Chapter Twenty-nine
Three weeks later...
Valentina stepped out of her office on the Gravity set for the last time and took a few moments to take in the activity and buildings that had ended up feeling more like a home than a temporary film set. Tomorrow morning all of the lights, temporary walls, and furniture would be emptied out, leaving the space bare for its next occupant.
Everything would change again for the cast and crew who had worked on the film. Some, like Smith, would be moving on to post-production work. Others would take a much-needed vacation. Most of the actors would go back to Hollywood to audition for their next role, or to take their place on the next set. Tatiana had just committed to star in a major historical piece set in Boston...but for the very first time in a decade, Valentina wouldn't be going with her.
It made her chest hurt thinking about not seeing her sister every single day, even though she knew it was the right thing for both of them.
She needed to give her sister her wings. And, Valentina thought as she caught sight of Smith walking toward her smiling that devastatingly sexy smile she could never get enough of, she finally admitted to herself that she needed to give herself room to let her wings unfurl all the way, too.
Only, she hadn't expected to see her mother beaming at her a moment later from beside Smith. Nor had she thought to still see her mother's boyfriend, Dave, with them. Not when he was several weeks past her mother's usual sell-by date for actor boyfriends.
"Oh honey, wasn't it so sweet of Smith to invite us to the final day of filming?"
It was. So sweet that Valentina immediately felt ashamed for not thinking of it herself. Smith slid his fingers through hers and pulled her against him to give her a kiss, one that lingered far longer than Valentina's previous rules of PDA dictated, but was completely irresistible all the same, even though anyone around them could snap a picture and send it off to a tabloid.
The strange truth was, however, that a part of her was glad that they'd been through the wringer with the paparazzi and the press right out of the gate when their relationship was brand new. Because even though it hadn't been fun to watch the tabloids run pictures of her and Smith, or the way they'd tried - and failed - to make Smith look like a bad guy, she'd survived it. And knowing that she could survive it again made her bound and determined not to worry about whether one of their kisses ended up in the press.
She knew her skin was flushed, not from embarrassment but pleasure, when he finally pulled his mouth from hers.
"Can I get either of you anything?"
He had asked both her and her mother the question, but she knew from the way he squeezed her hand that he was making sure she was okay being left alone with her mother. When they told him they were fine, he lifted her hand to his mouth for one more kiss before steering Dave away with him.
Valentina and her mother watched the two men go, until they turned a corner and were out of sight.
"My friends can't stop talking about how one of my daughters caught a movie star," Ava Landon said on a happy little sigh. "I still can't believe you're dating Smith Sullivan. "
Normally, Valentina would have tried not to feel hurt by her mother's disbelief. She would have told herself that it was better to just let it roll off. But she knew why Smith had asked her mother to come to the set today. It wasn't just so that Ava could cheer Tatiana on the last day of filming, but because family meant the world to him.
And he loved her so much he wanted her family to be whole again.
"Why?" Valentina's voice was quiet, but her question was still firm. And riddled with the hurt she could no longer hide. "Why can't you believe it?"
Her mother blinked up at her with the big blue eyes that had captivated young actors throughout Hollywood for the past decade...and her husband for two decades before that.
"Not because you aren't beautiful, Val." Her mother put her hand on her arm. "Your looks have always been far more exotic than mine or your sister's. I'm not surprised he can't take his eyes off you. It's just that I know how much you disliked actors, and the fact that I've always dated them."
"You knew that?"
"You have a very expressive face, honey," her mother told her.
"I don't get it." If there was something to be said, it had to be said now. After all, once upon a time, she and her mother had been so close. Not just mother and daughter, but friends. "After Daddy died, why - " She pushed aside the image of her father to get through her question. "Why have you always dated actors since him?"
"I could never replace your father, and I never even wanted to try." Her mother's voice was full of the sadness that Valentina herself felt whenever she talked about him. "Early on I realized the nice thing about dating an actor is that even if they don't really think I'm young and beautiful and desirable, they know how to fake it. Well enough that I can believe them for a while."
This time Valentina was the one reaching for her mother. "You don't need anyone to pretend that you're beautiful, Mom. You are."
Her mother's eyes glimmered with tears. "I know I haven't told you often enough, but I'm so proud of you, honey."
