Page 98 of A Very Happy Easter

“Why is he here?” A looming sense of doom rolled over me. “Why would he show up after all this time?”

“At a guess? Robert recruited him to stir the pot. Check out the guy’s face—he doesn’t know what’s going on.”

“Oh, hell. Robert’s going to tell my parents I was dating a porn star, isn’t he? I mean, he already tried once before. Now he has the evidence.”

“Just own it.”

“Huh?”

“Own it. He wasn’t a porn star when you were dating. He was a regular guy who changed career after you broke up.”

“They’re coming this way.”

“Relax.”

“Your mama’s looking in this direction,” Salma warned me. “Don’t stab anyone with that pen you’re holding.”

It was tempting. So tempting.

“Hugo? What are you doing here?”

He leaned in to kiss me on the cheek the way I’d taught him to do when we were “dating.”

“No idea. My agent said I was booked for a job, and a car picked me up and brought me here. This schmuck was waiting outside. He’s your cousin, right?”

Robert acted so damn smug. “Hugo? No, this is Miles B Long.” He feigned innocence. “He’s an actor I booked to help with the Easter celebrations.”

Mama made it back to us. “Hugo? What are you doing here?”

Own it, Heath said. Robert was going to bring my past into the light whether I liked it or not, so I’d damn well force this back onto my terms. Emmy wouldn’t shrink from a grubby maggot like my cousin, would she? I drew myself up to my full height and channelled the woman who I both admired and feared a little.

“He mostly goes by Miles now. After we broke up, he moved to America to try his hand at acting.”

Heath had moved away from me, and I saw him whispering to Serena. A moment later, she headed over to Marc.

“Oh, really? Have you been in anything I’d know?”

“I doubt that, Mrs. Kennedy-Renner.”

“Don’t be modest. Roger and I make a point of watching a movie together every week, and I do love a good tear-jerker.”

Fuck.

Marc glided past me, his hand out. “Miles? Miles B Long? What are you doing on this side of the pond?” He pulled a bemused Miles into a bro hug and thumped him on the back. “It’s been a long time.”

“Yeah, uh, it has. I’m here for a job, sort of.”

“You know each other?” Mama asked.

Marc hit her with that smile. “Sure, we met on set when I was filming Plains of Montana.”

“Well, I saw him in an adult movie,” Robert blurted.

“An adult movie? Like The Silence of the Lambs.”

“No, like porn.”

Mama gasped, and there was a collective groan from the rest of us. Except Marc. Marc kept it professional.