Page 8

By morning, I have a message telling me everything has been arranged. I leave later today.

I tell Marco I’m going to New York for a few days, that something came up and a friend needs me.

“Nylah?” he asks.

I make a sound he can take as agreement.

“Everything okay?” he asks.

“Just stuff,” I say. “I know it’s very last minute…”

He tugs on his shirt. “I’m just glad you can help. I’d offer to come along, but this is obviously a girl trip.”

“It is. I hope to see Mom, too, while I’m there.”

“Good.” He leans over to peck my cheek. “Tell her I said hi.”

I nod, my face down as I button my shirt so he won’t see my reaction… the one that says it’s hard to do that when my mother doesn’t know he exists.

“Got time for a cappuccino this morning?” he asks.

I smile at him. “Sadly, no. I’ll just grab one on the way to my first lesson.”

“Give me two minutes, and I’ll walk with you.”

As the day wears on, the deception pokes needle sharp.

It’s never been a deception before. Genevieve Callahan is my l egal name.

Marco knows I grew up in Albany and went to Juilliard.

He knows I’ve never married, have no kids or siblings, just a mother in Albany, two grandparents in Arizona and a grandmother in Mexico.

He’s never pried into specifics of my past, and so I have never had to lie to him. Until now.

That evening, we’re in a crowded airport taverna, leaning together so we can hear one another over the too-sharp laughter of tipsy businessmen. I’ve run out of time to tell Marco the truth, and this certainly isn’t the place.

When I return.

I’ll tell him everything when I return.

For now, there’s something I can do, and even if he won’t understand the significance, it is a silent promise to him.

I take out my phone and hold it up. “I want a selfie.”

His brows rise.

“Of us,” I say. “For my mom.”

We put our heads together, and I snap pictures. In the last, he smacks a kiss on my cheek, and that is the best of the bunch – the unguarded delight on my face, the boyish glint in his eyes.

This photograph means that I will finally tell Mom about Marco. I will say, yes, there is someone important in my life, and here he is.

We finish our wine, and he walks me to the security area. Once he’s out of sight, I zip over to the priority lane.

At the gate, I’m settling into a seat when I look up into the face of Colt Gordon, and every cell in my body freezes.

It’s not actually Colt, of course. It’s just his face – five times life-size, staring at me from an electronic movie poster.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been confronted by his image. Colt is a Hollywood icon, and being male, his star didn’t p lummet once he hit middle age. At fifty-five, he’s still an action hero though his love interests remarkably don’t age at all.

On this poster, though, the second figure isn’t a woman half his age. It’s a young man who could have been Colt himself thirty years ago.

“Jamie,” I murmur.