“I made you a dress,” Kahala told Lani as she let her into her Honolulu apartment. Her friend looked as if she’d been getting lots of sun in her months on set—probably because craft services presented all their food buffet-style under a narrow white awning.
Lani cocked her head, bemused. “A dress?”
“Yeah, I still have your measurements from your wedding.”
“I appreciate it. But why?”
Kahala’s cheeks heated. She’d sewn the dress as an apology for the trouble she’d caused on the set of Laser Sentinel. Now that Lani had returned from the Big Island, Kahala didn’t even want to say the name of the movie. She didn’t want to think about James Corwin or Lawrence or Madison Marin or any of the people she’d met during her brief time there.
She turned her back on Lani and went to the dress form where she’d stored her creation. “I thought you might like it. Why don’t you try it on?”
Lani stopped Kahala with a hand on her arm. “Eh, Kahala, you don’t have to tell me you’re sorry. You know that, right?”
“I’ve never seen you angrier than you were that morning.” Kahala stroked the fabric of the dress, feeling the seam, checking yet again whether she’d sewn it straight and tight.
“I was scared. That doesn’t mean it was okay to talk to you the way I did. Or to accuse you.” Lani pulled a small, felt-covered box from her pocket. “I have something for you.”
Kahala raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know if I’m ready to take our relationship to that level,” she teased.
“Well, it’s not from me.”
Kahala’s posture stiffened even further. “Who’s it from then?”
“Not Lawrence, either.” Lani opened the box to reveal a pair of gold earrings, in the shape of pikake flowers. “He sent a card with them too.” She held out the box along with a sealed envelope.
Kahala stepped back. “I can’t accept that.”
“Why not?” Her friend walked into the living room and sat on the couch. “If you want me to accept a gift like that dress—which ought to be selling for thousands, by the way—what’s so bad about taking a pair of earrings from a man who makes millions of dollars a movie?”
Kahala sighed, still pretending to do a last-minute examination of the dress. “Lani, I’ve been okay since I got back but the first several days were rough. Reporters tracked down my cell phone number but also the numbers for, like, everyone in my entire family. I looked for a job but nobody wanted to hire me after the things they’d read. I sold a few dresses off my website, which helped to cover the bills for a little while, but then I figured out from the reviews people left that they’d bought them because of all those horrible headlines. People wanted to know about James Corwin’s ‘huge new love interest’, and I guess some people wanted really expensive souvenirs. It made me want to send the money back.”
“Kahala, why didn’t you call me? I was on the Big Island, not dead!”
Kahala winced, remembering the terrible day she’d been escorted off the set. “I didn’t want to bother you after everything that happened.”
“It wouldn’t have bothered me at all if you’d returned a phone call. I was worried about you anyway! It would have been good to hear from you.”
Kahala sighed, leaving the dress to sit across from Lani in the living room. “What was I supposed to say? I was so embarrassed.”
“You didn’t have anything to be embarrassed about.”
“That’s not what you thought the morning I left the set,” Kahala pointed out.
Lani pressed her lips together and looked down at her fingernails. “I didn’t have all the information. After the way you’d asked about James Corwin when we were driving in, I thought people were telling the truth when they said you’d sought him out. I didn’t know he’d gone after you.”
“That doesn’t really change anything. I was unprofessional. I should have known better than to get naked on the beach with him. I know the kinds of things paparazzi do.”
Lani raised her eyebrow and snorted. “Come on. How many women wouldn’t get naked with James Corwin on the beach if they had half the chance?”
Kahala couldn’t help smiling in response.
“He really liked you,” Lani said.
“How do you know?”
“He talked to me when he gave me these earrings.” She cleared her throat delicately. “He might have mentioned he’d been trying to call you too, and that he wasn’t getting through.”
“I might have been avoiding several people’s calls.”
“Like Lawrence. He came to see me before I left too.”
“I might just not have been answering the phone at all.”
“Or checking your messages?”
Kahala hung her head.
“You sat here in this apartment sewing that dress for me and feeling guilty, avoiding all the people who care about you and wanted to know how you were doing.” Lani walked over to the dress. “It’s so beautiful. I like how you’re using traditional Hawaiian designs to go with that trend for patterns.” Her voice turned firm. “You really shouldn’t have.”
“Lani…”
“Call them back, Kahala. James misses you. Lawrence wants to tell you that he made sure your name got listed in the credits, because he used all your ideas. They deserve to hear from you.”
Tears welled up in Kahala’s eyes, accompanied by a rush of frustration. She thought she’d gotten over that. “Lani, don’t you understand that I can’t? I just want to put all this behind me.”
“You’re making a mistake, girl. A really, really big mistake.” Lani sighed. “James Corwin seems like a really decent guy who’s crazy about you. On top of, you know, being the hottest man in the world. And rich.”
Kahala went into the kitchen and wiped her eyes carefully before returning to Lani. “Can we just go out for teri beef burgers and forget about this for a while? I haven’t really been going out to face the paparazzi alone. I’m dying to hit the mall.”
Lani stared at her for a long moment. “I’ll come with you,” she said finally, “but you have to let me leave that stuff from James Corwin here for you. And you have to talk to me about what’s going on with your business and your boutique. I don’t want to hear that you’ve given up on that too.”
Kahala swallowed hard. She knew Lani was pushing her in all the right ways but after everything she’d been through in the last few months it made her very uncomfortable.
