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“Bree, before with Beaumont, I failed. It wasn’t just him being adick.”
“You only failed because he didn’t give you a chance to succeed. When are you going to learnthat?”
“When are you going to start acting again?”
“Ha, ha, we’re not talking about me right now.” She narrowed her eyes. “Now, about Micah.”
Maddie sighed. “I told you everything.”
“I’m sure you think you told me everything. But there’s some things I need to clarify because I’m not certain you know what you’re doing onthis.”
Maddie reached for the wine bottle and refilled her glass. “I do know what I’m doing.” She didn’t want to talk about Micah anymore. She wanted to move on. But Bree wasn’t easily deterred. “Okay. You’ve got five minutes.”
Bree moved up to her knees and rested her arm on the back of the sofa. “So he told a reporter that he was single?”
“Yes.”
“After you’d been with him for like half a minute?”
“Three weeks,” Maddie corrected. “But, yes.”
“And you’d both agreed to keep media out of your relationship?”
She lowered her head. “Yes.”
“What the hell, Maddie?”
She knew she was being unreasonable, but that didn’t change what she felt, what she wanted. “I want it to bemore.”
Bree’s face softened. “Did you ask him to bemore?”
Had she? “Not exactly.” She thought back over their relationship. “Well, I might have said the Lword.”
“Maddie!” She lowered her voice. “Did you meanit?”
Maddie paused, not wanting to admit it now, after they were over. “Yes, I meant it. But I only said it once, during…you know. Does that count?”
“With you, yes it does. But maybe he needed it spelled out for him. Did you not have any other chance during those three weeks to tell him? Or was incredible sex all you had timefor?”
“No.” She grinned. “We were having incredible sex. But we talked, too.”
Bree pressed her. “Then you didn’t tell him because…?”
“Because he’d say ‘not interested’ and I’d get hurt. Or— ”
“Or he'd say ‘me, too’ and give youmore.”
Maddie scowled at the interruption. “Or he'd say, ‘Let’s just take this one day at a time.’ Eventually you can’t do that anymore. You have to make plans. You have to know where you’re going.”
Bree lifted her hands as if to strangle Maddie. “It’s Micah flippin’ Preston, Maddie! He’s the guy. If he wanted me one day at a time, I’d be on that in a heartbeat and he’s not even mytype.”
“He might be the guy, but he doesn’t think I’m thegirl.”
“But he hasn’t said that exactly, right? So you’re just running before he gets a chance to. Okay, whatever. Go ahead and be chickenshit.”
“He doesn’t believe Hollywood relationships can work, Bree.” Her voice was raised and tight in her throat. “Until he believes otherwise, there’s no point. He’d always be expecting us to fail. He’d always look for reasons to justify why we shouldn’t be together.”
“Well, that could be true.” Bree took a swallow of her wine. “And you think he’s totally sold on that stars-can’t-date thing?”
