, looking somewhat earnest. “I realize he makes you feel special, but it’s what he does.” She walked away, leaving me reeling.
Did I not know Rhett as well as I thought? Obviously I’d grown to understand him better than what I’d believed him to be before this whole charity tour began. I was fairly positive that no one in America had followed his career—or his life—as closely as I had. I was a walking Rhett-cyclopedia. But still there were things about him that had surprised me every day since we met.
His kindness. His quiet thoughtfulness. His sense of humor. How seriously he took his job. How much pretending he had to do for the media’s sake.
Pretending. His entire life wasliterallypretending, both on screen and off. It was hard not to let that chip away at my sturdy resolve. What aboutmewas different or special, anyway? I was like half of America, absolutely smitten with him and willing to jump at the exclusive opportunity to be close to him.
But what if Bridget was right and Rhett only considered me a way to pass the time? Was it worth jeopardizing my reputation and my career for a few quiet moments wrapped in his arms every night after the rest of the world had fallen asleep? I knew Rhett had been purposeful in keeping us a secret, but it was hitting differently now.
I pressed my fingers to my temples and blew out a breath. No, I could not allow this to completely derail me. I would talk to Rhett, find out what happened with Angelique from his lips, then go from there. There was no sense in panicking until I’d given him an opportunity to refute it.
Yes, good plan, Beth. Way to be so utterly mature.
