Page 66 of Lovestruck at Sundown
“I really hope so.” He nodded a few times and stared up and down at me as if scanning for any other wounds before he left.
“You really do love him, don’t you?”
My lungs deflated and my heart squeezed in my chest. “I do.”
With my entire heart.
He nodded slowly. Terribly so, as if he were able to listen to that last sentence I said to
myself inside my mind. “Good night, Murph.”
He walked away, but I stopped him by calling his name. This was my only chance to ask him a question, one I’d been too hesitant to ask my father because I didn’t know if he’d answer it with honesty, but mostly because it would piss me off even more if he were the one to confirm it.
He turned around and met my gaze in silence.
“Are you and my father business partners?”
Nathan’s gaze widened for a second, visibly thrown aback by my question. He licked his lower lip as he took his sweet time to reply.
“It’s in the works,” he admitted, but his features hardened as if he were trying to warn me that was as much as he was willing to say.
The disappointment was heartbreaking, almost sickening, and something told me Nathan could see it in my eyes because I didn’t care to conceal it from him.
Unsure about how I should feel about this, even if I had had months to mull over the possibilities of it being true, a part of me had still hoped they parted ways after we broke up. But knowing my dad, it wasn’t that surprising either. He always had a plan.
I detected a smidge of shame in Nathan’s eyes as he, without another word, turned on his heel and left. There was nothing left to say, so I retreated to my apartment, still overwhelmed with the emotions of the night. But a sense of peace washed over me at the realization that my feelings of romantic love and devotion for Nathan were a thing of the past.
All I wanted was William. But Nathan would always be inevitably tied to William’s family, and now to mine as well.
December 10, 2010
One would thinka three-hour difference between Vancouver and New York wouldn’t be an issue, but finding the time to talk to William between that and his irregular and grueling schedule was proving to be more challenging than we thought it would be.
Most scenes in this movie were filmed in the late afternoon through the early morning hours. That meant William would try to squeeze in some intermittent sleep during the day, and by the time he was up and available, I’d be about to fall asleep, which meant we only had a few minutes to catch up.
But even so, he always found the time to talk to me, like the day after Thanksgiving. I was upset about my conversation with my dad and the photos he showed me of William stepping out of a restaurant with that mysterious woman.
William explained how that had been a group dinner with a few cast and crew members to celebrate Thanksgiving a few days before since they would be working on that day. But the magazines manipulated the information only to show the photos of when they walked out, disregarding the ones where the other seven people followed close behind.
We knew to expect these types of situations from the media and paparazzi. And even though I trusted William blindly, talking to him and being able to ask him about the things that bugged me gave me the necessary reassurance to keep myself strong amid the unyielding gossip.
It was the small things he did to make me feel like he was always thinking about me. Like how he always made sure I’d wake up to a text if we didn’t connect the night before. But this morning, he was still awake from a prolonged shoot, and we were texting as I headed back home from school early since I only had to hand in a final assignment for the workshop class I had on Fridays.
We had so many things to discuss, but unfortunately, William was still on set, and calls weren’t allowed during that time, so we texted instead. That also meant he could be needed in front of the camera any second, and our conversation would have to end abruptly.
W.S.:Were you able to talk to Cecile? Tobias said he’s
still not talking to Liam since their argument. They’re
being ridiculous. They are obsessed with each other.
Me:Meddler. But I agree.
W.S.:Spill the beans.
I’d had the chance to talk to Cecile about the Jordan-Tobias situation, and I felt for her, but I also kind of … didn’t? She had two gorgeous, fabulous men fighting for her heart. But she was having a hard time choosing someone. She didn’t want to have to do that.
To say I understood where she was coming from was an understatement. But Cecile and I had very different personalities, and she wasn’t afraid to speak her mind and voice the things she wanted for herself in the most precise way possible.
