Page 112 of Wish You Were Her
“You’re not an alien to me, Allegra,” he said, almost too quietly for her to hear. “I want to write everything down. Everything about you. Everything you’ve ever said.”
A writer. His emails.
This unleashed in her an idea. The sketched outline of a plan for tomorrow. And as her mind wandered, Jonah kissed her and held her until she fell into the kind of sleep you can only reach when you’re completely at home in your mind and body.
Jonah allowed February, Allegra’s stylist, to suit him and boot him. He liked how he appeared in the tuxedo. As a tall, broad-shouldered person, shopping for clothes was never a favorite pastime. Yet he enjoyed how he looked in his reflection. As she doused him in Tom Ford, he wondered if he was finally starting to look the part.
The part of someone who could stand next to Allegra and belong there.
He was putting on cufflinks when she emerged from the bedroom. Jasper and Grace had already been dressed and were dancing in the living room of the suite, while Allegra changed and filmed content with Clark in the bedroom. He took in her golden gown and her sparkling eyes and the smile that she now seemed to reserve for him and he felt his breath leave his body.
“You—you look… Allegra, you’re just—”
“Yes, she’s stunning, but she’s also late!” Natalie called from the front door of the hotel suite and Jonah inwardly wished everyone else could just vanish for a frozen moment in time, leaving him alone with Allegra.
“Thanks,” she told him softly, squeezing his elbow as she passed him. “You look really hot.”
He caught her by the waist and pressed a kiss into her hairline, not caring a bit about everyone seeing them. The whole world had taken a look at one of the most private and preciousmoments of his life, but he didn’t want that humiliation to stop him from showing Allegra how he felt about her.
He held her hand in the car, perfectly content to gaze out of the window while the three girls sang along to Cyndi Lauper and filmed themselves in the back of the limo. They shared a look before stepping out into the city square where the red carpet for the premiere was laid. Jonah blinked and winced at the size of the crowd and gripped Allegra’s hand as they were ushered out of the car and toward the guest entrance to the carpet. Jonah watched as the mask slipped effortlessly onto Allegra’s face as she greeted the associate at the gate.
“Just the VIP on the carpet and one guest,” the man said, shouting over the din of the crowd. Jonah could tell the exact moment that Allegra was spotted on the large screen erected nearer the actual movie house, as the crowd began to rumble and a few young women shrieked her name at a startling pitch and decibel.
“I’ll take Jonah,” Allegra said.
Jonah stared at her in astonishment. “Not… not your publicist?”
“No,” she said with a small smile. “If you’re okay with the carpet?”
“Allegra—” Natalie began to object, but Jasper swept her away with all the grace and decorum of the Lake Pristine royalty she was.
“We’ll head straight in,” Jasper said, as if she had worked film premieres her entire life. “See you after the carpet, Allegra.”
Jonah and Allegra, still holding hands, stepped onto the red fabric laid out like a brick road to a land he had never known before. The roar that greeted them was thunderous. Jonah winced as flashes began to take over his vision, as they movedfrom one step-and-repeat to another on the long, winding scarlet path. He moved back to allow Allegra her moment alone in front of the cameras.
He watched, both in awe and in disgust, as photographers yelled things at her.
“Over the shoulder!” one bellowed at her.
“Over here, whore!”
Jonah thought he must have imagined it, but when the female pap repeated the order, he was about ready to slap the camera from her hands. Allegra caught up to him and she gently steered them further down the carpet.
“They do it to get a reaction,” she told him, without needing to know his question. “There are so many lenses to look into so sometimes they say horrible shit to get their shot.”
“I hate them.”
She looked as though she was about to be reasonable about the whole thing and then she peered up into his face and smiled, conspiratorially. “Yeah, you know what? Me too.”
When they reached the final stretch of the carpet, fans threw their hands toward Allegra like zealots to a god.
“Allegra, please!” one woman screamed. “You’re the reason I’m alive, I love you!”
“Allegra, I have a tattoo of you!”
“Allegra, please! PLEASE!”
Jonah watched as Allegra brushed people’s desperately outstretched hands with her fingers. She took a couple of selfies and when one man suddenly grabbed her, as if overcome by her nearness, Jonah intervened. He pulled her free and stood between her and the crowd so that his body shielded her from the grasping hands.