Valentina knew it would be easiest just to take her mother's compliment at face value, and to smooth over years of hurt, but even though Smith had taught her just how easy love could be once you had it...she'd also learned just how much hard work had to go into getting it sometimes.
Smith hadn't given up on her. He hadn't underestimated her strength, her convictions...or the love she had to give. Maybe, Valentina found herself thinking, it was time for her to stop giving up on her mother. Which meant no more dancing around each other, no more talking without saying anything.
"We used to be so close. Before Daddy died." She'd started her relationship with Smith with a "Why?" when she'd needed to understand his reasons for pursuing her. Now she would try to restart her relationship with her mother with one. And after all these years, Valentina couldn't stand not knowing anymore.
"Why did you leave us, too?" She felt a tear slide down her cheek and wiped at it with the back of her hand. "We needed you." Another tear fell, too fast for her to catch before it plopped onto the cement. "I needed you."
Her mother's slim arms were surprisingly strong as they were abruptly thrown around her. "Oh honey, I'm sorry."
But instead of falling apart, for once her mother was the strong one, another role-reversal Valentina hadn't seen coming.
"You and your sister were always so close. I loved that you were such a tight unit, loved knowing that you would always be there to look after her, if anything ever happened to me and your father. And then, when he died so unexpectedly - " Ava Landon shook her head. "Honestly, I don't remember much about those early months. But when I finally came back to the world, the two of you were closer than ever. Just like you are now. So close that it sometimes seemed like you didn't need me at all. Only each other." Her mother wiped away her own tears now. "Will you forgive me?"
Valentina had never thought about how the bond with her sister might have affected her mother. "Of course I do." She was the one hugging her mother this time, the familiar scent of her perfume, and her softness as comforting to her now as they had been when she was a little girl.
They had a lot to catch up on, far more than they could possibly cover in the next five minutes before filming started for the day. But she did have one more question before they headed over to the set.
"Are things serious with you and Dave?"
Her mother answered her question with one of her own. "Would it be okay with you if they were? I know how much your father meant to you, how much he still does."
Valentina instinctively put her hand over her heart. She paused to think, and to feel, before she said, "It would."
Smiling, their arms still around each other, they walked across the lot and onto the set. And when Smith looked up at her, she could see not only the love for her in his eyes, but also his joy at the obvious ground she and her mother had made up with each other.
And then the lights were dimming and Smith and Tatiana were taking their places on set on the bed beside each other as the cameras started to roll. Valentina's mother squeezed her hand and she pressed an impromptu kiss to her soft cheek before turning her attention to the scene just starting to play out before them all.
Jo and Graham had made love many, many times over the past few weeks. And they had both fallen helplessly in love with each other from that first clash on the street all the way through shared nights caring for her baby.
But despite both of those facts, Jo knew they hadn't truly shared love with each other.
From the first moment she'd collided with him, Graham had been full of purpose, determination, intensity. And still, after they'd made love that first time, and after she'd watched him give his love to her daughter without any barriers or borders, she'd believed that no one could sustain himself on endless intensity without eventually running out of steam. When she watched him sleep, instead of the lines in his beautiful face softening, they still held the heartbreaking edge to them that tore her apart a little more every day.
When, she wondered as she reached to stroke back a lock of hair that had fallen across his forehead, would he ever let the demons that drove him go?
He murmured her name and pulled her into him, her back to his front. She loved the feel of his strong arms around her, loved lying together with him like this when they were both barely awake.
Safe. He had said he would always keep her and her daughter safe.
Which was why, at long last, in those fragile minutes between night and day, believing in him as she'd never let herself believe anyone else, she began to speak.
"I never knew my father. Just the men who came in and out of my mother's life."
She could tell by the way his muscles tightened slightly against hers that he had just come fully awake. Maybe she should have been frightened. Maybe this was the one risk she shouldn't take - to trust him with a story that only she knew, that could die with her and her alone.
But somewhere along the way, she'd realized she could live with taking that risk. What she couldn't live without was love.
"Some were nice. Some were scary. Some wanted things from me that I didn't want to give." His hand tightened over her chest and she tried to calm him by saying, "I was small. And fast. And I knew how to stay hidden when I had to. I also knew I needed to get out before I was ever found."
Her name was on his lips. She knew it would be so easy to turn into him, to let him kiss away her ugly memories. And she would. But not yet.
Not until she'd bared herself to him. Fully. Completely.