She looked at the box James had sent. Even its green felt seemed to glow. Not a night had passed without her thinking of him. How many times had she touched herself while remembering the intense twenty-four hours they’d shared together? When she thought of how much pleasure she’d experienced with him, it was hard to believe they’d spent so little time with each other. She missed conversation with James too. He’d seemed to hold nothing back from her. He hadn’t shown her the cool, slick image he presented in interviews. Instead he’d been a real man, giving her an honest view of strengths and vulnerabilities alike. He’d been curious about her. He’d enjoyed her—sexually, but also in terms of her personality. Kahala had never had such a promising start to a romance before.
Of course she’d also never been humiliated so completely.
“Well?” Lani said. “I thought you wanted teri burgers.”
Kahala threw up her hands in defeat. “You can leave the earrings on the coffee table.”
Lani grinned. “Good girl.” She walked over to the dress form. “And thank you so much. I really, really didn’t want to have to live without this thing.”
* * * * *
Kahala returned alone with a slim bag slung over her shoulder. She’d found a really cute pair of embellished flats for almost nothing and picked up plenty of ideas for trends to incorporate in her work. She’d had to put Lani off about renting space in the boutique—losing the movie job had set back her finances more than she cared to reveal. But she didn’t think the paparazzi had followed them. It had been long enough since she’d been in touch with James that it seemed reasonable to think the world at large had forgotten about her.
She mostly felt relieved but a tiny part of her was disappointed. How long before James would forget her too? No matter what Lani said, she had a hard time believing that a man like James Corwin could really spend much time pining over her.
Her eyes fell on the gift he’d sent with Lani. On top of that, he’d recorded three messages on her phone, which Kahala hadn’t listened to. James had done more than enough to show he’d thought about her—any more, and the level of attention would have worried her. Kahala sat on the couch and touched the box.
She couldn’t pay too much attention to the earrings, though, when she hadn’t yet opened his card or listened to his messages. She’d imagined all the things he might say to her thousands of times in the past months. He might say he wanted her back or he might say he’d come to agree that they’d be better off apart. Kahala didn’t know which she’d prefer, or which would hurt more. Facing the reality of James brought all her fears to a head.
Kahala took a deep breath and reached for the envelope.
Dear Kahala,
For days after you left I could smell pikake flowers on my pillow. I think they’ll always make me think of you and our short time together.
After years of living under public scrutiny I can certainly understand that you might not want to suffer from the same attention. But in case the powers that be got you confused about this, let me say it one more time—I was and remain proud to stand at your side. You know how to reach me if you want to give this another try.
I hope you’ll consider it.
James
Kahala blinked rapidly. Tears had come to her eyes again reading his message. She hated how much she’d been crying since things had ended with James. She hadn’t wanted to explain this to Lani, but she hated how insecure the headlines had made her. She’d suffered a little for her body type in high school but once she’d started to make her own clothes, everything had changed. By thinking of how best to use fabric to bring out her natural beauty, she’d learned that she was beautiful.
Kahala had never looked back. These days she’d gotten used to making entrances that stopped a room. She accepted her share of male attention—it still stunned her to catch the eye of someone like James Corwin, who could have his pick of almost any woman in the world, but it didn’t surprise her when ordinary men found her attractive. At first her date with James had confirmed and validated this sense of herself beyond her wildest dreams. But when she’d seen what people had said about her on gossip sites and when she’d read the nasty comments people had left on her website, Kahala had been thrown back into a state of mind she’d thought she’d left behind along with her teenage years.
James had the right idea in his letter. No matter how hot he was, or how wonderful, or how glamorous life with him could be, living under public scrutiny would challenge Kahala like never before. She didn’t know if she could do it. Not even for a man she thought she could love.
Kahala stroked the creamy card stock he’d written on. Everything about James spoke of a man with taste. He’d used a pen with a lush, thick line. The card smelled faintly of his cologne and the masculine scent beneath it. She tapped it against her end table, thinking.
The pikake flower earrings bore the mark of a Hawaiian jeweler. He’d taken the time to support a local craftsman and he’d found someone who did high-quality, artful work—these earrings hadn’t been made by someone who pandered to tourists. She put them on and tried to imagine herself out with James again, smiling and flirtatious and free.
Paparazzi invaded the image. The most hurtful phrases from the online articles returned to her, playing over and over through her mind. Kahala’s stomach twisted and her heart sank. She needed to be her normal, confident, adventurous self, or she wouldn’t respect herself and James wouldn’t continue to like her.
Kahala tried to accept what she’d just discovered about her own limitations. Obviously working in fashion put her in the public eye to some extent. She knew from experience that she could post on her website about making beautiful clothes designed to bring out the natural beauty of larger women. She could defend that passionately held belief in her work and in her daily life and she could deal with the occasional rude comment she encountered in the normal course of things. Her stint with James, however, had exposed her to an entirely different scale of judgmental public opinion. It pierced her in sensitive places she’d thought she’d protected long ago.
Sadly, she removed the earrings. She could treasure her memories of James’ fingers on her skin, his cock moving inside her, his lips kissing her everywhere. She could enjoy how it had felt to see the awe in his eyes when he looked at her. She could recall the thrill of realizing he really liked her.
She couldn’t be with him again. Not now. Not ever. She closed the jewelry box and put the earrings and card away in the depths of her closet.