Page 109 of The Unfinished Line

Interrupted from where I’d found a moment of privacy along the outskirts of the lobby foyer, I startled at the whispered voice near my ear.

I turned to give Elliott a frosty glare. There was something in his cat-who-ate-the-canary grin that promised I wouldn’t appreciate the tenor of his jesting.

“Carter,” I answered coolly, knowing I’d been caught scanning every face in the crowd. “He went to get us a drink.”

Elliott’s hazel eyes gleamed. It was almost gross, how handsome he was dressed up in a tux with tails. And equally annoying how deftly he saw right through me.

“For someone almost certain to find herself shortlisted for an Oscar, it’s almost astonishing what a miserable liar you are.”

“I wasn’t aware the two went hand in hand,” I responded tartly.

We’d built an odd friendship, ever since his whistleblowing phone call. He’d never mentioned the conversation again, and when I’d tried to thank him for his help, he’d abruptly blown me off.

“We look out for each other, Kingsbury,” was all he’d said, before making it clear the topic was off-limits. But over the following months, it was he who’d gotten me through the grueling stress and helped me survive our globe-traversing press tour.

“Acting, lying,” he shrugged, “both forms of deception.”

“Elliott—Kameryn!” It was L.R.’s wife, Rebecca. “Photo?”

Elliott draped his arm over my shoulders and we smiled obediently before she went on her way.

“Do you ever hate this?” I asked beneath my breath as he waved at another tuxedoed stranger.

We posed for another photo. And another.

“Every single day.” His lips never moved as he spoke through his grin.

Alone again, he leaned closer. “So—point her out.”

Not a hundred percent certain of his implication, I chose to remain coy. “Who?”

“C’mon, Kingsbury,” he stopped a passing waiter, swiping two flutes of champagne, and handed me one while he downed the other. “Show me yours and I’ll show you mine.”

Apparently here, with the most prominent figures of English society surrounding us, he’d decided to lift the ban on our taboo.

“You’ve already seen mine,” I said, hiding behind a sip of champagne.

“Give me a little credit, Kameryn. I’m an asshole, not a creep. I wrote a check and left the details of your personal life to my lawyer.”

Oddly, I actually believed him.

“I haven’t seen her,” I said, still wavering on if I was willing to share Dillon with anyone else. He fixed me with a look. I supposed twenty grand bought him the right to an insider’s scoop. “Not in here, at least.”

His lips curled. “But I was right? She is here?”

I offered an indiscernible wag of my eyebrows.

Another waiter passed and he collected two more flutes. I shook my head, thinking he meant to hand one to me, but instead he pounded the first, and set the glass on the ground, before settling in to work on the other.

“At your eleven o’clock,” he said, wiping bubbles from his upper lip with a cuff-linked wrist. “Glasses. Red tie.”

I turned a slow gaze in the appointed direction. A slender redhead was talking to Rebecca Sims. He turned his head at something she said and I realized it was our 2ndUnit Director of Photography.

“Wesley Arthur?!” I said the name too loud and Elliott stabbed me with a thumb on the pretense of fixing a wrinkle in the satin of my gown. “Isn’t he married?” I continued, correcting my volume to a whisper.

He shrugged. “Welcome to La La Land. His wife’s sleeping with one of last year’s nominees for Best Actress.” I couldn’t think fast enough to remember who had made the shortlist. “Now, come on,” he returned to scanning the crowd, “let me guess your type.”

I huffed. “Like you’d know anything about my type.”

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