And not until she'd risked everything for him so that he could do the same for her.
"His name was Bryan. I thought I'd seen it all, thought I was so smart when it came to picking a boyfriend, a man to finally give my virginity to. He had a good job working with computers. He wasn't creepy or scary. He was nice. He didn't treat me like I was stupid, or worthless because of where I came from." She sighed, remembering how naive she'd been. "I didn't get pregnant on purpose. I don't know what happened. Maybe the condom broke. But when I went to tell him, I knew I couldn't do it. Not because I didn't want to trap him into having to stay with me." She swallowed hard. "I didn't tell him because I couldn't trap myself."
She didn't realize she was crying until she tasted the tears on her cheek, nor did she realize Graham had turned her in his arms so that he could kiss them away, one by one.
"There had to be more. I knew there was more."
The sunlight had come up just enough in the room by then that when she lifted her eyes to his, he would see everything she felt for him. And she wanted him to.
"I love you. And I'm not saying that to trap you into staying with me for any longer than you want to."
Now, he was the one brushing the hair back from her forehead as he said, "Marry me."
She sucked in a shaky breath, knowing the only reason she could keep the slightest bit steady was because he was holding her. There was nothing she wanted more in the world than to belong to this man.
Nothing, except for him to trust her with his pain, so that she could help him the way he'd helped her a thousand times over.
"Yes," had to come first, because she couldn't bear to keep him guessing if she wanted to share his forever. There was nothing she wanted more.
The kiss they shared after she accepted his proposal was sweet, and could so easily have turned into something even sweeter, but she hadn't been afraid to come to San Francisco with five hundred dollars in her pocket and a baby growing inside of her...and she wouldn't be afraid now.
"I don't want your money."
"I know." And he did, knew that he could lose every last one of his billion dollars and she would remain at his side without so much as blinking an eye.
"I don't even want you to be less domineering or bossy," she said with a little smile that had his mouth curving up too as he stared down at her. "All I've ever wanted is a family."
"I want to be Leah's father. Legally."
She reached up and touched his face, the sunlight starting to stream over them now like a spotlight, knowing he'd understood her perfectly, but had deliberately tried to deflect her request.
"We're both yours. Always. I want you to be my husband and Leah's father." He was closing the distance to kiss her again when she said, "But we also want a grandmother. A grandfather. We want uncles. And aunts."
He stilled above her, his eyes shuttering, but she was young and strong.
And not the least bit afraid of a fight with the powerful man levered above her.
"It was my job to protect my sister." Each word of the emotional confession she hoped he'd finally feel safe making with her was raw. And filled with unbearable pain. "Leanora was the baby of the family. She used to tell me I was her hero, and I believed she was right, that I was invincible, that there was nothing that could touch me. Or her." He was looking right at Jo but she knew it wasn't her he was seeing. "I was busy screwing some woman whose name I can't even remember when the call came in. I didn't get it until the next morning, didn't know that they'd found her with some punk, both of them overdosed. His heart was still beating. But hers - "
This time she was the one wiping away his tears, putting her arms around him, soothing him with words that meant nothing, and everything, all at once.
She was surprised when his hand moved to her stomach. "She was pregnant. I was the only one in my family that she'd told. I told her I thought it was a good idea that they weren't going to get married. I told her I would take care of her. I read every book on pregnancy, on being a single parent. I promised her I'd be there for her when she told the rest of our family. I thought she knew we loved her, and that she didn't need to keep her pregnancy a secret. I thought I was still her hero, the one she could depend on for anything."
This time, when his eyes met Jo's he saw the woman he loved with everything he had, with every last piece of his heart.
"She never told me about the drugs. And I never guessed. Because I didn't want to guess, I didn't want to see it. I should have seen it."
Jo wasn't going to pretend she didn't know the story - at least up until the part where it turned out his sister had been pregnant - or that she hadn't read about it on the Internet once she'd realized who he was.
But all this time she'd thought it was grief that had hardened him. Finally, she realized it wasn't just grief that tore him apart every hour of every day.
It was blame. For himself.
"It wasn't your fault."
His head was on her chest and she was holding him just as steadily as he'd held her moments before.
"I should have been there for her. I should have protected her."
"No," she argued. "You should have loved her. And you did." She rocked him as she rocked her baby girl so much of every day and night, the baby that he'd asked her to name after the sister he'd loved so much. "You did."